Gateway / Jacobs Ladder / Snake Root Lollipop MTB Route, Blackburg, VA

This is a great route if you've only got 60-90 minutes and want to enjoy a taste of the sweet singletrack of Blacksburg's Pandapas Pond area trails.

Pic of trails map in the kiosk of the Gateway / Old Farm trailhead.

• Garmin Connect - Old Farm (Gateway), Jacobs Ladder, Snake Root Lollipop MTB Route

Omni-Awareness + Ride Like You're Invisible + Continuous "Car Back" [Bike Month v12#2]

While biking about this morning, unexpectedly, I received three simple and powerful road cycling safety tips, one from my beautiful wife Lisa Thomas, and the others from our friends Bob Welsh and Joe Dudak.


Omni-Awareness - Lisa describes as "basically having eyes in every pore of your body". It is developing your ability to see, sense and feel what's happening all around you. Lisa feels (and I agree) that keeping your omni-awareness turned on is the most critical aspect of staying safe while bicycling.


Ride Like You're Invisible - Bob offered this tip and it's so crazy simple. What if you conduct yourself on a bicycle as though you are invisible? Instead of expecting motorists to see and avoid you on your bicycle, you expect that they will *not* see you and you act accordingly. In practice, this might look like:

You sense a vehicle approaching from behind, and you assume they do not see you, so you check your rear view mirror or look back and are prepared to move off the road.

Thankfully, most often, you are able to visually confirm that the motorist does in fact see you. They've either moved left to allow 3+ feet of space to safely overtake you or they've slowed to wait for an opportunity to safely overtake you. 

Applying the Ride Like You're Invisible tip has the potential to prevent many many motorist / cyclist accidents.

Here's an example of a cyclist counting on drivers seeing him and avoiding him, as motorists are required to do by law ... but one motorist does not see him:

Let me be very clear here - bicyclists are legally allowed to occupy an entire lane on roads where bicycles are permitted.

However, bicyclists are the smallest and most vulnerable road users, and if we ride with the assumption that everyone sees and will avoid us, we are literally gambling with our lives.

On a road like the one depicted in the above video, even if you noticed in your rear-view mirror a car speeding toward you with its driver looking down toward their lap, what could you do? There's no space to your right, only a concrete wall. Maybe you could abandon your bike and dive over the wall? Personally, I would choose another route. My need to feel in control of my safety would not be met by bicycling across Fahy Bridge.

Continuous "Car Back". Joe shared this gem that clearly and easily improves the safety of bicyclists.

When bicyclists ride in groups, and one or more of them perceives a car approaching from behind they loudly say "Car Back" and all riders in the group quickly move into single file as close to the right side edge of the road as is safe. This creates the conditions for the motorist to safely and easily pass the cyclists. Well, what if bicyclists always rode as though there was a "car back"? Imagine if for a few moments a cyclist's omni-awareness faltered, and/or a motorist actually did *not* see them, but ... the cyclist had the habit of riding in Continuous Car Back position. That habit may very well save their life.

So get out an ride lots and lots, while trying to apply these tips in combination with Light up the *DAY* with a PDW Radbot 1000 &/or Planet Bike Superflash Turbo [Bike Month v12#1]!

I'm really thankful to Lisa, Bob and Joe. I've been an avid cyclist for a long time, but their reminding me of these tips immediately helped me to feel more in control of my safety than ever.

Thank you! Let's Ride :)

Light up the *DAY* with a PDW Radbot 1000 &/or Planet Bike Superflash Turbo [Bike Month v12#1]

We all know that when riding at night bicyclists can dramatically increase their visibility with lights ... but what about during the day?

Does bicycle lighting increase the visibility of cyclists during the light of day?

Thanks to recent innovations in high visibility bicycle lighting the answer is "Yes!"

When cyclists ride with high visibility lighting, even on a sunny day, motorists are able to see them sooner, which gives the driver more time to react and choose when to safely overtake the cyclist.

Here's a video I created this morning that depicts two low-cost super high visibility bicycle rear lights - the Planet Bike SuperFlash Turbo and the Portland Design Works RadBot 1000.

Tangent - in this video I mention that I bought my commuter bike for $50 on Craigslist. Coincidentally, it has been costing around $50 each time the tank needs to be filled on the wagon in front of the bike. Get bike. Have fun getting around on it. Save $$ :)

Portland Design Works (www.ridepdw.com) "The Radbot has one directive: to defend you and your bike from rear collisions."



Planet Bike (www.planetbike.com) I love that Planet Bike is expressly marketing this light for daytime use :)


"I didn't see them."

These four words are the most common response given when a motorist has hit a cyclist.

The great news is that cyclists can take steps to enormously increase their daytime & nighttime visibility.

Please join me in lighting up the day by equipping your bicycles with high visibility lighting and turning it on every time you ride - night and day :)