I try to cycle regularly in the summer. Usually for 20 or 30 km, nothing crazy, just enough to get out, get some exercise, see the sights. I am always happy when I find a bike lane that is road tire friendly. While I don't hesitate to ride on regular roads with the traffic, it is much more relaxing knowing the chances of a car riding up my back are slightly lower with a bike lane. The best ones are usually at the side of a paved road. They are better than the ones attached to sidewalks that people have paved over when they did their driveway or that haven't been repaved after heaving in the winter, leaving millions of road tire-sized cracks in them, just waiting to flip over the unsuspecting skinny-tire cyclist.
But on these relaxing bike lane rides, there is always at least one, if not 6 (like today), runners who run in the bike lane. I know why this is. The local running store, has a guest speaker who tells everyone at every clinic not to run on concrete sidewalks because they are so much harder on your joints than pavement. What he doesn't tell them, likely to increase traffic at his health-related business, is that the fact that the pavement is slanted for water runoff, and isn't good for your joints either. As a former runner with an IT band problem, I have felt the difference between running on a nice flat sidewalk and on the side of a road at a slant. I'll take the sidewalk every time.
Anyway, I get a ticket for riding on the sidewalk. Why can't a runner get a ticket for running in the bike lane when there is a perfectly good sidewalk just a metre away?
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