Being right wasn’t worth the heart attacks.

While it’s risky to ride a bicycle in any L.A. neighborhood, in the San Fernando Valley, it’s lethal. On the surface, the SFV looks like an enormous suburb. But underneath lays a tightly coiled cesspool of desperation and impatience. Drivers here are all in a hurry, either on their way home or on their way to work. Most are texting. They’re oblivious to basic traffic laws. I have witnessed several accidents in which someone turning left onto a main road has struck someone going straight. Why? Because the first law of driving in the SFV is whoever gets to the intersection first wins. Screw the DMV.

All of this makes for a dangerous, if not outright perilous, place to ride a bike.

~

Sitting at the light, one foot on the pedal, the sun bearing down on me, I knew I’d made a mistake. I was heading up the left turn lane at a green light and I couldn’t see beyond the SUV making a left in front of me. Though the traffic was lackadaisical, it was consistent, one car after another, coming around the SUV and going straight. Behind me, I could feel the heat of somebody’s engine grill. Pretty soon, the light would turn red and I’d be stuck in front of that idling engine for another round.

“This was stupid,” I said to myself. “Right, but stupid.”

In my experience, most bikers know their legal rights. Everywhere you go in this city, you see PSA posters on bus stops or articles in magazines declaring that people on two wheels must Share the Road. When we’re riding with traffic, we should be three feet out from the curb. We should signal at lights. We should stay off the sidewalk. We should, basically, act like cars. Slower moving, more vulnerable, closer to the ground cars.

This was what I was doing, but it was pretty clear that a left-lane turn in the SFV was an exception to the rule.

Finally, the behemoth in front of me completed his turn, giving me the visibility I needed to complete mine. As I coasted into the dedicated bike lane at the opposite corner, the car that had been idling just behind my rear wheel–a black Escalade–passed me, windows rolled down. The man behind the driver’s seat shook his fist and shouted, “GET OUT OF THE ROAD!”

On instinct, both my hands flew up in a gesture I’d rather not revisit.

A second later, a white Porsche Cayenne followed him, honking her horn in support. My hands stayed in position. “Learn the traffic laws, you jerks!”

After they were gone, I continued pedaling, the very image of a dogged and defiant L.A. biker, but I was shaking. Each of those trucks had weighed several tons. Whether I was right or wrong (I was right), they had the power to kill me.

When I finally got home, I was still shaking, less from fear than from anger. Theirs was drive-by intimidation. They took a second to threaten me, then moved on. I had no chance to state my case.

“They’re cowards. You should have fought back.”

“I gave them the double finger.”

“Good for you! They deserved it.”

“But maybe they’re right. Maybe I should get off the road.”

“You have every right to be in the road.”

“But what good is being right if I’m dead?”

This was the conversation my boyfriend and I had when I got inside. After we finished talking, I continued to have this conversation with myself for weeks while my bike remained in lockup. Was I really going to let one lousy experience stop me from riding in my neighborhood for several more years?

~

In the summers, I bike regularly. We spend a few weeks every year in Central New York State, in a rural area where there’s very little to do. Several years ago, I bought a “summer bike” at the Super Walmart and took up riding in order to preserve my sanity. In doing so, I returned to my 18 year-old self, the girl who used to ride ten miles a day after school.

I’d always enjoyed the solitude of biking, the way you could cover so much ground with so little effort. Bikes move faster and more quietly than running legs, and with a lot less pain. On a bike, you can observe the world around you, but there’s also the chance to daydream. As a kid, I enjoyed splitting my mind into two tracks while I rode. With one, I could pretend I was training for the Olympics (in order to impress a guy, of course). With the other, I admired the reedy cat-tails growing out of the pond behind the stop sign. In small-town suburban Connecticut, if I stayed off the two-lane state highways, spaciness, or shall I say, space to dream, came easily.

It’s easy in New York State, too. For long stretches of my rides there, I won’t see another human, maybe not even another car. There are dicey moments, for sure–for every biker on the road, there’s a truck full of yokels who seem offended by the very invention of the bicycle–but for the most part, I can relax and enjoy myself. I can, and do, dream away long hours on my bike. It’s relaxing.

I wanted to dream away the hours in the San Fernando Valley, too, but I was starting to think that such things were impossible. Everywhere you go, there are cars, and behind the wheels of those cars are people who either don’t know or don’t care that bikers are meant to ride in the road. So I pondered, and waited, and watched my newly tuned-up bike collect dust.

A few weeks later, I awoke to a crisp, slightly overcast morning. Zero chance of sunburn; perfect biking weather. I decided to take another ride. My destination was a wide, shady thoroughfare with a dedicated bike lane. I made three rules for myself before I left: I would not be embarrassed to ride on the sidewalk when the streets got busy; I’d cross all major intersections in the crosswalk, like a pedestrian; and I would not take any left turns.

Following these rules, my ride was much slower than it should be, but it was pleasant. Nobody honked at me. Nobody tried to kill me. I was, for the most part, invisible. I completed a nine-mile ride and arrived home smiling. I had even managed a short stretch of straightaway in which I pictured myself competing for the U.S. in the Olympic biathlon. (A sport in which moose are the only threat to my personhood.)

Yes, I compromised. But I rode. I felt like myself again.

I’m still processing what it means to make concessions to reality when you know you’re right. In the larger sense, it’s a bad thing. Giving in to bullies is the wimp’s way. But I never claimed to be a hero. I’m just a person who wants to ride her bike, in peace, while taking a moment now and again to fantasize about winning a bronze medal. (My other concession to reality.) Is that so wrong?