Bicycle Stories

I bike around town almost every day.  All these things happened to me.

 

38. I was bicycling on Lincoln Street yesterday and turned onto the Whatcom Creek Trail only to find a traffic jam. After I took this photo I started walking slowly toward these three. Then five high school age youngsters came from the other end of the trail. The deer decided I looked safer so they headed toward me. I skooshed over to the side to give them as much room as possible. You know what? Deer don't understand "feel free" hand waves. But they got by ok.

2026  

37. Wheelchair sitting on the sidewalk on Lakeway Drive.  A sticker on the side said it was property of a certain medical supply company. When I got home I called and told them about it.  "Are you still with it?" "No." "Okay, thanks."  I wonder what they would have said if I told them I was still keeping it company? 

2026 

 

 

36. I'm glad it says "pedestrian" so peo9ple don't try to drive their cars up the trail.

2026

35.  Today I was bicycling through an alley next to the drive-thru lane of a fast food joint. Through the tinny PA system I seemed to hear the clerk say to the customer: "It comes with rage by default."

These days, what doesn't?

2026

34. Back in the Covid times,  I heard a woman say (I hope on a phone, since she was alone): "We shouldn't say that because NO ONE is okay. When we see each other we should all say: 'You're still alive!'"

2021

33, We bicycled downtown last night for an event at the Whatcom Museum Lightcatcher Building..It got foggier by the minute and as we left I took this picture of the other museum building, Old City Hall.

2026

32. In Boulevard Park today, temperature in the high forties, two very presentable gentlemen in their fifties were standing around discussing what the mark of the anti-Christ would be. Apparently I didn't have it, so I was able to pedal on unscathed.

2020.

31. I am walking my bike up the hill today (it's a steep hill, so sue me). I see my neighbor. "This is a stupid question," I tell her, "but you do know garbage is collected on Thursdays here?" "But it's Wednesday evening," she said. "Nope." She looked at the garbage rollabin, and three full recycle boxes she had just brought out to the curb. "Well, that's unfortunate," she said.

2019.

30. I was biking on State Street and saw a car backing up because they had missed the street they wanted to turn onto. This was at a roundabout.

The nature of a roundabout, see, is that it goes in a circle. If you miss your turn, just keep going. Your street will show up again, I guarantee it. See, circles are round and oh, never mind.

2022.

29. Yesterday was the holiday party at the university where I worked until I retired. I had a meeting to go to but figured I could make the first half of the party. On my way up the hill I saw a white bubble on my front tire and figured I must have run over some gum. It disappeared but then it returned. Uh oh. Sealant leaking out of a puncture. I turned around and rode to a bike shop where they fixed it. No holiday cookies for me, but I made my meeting. Sorry I didn't take a picture of the white stuff. Lesson learned: When your bicycle starts blowing bubbles, don't ignore it.

2025.

28. 

Biking downtown today I passed my bank and in the parking lot I saw a gentleman in business casual clothes being fitted for handcuffs by two police officers. Guess I missed the excitement.

2025

27. 

Is there anything sadder than an abandoned bike lock waiting for its owner to remember and rush back to recover it? Of course there is, but don't bother me when I am waxing poetic.

2025  

 

26. 

Was pedaling along today and I noticed a car with a bumper sticker that read NEW DRIVER, followed by the name of the driving school. Just after reading that I had to hit the brakes because the car was squeezing into my space. A block later I noticed it turning left from the right lane. Wish I had caught the name of that school.

2025

25. 

Cycling today I passed a bus stop where a young man with sunglasses was standing. "Stay cool, man," he said.

Right on, Daddy-o. 

2021

24.

Yesterday I was biking on Woburn Street and paused for a woman in her thirties to cross. She waved me on and said "You're an inspiration!" which I translated as "How can anyone that old even pedal?"

At Barkley Village I turned onto the trail and I heard another bike coming up behind me so I shifted to the side, because I am a very slow biker. A different woman's voice said "You're fine. I'm following you because you know where you're going."

"Dream on," I said.

"I couldn't find the trail entrance!"

A minute later she passed me: a woman in her sixties. "That's what I get for going out without my host and hostess."

"And your helmet," I pointed out.

"I know! I'm going back for it now." And off she raced.

2025

23. 

Yesterday I said that when I am biking on a trail and pass a pedestrian I ring my bell. Today on the Whatcom Creek Trail I decided instead to stop and let this fella have the whole trail. Another cyclist came from the other direction and I gave him a lot of big waves and pointed. He decided to take a different route. Mr. Buck finished his snack and walked off into the bushes. 2025.

22. 

When I am riding on a trail and about to overpass a pedestrian who is walking the same direction (facing away from me) I ring a bell and say "on your left." Not a big deal but based on the number who enthusiastically thank me I guess a lot of bikers don't do it. 2025.

21. 

I was bicycling today on Lakeway, the third busiest street in my city, one with no parking allowed, and a white Tesla drove ten feet past a convenient cross street, pulled over into the bike lane, and turned on its flashers. The driver got out, opened the rear passenger door (gull wing) and rearranged a platter of pastries. Okay, friend. You do you. 2024.

Photo: Alexander Migl, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

20. 

I was biking downtown and saw a young woman standing in the street near a parked car. Sort of odd. Then I saw a phone lying on the street.

"Excuse me, is that phone yours?"

"No. It's been lying there a while. I've called it in."

"Well, thank you for doing that."

"Yes, I try to keep my Jiminy Cricket happy."

2023

19. 

Whatcom Creek Trail yesterday. Thanks for the sign. Otherwise I would have never known. 

2025.

 

18. 

Bikers in conversation.

"I'm going this way."

"Oh yes. Downhill is always popular. But eventually you have to go uphill."

"That's gravitist propaganda."

 

2020

17.

We rode to the Holiday Dockside Market today which was fun (amazing jazz band... mostly middle school students) but I want to point out the scene below. That's a bike rack. The vehicles on the left are bikes. The truck blocking the rack is not a bike.

2024. 

16.

I was biking on Lakeway today and I came up to a red light where three other bicyclists were waiting. I said "I suppose you're wondering why I called you all here." They laughed but then the light changed so they never found out.

2024.

15.

On Wednesday my wife and I agreed to meet to see a movie in the late afternoon. I figured I had time to ride my bike to Lake Padden, about 4 miles. The circuit around the lake is another 3. Halfway around my tire went flat. My map app told me there was one bus per hour stopping near the park. Problem was it takes a dollar and I only had a five. A nice young woman in the park gave me five singles and I walked my bike briskly uphill for twenty minutes, reaching the bus stop with five minutes to spare. The bus left me off three blocks from a bike shop. They fixed my tire and it was too late for me to go home so I went to the theatre and read for an hour.

 

The movie was HARRIET, about Harriet Tubman. It was very good and reminded me there are things in the world much worse than a flat tire.

2019.

 

14.

Corner of Ellis and Chestnut in Bellingham. First bike-only traffic signal I have seen outside of Copenhagen.

2022. 

13.

So I am biking home today, in daytime,  at the intersection that rates #5 for most accidents in my city, and I am riding on the sidewalk, in the direction of traffic. This is legal, by the way. I see a woman, perhaps 50, wearing a Russian style babushka, walking toward me. Behind her is a high school student on a bike, soft drink in one hand, no helmet.

I stop my bike and wait for the woman to pass me. The kid bicycles between us, brushing against her. "Watch it!" he yells.

She says something in Russian.

"HE got out of my way," he said, pointing at me.

"You should have slowed down," I said.

"I did!"

"Then you should have stopped. When you're on the sidewalk it's your responsibility to stay out of the way of pedestrians."

He rode off, swearing at me.

Children, they are our hope for the future.

2018.

 

The pond, that day.

12. 

Today I was biking through Cornwall Park and I reached the spot where there is a little brook with some (one or two-foot high) waterfalls and ponds. A young woman was there with two pre-school age kids and a (literal) babe in arms.

"Can you help me? My stroller rolled into the pond with my baby in it. My baby is fine but I can't pull the stroller out. You could hold the baby while I pull it out or you can get it."

 

I decided the mama should keep the baby and the tall man should go after the stroller, which stood in about a foot of water.

 

I took off my shoes and socks and slid down the rocks. I had no desire to put my weight on whatever was at the bottom of that bright yellow water so I managed to keep my butt on the rocks while I reached over to grab it and slowly drag it up.

 

Meanwhile a fellow rescuer found the woman's car keys on the slope. Her cell phone was lost in the drink.

I then went to the bathroom and cleaned up thoroughly, following up with hand sanitizer from my bike bag. By the time I got back the other rescuer had loaned her a phone to call her husband.

 

"Look at it this way," I said. "At least you'll have an interesting story for the phone store."

 

Then I went home and took a shower. And later, I wrote a short story about it called "A Bad Day For Good Samaritans."

 2020. 

 11. 

This is part of the bike rack at the Co-op. It's lovely but if you ran a cable lock through that pole anyone could pull it through.  Oops. 

2024.

 

Clouds over WWU

10.

Summer morning in a major university campus... I was locking up my bicycle and saw two young women in black and pink cheerleader tutus race by on kick scooters.

2013.

9. On Monday I was bicycling on the Taylor Docks, which stretch across one end of Bellingham Bay, connecting Fairhaven with Downtown, and I passed a racing scull, three kayaks, a sailboat and five llamas. The llamas, for the record, were on the Docks, not the water. 

2013.

 

8. 

Today is my birthday. I was bicycling downtown and paused at a 4-way-stop to adjust my sunglasses. A woman driver with a hoarse voice shouted to me "Come on, Papa! I stopped for you, Papa." And when I started again she yelled "There you go, Papa." Attached is a picture of some of the dirt than which I am older.

2024.

7. 

"Mommy, that man on the bicycle just started laughing for no reason. Is he crazy?"

"Well, dear. He might just be a writer who figured out a plot point in his next story."

"Is that less dangerous than being crazy?"

"Hmm...."

2018.

 

 

6. 

Downtown I bicycled past two men who appeared to be homeless.

"Excuse me," one asked. "Can you answer a question for us?"

"Maybe."

"Is Joseph the same as josé?"

"José is Spanish for Joseph."

"Thank you."

2019.

5.

I was bicycling on Lakeway today and stopped at a red light, as I often do. A pedestrian, even older than me if you can believe it, said "I want to ask you a question."

"Okay."

She pulled from her shopping bag a large can of Popeye Energy Drink. "Have you ever had this?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I don't drink energy drinks."

"Why not?"

"I don't need energy."

"That's a good answer."

"Thank you." And the light changed.

2024.

4.

I was bicycling downtown yesterday and someone stared at me for a few seconds and then burst out laughing. That was rather disturbing until I remembered what shirt I was wearing.

2018.

3.

The other day I was thinking of some of the characters I have noticed in this town over the years. The legally-blind man who rode his bicycle with his white cane over the handlebars. The obese man who stood around the highway exit in a sequinned tutu (really). A gentleman who jogs through downtown in a long raincoat.

Then it occurred to me that the person thinking this was a sixty-four year old gray-beard bicycling around in the cold rain. My God, I am one of them now.

2018.

2.

Had a lovely afternoon on the bicycle until my tire went flat on the new trail near the cemetery. Walked it down the hill and across the street to the bus stop. Waited fifteen minutes for a bus downtown. Walked to the bike shop, which used to be Kulshan Cycles (local, funky, competent) and is now Trek Cycles (commercial, slick). Young man fixed my tire in ten minutes. Fifteen minutes later it was flat again. Rain started. Terri drove over and picked me up. To get the bike in the car my knees were squashed up against the glove compartment. How was your day?

2019.

1.

I was bicycling through Salmon Woods Open Space today (see below for a sample view) and there was a young man with a guitar, camera on a tripod, and some audio equipment, singing a song. The next Jesse Welles?

2025