I Love Riding in the City

NAME: Colleen Reckless
LOCATION: San Francisco
OCCUPATION: Molecular Biologist

Where do you live and what’s it like riding in your city?
Riding in San Francisco can get pretty hectic. It’s so notorious for bad drivers that the city-owned cars here have bumper stickers that say, “I BRAKE FOR RED LIGHTS” and they run PSAs on the local radio stations that say things like, “Remember to yield to pedestrians!” I’ve been hit by cars four times in the past two years here; the last time was a doozy. I fractured my jaw and one of my vertebrae, tore up my knee and broke my leg in four places. I hit my head so hard that my helmet broke. The concussion, in retrospect, was kind of funny because I lost the ability to be coherent and I would forget to do things like get dressed but the lasting effects of all of this kind of suck. I think pretty much everyone I know who rides in SF has had some sort of tangle with an automobile. I’ve seen some pretty bad accidents and some pretty careless drivers (one was a hit-and-run where a guy in a truck completely RAN OVER a girl on her bicycle, and then drove off like it was nothing) but on the same level, there are some very reckless cyclists here as well.

People spend thousands of dollars on track bikes and go out of their way to get all NJS parts for no other reason other than the fact that they’re expensive. The nearest velodrome is like, an hour away from here, and I’ve only met a few people who actually ride there. But I guess there are worse things that you can spend your money on.

Here’s a photo of me and my roomate hanging out with our bikes in front of a bar on a Thursday night. We are all about helmets and ridiculously bright LED headlights.