Bike Blog

The thing to remember about bikes on mountain roads is that all non-wuss cyclists can descend at the speed limit. Whereas, even really good Olympic-class cyclists probably will be decidedly slower than the speed limit going up.

Hence, in theory, you only need to make wide shoulders on one side. However, if you do that, you'll rapidly discover yourself being knocked down while riding up by somebody who's brave enough to descend a hill at 35+ mph but not brave enough to do it in traffic. So I'm sure that they will probably end up having to add more shoulder than is strictly necessary. But the CA-9 needs shoulders in the zone between Skyline and Saratoga. I tend to avoid riding up it, just down.

Einstein one said that things should be "as simple as possible, but no simpler".

I, personally, wear a helmet whenever I ride. The mental association is such that if I drive or walk down certain streets, I feel like there ought to be something on my head. But I also make sure that people know that helmets are not compulsory for adults in California....

Overall, I'd like to think of the other cyclists on the road as my biking brethren. We are all disadvantaged users of the road. Even the fixie riders and slow people in expensive carbon fiber bikes...