Memorial to a cyclist.

Yesterday, a cyclist riding the ACA Northern Tier on a organized tour was killed in an accident. My heart goes out to the family and friends, and especially to the people who were touring with him.

The real deal here is that despite the heroic efforts of the folks mapping the long distance routes in this country, we have crap for bike routes. We all have to be pushing our elected officials, planning departments, road departments, and fellow citizens to build more purpose built cycle paths. (Instead, we seem to be building psychopaths, which is an entirely different story.)

Each of us knows of a especially dangerous bit of frequently used bike route in our watershed. Let's honor the fallen cyclist in Washintion, and cyclists all over the planet who get injured and sometimes killed because of bad planning, poor priorities, and plain ignorance.

I'm picking a little bit of the Southern Tier which goes right over my creek near Tallahassee and will be raising my own bit of dust with the local worthies about making that section safer, nicer, etc. I urge every one of us to do the same.