First Honk

So today was the day where I did it. My first real honk, using the #loudbicycle horn. So if you haven’t been following me, I have the horn actually *inside* of my backpack. The button to honk it is attached to the backpack strap, so that I can hit it like someone on Star Trek would hit their communicator.

Because the horn is so loud, at first I wondered if I should even use it for my morning ride into work. Reason being, I take the bus most of the way into work, and from then on out it’s mostly backroads and sidewalks, so the chances of me needing to honk the horn on the ride in are slim.

That first day, I didn’t connect the button, but I wished I had. Because while skating the downhill, back road from the bus stop to work, I saw something out of place. A truck. A *big* truck, parked right in my way. I came into sight of it just in time to see a man get into the truck, close the door, and start the engine.

That is more or less a nightmare scenario. Especially because the way the truck was parked, there was no going around it. I’d have to skate in front of the truck, or else use my brakes and lose all my dignity.

In that moment, I wished I’d connected the damn button, because it would have been the perfect situation to honk. But instead, I slowed, made eye contact with the man in the driver seat, and skated on by.

But I vowed to skate with the horn after that little incident.

This morning, I had the horn. I was skating up a small hill, right outside of my work place. At the midpoint of this little hill is a busy four day intersection. Close to that is an also busy threeway with a bus stop. I’ve already had a few close calls in this area.

This morning, I was skating up the hill, and that’s kind of the first red flag. Because people never expect someone to be skating up a hill. And then a pickup truck pulled to the stop in front of me. The way the light is, I couldn’t really see if this guy saw me or not, which is another red flag. He looked like he was making a rolling stop.

Against I was faced with a split second decision. Do I break and lose my uphill momentum? I hit my Star Trek communicator. Honk! As soon as I hit it, his rolling stop became a full on stop, and I skated by, confident that I wouldn’t be run over.

The good thing was that it wasn’t so loud as I was scared it might be. It didn’t make me jump out of my shoes or anything. The bad part was that, because it’s in my backpack and pointed *behind* me, it probably scared a pedestrian behind me. In other words, direction *does* matter and there’s no good way for me to point it forward.

But the car stopped rolling, and the experience gave me some piece of mind, so I’m happy about that. Yay #loudbicycle horn!