This weekend I headed up to Iowegia for a cool bike ride in Des Moines. It was a *very* leisurely ride - 7 bars, 10-15 miles, over 5-6 hours. The ride it several Drake-area hangouts like the Library, Zimm’s, Flanagan’s, an A.K. O’Connor’s. Also Carl’s Place, just a block from my old place in the Sherman Hill neighborhood. It was great to ride in Des Moines again, which I hadn’t done for several years. It’s a beautiful city with a humane, livable vibe that is decent for cycling.

The ride was a blast, starting with free drinks at the Library. Storm clouds menaced the entire ride, but also made for a cool, breezy ride. We got stuck at Flanagan’s when the rain hit, but there were no complaints as we just ordered more beer. We finally pooped out at Zimm’s, deciding to skip the last two bars and head home for a dinner of ribs.

Rain also cut short my ride the day before. I had arrived in town early and spent a couple of hours riding the new riverside trails around the city’s downtown area. The city has been building some great multi-use trails connecting to the baseball stadium, Little Italy neighborhood, Gray’s Lake, and many other parts of the city. It’s a nice trail network developing there.

Finally, I spent some time hanging out in the Drake neighborhood. It was great to see lots of new redevelopment going on around campus, especially along the eastern end of University Ave. Developers are building new storefronts with housing above, including a northern outpost for KC’s own Planet Sub and an awesome coffee house/wine bar called Mars Cafe. It’s nice to see more of a campus town vibe developing after the isolated siege mentality I experienced there in the 1990s.

Today was new a experience, getting pulled for over riding my bike. I had been riding down West 39th Street near State Line Road, coming home from the Plaza, and had an idiot driver behind me. The asshat was honking, revving his engine, and yelling at me to get on the sidewalk. No big deal, I’ve dealt with lots of asshats in my time. But when he finally went around me I couldn’t resist flipping him the bird.

Apparently there was a rent-a-cop behind the asshole driver, because the next thing I knew I was being pulled over with flashing lights and everything. Said rent-a-cop was a security guard for the W. 39th St. Community Improvement District. After pulling me over he proceeded to give me the riot act about how I was impeding traffic, supposed to be on the sidewalk, etc.

Well, the guard was in for quite a surprise when I turned out to know a lot more about the law than he did. You see, Missouri state law gives bicyclists the right to ride on the street, along with the same rights and responsibilities of automobile drivers. Even more important in this case, bicycles are expressly forbidden from the sidewalks of business districts like 39th St.

In the end, things turned out OK. The guard was amazed that I had a speedometer and was doing 15 m.p.h., which I think is actually pretty fast for a 25 zone full of pedestrians. I accepted blame for flipping off the asshat, and the security guard left with a much better understanding of the law. Finally, the 39th St. merchants association received a nice letter from me in my capacity as a board member of the Missouri Bicycle Federation.

So, take a lesson from me and brush up your state laws for bicyclists and pedestrians. As a cyclist, your place is on the street, not the sidewalk. Don’t let anyone, even authority figures, tell you otherwise.

UPDATE:
Within an hour of emailing the 39th St. CID I received a call from their security company apologizing for the incident and saying that they were distributing the state bike/ped laws to all of their officers.  Not bad for an afternoon’s work.

Last month I resurrected my old kcbike.info site in order to host the KC Bike Commuter Challenge, which was a huge success. Forester and I took this on at the last minute and with no budget, but ended up having a record year compared to MARC’s previous years. That experience prompted me to revamp the whole site and blogify it into a new beast with local cycling news and happenings.

www.kcbike.info

Found at Kottke, hotties studying their Unix book at a topless beach in Greece…

An easy how-to on MacGyvering two bikes into one tandem.