On trails

After finding out that Jill and I ride bikes a whole lot, many locals ask us if we ride on the bike trails in town. To keep the response short, we just say, 'No because they very often intersect 6 lane roads far from any intersections.' This is true for the bike paths that travel in the east-west direction in Abq. Thankfully, the city puts signs at the bike path crossings so that car drivers expect cyclists and don't run them over, except when they do.

Well, on Saturday we met up with a group of friends to ride on the Bosque Trail which runs adjacent to the Rio Grande in the north-south direction. The start of the trail is at Alameda Rd, a very difficult place to get to using city roads on a bike. So we took the N Diversion Trail from Comanche and followed Ryan, who we unexpectedly met on the trail, along a very confusing route to the Bosque Trail.

At the rendezvous point, the three of us chatted with another lady and her son until the other two friends with a daughter showed up. Neither the son or daughter ride much, so the plan was to ride along the Bosque for a while and turn around. Well, those troopers made it approx 10 miles to the downtown Flying Star. After eating lunch and a chocolate croissant, Jill and I decided to ride home via city roads rather than ride with the gang back to their cars. Hopefully the kids made it all the way back. Moreso, I hope that they want to ride bikes again despite feeling tired and having sore tushkees. Before parting ways, we all rode to the El Rey Theatre to see the damage from a recent fire.

While riding home on a typical Jill and Chad road (either has a bike lane or very little traffic -- these roads are marked very nicely on the Abq bicycle map available at any bike shop for free), we discussed the difference between trails and city roads. Our friend A likes the trails because they're away from cars and the busy urban life. We dislike the trails for that very reason. When riding on roads, we can see interesting restaurants and stores and people just doing their normal business. We like to ride through neighborhoods to see the houses and discuss what we like about the neighborhoods. We have to be wary of cars, but the bike paths, especially on Saturdays scare us in a different way. People ride or walk at a wide range of speeds, from the Tour de MUT cycling heroes to women walking 3 abreast. I felt especially tense with the young people due to their lack of attentiveness and bike handling skills as we passed walkers or heroes raced at us in the opposite direction. Finally, the trails tend to follow crooked arroyos or rivers and don't provide many landmarks to denote location.

And that's the long answer to why we don't ride on trails. You are free to disagree, as long as you ride a bike too!

P.S. I meant to bring the camera, but didn't [UPDATE: photo above taken by Ryan on the Bosque. Good looking group, I say]. Here's the arroyo just west of our apartment with atypical unpaved path alongside it.