The Bastards Won't Give Us a Foot

There's a road that is popular with cyclists not too far from my home. It's one of the last, more or less, safe passages to the wild west of Illinois. Last year marked the beginnings of road work to widen and repave the road in an effort to make it more hospitable to the multitude of motorists idling their way about.

While the widening and resurfacing were an undeniable success, the result was a death blow to the wide cushion of safety provided by the shoulder of the road. As little as 9 months ago, you could roll along with a pocket of three or four feet between you and traffic. Today, that pocket has been whittled down to roughly six inches. And if that wasn't enough, the collective middle finger of the powers that be was soundly thrust up local cyclists' asses in the form of a concrete curb. So, now when we're buzzed by the egos and ignorance of motorists, we're going to eat concrete shit in the middle of a traffic lane instead of wobbling off into the ditch to eat dirt shit out of harm's way.

I was on this road the other day. It's still popular with cyclists. I hope that we aren't going to be fewer in number because of it. Though, I fear that will not be the case.