and i look over my shoulder a lot. not sure if that is really safe or really unsafe, but that's what i do.

This gives me ideas on gloriously unsafe routes. I will have to start taking them just to play with traffic. My normal route to work is way too safe.

Gilby and I have taken Cedar towards the U a few times - it's better if you have two bikes. Just take the right lane, and the cars will go around you. There's not usually enough density (in the morning) for them to really get held up. I don't know about heading south on it. I prefer that route to river roads, which don't have enough clearance for bikes...

The one I hate is the one I live on - Lake and Blaisdale. But that is gone quickly...

Yeah...

I live in Westwood in Los Angeles, which is probably one of the most hostile areas to cyclists on the planet. Everywhere is dangerous. Everyone here is either a student who does not know how to drive or lives in Bel Air with their Mercedes SUV, and of course the road belongs to them (man I get sick of dodging those things). I have been hit by a car once and fallen off many other times avoiding accidents, and I have been here less than two years. So I am literally a statistic. It is really gratifying to pass miles of bumper to bumper traffic though. :D

Any route that passes a school near the beginning of the school day and the end. The roads and bike lanes are clogged with parents dropping off and picking up their kids. They fling open car doors without looking, pull in and out without due care, walk in front of you... All because there poor child can't possibly walk 3 blocks to school, or it's too cold for the little darlings, or it's raining and the little dears might melt. People ask me if I'm afraid of a collision when riding. I tell them no, not really. But I know I will be, eventually. I even know where. Right in front of the damn school that's on my route to work.

this just published (from www.nybma.com):

http://www.nybma.com/media/images/NewYorkMag_120604.jpg