This letter was in today's paper:
Do more for bicycle safety
By SHELLI KULT, Onalaska, Wis.
I love my bike. It might sound weird to some people, but my bright orange Giant mountain bike means a lot to me. It symbolizes the 130 pounds I have lost in the last two years, and everything I have gained: health, happiness and freedom. I try to ride it every day to work from my home, on the northern end of Onalaska, to downtown La Crosse.
I love the fresh air, the wind on my face, and the extra time to reflect on what a beautiful place I call home, and what I plan to do for the day. Depending on the route I take, it is between eight and 10 miles � nearly an hour trip. Not too shabby for a girl who could hardly walk a block without gasping for air only a few years ago.
Over the summer, I searched for a safe way on this route � through the Industrial Park, down Hwy. 16. You name it, I have been there on my bike.
In the past five months, I have encountered flying soda bottles, semi horns, broken glass by the buckets full, and stalled vehicles in the bike lane. Riding in town is similarly dangerous. Unless you are a professional racer, keeping up with traffic is impossible; biking in a lane of traffic with the cars can be a struggle for a biker with little experience, even though it is perfectly legal to do so. Car and truck drivers find those of us on bikes nearly invisible, or so it seems.
Am I foolish to hope for the kind treatment that bicyclists get in a city like Madison? Wide, clearly-marked bike lanes can be found all over that city � but not in La Crosse or Onalaska.
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