The Royce Files

Once again it is bike month . But nearly every month for me is bike month. I think I rode in every month this past year. It was a mild winter so riding was a bit easier in the normally chilly months. One of the goals of the sponsors of National Bike Month is to get bicyclist to ride safely. With many using bikes in the community as a way to get around I see plenty of safe and unsafe practices. Probably the most irksome is when those who ride at night do have proper lighting or light colored clothing. Riders become virtually invisible unless there is some cue for motorists to know you are there. I especially recommend hi-vis vests or shirts for day or night riding. You can find some as cheap as $5. Now for a bike safety video from ages ago. It might be old but it goes over most of the safety rules which are still recommended today. Notice too that the bicycles are ridden in the streets. Bikes can ride there. The only odd piece of advice in this video is the way they tell you to ...

A bit of a conflict has been stirring in Fargo about the addition of bike lanes to some streets on the north side- specifically University and 10th Ave. This Grand Forks Herald article is bit more detailed and featured a resident comment that stirred me up- “Bikes don’t belong on our streets to begin with,”  Well, one citizen aired this grievance and then other city commissioners wanted to put a halt on these things. One even claiming it was "incredibly wrong." So as veteran bike commuter, I'll chime in with a "what!?" Must have an ax to grind because of some incidents with bicycles. According to the North Dakota Century code - 39-10.1-02. Traffic laws apply to persons riding bicycles. Every person riding a bicycle upon a roadway is granted all of the rights and is subject to all of the duties applicable to the driver of a vehicle by this title, except as to special regulations in this title and except as to those provisions of this title which b...