Caution: Wide Left Turns

Yesterday we had absolutely gorgeous weather! I celebrated by taking a solo bike ride in the afternoon while Lars was home with the kids.


Before I tell about my bike ride I need to back up....like 25 years. It won't be too long of a post, I promise. I grew up on a dead end road. This was the perfect place for a beginning bike rider, but once I was about 10, I really lost interest. My bike "Dusty Rose" was much more dusty than rosy and it just wasn't fun to ride up and down the street of 10 houses. The roads nearby were too busy for me to safely ride on. Why am I saying this? Well I needed the preface to say that I am not a great bike rider! I can pedal and stay up on a straight path, but that's it.

I do need to practice though because very soon Silas will be in a seat on the back of my bike (with a helmet) and we'll be escorting Luca to school. He may be the only kid at Markusskolen to still have training wheels on his bike, but once they see his mom, they will understand!

So I was riding on one of the bike/ walking paths in Esbjerg. A ways ahead of me was a mom pushing a baby in a stroller and her son who looked to be about 7. The boy was kicking a soccer ball and had no idea that I was behind him. The mom however turned and even made eye contact with me.

I was sure she would gently take her sons shoulder, or tell him to watch out or something. Then I was sure that the boy himself would at least hear my huffing and puffing behind him. I approached and saw that it was going to be no trouble, but then the boy dribbled the ball a little to the right just as I was making my "big breakthrough." I thought to myself, "Lady, if you love that kid, even at all, you would get him out of the way. There is someone rapidly swerving toward on a bike heading right for your kid. A bike that has no dirt because she has been afraid to ride when there is just a hint of ice."
Finally at the last second the kid kicked his ball behind him. He turned around just in time to see.........

ME! Stopping and swerving, swerving and stopping!

That was a close call! I was annoyed so I decided to speed up and then turn left on the next path. The one thing that I forgot is how wide my left turn tend to be! Its almost like a joke how wide they really are. Lars suggested I practice in a big parking lot. I won't repeat what I suggested he do!

Well I got to the path and just as I tried to turn, I saw my arch enemy lurching at the edge of the path. ICE!!! One good thing about this wide left turn thing is the particularly wide berth my bike took me right then. Had I actually made a proper turn like 99% of the people here can do I would have slipped right on the ice patch and who knows how this slow poke could have reacted. No! Instead I overshot so much that I missed the sidewalk entirely and had to stop with my feet before I headed into a field.
It was at that point that I laughed to myself and pictured a big sign on my butt that says WIDE LEFT TURNS!