1. Follow the rules for cars:

• Stop at Stop signs
• Signal your intended direction
• Turn left from the rightmost lane travelling in the direction you intend to go (that means use turn lanes; don’t turn left across traffic going in your direction)

2. Ride 2-3 feet from the curbing or edge of the road and out of the band of silt and sand that is present on the roads in the spring.

3. Be predictable – ride straight and use BIG gestures to communicate your directional intentions to those with whom you are sharing the road.

4. Be visible – dress brightly and use “blinkie” lights both fore and aft.

5. Wear a helmet – PERIOD!

6. Don’t  put ANYTHING in your ears. They are your best sensory organ to alert you to a vehicle approaching from the rear.

7. Eat before you are hungry, drink before you are thirsty.

• Dehydration occurs fast – especially in cooler weather.  Hypoglycemia creeps up on you too. The effects of both are reduced mental acuity resulting in poor decision-making. Stay hydrated and fueled.  If you “bonk” on a ride, stop and find a can of Coca Cola. There aren’t many better ways to re-start your mental metabolism than that.

8. Put an emergency app in your smartphone.  It will text your location to your emergency contacts with one touch.

9. Always carry a form of identification.

10. Think, think, think!

• Road, light and weather conditions change rapidly. Good decision making is your best asset for staying safe on your bicycle.

Ride Smart! Ride Safe!

And don’t forget about New England’s only handbuilt bike show, Friday night at the Biltmore!  New England Builders Ball.  Admission: free.  Formalwear optional.

Sad news in the Providence Journal, yesterday, about a gentleman, father of two, who fell off his bicycle and died two days later of a brain hemorrhage.

I am always amazed – and saddened – that, while many parents enforce a helmet use policy for their children, they eschew them for their own use.  When I teach kids, I always ask who DOES NOT wear a helmet. Invariably 1/3 of the kids raise their hands.  When I ask them why, the universal answer is: “Because I am a great rider!”  I think that is a very honest statement and I think that a similar degree of confidence in ability may be why so many parents put them on their kids, but not on themselves.

But here’s the dirty little secret on being a great rider and wearing a helmet: the acorn under your tire, the squirrel chasing the acorn and the dog ~ walking the bike path on a retractable leash ~ who takes up chasing the squirrel can all cause you to fall and hit your head.  And they don’t care if you are Lance Armstrong, multiple Tour de France Champion or Mike Steidley, nine-times National Trials Champion and about the best bicycle handler you will ever meet.  Helmets are for situations you cannot control. Helmets are to reduce your chances of being injured in an accident. Helmets keep kids safe and parents in this dimension so they have a better chance of raising their kids.

Here is a graphic that shows the decrease in head injuries sustained in kids 15 and under in Swedish study as helmet use rose from 20% to 35%.  Imagine if everyone wore a helmet.

So please, kids, wear your helmets and make sure that your moms and dads do too!  It isn’t a sign of how good a rider they may be, it is a sign of how intelligent they are.

Download this Helmet Fit & Pre Ride Sheet on how to adjust a helmet to fit well.  Remember: helmet straps are made of nylon, which slides against itself, meaning that helmets require frequent re-adjustment.

To start off, I’d like to share that after 3 years of year round commuting in Rhode Island, I learn things every year that do and don’t work for my commute.  There is no such thing as an expert on bike commuting because each of  us has our own levels of comfort, speed, time constraints, and support infrastructure.

To get started on your journey to better using a bike to get around, you can check out this sample from the  250-page “Bike To Work” book by Carlton Reid and Tim Grahl.  In between the advertising, there are a lot of issues addressed about health, safety, and of course, tackling the reason many give for not riding a bike: Getting Wet, Getting Sweaty, Lack of Time, Perceived Danger, Odor, Others Opinions, Costs, and many more.  from page 18 onward, with practical solutions to these and many more.

Here is a thought-provoking, real-life article that – I think – points to the necessity of cyclists being “courteously assertive” when it comes to claiming our space on the roads.  Never – think I – should a cyclist be flattened because they were doing their best to share the road.  Simply put, if the lane isn’t wide enough for you and a car – and you get there first – TAKE THE LANE!  (Click the road sign for the article…)

Reading through this article actually gave me an idea of something slightly more practical to try… I’ll follow up after I’ve had a chance to play around and see if my idea really works.

For those who have never tried riding in the snow or are scared to do so, I’d encourage you to give it some serious thought.  A few years back, I invested in some studded tires and I have to say, they are awesome.  I’ve ridden on days where you can barely walk and when riding a bike with studded tires, you wouldn’t know how slick it actually is.  Riding in the snow, particularly if you are on a bike trail or off in the woods is amazing.  Everything sounds different and there are far fewer people, if any.

The biggest challenge I find is when the snow gets deep.  I’ve ridden up to about 6 inches, at this height it is a serious workout.  Smooth packed snow is best, but good luck finding that.  Anything which has been packed down is typically done so with foot traffic.  This means you can be in for a pretty bumpy ride.

So the next time it snows, like tomorrow, and you find yourself with some time… give cycling a thought.   Play it safe though and practice in your driveway, on a bike path, or somewhere deserted until you get a really good feel for how the bike behaves in the snow.

The League of American Bicyclists is proud to be the forum for Google to announce what all bike riders have been waiting for – Grab Your Bike and Go with Google Maps.  Google is announcing at the Opening Plenary Session at the National Bike Summit that they are adding biking directions in the U.S. to Google Maps.

According to Google this has been the most requested addition to Google Maps. This new feature includes: step-by-step bicycling directions; bike trails outlined directly on the map; and a new “Bicycling” layer that indicates bike trails, bike lanes, and bike-friendly roads.

You can visit http://maps.google.com/biking to try out this new feature.  As with all things Google, the biking directions for Google Maps is currently in Beta, but this doesn’t mean it’s not full featured!