Labels and other BS from Copenhagen

Labels can be useful; for example if I say “Vehicular Cycling,” most regular readers of this page will know exactly what I am talking about. If you don’t this short video explains it.

To me this is defensive riding that works because for the most part, drivers of motor vehicles will go out of their way to avoid hitting you as long as they know you are there.

It is the inattentive or distracted driver who is the most danger, but by riding predictably, signaling intent, and correct positioning on the road, you make even the most inattentive driver aware of your presence.

For example, whatever direction I leave my home I have to travel a busy two-lane highway. The traffic seems to come along in platoons because of traffic lights in both directions.

When the road is clear behind me I ride out in the lane about two or three feet. When I hear a vehicle approach from the rear, I move over to the right to let them pass.

This has the effect of slowing them down and the first car makes a conscious effort to go wide around me. Each car following does the same.

If I stay close to the right edge of the road all the time, a car approaching from the rear will not slow down and will often not deviate from his line of travel.

A driver of a car three or four vehicles back will not even know I am there.  If people want to label this “Vehicular Cycling” that’s okay; it works for me.

However, I prefer not to be labeled a “Vehicular Cyclist.” I didn’t pay a subscription to join a Vehicular Cyclist’s organization. I have not even read John Forester’s book. (He’s the man who coined the term.) 

I am simply a “Cyclist” doing what is necessary to survive while riding my bike on today’s streets and highways.

I have just read an article by Mikael over on Copenhagenize.com titled “Vehicular Cyclists – Cycling’s Secret Sect.” A secret sect… Really. The writer suggests that Vehicular Cyclists:

“Fight tooth and nail against virtually any form of separated bicycle infrastructure because their theory is based up on the premise that bicycles are 'vehicles' and therefore should act as the vehicles in the traffic, using the car lanes just like cars.”

The article then goes on to ridicule Vehicular Cyclists, comparing them to the Flat Earth Society. According to Mikael it is our own fault, the established cyclists in America and the UK, that we don’t have a widespread cycling infrastructure.

What utter bull-shit. I would love it if my local authority was making my city as bike friendly as Portland, Oregon, or Davis, California. But in the mean time I am making do with what I have. The other alternative is to not ride my bike.

There are many people who would ride a bike but are scared to do so I today’s traffic. It is the avid cyclists who take to the road each day, who are showing others that it is possible to survive out there.

Who knows how many others might be encouraged to try cycling just by seeing us pedaling around the city streets. The more cyclists on the road the more cities are likely to facilitate cycling.

I suggest Mikael does not have a clue what it is like to ride a bike in any American city, or in the UK for that matter. Both countries are steeped in the car-culture, and it is not going to change overnight.

The situation is improving, but slowly; I doubt there will be huge improvements nationwide in my lifetime. All we can do in the mean time is keep riding our bikes, while doing whatever is necessary to stay safe.

                       

Bleeding for my art

While working in the Masi shop in California, in the early 1980s I was doing a frame repair.

I was replacing the right chainstay on a Masi frame. I had removed the damaged stay and was preparing the frame to receive the new one.

I stabbed my forearm on the sharp point on the bottom bracket shell, and hit a main artery. It was quite spectacular; blood spurted out in a two-foot jet, pulsating to the rhythm of my heartbeat.

I stuck my thumb over the wound and applied pressure, while I was driven to the hospital. On arrival, I was placed in a wheelchair and taken to the emergency room.

I sat there, waited, and waited my thumb still pressed tightly against my arm, afraid to let go, or I would surely bleed to death.

I finally did see a doctor, after about an hour. I took my thumb away, there was no blood, and I could barely see a puncture wound.

Extremely embarrassing. The doctor stuck a band-aid on it and charged me fifty bucks. A lot of money back then

                       

The private self and the public image

Recently Lance Armstrong was featured on the cover of the July issue of “Outside” Magazine.

Apparently when Lance posed for the picture he was wearing a plain tee-shirt; as you can see in the picture above, a message has been photoshopped onto the image referring to LA’s age of 38 years.

Lance was a little ticked and shot the following comment off on Twitter:

“Nice photoshop on a plain t-shirt guys. That's some lame bullsh--.”

This is the kind of casual comment any person would make to anyone who happened to be in the room at the time. In my opinion “Lame Bullshit” is a fair assessment of what happened here.

The big difference, casual comments to those around us mostly go in one ear and out the other. They are not made as serious comment, and usually accepted as such by colleagues, friends and acquaintances. They are forgotten as quickly as they are uttered.

Make that same trivial, spur of the moment comment on a social media site like Twitter, and it is now permanent; to be re-quoted, analyzed and discussed by everyone, and his brother.  

This morning I read an article titled, “Top 10 Twitter meltdowns, tirades and tantrums.” In my book calling something “Lame Bullshit” hardly ranks as a meltdown, tirade, or a tantrum.

Yet Lance Armstrong’s comment was lumped together with nine other various celebrities who had made other “Indiscrete” Twitter comments.

It made me realize that the Internet, along with the various social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, are a boon to celebrities as a means to build, and stay in touch with a fan base.

However, it is a double edged sword in that a person is judged, not by who he truly is, but by the public image he portrays on the Internet. Say the wrong thing and you can alienate a lot of people very quickly.

Lance Armstrong can only be truly known by those close to him; his immediate family and friends, and the people he works with. Outside of that there are millions who don’t know him at all, but think they do based on what they see and read in the media.

To a far lesser extent I am in this same position with this blog. I am sure the people who read this have a totally different image of who I am as opposed to my much smaller circle of family and close friends.

I see comments like “Curmudgeon” and “Grumpy old man.” I doubt my friends see me this way; otherwise I would probably have few friends.

I get angry at times about various circumstances and situations, who doesn’t? My anger is rarely directed at individuals, and it is always short lived. In real life if I sound off about something, people around me think it is funny. Comedians like Lewis Black make a career out of it.

My goal is usually to make people think about a situation, and discuss it. I don’t expect everyone to agree with my POV. I have learned one thing here in almost five years of doing this; I can’t please everyone. If I were to try I would probably please no one; least of all myself.

In the mean time my readership keeps on growing, and as long as it does I will keep on writing. It tells me I must be doing something right.

My posts cannot all be literary gems, and some days I just don’t have anything to say. Actually people who know me in real life find I am a man of few words.

That is something you would never have got from reading my comments here

                        

Outrage and bringing about closure

Over 40,000 people are killed on US roads each year; people should be outraged, but they are not.

If these were yearly war casualties in Iraq or Afghanistan, people would be marching on our capital demanding an end to the war.

However, the average person is indifferent; these are just statistics, reported maybe once a year, and then forgotten.

There are over 4,000 pedestrians killed each year; again where is the outrage? These are just ordinary folks, going about their daily lives. Suddenly, they are mowed down while crossing the street, and they are gone. Outside their family and close circle of friends, no one really cares.

By comparison to these large numbers of casualties, there are around 700 cyclists killed each year on US roads, and cyclists as a group are outraged.

Cycling deaths being less common get reported more often, whereas every driver or pedestrian fatality does not. Riding a bicycle creates a common bond between strangers even. We recall our own experiences and near misses, and we realize, “This could be me.”

This was my feeling when I read this morning about Stan Miller, a 48 year old cyclist, run down and killed by a drunk driver. Sadly it takes a driver being drunk to be charged in such a case; where there is no alcohol involved often the driver walks free and no one held accountable.

After the article there are many comments in the form of tributes from people who knew Stan. Others express anger at the police and the system for allowing such crimes to go unpunished.

Then of course there is the inevitable “Cyclists shouldn’t be on the road,” comment from a member of Joe Public. Maybe the 4,000 plus pedestrians killed per year should stay on the sidewalk; they only get killed when they attempt to cross the street. Of course, comments like this only enrage us more.

I hope people who knew Stan Miller will channel their anger and frustration in a positive way. Write to the County Prosecutor and make sure this repeat drunk driver is held accountable. When this person comes to trial, show up in large numbers and sit quietly and respectfully in court.

This made a huge difference in the case of a Los Angeles doctor who went to trial for an act of road rage against cyclists. The large numbers of cyclists who showed up for that trial made an impact on the outcome.

Often when a cyclist is killed other cyclists use that incident to get laws changed. Just this week in New York State, a new safe passing law was enacted, dedicated to cycling advocate Merrill Cassell who was killed last November.

What better way to bring closure to the family and loved ones of a cycling victim, to either see someone held accountable for their death, of if that can’t happen then let it be the cause of positive change making it safer for others to ride their bikes.

Reading about Stan’s death saddens me, but it will not stop me from riding my bike. I cannot allow fear that some drunk or inattentive driver may run me down from behind, stop me from experiencing the joy and wellbeing that cycling gives me.

Somewhere today a motorist will die in his SUV, and a pedestrian will also die. Outside of those people’s family and friends, no one will give a shit.

I am both proud and grateful to belong to a small section of our society who care enough about each other that we are affected by the still relatively rare event that one of us is killed

                        

Mandatory Helmets: The Deeper Issue

I am troubled when educated and influential medical people call for the mandatory wearing of bike helmets.

Dr. Ian Gillespie (Right.) President, British Columbia Medical Association is making such a call as reported in the Vancouver Sun.

A man like Dr. Gillespie, because of his position, carries a lot of weight and before you know it, politicians are passing legislation to bring in mandatory helmet laws.

Don’t get me wrong, I wear a helmet and I think they are a good idea. However, my helmet is my last line of defense and my best chance of survival is to avoid an accident in the first place.

I do this by following the rules of the road. I stay alert at all times to potential hazards, and try to avoid mishaps before they occur.

Helmets should be encouraged, but not made mandatory. The moment you force people to wear a helmet, you stop a great many people from riding a bike.

At this time, in this economy, oil dependency, and with rampant obesity, we need more people riding bikes.

Mandatory helmet laws, give the impression that cycling is dangerous. There are far more pedestrians killed than cyclists, and moreover, most pedestrian deaths are from head injury.

The pedestrian is hit below the waist, his head either hits the windshield or some other part of the car; or he is flipped upside-down, thrown high in the air, and lands on the hard pavement, on his head.

There is no push from the medical profession to make helmets mandatory for pedestrians.

Would you want to be forced to wear a helmet while walking around town? Many people feel exactly the same way when forced to do so while riding a bike.

If a cyclist is involved in a serious accident, a head injury is only one of the ways he might be killed or seriously injured. For example, in Jarvis, Ontario, Canada, a 21 year old man was riding home from work on the sidewalk.

An SUV made a left turn into a parking lot and the cyclist ran head first into the passenger side window. The glass shattered, and the unfortunate young man cut a main artery in his neck, and bled to death within minutes.

The fact that he was not wearing a helmet was neither here nor there in this case; it was not a head injury that killed him.

None-the-less, this accident should not have happened. It was daylight; had the cyclist been on the road instead of the sidewalk, the driver of the SUV would have had a better chance of seeing him before turning.

The cyclist, lulled into a false sense of security that riding on the sidewalk gives, was probably oblivious to his surroundings and failed to notice the vehicle turning across his path.

The main problem I have with mandatory bike helmet use is that it detracts from the real issue; it is people driving motor vehicles that kill cyclists and pedestrians.

Over the last hundred years or more, safety legislation has been all about protecting the person in the automobile, giving the occupant such a sense of security that he/she drive their cars as if they are sitting on their living room sofa.

There needs to be a sense of responsibility brought back to driving a car, a looking out for your fellow man and woman; especially those more vulnerable, namely pedestrians and cyclists.

This is what Dr. Ian Gillespie should be pressing for, not mandatory helmets for cyclists.

Because when all is said and done, a little piece of foam polystyrene on a cyclists head will never solve the real issue of cycling death and injury. The one of auto drivers being allowed to drive as they please.

It’s a little bit like allowing everyone to go around firing guns, and then making bulit-proof vests mandatory