A pleasant encounter

On Monday evening I decided to take a stab at the ride from my temporary sleeping place (AKA Dad's house) to BART. I want to start riding to the station in the morning rather than driving and wanted to get an idea about the time it would take. I'll be posting about the ride itself in a bit. What I wanted to get down first is the pleasant and very unexpected encounter I had on the trip home.

I did a quick loop, along Clayton Rd. Clayton is a drag-racer's dream - long, straight, and almost flat. It's not my favorite road to ride on, but it is the street I take in the morning (at that time of day there aren't many cars) and since I don't especially care about how long it takes me to get home I decided to go the quick, direct route. Anyway, I was about 3/4 of the way home, and noticed a mini-van parked across a side street with the driver trying to get my attention.

I pulled over to see what he wanted. Turns out the guy was a bike commuter and wanted to advise against riding on Clayton because of the speed of cars and the buses. It's always nice to encounter not only another commuter, but one who cares enough to mention to a total stranger that there are other, safer routes. I've bad-mouthed preachy activist types before. To me, this is the kind of pro-bike activism we should all be doing.