Adventure April, Attempt 3, The Map Run

I made another attempt at climbing today.  I had to run down to the Convention Center to pick up 250 maps of Santa Fe for a conference we're sponsoring.  Camino Cabra, behind the college I work for, is steep, and it's the main way to town.  I set Ride with GPS when I left the Convention Center, and tracked it all the way back up: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/33320798

As usual, the slope is not a consistent 5% or above for any given 100' rise in elevation, but I think that over the entire climb, there is 100' of elevation gain while on a 5% or greater slope.  But I have to go through and add all those segments up, and it's been a long day.

It was a long enough day that I finally snapped at another bicyclist for not even doing a decent rolling stop at a stop sign.  As a person who has spent a good portion of the past twenty years advocating for bicycles, I get riled when bicyclists that are all kitted out pedal straight through intersections without even doing a decent rolling stop.  All we need is to give more motorists more cause to say, "Why should they even be allowed on the street?  They don't follow the laws and blast right through stop signs."  I used to think that was just one or two real jerks, but with the weather warming, for some reason, there seems to be a whole flood of people who don't even appear to break cadence for a stop sign.

The law is what allows us all to operate within a given set of  expectations and generally keeps us all, as equal users of the road, safe.  No, I don't come to a complete stop and put my foot down, especially if there is no traffic, but I do stop pedaling and visibly slow down.  I make a point of looking before I resume pedaling. I like to imagine that, even in the complete absence of vehicles, someone is looking out of their living room window and thinking, look at that, there's a cyclist stopping for a stop sign. Every little positive impression helps.

I was slowing down at a stop sign this afternoon - tired, and, while not really in a bad mood, in a tired and not very tolerant mood.  A cyclist, all kitted out, which should seem to indicate he understands traffic law, pedaled past me right into the intersection.  In a moment of loss of self control I shouted "Stop Sign!"  He screeched to a halt in the middle of the intersection and then jumped all over me: "Stop Sign!  That's very neighborly of you.  Thank you for pointing that out!  Very neighborly."

I get it.  I shouldn't have shouted.  He probably thought I was warning him about a car that he didn't see, and when the intersection was empty he was angry.  I'm sorry I shouted, and it's really not like me.  But seriously, just stop pedaling a little, slow down, take an exaggerated look for cars, and then proceed.  Why let those motorists who don't want us on the road have the satisfaction of sagely nodding their heads over bicyclists' general lack of obedience to the law?  I've spent most of my adult life fighting that attitude.  It makes me angry to see it justified.

As you can tell, I am really not a fan of the Idaho Stop Ordinances.  We are all equal users of the road, and we all obey the same laws, (at least in spirit, if not to the extent of a full stop with a foot down, which even to me, as extreme as I am on this issue, feels a little silly).

So, basically, this is a busy, tiring week.  I might add up all the 5% sections later in the month to see if they all add up to a total gain of 100'.