Conference noted::bicycle

    Last Summer I went biking in CA for the first time. I spent 8 days.

    I went to Palo Alto and got yelled at by a driver for not using
    the bike path.  He was the only car on the road at the time, and the
    bike path was full of pedestrians.

    In San Diego I saw a local cyclist get run off the road by a truck
    (over the handlebars and into the air etc.)
    The truck was trying to park in the bike lane.

    I'd rather have a real lane than a bike lane, thank you.

    (although I'ld be happy to take the money that DEC pays to maintain
    my share of the parking lot.)

    -Jeff

Don't know about Palo Alto, but I sure steer clear of bike paths if 
possible. A study done in CA a few years back showed that you were 
roughly 4 times more likely to sustain a serious injury riding on a bike 
path than on the road. Most of the bike path riding I've done reminds 
one distinctly of, say, the chariot race scenes from Ben Hur; I'd much 
rather go out on the road where at least the players know that there are 
rules to the game [as opposed to following them!].
                                                   ken

Palo Alto and the rest of this area in general has bike lanes, not bike paths. 
The difference is a bike lane is part of the road.  And they were planned when
the road was built so that the road really is a few feet wider.  The lanes are
marked and you rarely see cars in them unless they are nearing a turn.
Palo Alto really isn't too much different than other cities in this area they
just have better PR.  They also have a very vocal council woman (names is Elaine
Fletcher I think) who fights very hard for bike related issues.  It is hard to
tell if more people really ride bikes in Palo Alto then in other areas, perhaps
they do but I think a good deal of it has to do with Stanford being there.

Palo Alto (and some other cities) does have a couple bike paths, but I agree
with the previous note and stay off them.  They are used mostly by joggers and
people out walking their dogs are rarely clean.

I am a transplant from the east (although not New England, I'm from Ithaca and
Albany NY) and I find biking in this area much nicer and safer.  The roads are
wider and smoother and with the bike lanes you can travel in heavily traveled
area with a minimum of risk.  In addition the simple fact that there are so
many more bicyclists here gives them a certain validity I guess, or perhaps
it's just no surprise to average motorist to see a grown man riding a bike.

Do you find A**H*** drivers out here who just love to give a bicyclist a hard
time, see how close he can get to the bike, scream just as they pass or throw
things at the biker?  Yes of course.  But I honestly don't think it happens
nearly as much out here.  When you ride a bike you just have to accept the fact
that such things will happen.  You may not like it but you have to just forget
it.

    
    	In regards to the Base Note, I stand corrected. It was bike
    	lanes, not paths, as pointed out by "Bat" in .3. Thanks. The
    	clip was actually a comparison between biking in New York
    	City and California in general, I think, with the focus on
    	Palo Alto. Despite the aforementioned study, biking in Palo
    	Alto looked *much* safer than in downtown Manhattan. The
    	report could've been slanted, but I know it's warmer there!
    
    								Mike
    
    

        Right.  By paths and bike trails both seem to be losers. They
    are ill maintained, ill engineered, and the bike paths can be
    positively dangerous when they intersect motor traffic.
    
    Bike lanes have great potentials.  My experience in Palo Alto
    (along the Foothills Parkway, I believe?  Or some such name)
    was quite positive.  This is a through road, so you can really
    get some place on it.  The biking population is large enough
    that bikers are an expected part of the scenery.  And I saw
    no pedestrians, or few, in the bike lane - for one thing, it
    looks like part of the road, *not* part of the sidewalk (a major
    problem with the design of bike-lanes in German cities).  I've
    seen cars ticketed in Palo Alto for parking even briefly in
    a bike lane.  So the police are on your side.  I suspect this
    promotes better biking etiquette, though I've no hard data on that.

    -john