The snow is officially gone and we have crawled out of our winter dens. I've been biking (weather permitting) to and from work as often as I can, and it feels great to be in motion again. I've packed on some winter pounds and with gas prices as high as ever, I can't think of a reason not to commute on two wheels.
But alas, as I put petal to the pavement I can't help but notice a grime. A filth. A yuck.
In addition to avoiding the 9,487,341,245 potholes from our city's use of cheap, non-Snowbelt grade pavement, I've found myself bouncing over bottles, swerving past cigarette packs, riding around wrappers, a flailing over fast food bags.
The snow plows, while adept at pushing snow off of our roads, also transport and and all rubbish to the curbside. Seeing as we've (yet) to install any bike lanes on any of our streets, this has left for some utterly disgusting rides.
Wanna see what I'm talking about?
You get this:
From this:
Welcome to beautiful Columbus.Anywhoo...
In honor of Earth Day weekend --!April 25th-27th!-- my firm is sponsoring a clean-up at a Frisbee golf course near Grigg's Reservoir (it doesn't get anymore hippie than that), as well as an all-office/landscape scrubbing around the perimeter of our building (we happen to be situated at the north end of a quarry and the wind blows all the trash our direction, so we're constantly flooded with garbage).
I'm thinking I might need to extend that clean-up to my ride home. I encourage anyone and everyone who reads this little hole-in-the-wall to do the same.
Grab a biodegradable bag and a pair of gloves and hit your street/school/church/work/park/library/bar. Help get some of this disgusting grime off our roads.
The forsythia is about to bloom, so why not make a better backdrop for her pictures.
Columbus Forsythia picture from Flickr user jfsl3.
