A change-up in routes taken by a large group of bicyclists through Lamorinda Friday raised concerns of a crash ultimately realized by participants – along with the blood pressure of traffic-weary commuters caught behind the colorful mass of partying bikers.
The rolling Bike Party – an organized, regularly scheduled but impromptu meet-up of cyclists hoping to carve out a place for themselves in a car-centric world – was dubbed “The Birds and the Bees Ride” and was meant to roll through Lamorinda from Orinda to Walnut Creek BART with stops at the Lafayette Reservoir and Olympic Boulevard staging area.
What sounded like a nice, leisurely nighttime ride through suburbia quickly went off the rails, however, when hundreds instead of the usual dozens of riders arrived at Orinda BART, quickly snagged commuters unable to pass them on Moraga Way, triggered at least one hard crash and some harsh words from non-riders.
“Who made this route?” one rider challenged when plans for the ride made their way onto the Internet. “The Glorietta/Acalanes hill specifically is not a bike route – there’s even a bike detour so cyclists can avoid going up or down it because it is extremely dangerous, even by well seasoned cyclist in broad daylight. Steep hairpin turns absolutely no street lights…. Plus tons of riders without wearing helmets or lights on their own bikes? Truly hope no one was seriously injured in the inevitable crashes…”
One rider was hurt in a crash on Black Forest and Acalanes around 9:35pm and our Flash Alert system lit up with interactions from frustrated commuters already stressed by a system-wide BART shutdown earlier in the day. Several people questioned the size of the “rolling party,” the fact that many participants didn’t appear to be following traffic laws, the narrow nature of suburban roads and the lack of lighting along the route.
Too bad. Looks like it could have been fun. But putting bikes on roads with cars is not good.
That’s a shame, but cars and bikes just don’t mix well.
How could the bike riding organizers not know about the St. Stephens Trail and El Nido Ranch Road route?
This mapped route looks like it is deliberately meant to create traffic problems and go in areas where there is either no shoulder or the signs say “no bikes or pedestrians”. For example, the road leading down from the reservoir parking lot on the east side says “no bikes or pedestrians” plus the reservoir closes at night. More worrisome, their instagram asks participants not to shoot off fireworks, “especially not if we just arrived at the stop” … why do they even need to remind people of this? Are they not aware of wildfire danger?
And Carol Lane at the east end of Lafayette has been stated by the city to be a traffic problem, “a narrow country road not meant for the current level of traffic,” according to one city official at a traffic planning meeting at the Savior’s Lutheran Church before COVID. Yet this Bike Party organizer chose Mt Diablo to Carol Lane instead of either the bike trail or going from Mt Diablo to Pleasant Hill Rd. And the roundabout is another pain point, one that various cyclists have said doesn’t take into account bicycle safety, especially with elderly drivers trying to return to Rossmoor.
This was either very poorly planned or it was trying to be edgy/skirting the edge of the law (entering the closed reservoir) and to get people hurt and drivers frustrated.