This post contains affiliate links.
Nearly 18 years ago I didn’t have my driver’s license yet and biking was my primary mode of transportation. I won’t tell you that biking is fun in Phoenix where I had to get up at 4am and bike in 99 degree temperatures at 4am to work which was 6 miles away, then bike in 115 degree temperatures at 4pm the same 6 miles back home, but it was a means of getting to and from work for a poor kid who didn’t have any other means of transportation. The bus schedule didn’t run to get me to work at that early of a shift, so was out of the question for arriving at my 5am start time at my job.
I had gone through several bicycles in a short time span, the first was when I let my room mate borrow it one night, and he came back after crashing it into something (probably was drinking) the entire bike was ruined, frame bent, rim bent, chain broken…etc. It is times like this I wondered if having something like bike insurance would have been beneficial. Something like Protect Your Bubble Cycle Bike Insurance may have been a good option to go with if it existed back then and could have saved me from having to spend hundreds of dollars on a new bicycle.
This was where I wasn’t too savvy about such things as a teenager and I never even thought about different types of insurances. But this did get me thinking recently as I spent a lot of time in Encinitas, California where cycling is much more common than in Arizona as a mode of transportation every day. Cyclists must typically get some sort of bike insurance to help cover not only the cost of the bike but the potential costs of an injury or accident I would think. There are so many bicycle lanes and shared lanes, that I know I would be afraid to bicycle to work. Even when I used to bicycle to work I was afraid to bike on the road, in AZ at the time there weren’t that many dedicated bike lanes and cars would double park like crazy down town so I had very narrow gaps between vehicles. This lead me to bike on the sidewalk most of the time and I did get stopped by a cop who wrote me a ticket for riding my bicycle on the sidewalk instead of the street too.
Risks for bicycles while traveling and biking
The chances of damaging your bike increases dramatically if you take it out for an off-road trip, places where it wasn’t designed to go. I once did an some off road biking and had dozens of cactus needles puncture my tires. I had to get that gak stuff to help close some of the little holes but in the end I wound up having to buy a new tire.
Also public places are most vulnerable to theft, even outside of a work building. Even with a bike lock, my 2nd bike was stolen while I was at work. Someone had used bolt cutters to just cut the bike lock and steal my bike. This happened in the middle of the day in a crowded downtown work area too. I was only 19 at the time and in the end I never did wind up getting a 3rd replacement bike until a long time later, I would up learning how to drive and getting my driver’s license and borrowing my girlfriend’s car at the time or she wound up driving me to work every day. I later married that girl and am still married to her now 14 years later.
WPX Support
Latest posts by WPX Support (see all)
- What Posts and Videos Will Get Popular is Still a Mystery - December 16, 2016
- Poem: Weeping Priest - October 30, 2016
- Reflecting on 8 Years of Dragon Blogger - September 29, 2016