Riding out the path on Saturday night through frosty air, between frozen lakes, with a sky full of glittering stars, I kept thinking this would be the time to ride a recumbent. It's not my preference in most cases, but sometimes it would be nice to pedal a lawn chair. Recumbent trikes are particularly suitable for sky gazing because you don't have to worry about balancing.
When the weather is bad, with rain, sleet and wet snow I wouldn't want to lie there, supine, letting it all just pool in my lap. In conditions like that it's nice to lean forward and let it roll off my back. And a little of that is plenty anyway. I'll take it for a short commute. For a long ride, stormy weather would make a velomobile seem like a great idea.
The variations of human powered vehicle are numerous. This might actually discourage some people who want to pick the "best" bike when there is no best bike. Certainly the configuration we've come to recognize as "normal" is the basis for the most versatile form of the machine, but even there we see great diversity for different habits and habitats. Best is often a compromise. How much better it is than worse or worst may be a slim margin in some cases.
For those of us addicted to using the human engine the temptation to acquire a fleet of vehicles is strong. I'll go further and say that it's a guilt-free indulgence compared to a fleet of vehicles that require fossil fuels, spew crap into the atmosphere and have a lengthy death toll associated with them. Indeed, those other vehicles present the biggest obstacle to people who might want to push the limits of their pedal-powered vehicles into winter conditions and darkness. It's bad enough with ample daylight and warm weather.
Motorized vehicles and equipment could have a place in Biketopia, constructing our travel routes and keeping them passable. And of course a well-developed rail network would serve a large network of communities for when quicker travel in spiffier attire was required. But then, humans set the standard for required spiffiness of attire. Maybe we should just get used to seeing each other in more casual clothing better suited to self-transportation.
The human powered vehicle industry could take up where the auto industry leaves off after the transition to healthy and sustainable personal transportation. Imagine Detroit and the Rust Belt coming back as the pedal-powered powerhouse of industrial renaissance. Imagine the road network of the United States devoted mostly to pedalers, with a few token "car lanes" stuck on the sides of some of them. Ha!
I never forget that I have financial advantages that many people in the world do not. I'm relatively poor by American standards, but those standards are pretty warped. If I had to limit myself to one bike I could. I have it all picked out. But I would still make seasonal changes to broaden its capability.
Transportation costs money, even if you're just buying a pair of shoes. The economy adjusts to people's purchasing habits as people's purchasing habits adjust to the economy. If human powered vehicles dominated the transportation mix, they would pick up peripheral expenses from all the entities that make it their business to add peripheral expenses. Governments would require registration. Somehow the insurance industry would manage to get a hook in. Bike parking garages would have a regular fee schedule. All sorts of shady repair facilities would spring up. And the bike industry would continue to add dubious innovations that make repair more complicated and ownership more expensive, just as they are doing now with hydraulics, electronics, shifting systems and exotic materials. In absolute dollar amounts it could never rival the expenses and collateral costs of relying on motor vehicles, but in an adjusted economy the relative expense per person could rise to a comparable level. We could live on less money, but a similar proportion of it would be sucked out of us by the associated economic factors.
Some associated expenses are legitimate. Losing the revenue from motor vehicle registrations and other taxes and fees coughed up by the motoring public, governments would need to make up some of it to maintain the transportation routes formerly dominated by the smoking jalopies of a bygone era. Human-powered vehicles would damage the surface less, but weather still takes its toll. And human-powered travelers would benefit from facilities and amenities not yet constructed, or carried over in a modified form from the motor era. And without a doubt we would see increased enforcement of traffic laws related to human powered vehicles. Ever see those speed limit signs on bike paths? Ever whiz by the 15 mph sign at 20 or more and laugh about it? Now imagine some cop on an e-bike hiding in the bushes just beyond it. Yep. It could happen. It would happen.
Traffic laws could become more enlightened regarding rolling stops at stop signs, but cyclists need regulated intersections as much as motorists do. Imagine the carnage if everyone just blasted into intersections at whatever speed they could manage and tried to intimidate their way through. There would have to be some basic principles and someone would have to act as the referees.
I doubt if we have to worry about it any time soon. But it wouldn't be a bad worry to have. I would love to undertake the challenge of making a mostly human-powered transportation culture work. But it can't be achieved with an unwilling majority. Coercion is tyranny even if the end result appears beneficial. Process is important too. Process is vital. Consensus is indispensable. So that's the first challenge.
Monday, December 09, 2013
Friday, December 06, 2013
Separate but better
I've been stuck in the car this week because of evening meetings and sketchy weather. It reminds me how much I hate being stuck in the car.
On the bike I use the rail trail to get out of town. For the dark season park-and-ride I use about six miles of the trail. Slouching along in the darkness can be a trifle lonely, but the kind of peer pressure you get when you're in a car among other motorists is not company.
The trail route takes me to quiet roads, mostly dirt, to where I park the car. Then the first part of the drive continues on dirt and minor paved roads, limiting my exposure to the people who always stick to the roads with the highest speed limits. You will get the occasional flaming jerk on a back road, but it's a lot easier to pull off and let them blaze on when you're not flying between the guardrails at 60. If I'm on the fast road it's because I need to go fast anyway, like in the morning when I'm invariably late to work.
If I have to drive the whole commute I will use the highway to go home simply to get the unpleasant task of driving finished as quickly as possible. Sometimes I'll divert to a dirt route, but since driving itself is not all that enjoyable I have to balance the peace of the circuitous route with the extra butt time in the driver's seat. I keep wishing I was on the bike.
If tonight's snowstorm stays well south I should salvage one bike commute out of the week. The night meetings are over for another month, except for music on Thursdays. It all comes down to the weather.
Once my park-and-ride gets shut down I have to figure out how to fit a ride into each driving day. With the great lights and studded tires on my path bike I can ride after dark. We'll see how that goes. It's pretty tempting just to go home and drink beer.
On the bike I use the rail trail to get out of town. For the dark season park-and-ride I use about six miles of the trail. Slouching along in the darkness can be a trifle lonely, but the kind of peer pressure you get when you're in a car among other motorists is not company.
The trail route takes me to quiet roads, mostly dirt, to where I park the car. Then the first part of the drive continues on dirt and minor paved roads, limiting my exposure to the people who always stick to the roads with the highest speed limits. You will get the occasional flaming jerk on a back road, but it's a lot easier to pull off and let them blaze on when you're not flying between the guardrails at 60. If I'm on the fast road it's because I need to go fast anyway, like in the morning when I'm invariably late to work.
If I have to drive the whole commute I will use the highway to go home simply to get the unpleasant task of driving finished as quickly as possible. Sometimes I'll divert to a dirt route, but since driving itself is not all that enjoyable I have to balance the peace of the circuitous route with the extra butt time in the driver's seat. I keep wishing I was on the bike.
If tonight's snowstorm stays well south I should salvage one bike commute out of the week. The night meetings are over for another month, except for music on Thursdays. It all comes down to the weather.
Once my park-and-ride gets shut down I have to figure out how to fit a ride into each driving day. With the great lights and studded tires on my path bike I can ride after dark. We'll see how that goes. It's pretty tempting just to go home and drink beer.
Tuesday, December 03, 2013
Dreams deferred
I was going to say my bike had been across the country more times than I had, but that's not true. However, it did make one transcontinental journey unaccompanied. And in its four crossings (two round trips) I was not propelling it. It traveled by airplane, bus and freight truck.
Back in 1979, my best buddy and I were planning our transcon bike tour. The idea was still fairly novel, only three years after Bikecentennial. Prior to 1976, modern bike boomers were already knocking off The Big One, but it was still considered a pretty cool thing.
By the summer of 1979 in Annapolis I was acquiring the bike, some of the parts and saving some money at a menial job that would be easy to leave. My friend, who lived in Alexandria, Virginia, was doing the same. We had found the frames for our bikes in the shop in Alexandria where we would both later work another menial job that would be easy to leave. We set our sights on the following summer.
Late in the fall my buddy developed a sudden, inconvenient interest in higher education. He had busted out of the school system in his early teens to pursue his wide-ranging curiosity in the real world. His temperament did not mesh well with institutions. But now he felt the powerful need to go back and finish up with some institutional credentials.
I had a bachelors degree and had been unimpressed with its performance as an income enhancer but I couldn't talk him out of it.
The girlfriend I stumbled into in January of 1980 was a bike tourist, but she was also still entangled in the university system. The best we could manage was a 700-mile jaunt from San Francisco to Eugene, Oregon in September that year. So my bike flew to the west coast and rode the bus back east from Eugene when we kinda sorta broke up a little. We'd had a good trip, but she needed to get through the rest of college unburdened by a serious relationship. We maintained the fiction of connection, and that led to my bike's second west coast visit in April 1981. I was going to go out for a little early season training and some lovey dovin'. I'd sent the bike by UPS and was about to purchase the ticket when I got The Call, late at night Eastern Standard Time, that our lovey dovin' was over.
"Send my bike when it arrives," I requested. Then I hopped in the tub to shave my legs. I would train on my old bike until the well-traveled Eisentraut returned.
My best buddy, meanwhile, was still battling with the demons of community college. I started planning for a solo trip. Then I developed knee trouble from misaligned cleats I'd been using on my cyclocross-configured spare bike, so there went 1981. I also wanted to save more money, so I got another menial job that would be easy to leave, and looked toward 1982.
Racing had been good training in 1980 for the west coast tour. The 1982 season started out particularly well, since I was feeling suicidally bold. Then I got seriously smashed up in July. There went 1982. And July would have been late to start anyway.
One rational, sensible decision at a time the window closed for youthful quests like a transcon bike tour. To do it right I would want to take no less than two months, preferably closer to three. Why ride it like a record attempt? Take some time, see some stuff. You can't have the fetters of responsible adulthood on you for that.
In the fall of 1980, when my buddy and I were working in that bike shop in Alexandria, a family came in. Mom, Dad and lad had ridden from Oregon all together, taking the kid out of school for the year so they could have an unbeatable family bonding experience. That's one way to take the fetters with you. I forget what they'd done with their home base in Oregon, but they'd made arrangements. However, it took commitment by all of them. And with the best of intentions not everyone can make a commitment like that. Nor should they be scorned for a decision to forgo it.
Best buddy completed his education and started on a career of non-menial jobs he did not want to leave. Or when he did it was for another non-menial job. He married. They reproduced. They divorced. He followed various dreams and adventures, none of them pedal-powered.
A time or two since the early 1980s he has mentioned the transcon. I had one window in the mid 1990s when it could have gone well. I don't recall exactly where he was at the time, but I had no super incentive to chuck everything and go a-wandering by myself. I simply could have, with the right inducement. And then the window slid shut.
So here it is, the waning days of 2013 and best buddy sends me a message saying he's looking at 2014 to do the transcon. I inferred he would welcome my participation, but he did not say it directly. He has occasionally communicated to report things he was enjoying that I was obviously in no position to share, usually because I was hundreds of miles away. But assuming for the sake of argument that he was implicitly recruiting me, it has a piquant irony.
The cellist is a bike tourist, but her job and the commute to reach it preclude a lot of serious training. Also, her release and return dates from school bracket the touring season pretty tightly. So if I went I would be going separately. Do I really want to spend a couple of months away from home during the season she has the most time available? No.
The money. I have enough saved to do the trip in a style that would have been luxurious when I was in my 20s and was going to get on my bike at my doorstep on the east coast, ride to the west coast and probably ride back. When I was in my 20s I was nearly homeless already, although I could avoid seeming like a total vagrant by listing my parents' address as my home of record. I was also not above sleeping in a culvert or a cleft in a cliff. Nowadays I would pass on the culvert, although the cliff cleft is still a viable option. But I own a home, and it needs me when it needs me. As my colleague George -- a world traveler -- pointed out, whatever might be thinking about breaking will do so when you're a thousand miles away. He took his own major journeys when he and his wife were both unencumbered enough to take a motorcycle around Europe for a couple of months and other such getaways.
When you're getting away from it all you have to calculate how much "it all" you have and how far you want to get away from it. It's a whole lot easier when the answer to the first part is "not much" and to the second part is "it doesn't matter."
Initially intrigued by my buddy's idea, when I started putting practical logistics around the mid-trip fantasy scenarios it started getting unacceptably cumbersome.
When riding across the United States was going to be the first of many epic journeys it had practical aspects for all of its blatant impracticality. If I was really going to take wild trips and share them with a reading public, a transcon was a fine launching pad. But bad strategic decisions thwarted the vaguely-visualized plan to be such a traveler, aided in large part by the fact that I'm a wussy sociophobe who would have trouble asking for a tourniquet if I'd just severed an artery. At least I was. My imaginary cojones were always greater than my actual ones, as was my imaginary wit. After receiving a few gory gashes in public places I have learned to speak up quickly when first aid was slow or incompetent. But I still prefer to avoid people for the most part.
Actually, cojonically speaking, I do take risks. I even get back on the horse, so to speak, after a risk doesn't work out. Sometimes it takes longer than others. But it takes a lot to get me to talk to strangers outside of a known context like selling outdoor equipment or explaining myself to the arresting officer. And come to think of it, selling things and getting pulled over can both be uncomfortable contexts.
By the time I was 30 I could have traveled alone, and I've only gotten more comfortable alone since then. But by then it was too late. Or so it seemed, but belief makes it so. Everything has its price. This price needs to be fully calculated, not just approximated. What could possibly go wrong? And how would you feel if it did?
I do not say I'll get to it some day. I do not say I will never get to it. But I don't think 2014 is the year.
Mind you, best buddy has dangled the transcon carrot a time or two in the years since the early 1980s and then tossed away, so I wait to see what transpires anyway. I've been putting together the kit to gear up the Traveler's Check for loaded touring already. I have only to accelerate the process a little. Initially I was going to transfer the multi-gear parts from the Cross Check, but now I think I would only transfer the dynamo front wheel. So the TC needs a front rack, a light set and that's about it. I have a crank, derailleurs and a rear brake and fenders. I need primary brake levers and I wouldn't mind getting a full set of Ortlieb paniers for front and rear. Odds and ends, really. Without the lights I could get it into a rideable configuration now. I might even have primary brake levers kicking around the bins somewhere.
I don't plan to go nowhere. I just don't know where.
Back in 1979, my best buddy and I were planning our transcon bike tour. The idea was still fairly novel, only three years after Bikecentennial. Prior to 1976, modern bike boomers were already knocking off The Big One, but it was still considered a pretty cool thing.
By the summer of 1979 in Annapolis I was acquiring the bike, some of the parts and saving some money at a menial job that would be easy to leave. My friend, who lived in Alexandria, Virginia, was doing the same. We had found the frames for our bikes in the shop in Alexandria where we would both later work another menial job that would be easy to leave. We set our sights on the following summer.
Late in the fall my buddy developed a sudden, inconvenient interest in higher education. He had busted out of the school system in his early teens to pursue his wide-ranging curiosity in the real world. His temperament did not mesh well with institutions. But now he felt the powerful need to go back and finish up with some institutional credentials.
I had a bachelors degree and had been unimpressed with its performance as an income enhancer but I couldn't talk him out of it.
The girlfriend I stumbled into in January of 1980 was a bike tourist, but she was also still entangled in the university system. The best we could manage was a 700-mile jaunt from San Francisco to Eugene, Oregon in September that year. So my bike flew to the west coast and rode the bus back east from Eugene when we kinda sorta broke up a little. We'd had a good trip, but she needed to get through the rest of college unburdened by a serious relationship. We maintained the fiction of connection, and that led to my bike's second west coast visit in April 1981. I was going to go out for a little early season training and some lovey dovin'. I'd sent the bike by UPS and was about to purchase the ticket when I got The Call, late at night Eastern Standard Time, that our lovey dovin' was over.
"Send my bike when it arrives," I requested. Then I hopped in the tub to shave my legs. I would train on my old bike until the well-traveled Eisentraut returned.
My best buddy, meanwhile, was still battling with the demons of community college. I started planning for a solo trip. Then I developed knee trouble from misaligned cleats I'd been using on my cyclocross-configured spare bike, so there went 1981. I also wanted to save more money, so I got another menial job that would be easy to leave, and looked toward 1982.
Racing had been good training in 1980 for the west coast tour. The 1982 season started out particularly well, since I was feeling suicidally bold. Then I got seriously smashed up in July. There went 1982. And July would have been late to start anyway.
One rational, sensible decision at a time the window closed for youthful quests like a transcon bike tour. To do it right I would want to take no less than two months, preferably closer to three. Why ride it like a record attempt? Take some time, see some stuff. You can't have the fetters of responsible adulthood on you for that.
In the fall of 1980, when my buddy and I were working in that bike shop in Alexandria, a family came in. Mom, Dad and lad had ridden from Oregon all together, taking the kid out of school for the year so they could have an unbeatable family bonding experience. That's one way to take the fetters with you. I forget what they'd done with their home base in Oregon, but they'd made arrangements. However, it took commitment by all of them. And with the best of intentions not everyone can make a commitment like that. Nor should they be scorned for a decision to forgo it.
Best buddy completed his education and started on a career of non-menial jobs he did not want to leave. Or when he did it was for another non-menial job. He married. They reproduced. They divorced. He followed various dreams and adventures, none of them pedal-powered.
A time or two since the early 1980s he has mentioned the transcon. I had one window in the mid 1990s when it could have gone well. I don't recall exactly where he was at the time, but I had no super incentive to chuck everything and go a-wandering by myself. I simply could have, with the right inducement. And then the window slid shut.
So here it is, the waning days of 2013 and best buddy sends me a message saying he's looking at 2014 to do the transcon. I inferred he would welcome my participation, but he did not say it directly. He has occasionally communicated to report things he was enjoying that I was obviously in no position to share, usually because I was hundreds of miles away. But assuming for the sake of argument that he was implicitly recruiting me, it has a piquant irony.
The cellist is a bike tourist, but her job and the commute to reach it preclude a lot of serious training. Also, her release and return dates from school bracket the touring season pretty tightly. So if I went I would be going separately. Do I really want to spend a couple of months away from home during the season she has the most time available? No.
The money. I have enough saved to do the trip in a style that would have been luxurious when I was in my 20s and was going to get on my bike at my doorstep on the east coast, ride to the west coast and probably ride back. When I was in my 20s I was nearly homeless already, although I could avoid seeming like a total vagrant by listing my parents' address as my home of record. I was also not above sleeping in a culvert or a cleft in a cliff. Nowadays I would pass on the culvert, although the cliff cleft is still a viable option. But I own a home, and it needs me when it needs me. As my colleague George -- a world traveler -- pointed out, whatever might be thinking about breaking will do so when you're a thousand miles away. He took his own major journeys when he and his wife were both unencumbered enough to take a motorcycle around Europe for a couple of months and other such getaways.
When you're getting away from it all you have to calculate how much "it all" you have and how far you want to get away from it. It's a whole lot easier when the answer to the first part is "not much" and to the second part is "it doesn't matter."
Initially intrigued by my buddy's idea, when I started putting practical logistics around the mid-trip fantasy scenarios it started getting unacceptably cumbersome.
When riding across the United States was going to be the first of many epic journeys it had practical aspects for all of its blatant impracticality. If I was really going to take wild trips and share them with a reading public, a transcon was a fine launching pad. But bad strategic decisions thwarted the vaguely-visualized plan to be such a traveler, aided in large part by the fact that I'm a wussy sociophobe who would have trouble asking for a tourniquet if I'd just severed an artery. At least I was. My imaginary cojones were always greater than my actual ones, as was my imaginary wit. After receiving a few gory gashes in public places I have learned to speak up quickly when first aid was slow or incompetent. But I still prefer to avoid people for the most part.
Actually, cojonically speaking, I do take risks. I even get back on the horse, so to speak, after a risk doesn't work out. Sometimes it takes longer than others. But it takes a lot to get me to talk to strangers outside of a known context like selling outdoor equipment or explaining myself to the arresting officer. And come to think of it, selling things and getting pulled over can both be uncomfortable contexts.
By the time I was 30 I could have traveled alone, and I've only gotten more comfortable alone since then. But by then it was too late. Or so it seemed, but belief makes it so. Everything has its price. This price needs to be fully calculated, not just approximated. What could possibly go wrong? And how would you feel if it did?
I do not say I'll get to it some day. I do not say I will never get to it. But I don't think 2014 is the year.
Mind you, best buddy has dangled the transcon carrot a time or two in the years since the early 1980s and then tossed away, so I wait to see what transpires anyway. I've been putting together the kit to gear up the Traveler's Check for loaded touring already. I have only to accelerate the process a little. Initially I was going to transfer the multi-gear parts from the Cross Check, but now I think I would only transfer the dynamo front wheel. So the TC needs a front rack, a light set and that's about it. I have a crank, derailleurs and a rear brake and fenders. I need primary brake levers and I wouldn't mind getting a full set of Ortlieb paniers for front and rear. Odds and ends, really. Without the lights I could get it into a rideable configuration now. I might even have primary brake levers kicking around the bins somewhere.
I don't plan to go nowhere. I just don't know where.
Friday, November 29, 2013
I don't really think of myself as a stud
Back around 1990-91 we had a winter with early ice and late snow. Even though we would all prefer to go cross-country skiing, we studded up our mountain bike tires and had a few laughs on the frozen lakes and trails. It was fun, but I felt it was more of a novelty than a policy. I sold my studded tires to an ice boater who would stake his DN out in the bay and ride ashore on his bike.
Now it's 2013. Winter has become unreliable. After four winters without consistent exercise I'm going to try dashing out for a nooner on the mountain bike with studded tires rather than cling to any illusion that I might ski.
On the bike I'll be getting a workout right from the shop door. I can buzz over to the rail trail for a quick one even if the snowmobiles have packed it to concrete.
I lose my park and ride parking place as soon as my friend's driveway needs to be plowed. They don't clear the non essential spaces. And the town lets all the other potential spots fill in, too. So I would be driving to work as usual in ski season. I would just be giving up the skiing in favor of something easier to arrange.
I still have a few commutes left, and maybe more than a few. Then when the snow closes in I can mount the toothy tires for my midday escapes.
Speaking of winter, on the path last week, on a morning that seemed cold at the time, on my way in I met two riders outbound with sled dogs towing their bikes. I'd seen other training rigs on the path, but this was the first time I had seen the mushers using mountain bikes. And it occurred to me that here was a much cooler pedal assist than an electric motor. Talk about renewable energy. Sled dogs love to run. A couple of dogs with nice personalities might even increase the cyclist's appeal to other road users.
I did wonder what it was like to be dragged into a rail crossing by a couple of boisterous dogs. I didn't get to see that maneuver.
Now it's 2013. Winter has become unreliable. After four winters without consistent exercise I'm going to try dashing out for a nooner on the mountain bike with studded tires rather than cling to any illusion that I might ski.
On the bike I'll be getting a workout right from the shop door. I can buzz over to the rail trail for a quick one even if the snowmobiles have packed it to concrete.
I lose my park and ride parking place as soon as my friend's driveway needs to be plowed. They don't clear the non essential spaces. And the town lets all the other potential spots fill in, too. So I would be driving to work as usual in ski season. I would just be giving up the skiing in favor of something easier to arrange.
I still have a few commutes left, and maybe more than a few. Then when the snow closes in I can mount the toothy tires for my midday escapes.
Speaking of winter, on the path last week, on a morning that seemed cold at the time, on my way in I met two riders outbound with sled dogs towing their bikes. I'd seen other training rigs on the path, but this was the first time I had seen the mushers using mountain bikes. And it occurred to me that here was a much cooler pedal assist than an electric motor. Talk about renewable energy. Sled dogs love to run. A couple of dogs with nice personalities might even increase the cyclist's appeal to other road users.
I did wonder what it was like to be dragged into a rail crossing by a couple of boisterous dogs. I didn't get to see that maneuver.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Beyond statistics
A comment on this thread at People for Bikes stated that overtaking motorists strike cyclists in only about 10 percent of recorded collisions. The debate was about protected bike lanes. Should they be called that? Are they really protected? Are they really desirable? Every rider has an opinion.
Statistics provide no comfort on a real street. Overtaking crashes may be rare, but harsh and threatening expressions of opinion from overtaking motorists are all too common. They may be verbal or nonverbal. Nonverbal threats other than the car horn include close passing, extended objects, thrown objects, even car doors opened on moving vehicles, depending on local fashion. Also, seeing a motorist make a dangerous pass, crossing into oncoming traffic because they didn't want to wait, is an additional source of stress. Even a veteran traffic-herder loses control of the mob from time to time.
The worst case scenario in any human interaction is simply a bloodbath. We've proven time and again how bad we can get. So you can only plan for an expected statistical average of bad behavior and operator error. You hope you're somewhere else the day the dookie really hits the propeller. For many riders and potential riders that "somewhere else" is a path or lane designated as their sanctuary.
I can't find the other thought-provoking comment I read on a cycling site in which the commenter stated that bicyclists "aren't taken seriously" as part of the traffic mix. This was cited as a reason infractions against cyclists are not prosecuted vigorously in most cases, if they're prosecuted at all.
The debate over what to call a protected bike lane and the lack of support from law enforcement both stem from the vague legal status of bicycle riders. And that stems from the fact that people can start riding bikes shortly after they're old enough to walk and continue to do so until they are old and feeble.
I was riding my bicycle on the streets, transporting myself to school and friends' houses, from about age 7. I rode with the traffic flow. Within a few years I learned how to make the proper hand signals, although some of them felt dorky to me. But because the bike could go places cars couldn't I felt fully justified in riding through those spaces as well. Sometimes it included the sidewalk, though I never felt right there. And riding the wrong way on a one-way street just felt like asking for trouble. But cutting through a field, a park, a yard or parking lot, or riding down a path or alley just made sense. And it didn't just make sense to me. Adults did not usually raise a fuss unless they saw child riders too close to dangerous equipment or in areas posted as hazardous. Good thing no one saw me the day I discovered I could fit underneath the tractor-trailer parked behind the IGA in Thomaston, Maine.
Moving forward to the surge of bicycling in the 1970s, the Baby Boomers brought their youthful habits into their teens and early twenties. We rode across school and college campuses, down streets and alleys much as we did in grade school. Even though awareness was growing of the bicycle's potential for adventure travel and competitive recreation, the majority of riders just rode.
As the Baby Boom set precedents in everything else, so it was with traffic cycling. It had been a long time since that many people wanted to ride bikes as adults on the public rights of way in this country. It might even have been since the 19th Century, when bicyclists got the hoop rolling to have more roads paved to a decent standard at all.
In Europe and Great Britain bicycles had persisted as transportation. For a long time they were naturally incorporated into the heterogeneous flow. The devastation of the Second World War probably helped keep the bicycle a viable option because for many in the aftermath it was considered a step up even to have that. The United States, its prosperity virtually unchecked by the war, hit the gas and rolled onto highways increasingly tailored to motor vehicle needs.
Bicycling was what children did until they could get a license and a car. So the progression of Baby Boomer bicyclists from schoolkids to young adult cycle tourists, commuters and racers did not figure in transportation planning any more than long hair and bell bottoms did. I'm sure a lot of transportation authorities hoped it was all just a phase, like rebellion and pot smoking and that awful music. No need to plan for the future of something that has no future. Just wait for it to go away.
In other words, bicyclists weren't taken seriously. That has been the basis of bike-related policy ever since. Sure, things are changing now, but from a mindset that views the adult cyclist as frivolous, voluntarily choosing a more vulnerable, less practical (in their view) mode of transportation. Even the tourist and racer must figure into the transportation mix just as much as the motorhome, the boat trailer, the motorcycle and any other vehicle whose trip is not directly related to earning income or moving products.
What sets the cyclist apart from the other non-essential road users is the neglect under which we operate. Crackdowns by law enforcement on illegal and dangerous cycling behavior are rare enough to draw the attention of bloggers and cycling journalists. They are often motivated by retribution for large numbers of complaints lodged by motorists, alleging multiple infractions by the annoying pedalers, rather than by any institutional desire to see cycling go better for both cyclists and non-cyclists alike. The rest of the time a rider can do practically anything in front of law enforcement and barely elicit a yawn. We're just not worth the trouble. We're not serious.
Riders operate in such a gray area even their supporters don't know what to call it. Bike lane? Bike path? Cycle track? Separated? Protected? Protected how? And what do we do at intersections?
As a rural cyclist I see all the attention lavished on urban and suburban areas and wonder what anyone will do about us hicks in the sticks. Do you know how many lane miles of shoulderless, hilly, curvy, narrow roads there are in this country? They're all some of us have. Having seen the behavior of some drivers "from away" when they encounter a local rider, and dealt with the indigenous rednecks who cherish and refine their predatory instincts and have no patience with some idiot who chooses to wobble along on some bicycle, I wonder how much thought (and expense) anyone will have left to clean up our gray area after making the cities and towns safe for the short-haul riders.
Statistics provide no comfort on a real street. Overtaking crashes may be rare, but harsh and threatening expressions of opinion from overtaking motorists are all too common. They may be verbal or nonverbal. Nonverbal threats other than the car horn include close passing, extended objects, thrown objects, even car doors opened on moving vehicles, depending on local fashion. Also, seeing a motorist make a dangerous pass, crossing into oncoming traffic because they didn't want to wait, is an additional source of stress. Even a veteran traffic-herder loses control of the mob from time to time.
The worst case scenario in any human interaction is simply a bloodbath. We've proven time and again how bad we can get. So you can only plan for an expected statistical average of bad behavior and operator error. You hope you're somewhere else the day the dookie really hits the propeller. For many riders and potential riders that "somewhere else" is a path or lane designated as their sanctuary.
I can't find the other thought-provoking comment I read on a cycling site in which the commenter stated that bicyclists "aren't taken seriously" as part of the traffic mix. This was cited as a reason infractions against cyclists are not prosecuted vigorously in most cases, if they're prosecuted at all.
The debate over what to call a protected bike lane and the lack of support from law enforcement both stem from the vague legal status of bicycle riders. And that stems from the fact that people can start riding bikes shortly after they're old enough to walk and continue to do so until they are old and feeble.
I was riding my bicycle on the streets, transporting myself to school and friends' houses, from about age 7. I rode with the traffic flow. Within a few years I learned how to make the proper hand signals, although some of them felt dorky to me. But because the bike could go places cars couldn't I felt fully justified in riding through those spaces as well. Sometimes it included the sidewalk, though I never felt right there. And riding the wrong way on a one-way street just felt like asking for trouble. But cutting through a field, a park, a yard or parking lot, or riding down a path or alley just made sense. And it didn't just make sense to me. Adults did not usually raise a fuss unless they saw child riders too close to dangerous equipment or in areas posted as hazardous. Good thing no one saw me the day I discovered I could fit underneath the tractor-trailer parked behind the IGA in Thomaston, Maine.
Moving forward to the surge of bicycling in the 1970s, the Baby Boomers brought their youthful habits into their teens and early twenties. We rode across school and college campuses, down streets and alleys much as we did in grade school. Even though awareness was growing of the bicycle's potential for adventure travel and competitive recreation, the majority of riders just rode.
As the Baby Boom set precedents in everything else, so it was with traffic cycling. It had been a long time since that many people wanted to ride bikes as adults on the public rights of way in this country. It might even have been since the 19th Century, when bicyclists got the hoop rolling to have more roads paved to a decent standard at all.
In Europe and Great Britain bicycles had persisted as transportation. For a long time they were naturally incorporated into the heterogeneous flow. The devastation of the Second World War probably helped keep the bicycle a viable option because for many in the aftermath it was considered a step up even to have that. The United States, its prosperity virtually unchecked by the war, hit the gas and rolled onto highways increasingly tailored to motor vehicle needs.
Bicycling was what children did until they could get a license and a car. So the progression of Baby Boomer bicyclists from schoolkids to young adult cycle tourists, commuters and racers did not figure in transportation planning any more than long hair and bell bottoms did. I'm sure a lot of transportation authorities hoped it was all just a phase, like rebellion and pot smoking and that awful music. No need to plan for the future of something that has no future. Just wait for it to go away.
In other words, bicyclists weren't taken seriously. That has been the basis of bike-related policy ever since. Sure, things are changing now, but from a mindset that views the adult cyclist as frivolous, voluntarily choosing a more vulnerable, less practical (in their view) mode of transportation. Even the tourist and racer must figure into the transportation mix just as much as the motorhome, the boat trailer, the motorcycle and any other vehicle whose trip is not directly related to earning income or moving products.
What sets the cyclist apart from the other non-essential road users is the neglect under which we operate. Crackdowns by law enforcement on illegal and dangerous cycling behavior are rare enough to draw the attention of bloggers and cycling journalists. They are often motivated by retribution for large numbers of complaints lodged by motorists, alleging multiple infractions by the annoying pedalers, rather than by any institutional desire to see cycling go better for both cyclists and non-cyclists alike. The rest of the time a rider can do practically anything in front of law enforcement and barely elicit a yawn. We're just not worth the trouble. We're not serious.
Riders operate in such a gray area even their supporters don't know what to call it. Bike lane? Bike path? Cycle track? Separated? Protected? Protected how? And what do we do at intersections?
As a rural cyclist I see all the attention lavished on urban and suburban areas and wonder what anyone will do about us hicks in the sticks. Do you know how many lane miles of shoulderless, hilly, curvy, narrow roads there are in this country? They're all some of us have. Having seen the behavior of some drivers "from away" when they encounter a local rider, and dealt with the indigenous rednecks who cherish and refine their predatory instincts and have no patience with some idiot who chooses to wobble along on some bicycle, I wonder how much thought (and expense) anyone will have left to clean up our gray area after making the cities and towns safe for the short-haul riders.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
A little laughter, a few moments of terror...
Actually, the terror was a couple of days before the laugh.
On Wednesday I rode the park and ride commute on the Cotton Valley Trail for the first time in a week. A digestive complaint had kept me from eating or sleeping well for several days, so I ventured back out cautiously. The morning ride put me in a good mood for the day. I looked forward to the return trip in the dark.
Still unable to pound down my normal quantities of food and not entirely sure I was completely clear of the intestinal ninjas that had been ambushing me, I rode conservatively, but some sections encourage a little friskiness. There's one bit where the trail crosses a road, goes a few yards level, then hops up and over a small knoll. Coming down the back side of the knoll I always enjoy the acceleration and the way the generator light burns bright white.
The path runs outside the tracks here. Outbound, the tracks are to the left. Just across them are a couple of houses on wooded lots. I could see lights inside and out on the house that sits closer to the tracks. I heard barking.
No big deal. I hear barking from houses along the trail all the time. This time, the barking went from a questioning woof to deep, aggressive, rapid barking. Crashing sounds in the undergrowth indicated that a large dog was charging me from the blackness to my left.
"Hey, dog," I said in a loud but friendly tone. Then "Hey! HEY! HEYYYYYY!!! GET YER DOG!"
As I bellowed for the dog's owner I was sprinting forward. Outside the light from my headlight all was blackness. Even with a good helmet light anything outside its beam would be in black shadow. I couldn't waste time or attention trying to see the beast that was thrashing after me. All I could do was crank as hard as I could and hope the stupid dog didn't crash into me or chomp down on any part it could grab.
In several years of incorporating that section of path into commutes in all seasons I have never had a problem there. Yesterday and today's rides followed the placid pattern I had come to expect. But now I have to be a little more alert in case the mysterious hound returns.
One day on, one day off: On Thursday I drove to work because that's the day I pay a musician to be my friend. I don't have time to do the bike commute in any of its forms and still get to the string band's meeting place on time.
Yesterday the weather was showery. The morning sleet almost convinced me to skip the ride, but I went for it instead. The dirt road and path were still frozen from the previous cold weather. On the evening ride the top layer had thawed, so it was like riding on flypaper. The tires didn't sink into glop but they stuck stuck stuck, demanding a full grunt from every pedal stroke. It was a real thigh burner.
And so we come to this morning. Things had frozen up again. My digestive system was still behaving itself. I was doing okay on time. The sun was out. Great.
As I started down from my parking point I did not seem to be getting as mush speed out of the descent as I usually do. Maybe the road was still a little fly papery. Maybe my first cup of coffee in four or five days was making me tach up a little. I kept pushing, down and down until I got to the path.
Maybe my seat was too low. It felt a little low. It had felt a little high when I started using the mountain bike commuter this fall. Maybe I raised it last winter when I started wearing the Snow Sneakers and needed to raise it again now that I had gone back to them. I pulled one foot out of the toestrap so I could put my heel on the pedal to check leg extension. It seemed okay.
As I brought my foot back around to slip into the toeclip again I heard a weird metallic click as my shoe caught on something projecting from the bike. I discovered that one brake spring had popped out from my rear brake, probably from shoving the bike in the car and dragging it out again in a bit of a rush. A brake pad had been rubbing the rim since I started.
Wow, was I fast after that! At least until I hit the blasting headwind on the causeways where the path goes along the lakes. But headwinds in the morning are often tailwinds on the way home. And so it was.
The evening commute gained a whole lot of atmosphere when a thick snow squall moved in as I was starting from the shop. It was a snow shower at first, steady but light. It thickened after I got out of the downtown area and headed into the darkness. But that wind was behind me. The snowflakes flared in the headlight beam. Occasional big ones in just the right spot flashed brilliantly for an instant. The cone of floodlit snow streamed toward me as the dusting whitened the path. A wild evening.
On Wednesday I rode the park and ride commute on the Cotton Valley Trail for the first time in a week. A digestive complaint had kept me from eating or sleeping well for several days, so I ventured back out cautiously. The morning ride put me in a good mood for the day. I looked forward to the return trip in the dark.
Still unable to pound down my normal quantities of food and not entirely sure I was completely clear of the intestinal ninjas that had been ambushing me, I rode conservatively, but some sections encourage a little friskiness. There's one bit where the trail crosses a road, goes a few yards level, then hops up and over a small knoll. Coming down the back side of the knoll I always enjoy the acceleration and the way the generator light burns bright white.
The path runs outside the tracks here. Outbound, the tracks are to the left. Just across them are a couple of houses on wooded lots. I could see lights inside and out on the house that sits closer to the tracks. I heard barking.
No big deal. I hear barking from houses along the trail all the time. This time, the barking went from a questioning woof to deep, aggressive, rapid barking. Crashing sounds in the undergrowth indicated that a large dog was charging me from the blackness to my left.
"Hey, dog," I said in a loud but friendly tone. Then "Hey! HEY! HEYYYYYY!!! GET YER DOG!"
As I bellowed for the dog's owner I was sprinting forward. Outside the light from my headlight all was blackness. Even with a good helmet light anything outside its beam would be in black shadow. I couldn't waste time or attention trying to see the beast that was thrashing after me. All I could do was crank as hard as I could and hope the stupid dog didn't crash into me or chomp down on any part it could grab.
In several years of incorporating that section of path into commutes in all seasons I have never had a problem there. Yesterday and today's rides followed the placid pattern I had come to expect. But now I have to be a little more alert in case the mysterious hound returns.
One day on, one day off: On Thursday I drove to work because that's the day I pay a musician to be my friend. I don't have time to do the bike commute in any of its forms and still get to the string band's meeting place on time.
Yesterday the weather was showery. The morning sleet almost convinced me to skip the ride, but I went for it instead. The dirt road and path were still frozen from the previous cold weather. On the evening ride the top layer had thawed, so it was like riding on flypaper. The tires didn't sink into glop but they stuck stuck stuck, demanding a full grunt from every pedal stroke. It was a real thigh burner.
And so we come to this morning. Things had frozen up again. My digestive system was still behaving itself. I was doing okay on time. The sun was out. Great.
As I started down from my parking point I did not seem to be getting as mush speed out of the descent as I usually do. Maybe the road was still a little fly papery. Maybe my first cup of coffee in four or five days was making me tach up a little. I kept pushing, down and down until I got to the path.
Maybe my seat was too low. It felt a little low. It had felt a little high when I started using the mountain bike commuter this fall. Maybe I raised it last winter when I started wearing the Snow Sneakers and needed to raise it again now that I had gone back to them. I pulled one foot out of the toestrap so I could put my heel on the pedal to check leg extension. It seemed okay.
As I brought my foot back around to slip into the toeclip again I heard a weird metallic click as my shoe caught on something projecting from the bike. I discovered that one brake spring had popped out from my rear brake, probably from shoving the bike in the car and dragging it out again in a bit of a rush. A brake pad had been rubbing the rim since I started.
Wow, was I fast after that! At least until I hit the blasting headwind on the causeways where the path goes along the lakes. But headwinds in the morning are often tailwinds on the way home. And so it was.
The evening commute gained a whole lot of atmosphere when a thick snow squall moved in as I was starting from the shop. It was a snow shower at first, steady but light. It thickened after I got out of the downtown area and headed into the darkness. But that wind was behind me. The snowflakes flared in the headlight beam. Occasional big ones in just the right spot flashed brilliantly for an instant. The cone of floodlit snow streamed toward me as the dusting whitened the path. A wild evening.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Impossible perfection
Do people really learn from their mistakes? Do they avoid making the same one more than once?
It depends entirely on how much fun they had making them the first time.
I quit making mistakes I enjoyed enough to repeat more than 30 years ago. Now I really try to use them to keep from stepping in the same pile again.
Unfortunately, in the service business a customer will run into people who either don't or can't avoid the pile. Some businesses posing as service providers even make the pile so they can clean it up. So mistakes can create bad impressions in suspicious minds. All you can do is work tighter and tighter -- while remaining coolly relaxed, of course.
At a time of year when business is slow anyway, which happens to coincide with a time when The Business already has been crawling on its bloody knees from day to day, you notice the ones who used to come around who gave up after that one screwup. Forget the complete refund they got, still bleeding red ink onto the company ledgers. Forget that there was no attempt to evade or deny. I am now branded as incompetent.
A shop's business is only as good as its credibility. How many customers disappear because one rider had a problem and blackballed us to the whole club? How many people decide we acted out of incorrigible dishonesty or ineptitude?
I don't always radiate a lot of warmth. I'll admit that. Maybe that's the mistake I like to make too much to avoid repeating. But I guarantee I will make every effort to avoid screwing up the work I do for customers and friends depending on me. And whenever I fail, rest assured that it will bug me forever. I wish that kept me from making new mistakes, but that's just the dang human condition.
It depends entirely on how much fun they had making them the first time.
I quit making mistakes I enjoyed enough to repeat more than 30 years ago. Now I really try to use them to keep from stepping in the same pile again.
Unfortunately, in the service business a customer will run into people who either don't or can't avoid the pile. Some businesses posing as service providers even make the pile so they can clean it up. So mistakes can create bad impressions in suspicious minds. All you can do is work tighter and tighter -- while remaining coolly relaxed, of course.
At a time of year when business is slow anyway, which happens to coincide with a time when The Business already has been crawling on its bloody knees from day to day, you notice the ones who used to come around who gave up after that one screwup. Forget the complete refund they got, still bleeding red ink onto the company ledgers. Forget that there was no attempt to evade or deny. I am now branded as incompetent.
A shop's business is only as good as its credibility. How many customers disappear because one rider had a problem and blackballed us to the whole club? How many people decide we acted out of incorrigible dishonesty or ineptitude?
I don't always radiate a lot of warmth. I'll admit that. Maybe that's the mistake I like to make too much to avoid repeating. But I guarantee I will make every effort to avoid screwing up the work I do for customers and friends depending on me. And whenever I fail, rest assured that it will bug me forever. I wish that kept me from making new mistakes, but that's just the dang human condition.
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