All The Feels

This week has gotten away from me, it's already Friday and I'm technically two blog posts behind so I'm just going to make them one post. They are similarly related so I'll allow it. Saturday was the Wear Yellow Nebraska Ride to raise awareness and money to help fight cancer. Wednesday was the annual Ride of Silence to raise awareness and as a memorial to those killed while riding their bicycle. The older I get the more aware I am of death and how unfair and uncaring it can be. When I was a kid I didn't think about cancer or people getting killed by motor vehicles while riding their bicycle but I know people affected by both now. The feelings were in full effect this week for sure. Probably not a lot for words on this post, what do you say about cancer and vehicular homicide that would explain why they happen and why there is seemingly nothing that can be done about either to stop it.





The last few years the skies always seem to be overcast and on the verge of raining and maybe that is fitting for this type of ride and all the misery that cancer has and continues to cause. Saturday Nebraska was putting on a spectacular cloud show, thankfully no rain fell on us.





Despite the threat of rain the days leading up to the ride, the roads were in great shape. I am fortunate to have such a great group of friends to ride with, they make even the difficult rides a bit easier.





Wednesday was the Ride of Silence, a ride that didn't mean much to me a few years ago but has become personal in the last few years. It was good to see so many RG shirts and to see how many folks Randy has touched and who came out to ride for him and all of those killed while riding.








After the official ride some of us headed over for some ice cream, it was good to be able to socialize with people after and to be able to talk to them. I love the concept behind the Ride of Silence but ice cream is a universal bonding agent and talking doesn't hurt either.

Be Quiet, Pedal Slow, Nothing Is Going To Be OK

The very first Ride of Silence was held in Texas in 2003 and was meant to be a one time ride to remember Larry Schwartz, who was killed earlier that month by the mirror of a bus. But cyclists didn't stop being senselessly murdered and automobile drivers didn't stop getting off virtually scott free, so the rides continue.


I rode my first ROS in 2010 and it was a pretty moving experience but it means just a little bit more this year, I didn't know a single person killed or injured by a motor vehicle in 2010 but this year I can't say the same thing. The world is a little different this year and the ride a little more meaningful.






It's been 8 months since Randy was senselessly murdered for nothing more than riding his bicycle on a statistically safe rural road. That is until another statistic (drunk driving) decided to selfishly get behind the wheel and create a third statistic (cyclist killed by motor vehicles). When it all boils down to the meat of it, we are all just numbers in a column on someone's spreadsheet somewhere. 8 months and the dude that murdered Randy still hasn't gone to court, 8 months and the guy that murdered Randy still lives his life like nothing happened on that September day and somehow that's fair. Somehow that is justice in progress, somehow that is not complete and utter bull shit, somehow that is not a system flawed that has put the motor vehicle driver above all other types of humans on the planet. Top of the food chain, king of the heap, billions of dollars spent on an unsustainable form of transportation; the single occupant vehicle. By and large society doesn't value the lives of cyclists or pedestrians if it means spending money on infrastructure or inconveniencing the motor vehicle public in any way, shape or form, your life is worth less than 5 minutes of potential delay in their normal routine... let that sink in for a minute. That's not an opinion but more a fact, we are a society ruled by a majority vote, if the majority of voters wanted safer roads, inclusive infrastructure and less cyclist and pedestrian deaths we would have it but they don't and so we don't have it. Most of the people you interact with each day might sympathize with you when a pedestrian or cyclist dies but thoughts and prayers don't change things and very few of them will vote for needed changes.

I still catch myself occasionally looking at Randy's Strava account and all those mind boggling miles. He still sits near the top of several segments; always there but not really there at all. 10,400 miles in 2016,  9,400 miles in 2017; not a single mile in 2018, not a single mile ever again.