Not One More Bike Rally-May 19, 2012

Yesterday, I participated in the Not One More Bike Rally for change. Over one thousand cyclists biked to the State Capitol to: 1) build awareness for cycling; 2) promote cycling safety, and 3) advocate for tougher Distracted Driver and Vulnerable User laws.

It was an extraordinary event. We started from the corner of Rio Salado and Mill Avenue in Tempe. There must have been over one hundred bikers in our group. Of course, as a fairly new biker, I was pretty intimidated by the size of the group primarily because I'm not used to biking side by side with strangers. Also, I was petrified that I would be the first "(wo)man down." In other words, I was TERRIFIED that I would fall on my ass in front of all these super cool cycling jocks and everyone would laugh at me. 

Soooo...in order to minimize the number of potential people who would laugh at me in the VERY LIKELY event that I did fall on my ass, I started out at the back of pack...and almost fell. Yep, I was so nervous that I couldn't clip in for what seemed like an eternity. Meanwhile, people were whizzing by me, which made me even more nervous. Finally, after several failed attempts, I managed to clip in, and then had to immediately unclip when we arrived at the first of a gazillion traffic lights. AAAGGGHHHH!!!

And that's pretty much how it went for the next 10 miles--clip out, approach red traffic light, frantically clip back in, sigh with relief when I finally clipped in without falling, then another frantic attempt to clip out at the next red traffic light, and so on and so on. Fortunately, through some miracle of God, I managed to complete the ride without falling down…although I did almost run into the people in front of me a couple of times, but ALMOST doesn't count--right? 

When we finally arrived at the Capitol, and I saw my buddy Lito, who was almost killed by a distracted driver, I remembered WHY we were baking in the hot sun at a bike rally on a Saturday morning. We were there to build awareness about biking safety and the need for tougher laws, and that made my personal sacrifice worth it. 

Of course, seeing Lito and the other bikers who were injured by distracted drivers also made me very leery of biking all the way back to Tempe from Central Phoenix. Seriously, Central Phoenix is a scary place to bike. People are crazy with a capital C! So what did I do? I begged my husband to ride the light rail back to Tempe with me, and after much prodding on my part, he finally agreed. So off we went…

And another adventure began because NO ONE in our little group  knew how or even where to catch the light rail. Okay, one person knew, but she didn't wait for us, so we were left riding down Jefferson looking for a light rail station. Finally, after about 5-10 minutes of biking, we saw a station--like a beacon of light on a dark, stormy night. And, boy, were we relieved...until we got there and realized that we only had 2 minutes to buy tickets before the next light rail, which wouldn't have been a problem, if 25 people weren't already in line in front of us--including four of our friends. 

So, there we were…hot, sweaty, cranky, and ready to get back to Tempe…with only 2 minutes…1 minute…30 seconds to spare. I mean have you ever tried to buy FOUR light rail tickets in 30 seconds? It's a lot tougher than it sounds, especially when you are working with wrinkled dollar bills. 

When the light rail rolled into the station, my buddies Brian and Damarys, were still frantically shoving wrinkled dollar bills into the machine with me shouting in the background, "Hurry up! Hurry up!" Yeah…well, as you've probably figured out, we didn't make the light rail, but the rest of our so-called friends did. They hopped on that train with nary a look back at the rest of us. Damn scoundrels.

So what did we do? We sat our tired asses down and waited for the next light rail. It was either that or bike back to Tempe. Sitting won.

Finally, after 10 minutes of waiting in the hot Phoenix sun, another train arrived, and we pulled our tired asses up off the bench and got on the train with tickets in hand. And you know what?! No one came to get our goddamn tickets?! All that craziness for NOTHING!

Oh, well. At that point, we were all just grateful to be in the AC and headed back to Tempe. When we finally got there, we smiled, laughed, and remembered that our small sacrifice was for a good cause. Then we went home, ate, and crashed!