I tried Albuquerque, I really tried.
I gave second, third, fifteenth chances to you and your crappy drivers to win me back to riding my bike on the roads...but I'm done. I've trained and raced all over the country.....and have never, NEVER found a place with drivers that are so careless, so angry, and drive with such wanton disregard for the lives of others. Say what you will....but my experience says this place sucks for cycling....and it's getting worse.
My last attempt to give Abq another chance was this week with my wife. We headed out on an easy 90 minute ride that was half on the bosque trail and half on the roads. Not 1 mile into our ride a woman ran a stop sign on a side street in a quiet neighborhood and barely stopped before running into us. She even let up on the brakes when she saw that we would probably make it by unscathed and surged closer to us. There wasn't an ounce of remorse, or even recognition, that she'd almost taken us out....just another day in her self absorbed life of society getting in the way of things she needs to get done. While riding on the bike path adjacent to Paseo Del Norte, and with our backs to traffic and doing nothing but riding our bikes and talking, a car flies by on Paseo and a red faced, spittle spraying sub-human screams at us from the top of his lungs FUUUUUUUCKKKK YOOUUUUUUUU!!!!!
I guess the air we were breathing belonged to him....because that's the only thing I can imagine would make him act that way toward complete strangers who were 50 feet off the road and had never seen him before in his life. If this were the end of the ride story, it would be bad enough....but in the last mile of our ride, on a main artery with a bike lane and a 40MPH speed limit, someone in a Mustang buzzed me in the bike lane doing 65MPH within two feet. Had I swerved to avoid a rock or a crack....I'd be writing this to you from the grave.
Fuck you Albuquerque and your awful drivers...I'm done.
Lest you think I'm being too hasty....my LAST ride before this was one where a woman on her phone ran 25 feet into the intersection I was legally crossing on my bike, screamed FUCK YOU! at me and then when the light turned, intentionally tried to run me down with her car....getting close enough that I could have opened the passenger side door as she blew by.
Fuck you Albuquerque and your awful, hateful, drunken, distracted, and just plain bad drivers...I'm done.
So, where does that leave me? If I could move tomorrow, I would. There are situations that keep us here for the next few years....and unless those change, we won't be going anywhere.
I told my wife that I'd be selling my bikes when we returned from this week's ride....but after thinking about it, I don't want to give up something I love because of people filled with such hate.
So, no more riding on the road for me. I'm investing in a Wahoo Kickr trainer and using Zwift software to train indoors. I'll need to adjust my races accordingly.....so no more IM or 70.3 races in my career. I can effectively train for an Olympic or Sprint race indoors....so those local races will be my focus going forward. Since I'm still a Cat 5 road racer, I believe I can still have an effective training plan to get me thru the NM spring races that I planned on doing next season. Bike handling will be an issue, but I've always been a pretty good bike handler. There is a 4 mile trail that climbs past the volcanoes by our house, so if I need to ride outside I guess that's as far as I go. I can drive my bike to Balloon Fiesta Park next year and do some crit training on those closed roads.
I'll have to do more with less.....but I'm not giving up something I love simply because half of the drivers on NM roads think I should be dead.....and are all too willing to contribute to that end.
Lest you think I'm being too harsh, or too reactionary....I've ridden in this town for the last 16 years. More and more ghost bikes dot the landscape and I don't intend on one of those being mine. Wherever you live...do you have to ride armed to make sure you're safe? I do.....
So....I've officially become a peleton of 1. But you'll see me still out there racing because it's what I love, it's what I do, and it's not something I'm willing to give up.
For my friends that do still ride on the road, have fun, be safe, and keep your head on a swivel. I'm jealous of you.....but not so much that I'll be joining you.
Fuck you Albuquerque.......
