Don't be the Invisible Cyclist

So often a car will turn or pull out in front of cyclist causing serious injury, then claim, “I didn’t see him.” Or "He came out of nowhere." The cyclist might ask, “Am I invisible? I was there to be seen.”

It is not a case of the cyclist being invisible, but one of the position of the cyclist and other vehicles on the road giving the illusion that he is not there.

Take the common scenario in the top picture. A cyclist is following the red SUV that has just overtaken him. The driver of the SUV wants to make a right turn, and is indicating so with his turn signal.

The red SUV is slowing to less than the cyclist’s speed, so the cyclist moves over to the left to go around the red vehicle. He figures he can do this safely as he can hear no other cars immediately behind him.

This lack of traffic behind him is actually the cyclist’s downfall, because at this moment the blue car is emerging from this same side road, about to make a left turn to go in the opposite direction to the cyclist.

The driver of the blue car waits until he is sure the red SUV is turning, and then makes his move. He does not see the cyclist because he is hidden behind the red vehicle. For the same reason the cyclist can’t see the blue car either.

The driver of the blue car gets the illusion that there is nothing behind the red SUV, all he sees is a gap in traffic and an opportunity to pull out. The red SUV turns, the driver of the blue car takes one last look to his right to make sure the far lane he is pulling into is still clear.

At this crucial moment the driver is looking away from the cyclist as he pulls out, and the unfortunate bike rider runs smack into the side of the blue vehicle.

How to avoid this situation.

1.) Be aware of cars waiting in side roads and driveways ready to turn onto the road you are on.

2.) In this scenario, don’t be in a hurry to get around the turning vehicle. Had the cyclist slowed and stayed the right, he would have seen the blue car, even if the driver had not seen him. Also when the car pulled out the cyclist would have more of a chance to go behind the vehicle to avoid a collision.

3.) Listen for cars immediately behind you, if there is traffic behind this is your safety buffer and people will not pull out if they see other cars approaching

Statistics show that this next scenario, more than any other, is the most common cause of serious injury or death to both cyclists and motor-cyclists.

The cyclist is riding to the right of the lane and is going straight. The red SUV has just passed him and is also going straight.

The blue car is stopped with his turn signal on waiting to turn left into the side road. As in the first scenario, the driver of the blue car can’t see the cyclist because he is behind the red SUV, and also the cyclist cannot see the blue car for the same reason.

It is possible the driver of the blue car has been sitting waiting to turn for some time, and the cyclists has been partially hidden from his view by a steady stream of traffic. Now all the driver sees is a gap in traffic behind the red SUV.

The red SUV passes and the driver of the blue car steps on the gas to turn quickly. It is a small gap in traffic and his only thought is that he must get across before the next car arrives. He is no longer looking down the road otherwise he might still see the cyclist, he is now looking at the side road in the direction he is headed.

The cyclist is either hit broadside by the front of the car, maybe run over, or he runs smack into its side of the vehicle. Even if the driver sees the cyclist at the last moment, car driver and cyclist both have only a split second to act.

The car driver either panics, brakes hard and ends up as a stationary object in the cyclist's direct path, or he underestimates the cyclist's speed and tries the beat him through the intersection. Often a collision is unavoidable the moment the vehicle making the left turn has started the move.

How to avoid this situation.

1.) Think ahead. As I have just mentioned, the blue car has probably been waiting to turn for some time before the cyclist arrives. The cyclist could have made a mental note some 200 yards before he arrived at the point of a potential collision.

2.) If it is safe to do so, take the lane. Signal and move over to the left so you are visible to the driver of the car waiting to turn. Had the cyclist done this, chances are the red SUV would not have passed him, but would have still been behind him. The blue car would have had to wait for both the cyclist and the SUV to pass before turning.

Also, if the cyclist moves to the left, nearer the center of the lane, should the blue car turn, the cyclist has more opportunity to simply steer a course behind the vehicle.

3.) Again, listen for cars behind you, they are your safety buffer. If there are none and there is any doubt that the turning driver has seen you, be ready to make a panic stop. 

If the car driver has not seen the cyclist, an accident can still be avoided if the cyclist is aware ahead of time, what could happen. Otherwise, given the cyclist's speed, the reaction time, and the distance it takes to stop on a bicycle..... Well, you get the picture.

In these scenarios I have used an SUV as an example of a vehicle blocking the view of a turning driver. More often than not the vehicle you are following is a large commercial box van, truck, or bus, making the situation even worse.

The onus is of course on the driver of the vehicle entering or turning from a highway, but as it is the cyclist has the most to lose in such a situation, it behooves him or her to ride defensively at all times.

Don’t be a victim.  Always think ahead and look for potential hazards. Remember it is not that you are actually invisible, it is more an illusion that the cyclist is not there, brought on by years of conditioning and not being aware of bicycles.

Multiple times, every day for years a driver waits for a gap in traffic to make a left turn. When he sees it he goes for it, always without mishap. Then one day there is a cyclist in that gap.

Don’t let it be you, don't be the Invisible Cyclist

Watch this YouTube video. See this very same collision happen when a white truck turns in front of a motorcyclist. Look for the dark blue car waiting to turn left in the opposite direction, possibly blocking the view of the oncoming motorcyclist. 

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My Parkinson’s and how my diet is helping

In the summer of 2015, I began a diet to lose and maintain my weight. I did what I set out to do and wrote about it here. When I started, I did not know I would be diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease a year and a half later at the end of 2016. There is no known cure for Parkinson’s, however, I have seen improvements in my condition, especially this year. I attribute this to my maintaining this diet and continued exercise.

I pass this information on in the hope it will help and encourage others. My main symptom is a tremor in my right hand and arm, I can control this to a certain extent due to exercise and practice. Typing was difficult for a while causing me to double type letters and insert extra spaces. This has improved greatly.

I should mention I resisted taking medication for the first two years, because there are side effects, one being that after time it no longer works. When I did agree, I settled for Carbidopa-Levodopa which is a basic, inexpensive medication that has been around for eighty years or more. The prescription calls for three tablets a day, I take only two per day, along with two capsules of Macuna Perens, a natural non-prescription L-dopa supplement.

I still have most of my motor skills, I can write, sign my name, draw, and even thread a needle. My tremors are resting tremors that come on when I am relaxing and not paying attention. My Parkinson’s may slow me down a little, but it does not stop me doing what I need to do. I am fortunate that my condition has not caused me any gait or walking problems, but I do include walking and balance exercises in my workout regimen.  

One of the things I have found essential is to weigh myself every day, I have a scale in my bedroom and weigh myself every morning the moment I get out of bed. I then log my daily weight along with the date. If I gain or lose weight on any given day, I can adjust my food intake and within a day or so, and I am right back on track.

For example, if I eat out at a restaurant it is easy to take in 1,300 calories (My whole day’s intake.) in one meal and I can find the next morning I have gained 3lb. or 4lbs. If I get right on it and exercise a little more or cut back my intake, I am back to my target weight. If I did not keep track by writing it down every day, within a week or ten days, I could quite easily gain back an extra ten or fifteen pounds.

It really has not been that difficult, it just required I change a few daily habits. When I started out, I had to research how many calories each food had, but now I know what to eat from experience. In July 2017 I stopped eating meat. I detest labeling myself as a Vegan or Vegetarian, and do not want to become one of those boring people who treat food intake like some kind of religion.

When I stopped eating meat, I stopped eating dairy also, but the non-dairy part only lasted about two weeks. I now drink A2 milk, which comes from a certain breed of cow, and does not have the same protein as the regular A1 milk, it is easier on the digestion. I love it and it is a big part of my daily food intake.

I continued to eat cheese, but just this year I switched to goat’s cheese. It is an acquired taste, and I can’t say I prefer it over the regular dairy cheese, but I do feel less bloated with the goat’s cheese. And this is what it is all about, finding what works for me.

It was brought to my attention that plants in the “Nightshade family,” may contain toxins and should be avoided. This group includes, tomatoes, eggplant, bell peppers, and even potatoes. There is no way I will stop eating potatoes; however, I have cut back on my intake and only eat potatoes or tomatoes no more than once a week.

For every article one reads online saying this Nightshade food group is bad, there is another that says this information is false, and these foods are safe. For me, an interesting affect from my cutting back on these foods, has been that my arthritis has improved. I had pain in both shoulders and could not raise my arms above my head. I also had severe pain in my left hip. Today I am pain free and have full motion.

I have stopped drinking soda and consume no High Fructose Corn Syrup. I will have the occasional beer, but not every day. On a typical day I start with coffee, black with no sugar. For breakfast a cup of cooked Balsamic white rice, with frozen blueberries or cherries added. Also, a tablespoon of local honey, which I have found helps with local pollen allergies. Alternatively, I may have two fried eggs with a slice of sourdough bread.

Quite often if I am not too active during the day, the rice may get me through until the evening meal, or I may manage with a glass of A2 milk and a handful of nuts. Or a slice of sourdough toast with almond butter and preserve. Almond butter I find is more nutritious than peanut butter, as the peanut is a bean rather than a nut. I eat bread sparingly, maybe two or three times a week, and because I eat so little I keep it in the freezer, then pop a slice in the toaster which thaws it out an toasts it at the same time.

About three times a week I will have a protein shake mid-day, consisting of 20 oz. of A2 milk, three raw eggs, a banana, or an avocado, and two scoops of Dr, Grey’s Super Food Shake for Men.

Evening meal will be fish, usually wild caught Cod or Salmon, with rice and a vegetable. Sometimes a shrimp and vegetable stir-fry, with rice. As mentioned occasionally a baked potato, or small red potatoes oven roasted with carrots, onion, broccoli. Sweet potato is not on the “Nightshade” list and I will often have one of those, baked instead of a regular baked potato. A green salad will often be included with the meal.

Most evenings, I will eat light with goat cheese and gluten-free crackers, and a large serving of fruit. Hommos (Or Humas.) will sometimes be a substitute for cheese. Eating this way is not at all costly, meat is expensive and by not buying it I can afford the best organic fruits and vegetables. I do not miss meat now I have become used to eating the way I do.

I stopped eating meat, not because I believe meat is bad in itself, but rather in the way it is produced. Animals and birds fed on Genetically Modified food and given hormones to make them grow faster. However, this is my reason, and my advice to anyone is, do your own research and find what works for you. I am not a qualified dietician, but I have laid out what is working for me, in the hope it may encourage others on their journey to better health.

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15 years of Blogging

On November 12^th, 2005 I posted my first article, and “Dave’s Bike Blog” was born.

I was a young man of 69, and “Blogging” was relatively new, there were only a few million or so blogs world-wide at the time, today there are around 600 million.

Facebook had only been launched a year before, (2004.) and Twitter would follow a year later in 2006.

It was 2002 when Google took over “Blogger” and made it a free platform under the name “Blogspot.”

it was the platform that I used initially. Blog, a word derived from Web-Log, not my favorite word, but it is too late to change it now. In July 2008 I had concerns about censorship, and switched to “Squarespace,” a commercial platform. Squarespace was itself in its infancy then.

One month later in August 2008 I quit writing, probably one of the dumbest decisions I have ever made. I had a pretty big following and decided to quit while I was ahead. At the time I felt I had nothing left to say. I did come back six-months later in February 2009. I did so because a group of bike enthusiasts, got together, and presented me with a “Tribute” bike. One of my own custom bikes that I had built in 1983.

Many of the people who contributed to this bike were strangers to me, I was deeply touched and had to write about it on my blog by way of a thank you, it brought me back, I had lost my big following and had to start all over again, which is why I admit it was not the smartest I ever did.

Here we are all these years later and I still struggle with what to write about each week, although now I have a huge backlog of articles, and often re-publish an old one. It takes me at least 4 to 6 hours to write a new post such as this, after writing, then editing and re-writing, then the time to post it to the blog platform along with any pictures and links to other articles.

I find I have to be careful what I write about. My last post in which I was trying to inject a little sanity into the craziness that was the recent election. At least it brought out some comments, which show people still read this stuff and I am not just talking to myself.

I read a story about a person who was getting abuse on an online forum. He found the abuser lived in the same town, so he suggested they meet, and he could tell him to his face the things he was saying anonymously online. The reply he got was that the other person was only 13 years old and is parents did not allow him to meet people he contacted online.

I have had some really obnoxious comments in the past, for example simply because I spoke out against Critical Mass. I suggested that blocking rush hour traffic once a month was not bike advocacy. I can accept that these comments are probably coming from juveniles, but at my age I can do without that kind of negative thought coming my way. The result is I stay away from the controversial stuff. It is a form of censorship that makes it harder to find subject matter to write about.

In 2016 I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, my symptoms have actually improved, this is due largely to exercise and diet. Writing here is exercise for my brain. Thinking new thoughts, deciding what to say, causes new connections to form between brain cells. This is essential therapy as Parkinson’s is caused by brain cells dying and my body is no longer producing dopamine.

Also, I cannot allow myself to get stressed out or angry, or my tremors in my right arm get worse. Normally, my Parkinson’s does not stop me doing anything I want to do, I can control it. However, if I am to go another 15 years it will put me at ninety-nine years old. So, people, please be nice, and we will see how long we can keep this party going.

Footnote: I would love to hear from long-time-readers. How long, and what are your favorite posts? 

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“It’s a Free Country.” Says no one anymore

Can we settle down now, the people have spoken with their vote, it is the way democracy works. But let’s not forget that it was the same democracy that put the King on his throne in the first place. I get the feeling that no one took that election all that seriously back in 2016.

Voting can often feel like ordering food at a shitty restaurant with a limited menu. Then when the food comes you go, “Hey, this is not what I ordered.”

In 2016 people said, “Let’s give Trump a chance.” He’s different, and at least he’s not named Bush, or Clinton. And America found out what happens when you elect a TV reality star to be President. You get a reality show that has little to do with reality.

And for the next four years, despite having the entire news media against him, (With the exception of Fox-News.) Every comedian and Late-Night-Talk-Show-Host, constantly ridiculing him, he built a following of people who loved him. No small following either, close to half the Nation. Sadly, this is what has divided this great nation to extremes, with rioting, and even people killing each other.

Enough already, it is time to put the “United’ back into the United States of America. Growing up in England, I am old enough to remember WWII. I did not fully understand it at the time, but I knew enough to know that the war was fought to preserve Freedom.

I was eight years old in 1944, and I clearly remember the American soldiers coming over prior to the Normandy Invasion in June 1944. At the time they seemed like adults to an eight-year-old, I remember how they were always laughing and goofing around, and I later realized this was because they were mostly teen-agers, just barely ten years older than me.

This is what teen-agers do, they laugh and goof around. I also realized years later that they died in their thousands on the beaches of Normandy. They died fighting for my Freedom, so I would not have to. Their faces still haunt me to this day and was probably the reason why I formed and affinity with These United States that lead to my moving here in 1979.

Also, as a kid, I remember whenever someone would question what I was doing, I would reply, “It’s a Free Country.” I never hear anyone say that anymore, which is strange as this is supposedly, “The Land of the Free.”

No one says that anymore because this is no longer a Free Country. Not by Government Decree, but by a divided people. One must pick a side. If a person were to put a Biden poster outside his house in certain parts of the country for example, he would have the signs stolen, or even a rock thrown through his window. By the same rule, a Trump sticker on your car in a certain city in a predominantly liberal state, could result the car being set on fire.

So, I ask, “What was the purpose of all those young Americans dying on the beaches of Normandy in 1944?” So people can fight and kill each other in some un-official civil war? The people have spoken, albeit by a small majority, and if your side lost, suck it up, deal with. There will be another election in 2024.

If your side won, now is not the time to celebrate, because you only just squeaked by with a narrow margin. Now is the time to hold your hand out to your fellow American, agree to disagree, bump elbows   and each move a little towards each other.

I have tried to be impartial here, favoring neither one side or the other, because neither can be all right, or all wrong at the same time. If anyone gives me stick for writing this, it will prove my point. There can be no Freedom while the is intolerance to anther man’s point of view.

I worry for the future for my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, mankind is destroying the planet, (Womankind has little to do with it.) How can we fix this if all we do is fight among each other? I wish everyone would just go outside on a clear night and look into the sky and realize just how insignificant we really are. We are nothing but tiny microbes, sitting on a speck of dust, floating in an infinite space.

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Twenty-seven years on

This past month it has been twenty-seven years since I left the bike business. I cannot remember the exact date in October 1993, but I do remember it was October. I had not planned to retire, and I could have gone on for many more years, but I was forced out of business (Strange as it may seem now.) by the mountain bike.

I had a good run through the 1980s, at the height of my production I had as many as six employees, and together we produced 25-30 frames a month. The employees prepared and fed me materials so I could concentrate on brazing the frames together. My employees also did most of the finish work and I employed a full-time painter.

As long as I could sell around 20 or 25 frames a month, I had a very lucrative little business. But by the late 1980s, early 1990s the mountain bike was becoming more and more popular and as a result sales of road frames were dropping rapidly.

At first there were separate road bike enthusiasts, and mountain bike enthusiasts, and there were separate mountain bike builders catering for the MTB crowd. Over the years these mountain bike builders had each built up a following, which made it tough for someone like me to suddenly switch and break into that market. I did produce a mountain bike, (Picture above.) but honestly, I hated it and my heart was not in it.

I had spent a great deal of time and money attending the Interbike Show every year, and as a result I had built up a nationwide network of bicycle dealers. When these dealers switched from selling road bikes to mountain bikes, I felt betrayed, like someone whose spouse had left for a new love. In hindsight I realize that bike store owners had to do whatever they needed to do to stay in business. It was nothing personal.

Had the Internet been in place as it is today, I may have survived as a one man business, selling direct to the few hard core road bike enthusiasts that remained, but that was not the case. By early 1993 things were so bad, I was down to two employees, Russ Denny, who had been my apprentice since 1985, and another young guy who was my painter.

When I did my taxes in April 1993 my accountant told me, “I have some good news, and some bad news. The good news is, you didn’t make enough in 1992 to pay taxes, the bad news is, last year your employees made more than you did.”

It was obvious that I could not continue in this way, I was ready to liquidate all the equipment and walk away. Russ begged me not to do that, and I felt somewhat obligated because he came to me aged 18, straight out of high school and now at 26 years, framebuilding was the only thing he knew. I allowed Russ and the painter to stay on, unpaid, and they survived by doing freelance work.

By October 1993 I could no longer pay the rent and support myself. I was thoroughly burned out and hated the bike business and anything to do with bikes for that matter. I turned the whole operation over to Russ Denny. As a single young man, he was able to survive by giving up his apartment and sleeping on a mattress in the frame shop. Which I am sure was against all regulations.

I was not prepared to live at that level of poverty. I went on to take a job as a production manager with a company that manufactured bowling equipment, and I actually made some good money for a change.

Looking back, I have no regrets. I have a body of work out there that has survived longer than my entire time in the bike business.  As long as people are interested, I will continue to write here and maintain my bike registry. I can even enjoy riding a bike, something I did not have time for while I was engaged in the bicycle business. Strangely, it was writing here on this blog that rekindled my interest in riding again.

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