Bulky Item Distraction

Sunday, April 15, 2018

It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? Ten days, to be exact. Ten days since I last rode a bicycle. No reason for the layoff other than the fact I’ve been distracted with other stuff. I tend to get a little cranky when I can’t ride, so getting out on the bike today was good for me physically and mentally.

Usually, a Sunday afternoon ride in the neighborhoods of north Austin is pretty relaxing. That wasn’t the case today. The weather was perfect and I was motivated to ride but what I didn’t know until I got into the Balcones neighborhood was that tomorrow starts bulky item collection day. The curb was littered with all sorts of things but that, in an of itself, was not the problem. It’s what the bait attracts that’s the problem: pickup trucks pulling trailers. Like moths to a flame, bulky item collection Sunday draws pickup trucks and trailers from miles around to the neighborhood where items are free for the picking. Generally speaking, I don’t really have a problem with the way this plays out, but from a biking perspective, bulky item collection Sunday can be pretty dangerous. I’d say 99.9 percent of the drivers of these pickup rigs don’t live in the Balcones neighborhood and therefore, don’t know their way around, which is problem number one. The neighborhood is built around two 18-hole golf courses, so there isn’t the usual order in the way the streets are laid out that you’d see in most other residential sections of the city.

Compounding problem number one is problem number two: with all the free stuff sitting on the curb, these drivers, who don’t know where they’re going in the first place, are really distracted. To these folks, and other drivers as well, the free stuff just waiting to be picked up is magical; it’s like shopping without having to leave the comfort of your car.

Anyway, suffice it to say I had to be extra vigilant on my ride. Good thing the weather was nice.