Rider

Matt Hohmeister


From Tallahassee FL


Commutes 1 Miles Oneway for 3 years and 5 months
Five Days a week, I use my bike to travel to and from work Year Round

I live a mile away from my classes, to which I ride my bike. The ride takes 6 minutes, but I can walk it in about 18 minutes, so it's no big deal if I don't feel like riding. I used to live 3.5 miles from my classes, so I had no option but to ride my bike, take the bus, or (I'll admit to doing this every once in a great while!) ride my bike.

I'm 21, single, and live in a dinky little apartment near campus. I have a 2001 Diamondback Sorrento 21-speed and a 1988 Honda Civic 5-speed. Neither has air conditioning. If Tallahassee actually cared about usable bike facilities (and if my office had bike parking), my bike use would go up as my car use would go down.

I have had a total of 4 accidents in 3 1/2 years. My latest one left a splint on my right wrist for about two weeks, so I was walking to class. Aside from that, no bike accident has ever injured me or damaged anything on me--including my bike. And I ride like a madman (my record sofar is 35 mph). NOT ONE of these accidents has EVER been on a road "diamond" bike lane--all occured on sidewalks (some clown here thought it would be funny to build two parallel 3-foot sidewalks next to a road and mark one "Bike only"--bikes and pedestrians freely use both, and there isn't nearly enough width for everyone)

Fellow FSU people--is it just me, or does FSU intentionally try to make a bike/ped-unfriendly campus? Parking and traffic enforcement has gone to nil, and cyclists have to share sometimes extremely thin sidewalks with pedestrians. And Parking Services' "free" parking permits (read: about $85 a year tacked on to tuition) didn't make it any better--they keep adding roads and parking, and the congestion gets worse.

Join us, add yourseelf