Editorial: Hassle-free tips for new bikers

Welcome to UC Davis! We’re happy to have you aboard as fellow Aggies. That being said, we’d like to take this opportunity, while you’re still getting oriented, to set some things straight and hopefully save some lives in the process.

Please learn how to ride your bike — please. We know we can’t enforce this but hopefully the 11 new bike cops on campus can. You read that correctly, this campus has bike cops and if you haven’t been pulled over already, know that you can be. As a service to you and the rest of the campus community, we’ve devised a foolproof list of tips to help you along.

1. Learn how to navigate roundabouts. All you need to do is follow the flow of traffic – counterclockwise – go round, about and on your way.
2. Bike at a normal, human speed. Not too fast, not too slow. There are other people on campus that have the expectation of getting to class on time and without injuries.
3. Take the pledge. Don’t text and bike (or cram for a test, or use an iPod, or talk on a cell.)
4. Side-by-side(-by-side) biking is a no-no and conversations about frat bros and Keystone can wait.
5. Don’t hold hands and bike. This one’s for all you lovebirds: We’ve seriously seen this around campus, it’s dangerous and it makes people hate you.
6. Avoid BUIs. A Biking Under the Influence citation actually counts as a DUI and can cost up to $730. Injuries heal, your bank account and record won’t.

We’d like to recommend walking, but believe it or not, for some people walking isn’t their forte.

1. Just like our parents taught us when we were kids, check for oncoming bikers, look left, right, then left again. Then proceed in a brisk manner to the other end of the street.
2. Feel like a deer in the bike lights. Freeze. Bikers can easily move around you. That awkward we-both-move-right, then left-simultaneously-in-an-effort-to-avoid-one-another jig is too time consuming.
3. Don’t walk in the middle of bike paths, stay to the right, just like a car.

We hope you enjoy your first year as a college student here at UC Davis and as you’re customizing that vintage-inspired cruiser online, keep our handy dandy list of tips in mind.