Cycling A Way of Life For Hillsborough Resident

Biking around town was initially a necessity for Linda Rapacki, but has since become a way of life for the Hillsborough resident.

“Growing up in a family of seven with a mom who had MS and a dad who worked at night, if I wanted to get around, the only way to get around was by bike,” Rapacki said.  “I grew up in Freehold Township, so school was a couple miles from home, work was a couple miles and it was 14 or 15 miles to the beach.”

The activity quickly became a favorite pastime for Rapacki, who finds it freeing and rides almost everywhere, she said

 “You can get out on a bike and go anywhere,” she said. “We are pretty lucky in this town.  There are a number of marked bike lanes and a respect for the road.”

As the marketing manager for Somerset County Ridewise, Rapacki’s passion is also part of her job—encouraging environmentally friendly transportation methods—and prompted her to become a certified cycling instructor through the League of American Bicyclists.  Those methods can range from biking to work if the distance is 10 miles or shorter and carpooling or vanpooling to various locations.

And some concerns, including traffic and distance have solutions, she’s found.

“If you live under ten miles from work, you can bike to work,” she said.  “When you’re more than ten miles, you have to consider appearance, sweat.

“Right now, you can get the safest bike routes from Google Maps,” she added. “If you never thought you could bike someplace, it gives you an option.”

Among the first steps for beginner cyclists include finding a biking buddy and finding the right gear, Rapacki said. She includes a helmet, a form of identification and a well-fit bike as requirements for the beginning cyclist.

Regardless of whether a cyclist decides to use roads with less car traffic or not, Rapacki noted that bikers, runners, cyclists and drivers share the road—and noted that each group makes its own set of traveling mistakes.

For instance, cyclists are required to ride with traffic and, if cycling in a group, should ride single file.  At the same time, drivers should respect cyclists as well, Rapacki said.

“We should not crowd cyclists (on the road),” Rapacki said.  “We should not beep our horns at cyclists because that could make them twist their wheel and fall.”

While each group is certain to have complaints about the other, Rapacki stresses the road as a shared surface.

“The message to everybody is that we need to share the road as a cyclist and as a motorist,” Rapacki said.  “We can always look out for the other person. As a cyclist, we have to realize that people aren’t always going to give us the most room.”

It’s one of the lessons you learn from seeing the road from a different perspective, Rapacki said.