Scenes We Don't Like To See, And A Major Case Of Bike Lane Fail.

A Public Service Announcement to those whom have not yet received the memo: We are all going to die, someday.  

No, that is not some sort of macabre joke, it is a true fact of life that no one gets off this planet alive, save for the Prophet Elijah.  While the end of life is indeed nothing to fear, the perspective of what can happen to one in between is the sober reminder in the photos below. 

The photos were taken near the end of a recent ride I took through Santiago Canyon.  I had never seen a Ghost Bike before, and it was quite an eye opening reminder of the hazards we face whilst engaged in our passion.  Dying of old age is one thing, but having your life taken from you by a reckless moron is flat-out tragic. 

I never knew Joseph Robinson personally, yet through the brotherhood-of-cycling, we are really all family, and the loss of a brother or sister is hard to take.

As you can see, the posted speed is 55-miles per hour.  That seems a reasonable speed considering the width of the road and it's smooth surface.  The dangerous aspect of these speeds is they are safe as long as the motorists don't swerve out of their lanes and hit cyclists, which is what happened to Mr. Robinson.  Alcohol, and youthful inexperience, were also contributing factors in this case.

In the "Hey, we got room," department, it seems if you have to close a lane for street maintenance, why only close one lane (and traffic monitor the other), when you can simply shut down both lanes and route 45-mile per hour traffic into the bike lane.  On a recent training ride, the photo below shows just such an instance in the City of Claremont.  It also seems that the law of 25-miles per hour in a work zone does not apply, anymore.

I waited for about a dozen cars to pass before I felt it was safe to proceed, as a fencing crew had the sidewalk closed with their own, independent activity.  Epic fail, boys.