An early biking adventure

At age thirteen I got my first brand new bike; a Hercules Roadster with a three-speed hub gear. (Picture left.)

It had dropped handlebars so to me this made it a racing bike.

Everything on the bike was steel, even the mudguards; It must have weighed at least 40 lbs.

One weekend my mother took my younger sister and me on a long bus trip to visit relatives.

On returning, we discovered my sister had left a sweater behind.

This was not important but I decided to ride my bike over to my Aunt’s house, the following Saturday, to pick up this item of clothing. I did not tell my mother of my plans; mothers have a habit of saying "No." So I decided I would surprise her.

I had no idea how far the trip was; all I had to find my way there was a little pocket diary that measured about 3 1/2 inches by 2 1/2 inches. It contained maps of the whole of England on about five or six tiny pages.

Plus I had remembered that the previous week we had caught a bus from Luton (30 miles north of London, UK.) to Aylesbury, where we caught a second bus to Buckingham, where my aunt lived. This was the only way I knew and looking at the map today, I must have ridden over 80 miles, round trip.

Had I known better I could have taken a more direct route through Houghton Regis and Leighton Buzzerd that would have been much shorter. I actually lived in a village called Streatley about five miles north of Luton.

I set out very early in the morning and took some sandwiches with me in my saddlebag, along with a glass bottle filled with water. I remember stopping in Aylesbury on the way out and again on the way home, to refill my water bottle.

I did this in a public toilet, and the faucet in the wash basin was too low to get the bottle under. I had to cup my hand to catch water, and then transfer it to the bottle; it took forever.

I ate my sandwiches on the way there, and my aunt made some more for the return trip. I also stopped and dug up a turnip from a field. Not very appetizing, but it got me home.

I made it back just before sunset that same day. I proudly walked in with my sister’s sweater; my mother just about had a fit when she realized what I had done. Instead of thanks for my effort, I was severely chastised

                        

Okay, here’s my problem with Critical Mass

1.) CM has no structure or organization. No one is responsible for the yahoo element that behaves badly and spoils it for everyone. Let the police deal with the “Bad” element and don’t rush to their defense when they are handled roughly.

2.) I am always told CM is not a protest it is a “Celebration” of cycling. If it is a celebration then why hold it on a Friday evening when it causes maximum disruption? If it is early in the evening it disrupts people getting home from work. If it is held later it disrupts people going out for the evening. Friday night is always the biggest night out on the town for most people. Cyclists are a small minority of the general population and disrupting and inconveniencing others is no way to get people on the side of the cycling cause.

3.) If Critical Mass is a celebration, celebrate it on a Sunday morning when it is safer and there is less disruption to the lives of others. On a Sunday morning, CM could become a family type event that would actually attract people into cycling. The disruptive element would probably not participate because the event would lose its "Anarchistic" appeal.

I am fully aware that I am in the minority on this issue, and it is really a lost cause. But, so many cyclists cry and whine that everybody hates us and that the cops won’t investigate or prosecute motorists who endanger or injure cyclists, and yet no one is willing to step back and see the other person’s point of view. Mine or that of the general public.

Critical Mass is a boil on the backside of the pastime of cycling, those who started it created a monster that will be hard to stop.

Those who criticize me for speaking out and dismiss me as a “Grumpy Old Man,” should remember I have dedicated my whole life to bicycles and the cause of cycling, and I continue to do so by spending my time writing articles here.

At least allow me the right to rant once in a while about something that quite frankly pisses me off. I fully accept that it is your right to disagree, but remember I am on the side of the cause of cycling.

Now I’ll shut the fuck up

                        

A storm in a Hollywood bowl

After watching this video taken during a recent L A Critical Mass ride, with the title, “Hollywood Cops Attack Bike riders,” I am left to wonder what all the fuss is about?

I had to watch the video several times to figure out what was going on. I see a police officer (On the far side of the street.) handcuffing a cyclist. I have no idea why, we are not told that, but let’s assume he has a reason. The cyclist appears to be cooperating.

The cop, when all is said and done, is doing his job. A man is filming this from across the street and bystanders are whistling and calling out abuse to the officers.

A second officer is then seen kicking out at the wheel of a passing cyclist. The guy filming (Or someone with him.) shouts, “What the fuck was that for.”

While I agree the officer was wrong in his actions, how much abuse will a cop take before he retaliates?

We have no way of knowing what the passing cyclist and others said to the cop that made him kick out.

Finally the last cyclist passes and the cops come across the guy recording the incident. He is knocked to the ground where he meekly asks, “What I do, what I do.”

I’ll tell you exactly what you did. You mouthed off to some cops, and then you were dumb enough to stay there after the last cyclist passed.

Go to any city in the USA, stand and verbally abuse a police officer as he is arresting someone. I can practically guarantee the result will be the same. You will be wrestled to the ground, and possibly arrested yourself for interfering with an officer during the course of his duty.

As I see it, this whole thing is a non-incident. The guy doing the filming was hoping to catch some “Police Brutality” on video. He was doing his best to goad the cops into doing just that; the only “Brutality” I see, is a bike tire gets kicked.

It saddens me that respected bicycle advocates are running with this and pressing for a full investigation. Los Angeles is fortunate that it has a Police Chief who is pro cycling; don’t fuck it up by protesting something as trivial as this.

This is Critical Mass at its worst; an unorganized rabble who take over public streets and create mayhem, then cry foul when the cops try to bring some order.

L A bike advocates are also pressing their Police Chief to pursue motorists who endanger the lives of cyclists. Who is going to bring these motorists to justice?

These very same police officers and their colleagues that Critical Mass participants are goading into a fight right now.

Good way to make friends and influence people. Good way to get the cop on the street to be on your side.

What is your take on this incident?

Update, 2 PM, Thursday 17th June

I have just read on LA Streets Blog that the LAPD is going to join the next LA Critical Mass ride on June 25th.

It is interesting to read the comments on LA Streets Blog, people are already discussing whether or not there should be “Corking” of intersections. According to this flyer being passed out by LAPD there will be no running of red lights or stop signs. All bikes must have lights and brakes.

So bring your Visa to pay your ticket, I understand LAPD doesn’t take American Express

                       

Consequences

The case of David Mark Clark (Left.) gets more bizarre as it unfolds.

Clark is the 39 year old driver of an SUV who it is alleged went on a rampage in San Francisco and deliberately ran down four cyclists over the span of about six minutes.

This event happened around 10pm. on Wednesday evening, 2nd June. Clark crashed the SUV after hitting the fourth cyclist and ran away; he later reported the vehicle stolen, which turned out to be a lie.

He was subsequently charged with four counts of attempted murder, four counts of assault with a deadly weapon (to wit: a car), and three counts of battery causing serious injury.

I am glad in this case the prosecutors have got it right; when a person deliberately drives at cyclists in this manner, he is intending to kill. It is only by a twist of good fortune that no one was killed, although three were injured, two seriously. 

David Mark Clark is a self-proclaimed Spiritual Healer. On a web site he described himself as:

A Reiki Master, Priest in the Order of Melchezidek, and Crystal therapist. After an energetic awakening in 2006, David has committed his life to the service of others through healing.

If his background is not strange enough, what I am finding more bizarre is because of his "Spirituality" people are coming to Clark’s defense, and asking people to show compassion. On this blog, one commenter said:

Please do not treat him (Clark.) like a monster. Whether he is guilty or not, it is the car culture we should be obsessively exposing. We should not be harassing fellow victims of this crazy society. Sure, he’s weird. I think he’s crazy. But nobody deserves to be treated like a monster, regardless of his sanity and regardless of his innocence or guilt.

Another wrote:

Love and compassion for all those less fortunate than ourselves would be a good thing for this world…it’s the difference between humans and animals. I find it hard to believe that someone who has wanted to help heal others for the past 4 years could be in a ‘normal’ mental/emotional state to run people over.

David Mark Clark set himself up as a “Healer,” and apparently charged $85 an hour for his services. It is not like he was healing people for free, or running some charity; and even if he was, why should that excuse him from an act of extreme poor judgment?

I was always taught there are consequences to our actions. If we choose a course like Clark did, there are consequences.

David Clark has already tried to relieve himself of the responsibility of his actions by lying to the police and saying his car was stolen; if he tries the insanity plea and gets away with this, I for one will be extremely pissed.

If he faces the consequences, pleads guilty, shows remorse for what he has done, and takes his jail time like a man; if he does that, then maybe I’ll show compassion.

Until then my compassion is all for the victims of this attack. I wish them a speedy recovery

                        

Analyzing Depression

 
I came across this map of the world which shows, by country, the percentage of population diagnosed with depression.

The most depressed people it appears live in the United States, United Kingdom, Ukraine, and France.

The fact that the top three all begin with the letter “U” does not go unnoticed, so it is best to avoid living in countries that begin with “U.”

These top four countries may be the most depressed in the world, but at least they know where they are. As the depression rate drops, it seems people are less sure where in the world they belong on this map.

People in the Netherlands, for example, think they are in Iceland. Germany thinks it is in Shanghai, while Shanghai appears to be in New Zealand, and Beijing thinks it is in Iraq.

People from Shanghai and Beijing are so NOT depressed that they think they are countries, when the last time I checked, they were cities.

Another country with a low depression rate is Italy; which thinks it is on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. Could it be the people in these less depressed places have a subconscious desire to move to a more depressing place to tone down their feeling of joy?

Japan meanwhile thinks it is in the Persian Gulf. Maybe their desire is to be nearer the oil. If so they should consider the other Gulf; the Gulf of Mexico where at this moment we have more oil than we need.

The least depressed place in the world, according to this map, is Nigeria; who, it appears, knows what continent it is on. However, it thinks it is several thousand miles away on the east coast of Africa; when last I checked it was on the west coast.

Mexico has a depression rate that is exactly half that of the United States, and it thinks it is in Brazil. It also proves my theory that less depressed people have a desire to move to places where they can be more depressed.

It doesn’t matter how bad things get in America, Arizona recently thought it was necessary to pass tough new immigration laws, and we don’t see a mass exodus south from the US into Mexico.

We can learn a lot from maps like this; that psychologists are poor at geography for example. Of course it couldn’t be that America has the highest depression rate in the world because we have more doctors diagnosing people as depressed?

It doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that in the United States we are bombarded nightly with TV ads for anti-depressant medication.

The result being that more people trot off to their doctor to sign up for said medication, when according to this map all they need to do is book a flight to Nigeria.

I hope after reading this, you are now less depressed