Letting the letter of the law lie

 I have often, including in this space, proclaimed the benefits of travel at the slower pace of walking to notice details that would be missed at higher speed on a bike. True as that may be, there are times when a bike is right where walking would be wrong. 

As my nerves continue to recover and I grow comfortable riding within my limitations (I can't signal left, so in busy areas, I've learned to pull over, square up to the road, and cross when clear), the horizons of my rides have expanded, and Monday after trying the transit bus from Holyoke down to Westfield, for the return trip, I opted to ride the quiet and quieter back route through neighborhoods, whose street turns I remember with the mnemonic "jackal wee", and then the rear trail entry to Ashley Reservoir.

I like this route a lot, and it was even part of the night hike Steve and I completed for the 2023 winter solstice, which is just, just under a year ago (more foreshadowing). Pretty old roads through woods, closed to cars, yeah, I dig that. Over the railroad tracks, and I'm into the south end of Ashley, and then I'm reading the new sign on a sawhorse: closed to pedestrians.

But ahh, luckily, on a bicycle, I am legally no longer a pedestrian, an important detail to know as in Massachusetts, the duty of drivers to yield to crosswalk users applies for pedestrians only, not bikes, although Mass Bike is trying to have the law amended to apply to all vulnerable users. Still, the law, and it's definitions, are law, and in this case I applied that to my advantage, riding up past the tree crew, who never offered a peep of compaint as I passed!

 Hmm, maybe arborists know legalese better than I expected. Many years ago, when I was a student at UMass, with a three mile bike commute to campus, my trip could be completed with a diversion onto a mile of the Robert Frost Trail, a section that was clearly posted, "No Mountain Bikes," so I took it only when I was on my road bike. One day, on my way inbound, I came upon someone doing trail work, and when he saw helmeted me rolling through the woods, he started the scolding I'd so long long awaited, "You know this trail is closed to..." but before I could give my pithy reply, he finished with, "...oh, you're on a road bike."

Flabbergasted, I smiled, waved, continued on my way, shocked that yes, when they specified mountain bikes, they really meant just that! Oh well, sometimes you just can't win for winning.