Ride MLK!

[Elly]

Every Monday morning.

8:00am: Meet at the Gold Rush coffeeshop at NE MLK and Russell.

8:30am: Ride down MLK towards your destination.

Established bikepool, with the majority of participants turning left at Salmon or Main to go to the Activspace building.

Join us! We ride sometimes fast, sometimes slow, always taking the lane, and always festive! Bell-ringing and freakbikes especially encouraged. Everyone absolutely welcome.

[boneshaker]

Why would you ride on MLK? It's a busy road and a main thoroughfare for auto traffic. You can use 9th, which is 3 blocks East or Vancouver/Williams 3 blocks to the West.

[Haven_kd7yct]

boneshaker, I think the point of riding MLK is because they can. Kind of a low-key, Critical Mass sort of thing, hopefully obeying traffic laws along the way-- Right, Elly???

Probably for some people, MLK is the most direct route to their destination. Why should they ride a few blocks out of their way? You wouldn't suggest that drivers do that, would you? Riding down MLK like this points that out, I guess.

Personally, I wouldn't ride down MLK... but then again, I don't have any reason to ride, or drive, down MLK.

[the Wumpus]

I felt the same way until I cruised down MLK with a group a couple of months ago! I always took the esplanade or crossed I-84 at 12th and meandered through the blocks to get places. Turns out, MLK has a lot going for it!

It's downhill, so your speed integrates with traffic nicely. Most of the lights are timed, so you get to blast through town without stopping for quite some distance. And it's so much easier to make a lot of connections from MLK. I recommend trying it out sometime with a group of experienced cyclists.

[boneshaker]

To me it is one of those things... Just because you can and just because it's legal don't mean it is right or smart. There is no shoulder on MLK so you are forcing auto traffic down to one lane and it is much too busy for that during the morning commute. It just pisses people off who are probably already in a hurry. Bad idea. If you do decide to do it you best take the entire lane because cars will try to squeeze you between them and the curb.

And yes, I would suggest auto traffic take an alternate route if the most direct one is not safe. 3 blocks out of the way and 5 extra minutes are well worth the inconvenience. That seems to be the difference in opinion here. I do not feel riding MLK during peak high traffic is safe.

Why would you not ride down it "personally"?

[Haven_kd7yct]

Personally-- the only time I'm in that part of town, I'm 99.9% of the time in a car. I think I've only been in the vicinity of MLK once by bike, but it wasn't part of the route so we didn't ride on it.