talk about an adrenaline rush
Feb. 18th, 2007 01:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebeccmeisterI always forget how crazy the bike ride to Lux Coffee Bar is. I've tried many different routes to get to it, and the best out of all of them travels through a cross-section of this city that's hard to experience from a car. First I go up through Papago park, which houses the Phoenix Zoo and Desert Botanical Gardens. Aside from the trash along the sides of the road, it's a beautiful stretch of desert, full of creosote and cacti and rolling hills. Then I turn left in Scottsdale and ride along Oak Street, a back street that cuts east-west across Scottsdale but is small enough to discourage fast-moving cars. The first stretch through Scottsdale flows past McMansion after McMansion, but a few miles down the road the scenery changes and the houses get smaller. Today a few of the McMansions actually looked beautiful, with yards full of blooming flowers. But I kind of like it when the neighborhoods get poorer, more interesting, and diverse.
As one continues along the road, suddenly there are people in their yards, and quirky decorations and those houses that hold neverending yard sales. (these places bring both comfort and discomfort; help would be near if I got a flat tire, but I wouldn't feel safe at night) Today one of those places was under construction--a humongous garage was being attached to the side of a house, dwarfing the house and the other houses in the neighborhood (do Phoenicians worship their monstropolous pickup trucks?). Then I crossed a few more busy streets and hit the Grand Canal.
The Grand Canal is a desolate stretch, abruptly ending and beginning at every major road crossing. Although it's paved, which would seem to encourage use by bicycles and pedestrians, there are no crosswalks connecting it where it cuts across roads, and periodically gates block access by cars (and bikes must off-road to swerve around them). The canal itself is both beautiful and tragic, full of rushing water and abandoned shopping carts. But few people use it; there's no shade, only dirt. Broken glass litters the pavement. Eventually, just as I think it's really not worth it to ride my bike out this far, just as I get really tired of adrenaline-filled crossing after adrenaline-filled crossing, I reach Central Ave. and Lux.
As one continues along the road, suddenly there are people in their yards, and quirky decorations and those houses that hold neverending yard sales. (these places bring both comfort and discomfort; help would be near if I got a flat tire, but I wouldn't feel safe at night) Today one of those places was under construction--a humongous garage was being attached to the side of a house, dwarfing the house and the other houses in the neighborhood (do Phoenicians worship their monstropolous pickup trucks?). Then I crossed a few more busy streets and hit the Grand Canal.
The Grand Canal is a desolate stretch, abruptly ending and beginning at every major road crossing. Although it's paved, which would seem to encourage use by bicycles and pedestrians, there are no crosswalks connecting it where it cuts across roads, and periodically gates block access by cars (and bikes must off-road to swerve around them). The canal itself is both beautiful and tragic, full of rushing water and abandoned shopping carts. But few people use it; there's no shade, only dirt. Broken glass litters the pavement. Eventually, just as I think it's really not worth it to ride my bike out this far, just as I get really tired of adrenaline-filled crossing after adrenaline-filled crossing, I reach Central Ave. and Lux.
bicycle adrenaline rush
Date: 2007-02-19 01:25 am (UTC)Keep on bikin',
Dad
Re: bicycle adrenaline rush
Date: 2007-02-20 01:34 am (UTC)Maybe I should make a spraypaint stencil of a biker with chevrons above it to paint on the road where bike lanes end. How's that for subversive graffiti?