Deciding to obtain and ride an e-bike adds a plethora of legal, moral, ethical, and sociological complexities to one's life. That is to say e-bikes are heavier, and not just because the battery weighs ten pounds. One of those trillion legal, moral, ethical, and sociological considerations is wordlessly expressed on this recently spotted sign:

I believe the current parlance for the following statement seems to be "saying the quiet part out loud." Statement: Why aren't there any really good books about Albuquerque? Up to now, pretty much every book about Burque or New Mexico is either one of treacly, rose-colored "history" non-investigations into "colorful" (that word is very popular in this genre) folks/cultures like Elfego Baca, Clyde Tingley, Billy the Kid, or "The Wild West," or a sober analysis, either fictional or not, that reads like a phone book or instructional manual and has the analytical depth of the Rio Grande in August 2025.

So very often the best bike rides are also the most ill-considered. After 16 straight hours of sitting on Amtrak from ABQ to Los Angeles, I decided to eschew sanely putting the loaded bike on a Metro train out to my AirBnB in Santa Monica and, instead, rode the damn thing straight from Union Station thus: Pretty much no sleep on the train overnight, riding streets I've never traveled (in any form of transport), and in a town as renown for car-centricity as any on Planet Earth.

"I'm leaning against a cherry-red 1977 Coupe de Ville at a Citgo station in Gulfport, Florida, waiting for the car's owner to emerge from the attached convenience store." Thus begins Tom Piazza's slim, yet rich time spent with American treasure John Prine. In 184 pages, Piazza gets to the heart of many things in retelling his painfully brief tenure as authorized Prine biographer before the subject left us in 2020.

In the good 'ol Pandemic Days of 2020 we would have called this week's Lomas Blvd. Safety Improvement public meeting a "COVID Party." About 100 folks were crammed into the small "Learners' Chess" board game training center to see some info boards, try to talk/hear some consultants and City folks, and regret somewhat having left their N-95 mask back under a pile of other discarded items back at the house.

Grouch Marx famously said he'd never join a club that would have him as a member, and it was my strong intention to never join this one. But yesterday afternoon I made a bad decision that left me joining the very large number of cyclists in Albuquerque's informal El Pueblo Train Track Crash Club:

The road goes on *forever. Enjoy. *Actually, this road ends at the Rio Puerco about three miles west of this spot. But you get the idea.

Residing in the far South Valley hinterlands beyond Rio Bravo Blvd, we locals go "to town" quite a bit, as the far South Valley doesn't have much in the way of "town." Myself a cycling local, the photo above shows an extremely important bit of active transportation routing that I take two or three, sometimes four times a week. No, I'm not referring to eastbound Rio Bravo Blvd., empty of vehicles in the photo above but usually chock-full of drivers treating the Boulevard as a highway or raceway.

Had the unbeatable fun and privilege yesterday to serve as "judge" for a mock trial round at my old teacher stomping grounds, Jefferson Middle School. Here's the scene outside the school on a December morn: I counted about ten bikes and both the bikes and plentiful room for even more raised my spirits as I'm guessing they do yours. We're gonna make out of this present adult-created horror. The kids are gonna be the biggest reason why.

Was/am going to pass along a much longer post on this subject today, but don't believe the hype: Retirement is busy! So many little things, mostly naps, to do every day. Anyway, as placeholder, I'll just post the photo below today along with a few questions: Trivial Contest: Where is this? Why is this the second most coolest thing in active transportation history, behind only the bollard?

As follow-up to our little series here at BB on how much crossing Lomas at Yale is less than optimal, we need to mention a December 17th public meeting that will take a look at current awfulness and possible improvements a bit further east down the stroad that is Lomas Blvd. While the December 17th meeting won't directly cover ground west of Girard, I know of at least one person attending (me) that will bring Lomas & Yale up to at least one person wearing nice clothes and a name tag next to a information board with a map and possible little pins and/or sticky notes on it.

Summing up the current reality presented in the first two installments of this blog series: UNMH has opened its $842 million expansion at Lomas & Yale. Lomas & Yale is one of the most walker/roller traversed intersections in town. Construction and detours during the years of construction made Lomas & Yale even more dangerous and less convenient . City crews have recently appeared to finish up a "remodel" of the intersection infrastructure (beg buttons, crosswalk striping, etc.)

We started diving earlier this week into the active transportation importance and newly completed remodeling of the intersection of Lomas and Yale tied to the $842 million expansion of UNMH. As interlude, here's a short pictorial meditation on "Sidewalk Closed." Anybody with any walking/rolling experience in ABQ has faced the seemingly eternal question: Is this sidewalk really closed? and the oft-commensurate "Should I really take this detour?"

Here's a visual trivia contest question that pretty much every cyclist in town and many, many walkers would get right in a nanosecond while 99.8% of the "normal" (i.e., not walkers/rollers) population would be stumped. The Question: Where is this and why is it a hugely important transportation spot? Okay, the title of the blog post might have been too strong of a clue.

The H.A.W.K. (High-intensity Activated CrossWalK, yes, sometimes these acronyms stretch a bit to become recognizable words) signal installation appears complete now along the Hahn Arroyo (Paseo del Nordeste) trail at Carlisle. The signal was installed in City reaction to the killing of 19 year-old Kayla Vanlandingham back in July.

I am very much opposed to fascism and am thus part of a terrorist organization according to the currently fascist United States government. I vehemently oppose our military invasion into parts of the country the currently fascist government doesn't like. I strenuously oppose any and all fascist government attempts to stifle dissent and outlaw any speech or non-violent actions against the current government.