my workbike adventure

My company is so big that we have bikes to get around the different buildings. So we have a bunch of heavy duty worksman bikes at our disposal.

There was a bike safety class 2 miles down the road at our fitness center so I decided I'd ride the 40 lb 1 speed bike with coaster brakes rather than drive there. It's just 2 miles, right?
Well, I brought my glasses, helmet and gloves because even though i'm only going about 10mph, I still am on the road where large vehicles travel at speeds around 50mph (speed limit is 40)
I was actually nervous about it, even though i've been down this same road before on my "regular" bikes.

The sun was out, perfect weather. A big giant diesel truck went by me and tooted his horn. YES THEY CAN TOOT and not scare you to death!
He liked my purple shop bike!

the class was pretty cool, i learned that i need a white strobe light for in front for riding in traffic in daylight. He also went over how important it was to take your lane so that cars don't try to "share" it with you.

He actually went over 2 of the points that are covered on that website that Nanci found http://bicyclesafe.com/

He said you should just be able to get 2 fingers under your helmet strap.

Then I rode back to my office on the purple bike, newly confident on yet another bike.

I've noticed that people seem friendlier when I'm on an older "functional" looking bike than looking more recreational.

Yes, i find that odd. It's okay to ride a bike that looks like the bike
they rode as a kid, but it's not okay to ride a cool new fast bike?

More likely - it's okay to be gracious to the environmentalist, or the homeless non-driver, or the eccentric radical than it is to give any room at all to that recreational-riding upstart who thinks my highway is his/her playground. (Assumptions abound!)

And the graciousness often screeches to a screaming halt when it's a busy time - it's okay if it doesn't actually *inconvenience* the driver for five seconds. (Much like any act of charity - on my terms only, thank you, and pray don't exceed my attention span!)

Woops, I better drink a lot of water and flush that cynical pill out of the system :-) Better to get out and teach by example the joys of communing with the different ...

LOL - people sure are strange when it comes to bikes. I have two road bike and I find other cyclists even act differently depending on which bike Im riding. One young very swift rider I see always completely ignores me when Im on my Trek but always waves when Im on my Colnago. I told my husband and we had a good laugh about it. Im sure he has no idea its the same rider on both bikes.

Hey, Trek, give us a trip report! Maybe in another thread so we don't hijack Mimi's.