Motors and mass: ebikes make crashing more expensive

 With ebikes rapidly becoming the vehicle of choice for workers who can't afford a car, these heavier, faster bikes attract riders who still think of them as just bikes: simple, unbounded by many rules, and relatively cheap. The bikes cost more up front, but the purchase price and the price of electricity are the big expenses. This isn't true, especially if you need someone else to work on it for you, but it's a popular perception of bikes in general.

Ebike riders ride them like they ride any bike. Some riders are more vehicular about it than others. Interacting with traffic, some ride at the edge of the lane. Some try to ride on the sidewalk when they can get away with it. Some take the lane and operate like a motorist.

The riders who stay to the right (in the US) expose themselves to the dangers of the Death Slot, stuck against the curb, the ditch, or a line of parked cars. On a pedal bike it's bad enough, but on an ebike the danger is magnified by the mass and speed of the bike.

A rider dragged the carcass of their massive ebike to us last week after a crash that destroyed the front wheel, damaged the fork, and dislodged the left crank arm. The bike has two-wheel drive: hub motors in both wheels. It has fat, 26-inch tires. It's from a company with a strange name written in a nearly undecipherable font.

We heard from the motorist who hit the bike, who described the accident in a way that minimized the motorist's responsibility. We heard from the rider, who described the accident as a pretty typical right hook by the driver. The motorist said that they would pay for repairs "out of the goodness of our hearts, even though the accident wasn't our fault." I didn't say what I was thinking right then, but I did not believe that they were blameless. However, the rider made a serious error at the time: They did not file a formal accident report. The rider and the driver just came to an oral agreement at the scene, when neither of them knew the full extent of the damage and potential costs.

Because so many little companies have jumped into the ebike market, there are dozens of brands with weird names, pumping out superficially similar products with sketchy customer support. Customer support is pretty shabby even from major brands in the bike industry. It's even worse from cheap ebike brands.

That ought to true right out, don't you think?

In addition to the obviously ruined rim, the brake tabs on the fork leg are bent, and so is the brake rotor. The more I looked at the bike, the more things I found. Unfortunately, I can't be sure how much is crash damage and what was simply poor quality control at the cheap ebike factory. For instance, the rear wheel seems to sit closer to the chainstays on the impact side, indicating that the frame got bent as well as the wheel and fork, but I never saw the bike before the crash. The wheel could have been that way to start.

The bike weighs about 80 pounds, so I can't exactly sling it around. With the front wheel smashed like that, I can't wheel it around, either.

As the potential cost of repairs mounted, it fell short of the supposed $900 price of the new bike, but still looked to surpass $400, maybe even $500, with shipping and labor. The driver will likely balk at that amount unless they're either super benevolent or secretly acknowledge that they're at fault. We as a shop don't want to take it on, because we've already gone through a couple of long, expensive slogs this season. Barely breaking even is a bad business model. I feel really bad, because the rider is a worker once again getting screwed by someone else's carelessness, but they did contribute some negligence by riding in the Death Slot. I recall my chess match with an insurance adjuster when I had a serious encounter with a motor vehicle years ago. We negotiated a settlement because I needed money and was willing to barter a little, but I only had the leverage I did because police came and everyone filed a formal report. I had 'em by the insurance, and by the officer's report that the occupants of the car were fundamentally at fault.

As I researched repair options, I also found companies that offer bike insurance, particularly ebike insurance. This rider got a lot of bike for their $900, but this accident may have wiped it all out. They have no safety net. If they can't get the bike fixed for an amount that the motorists will cover, they lost their shot to apply legal leverage because they didn't get a police report to create an official narrative. They're left with a pile of scrap metal that a single human can barely drag around.

So: if you have an ebike, especially if you use it for transportation, insure it. Otherwise, be prepared to lose everything, because drivers will always have the better story. If you ride any kind of bike in traffic, obey the rules as much as possible, so that you have a solid basis if you do get hit. Avoid the Death Slot. I ride to the far right a lot on stretches where I get along better if I let traffic flow past me, but in town I stay out of it. Especially with a powerful ebike, get out there and claim space. Otherwise, crap like this happens.

If you have an insurance company, you have a corporate entity with accountants and lawyers who will be looking for ways to take that money out of your antagonist. Granted, they'll take it out of you as well, if they have to. But at least you have a contract with someone who is supposedly on your side. Your ebike is much more of a vehicle than a pedal bike, even if it costs far less than a top of the line pedal bike. With power comes responsibility and expense.

What seems dangerous

 An 80-year-old woman driving a small SUV was obliterated by a drunk driver in a dump truck on Route 28 a couple of weeks ago. She was southbound. The truck driver was northbound. He crossed the centerline.

The skid marks, crumpled guard rail, and churned-up road shoulder gave mute witness to the horror that had unfolded in a few long seconds. The dump truck careened on its way to overturning, leaving broad, curved swaths of black. The SUV left straighter, fainter marks. The road had been closed for about six hours, but had reopened in time for me to ride through on my way home. Few but the investigators had seen the crash site at that point.

Over the ensuing days, the investigation continued, leaving more and more marks. There's a countdown to impact from each direction, and a mark where the vehicles collided. Cryptic notations on the pavement. Motorists seemed subdued for a day or two. It's hard to be impressed for long, when your own flow and schedule dominate your continuing life.

As a cyclist, I'm not only aware of my exposure to danger, I'm reminded of it regularly by people who remark on my own persistence as a road rider or tell me about how they decided to give it up. It's true: bicyclists don't have fender benders. If we get tagged, it leaves a mark, at the very least.

(Cartoon from 1984)

In your motor vehicle, you are not only required to stay out there in the lane and maintain speed, you have few options for a quick escape. Peer pressure generally enforces faster travel than the speed limit, although dedicated road blockers will ooze along. Even at annoyingly slow motorized speeds, the vehicles they're in have considerable mass and limited maneuverability. Most of the time, traffic rips along at the posted limit or higher. On a two-lane highway, you can easily race toward each other at 120 miles per hour. A motorcyclist might combine skill and luck to shoot a gap to survival, but skill is vital and luck is indispensable. A regular car, SUV, or light truck is just stuck there. If the antagonist is a dump truck, you know how it's going to end. In the recent crash on 28, the dump truck driver survived with minor enough injuries that he was able to go straight to jail. He laid the truck down and dumped its load, but got no more than banged up.

One message is clear: If you bought a large vehicle because you wanted greater crash safety, it better have been a dump truck.

As common as highway fatalities are, millions more people complete their trips each day than die or are injured in the attempt. It's not because all of those millions of drivers have perfect safety habits. It's because they get away with their foolish risks. If nothing goes wrong, was it really dangerous? 

A few nights ago, I heard a motorcycle blaze past my house at a speed that guaranteed that the rider's body would haunt the first responders for the rest of their lives. At that kind of speed, you don't even need to hit a deer. A porcupine, raccoon, or possum will do the trick. But the deer is highly likely, especially along that stretch. The idiot held his speed all the way out of earshot. The roar of the bike Dopplered away without ending abruptly.

Right now, raw milk has been getting a lot of press, because Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is a big proponent of it. Scientific consensus agrees that you're better off drinking pasteurized milk, but no one is forcing you to take this precaution. Occasional explosive diarrhea keeps you cleaned out. Extended periods of it can be a big help with weight loss. Just be sure to stay hydrated with refreshing water from Rock Creek.

Our entire country is living through the risks ignored or welcomed by the small percentage of voters who embraced it and the other percentage who didn't care enough to come out and vote against it. We're roaring down a highway full of blind curves and hills, with occasional fog, and impaired drivers at the wheel.

I've said it before: risky behavior persists because most people get away with it. You could say the same thing about the few persistent road cyclists. We're fine until we're not. Our small size and relatively slow speed can be advantages as well as disadvantages. I'm constantly scanning for escape routes and mentally rehearsing situations suggested by conditions. When things get hectic, I have to trust the motorists. For the most part, they come through.

We hear from quitters all the time. El Queso Grande told someone out in the shop about yet another one who simply assumes that the majority of drivers are impaired in some way. Could be. I smell a lot of the wake-and-bake crowd on my morning commute. Major drawback to stinky weed, y'all. It advertises your choice to the world. The worst booze breath can't match that.

Then there's electronics. Our helpful devices feed us mostly useful navigation information, but also draw a glance or a lingering look for what seems like no time at all until you snap back and straighten out. Hopefully you do it before going completely into the ditch, down a ravine, through a crosswalk full of people, or into oncoming vehicles.

EQG's outlook could be soured by the fact that he developed medical conditions that severely limited his ability to ride. He may take comfort in the idea that it's a bad idea anyway. Who likes to see other people having fun when you can't? Especially when it defined so much of his personality. When he delivers these reports of the steady decline of road cycling, it reminds me a little bit of my ex-mother-in-law who loved to tell me about the latest cyclist fatality on the roads around her home. "They hate bike riders around here!" she would declare.

If you stay home in bed, you might get bitten by a Brown Recluse spider. They love beds. And they hate people. I've heard that.

The Woman with Exploding Nipples

 It could happen to anyone with a low-spoke-count, highly tensioned wheel with trendy alloy nipples. They start popping without warning. This customer had come in a couple of times already for single incidents of nipple failure.

This rear wheel had 27 spokes: nine on the left side, 18 on the right. The rims were a little deep, but not hard to work with. Weird-looking wheels are part of what makes a bike look modern.

To begin, I had to remove the tire. Because it wasn't a punctured tire, I went to remove it without tools. When I pushed down on the wheel to work the bead around, another nipple exploded. I called the customer to let her know we were going to do a complete nipple transplant, not just an individual replacement.

On the stand, two more nipples popped when I put a wrench on them to start loosening them. This wheel had been a real time bomb. Imagine ripping down a bumpy descent when one spoke after another detaches from the rim.

Fortunately, the diameter and thread on the bladed spokes matched the DT brass nipples I was planning to use. And the low spoke count made the swap less time consuming. I would never ride a low-count wheel myself, but I appreciate the time I save on jobs like this.

This has also been the Summer of Forgotten Through Axles. We've had several in a row. A rider calls up and asks if we have through axles in stock. We explain that there are different kinds (of course). They're not sure of the brand and type. We figure it out. We had one kicking around from a previous customer's special order that they then declined to pick up. We've accumulated one or two more, to try to cover some of the possibilities.

Next up on the list of modern problems, a mother and daughter had to forgo their bike ride because they had forgotten the keys to their ebikes, turning them into nothing more than immensely heavy regular pedal bikes. You can just ride them that way. It's a common claim in the advertising. But who would? No one, actually, unless they get caught out with a dead battery and have no one to call to pick them up.

Problems like this are right up there with forgetting the charger for your shifters. If you have electronic derailleurs and a dead battery, you got nothin'. 

There's still plenty of good old abuse and neglect to keep us busy. I figured out that the handlebar tape on these bars was about 15 years old when I removed it the other day.

The bars themselves were old enough and had been through enough rough use that I recommended replacement. The last bars I saw that had that much salt and oxidation encrusting them had been on a bike that had lived in Singapore for a year or two. Those bars were so deteriorated that I could poke a screwdriver right through them. These bars were nowhere near that level of deterioration, but still a risk according to most manufacturer recommendations. Better to be safe. It also gave us a good opportunity to put on a much shorter stem for the new rider of the bike.

Accidents will happen. One of the local ebike aficionados took a digger on their chunky steed. The owner called to see if we would work on it. To make it easier, he had contacted the president of the company that made the bike to hook us up with a direct pipeline to parts and advice. With clout like that, ebike ownership is smooth sailing indeed. When a bike weighs upwards of 60 pounds, it hits the ground with more force than a bike weighing less than 30. It also hits a rider with more force, should you happen to get on the wrong side of things as they're going every which way. The rider was apparently not hurt badly enough to be worth mentioning, so that's good. I was just musing about it as I looked at what was scuffed and tweaked.

The trickiest part will be replacing the battery case, which is cleverly inserted into the welded rear rack on this Pedego bike. It has thick cabling inserted into it, and has an irregular shape that does not appear to slide easily out of either end of the framework of the rack. The screws that hold it in place broke loose when the bike crashed, because they were never designed to restrain such a heavy piece of equipment in an impact at an angle. The good news is that the owner of the bike doesn't need it fixed instantaneously. We can put it off for at least a week or two before getting mired in its complexities.

Bike Commuting Study Confirms the Obvious

A study in the UK of injury rates for different commuting modes revealed that bike commuters run a higher risk of injuries requiring hospitalization, compared to driving and walking. This information popped up in my Google News feed this morning. I couldn't resist checking it out.

When I was a kid, every kid tried to learn to ride a bike, and virtually all of them succeeded. Whether they liked it much, or kept it up, learning to ride a two-wheeler was a rite, just like losing your baby teeth, which it occasionally contributed to. Along with it came skinned knees, road-rashed elbows, and occasional broken bones. Abrasions were far more common than fractures, concussions, or internal injuries. And that's before anyone knew what a bike helmet was.

The first time I went to the ER with bike-related injuries, I was about eight years old. I burned in hard on a steep descent in Newport, RI. I was knocked unconscious and spent the following week or ten days as The Amazing Human Scab, from all of the scuff marks, but I was recuperating at home.  I've been in the ER twice more from bike crashes, once in 1982, and again in 1987.  Oh, and there was that one time in the 1990s when I stuffed it mountain biking and broke my wrist. Only the crash in 1987 involved anyone in a car. None of them required an overnight or extended stay.

Balancing on two wheels can be precarious. The whole concept seems ridiculous: it's half of a vehicle. But it works. Once you can do it, it can be addictive. You get more comfortable at it, but you are still very vulnerable. In addition to the big crashes, any rider experiences plenty of other incidents. You're mounted on something that does not stand up by itself. Gravity never quits. The math is easy.

The study report did go on to state that the overall health benefits of bike commuting are vast. The consensus is still that infrastructure, education, and legal policies that encourage cycling are of far more benefit than simply writing it off as too dangerous.

Beautiful day for a hit-and-run

Monday, February 24th was a dazzling foretaste of spring. The sun was bright, the sky clear, and the temperature surged up to the low 50s (F). In April and May, 50 degrees feels like a punishment, but in February it calls to the prisoners of indoor training and the cross-trainers starting to remember their road bikes.

I had almost gone out on my own bike that day, but decided that it was too early to commit. I went trudging up the mountain out back instead on my 30-year-old chore skis. Still, the road and the commute begin to beckon. Daylight relocating time begins this Sunday, putting the return leg of the commute into usable light. Motorists will be able to see me.

Yesterday, I soloed at the shop. El Queso Grande had been away since Friday, getting his heart worked on. I spent much of the day alone. The ski trails are all ice and dirt after more than an inch of rain on Thursday. Then the temperature dove back down to seasonable winter cold. That turned what could have been busy ski rental days into long vigils broken by brief visits by one or two people at a time, checking out the bargains among the remnants of our winter stock. No one was available from our rotating cast of fill-in employees to work on Sunday, but it didn't really matter.

The door alarm beeped. A single customer came up the back stairs. It was a  local road rider. He's a tall guy, a physician, very active, so in good shape. He does a lot of his own work on his Campy-equipped carbon road bike. I don't remember what brand it was, but it turns out that no longer matters. We exchanged greetings, and he said he was looking for a small item of apparel for his son. Then he said, "Hey, I was hit by a car the other day." It was that beautiful Monday.

He described the incident. For anyone who knows the area, or wants to look it up on their favorite map app, he came out of Dame Road and turned south on Ledge Hill Road, toward Tuftonboro Elementary School. There was no one else on the road. With no warning, blam! He was hit from behind.

"The next thing I knew, I came to in the ditch with some guy saying, 'don't try to get up.'"

The person who found him had been driving northbound on Ledge Hill and had seen a dirty white or tan SUV with the bumper torn loose on the right side. Then, just a bit further on, there was the unconscious rider and his crushed bike.

The rider was miraculously intact for having been mowed down by more than a ton of metal and glass, piloted by a few pounds of idiot. He showed me the massive bruising on his legs, and said that he had some broken ribs. Seeing as he was unconscious for a bit, he has had a mild concussion as well. But until he told me that he was only six days out from such a serious crash I would not have spotted him as injured. He moved okay. Only after he told me the story did I see a bit of caution in his gait, particularly when he headed back down the stairs to the back parking lot on his way out. He will also find that he has the inescapable touch of PTSD. He can't get right back on the bike, because the bike was destroyed, and his next scheduled activities are more winter appropriate. It will be interesting to see how his mental and emotional state evolve when riding season does get here and he gets a new bike.

Mountain bikers and path riders are all nodding sagely at this point, and congratulating themselves on their wisdom in abandoning the road to the potentially lethal motoring majority. Gravel riders are wrapping themselves in their false sense of security because they ride on roads that they perceive as having little traffic. But the doctor was on a quiet rural road, and the vehicle that hit him was the only other user. There are certain gravel roads around here that I avoid because the motorists who do use them typically drive like they've got a trunk full of moonshine and a revenuer on their tail. Other gravel roads are as placid as you might expect. You have to know your area.

The driver of the hit-and-run vehicle, now thought to be a white SUV with Florida plates, did exactly the right thing to make this a perfect crime. The one witness, the approaching driver who got a glimpse before coming around the bend and finding the victim, was unable to provide enough information to proceed with much of an investigation. Get that bumper fixed, or just tear it the rest of the way off, let a few weeks pass, and plausible deniability will take care of the rest. Or just leave the area and you'll blend in with all the other down-and-outers driving dinged-up vehicles, with no one to wonder how it got that way. Add to this the fact that law enforcement seldom has the time or interest to investigate these things fully enough to conclude them. The doctor didn't die. Even if he had, it would have been just another unfortunate loss because he didn't have the sense to quit riding his darn fool bike around like some kid.

Kids don't ride anymore. In rural areas, they probably never did, although I remember in my two years in mid-coast Maine that we fourth and fifth graders would ride well outside the village limits to get to friends who lived on farms in the surrounding countryside. Then we would play in haylofts and abandoned quarries until it was time to ride home again for supper. But you certainly see almost none of it now.

Because the driver ran away, we don't know if they were malicious or negligent. Are they celebrating their coup, cherishing the memory, or are they horrified that the phone in their hand had distracted them, and deeply relieved that the rider lived, so no harm done?

As the years have passed, and drivers have become far more numerous, with more distractions and no reduction in hostility, I look forward less and less to the start of bike commuting season. But I depend on it for its economic and physical benefits when it's not interrupted by mayhem and assault. Most of the time, the worst that happens is an unprovoked honk, a close pass, a few Dopplered obscenities, perhaps a wildly inaccurate thrown object. The fear, of course comes from the ambush hunter who will strike from behind. While drivers crossing, entering, or turning too close present the greater hazards, the rear end collision is the hardest to defend against. I can't afford a fancy camera. A mirror only works when you're looking in it, not looking at the road in front of you. The swerve could happen between mirror checks. As for video, it seems remarkably ineffective as evidence in a prosecution. The authorities have to care enough to pursue it. And that's only after an incident has taken place. Close calls get you nothing but a range of advice that boils down mostly to, "quit riding your bike, you idiot." Or cover yourself with garish colors and flashing lights, which will do absolutely nothing to deter a malicious attack.

The videos that cyclists post to elicit outrage and sympathy for their cause elicit just as much reluctance on the part of non-riders to begin riding, and lots of pushback from drivers who hate cyclists, whose blood lust is heightened when they see how easy it is to engage in some wish fulfillment. Sadly, the best response is to keep riding as if nothing had happened, happy if you are undamaged. We can't win, because the opposition is too pervasive. Only the idea can win, if in some fantasy future enough people simply don't want to drive anymore, and don't want to act like assholes on the road in or on whatever vehicles they choose.

A troll on a comment thread a few days ago told me that I am a guest on the roads entirely paid for and owned by motorists. He told me to behave myself with appropriate gratitude and stay out of the way. He responded predictably badly to rational counterpoints. His rants attracted sympathizers, even though the overall majority in the comment thread were supportive of cyclists and seconded the rational counterpoints. The anti-cyclists soon resorted to all caps. I was long gone by then, knowing better than to continue down the gas-lit path to the Troll Kingdom. But that's who is out there, throwing their weight around, emboldened by their armored vehicles. You can't think about them. Your only sure defense is abstinence. They are simply one of the many modern hazards, like mass shootings, that might or might not impact your life directly, but constantly weigh on you. Freedom isn't free. But "defense" of it is never as straightforwardly confrontational as the usual users of that slogan would have you believe. Most of the time it's done by setting an example and proceeding with courage in things that should never have been burdened with such significance.

Unnecessary dangers of the Cotton Valley Trail

Now that the Cotton Valley Trail is complete from Wolfeboro to Wakefield, bike use has increased steadily. It was already a popular ride, but now it actually goes somewhere instead of just out into the woods.

The Cotton Valley Trail has always had more problems than the typical multi-use path, because of the rails left in place for use by the rail car club. The rail car club beat out the non-motorized users when the right of way became available, so all other uses have to bow to them.

Due to the chronic lack of funds for things that actually improve the quality of life for ordinary citizens, there was never enough money to upgrade the trail corridor to safely and pleasantly accommodate the incompatible uses of walkers and riders sharing space with motorized conveyances that of necessity hog the entire width of the rails. In many places, the space between the rails is the only improved surface.

When I was a kid, we used to play on railroad tracks, including bridges. We understood all too well that if we got ourselves killed out there we would be in big trouble for interfering with the smooth operation of the railroad. And if we interfered with the trains and didn't get killed, we would wish that we had. But those were real working railroads.

For years we had noticed that the rail car people seldom put their vehicles on the tracks on the section that runs from Route 109 east down into Wolfeboro. The tracks were removed completely from the mile-long Bridge-Falls Path from downtown Wolfeboro to Center Street in Wolfeboro Falls. From there, the path was sited next to the rails out to the public boat launch at Mast Landing. The path goes between the rails at that point and stays in that nerve-wrackingly narrow space all the way across the first causeway to Whitten Neck Road. After a brief, enjoyable diversion a few yards away from the rails, the path goes back between them for the second, longer causeway across a section of Lake Wentworth.

When you asked the authorities in charge of the trail what could be done to make the crossings safer and the railed sections less stressful, you'd get a mumble of excuses about how the rails had to be there because they were there and to shut up and be grateful. Meanwhile, injuries have piled up, ranging from abrasions and contusions to broken hips, cracked ribs, and the occasional collapsed lung. And the rails almost never see a rail car. In the latest raft of excuses, we were told that the rails are there so that the rail car people can help with mowing and maintenance. The rarity of those work details hardly seems like it's worth the price in damage and injury to bicyclists. But bicyclists come at the bottom of any hierarchy, whether it's on the road or on a path like this. The message is, "suck it up or quit riding."

On Sunday, I left my car at the Allen A Beach parking area and walked to work. It was a rainy day and I didn't feel like riding, but I didn't want to drive into the chronic gridlock of Wolfe City in the summer, or take up scarce parking in our little lot. The walk gave me a chance to document just some of the many unnecessary dangers and inconveniences of the Cotton Valley Trail. It could be entirely great if these were addressed. If some of them aren't addressed, we could lose the whole trail to erosion exacerbated by the presence of the unused rails.

The latest Cotton Valley Trail brochure actually states that rail cars are only used from Fernald Station out to Wakefield. There are many other ways to mow and trim a trail. It is time for the rails to go, and for the trail to be widened and graded for safer use and better drainage.

Look carefully at this first picture. On the left you can just see the rails, buried in vegetation that has been neither mowed nor trimmed in a long time. Imagine that as usable trail width. And this is on a relatively wide section.

At the River Street crossing, the trail moves to the left of the tracks. Again, imagine the generous space available if the rails were gone or buried beneath well-packed fill. It would double the available width. The right of way is already there. The brochure claims that the right of way is 66 feet wide. That much space is never used for the trail.

Sam, you made the ties too wide: These two pictures show the first examples in which the trail is reduced by the protruding tie ends, sometimes covered by vegetation, in other places just hanging out there.  It gets worse.

Oh wait, what's that? Did someone drop something? A hat? A bandanna?

Nope. It's a rock. Someone kindly painted it orange. It protrudes because the fill has settled or washed away. Spray paint is cheaper than actually doing anything about it.

This picture shows how much trail width has been lost because ground covering plants have not been controlled. I suppose this is better than having it lathered with carcinogenic defoliants, but then a wider packed trail surface would achieve the same thing without poisoning anyone.

Even if they didn't remove the rails, the trail would be half again as wide if they just filled and packed up to the near rail.

Here's how much width they would gain if they got rid of the useless rails.

This section of protruding tie ends coincides with a retaining wall. An outbound cyclist, trying to accommodate oncoming traffic, can only fade to the right as far as the ends of the ties. An already narrow trail becomes even narrower. Those rude cyclists! Why do they insist on riding?

Two-way traffic has to get past each other in a space easily spanned by my short little legs.

Not much farther out, tie protrusion is much worse. Lots of dirty looks from pedestrians there, when the oncoming cyclist doesn't scooch right up against the rail to make room. When it's two cyclists passing, one or both equipped with the currently fashionable absurdly wide handlebars, you have to wonder why they don't get tangled more often. They should dismount, right?

What do you call a bike rider who dismounts? A pedestrian.

Approaching Mast Landing you get another good look at wasted space and more protruding tie ends. The rail crossing at the boat ramp has been considerably improved. They filled it in so that the rails are flush with the pavement. This makes them useless to the rail car people, but still slippery when wet for the riders. Non-skid tape is applied occasionally... it's one of the better crossings, and yet it wouldn't need to be there at all if the unused rails were removed.

Just past Mast Landing, the trail goes between the rails to traverse this little residential section. Residential or not, the right of way could support a comfortably wide trail with the rails removed, and it wouldn't turn into the "Cotton Valley Canal" after a heavy rain. Cotton Valley Canal sections are common between here and the Allen A. The rails hold water in the trail bed, just like an aqueduct. If you get there soon enough after a heavy rain, you can ride in water inches deep for many yards. Many, many yards. Riding it during a downpour last week, I was pedaling up a flowing stream for miles, not mere yards.

Welcome to the jungle. These shade-tolerant shrubs, well-watered by the irrigation provided by the Cotton Valley Canal, are flourishing under the conspicuous lack of maintenance.

This shot shows how much trail is lost to the plants. My right foot isn't quite at the rail that indicates the already inadequate width of trail available without the incursion of the foliage.

Here's some trailside erosion on the Crescent Lake causeway. If a rider moves right and wants to put a foot down, it's a long way down. And this is a minor example of erosion compared to the next causeway, across Lake Wentworth.

Imagine this part of the causeway without rails. There's plenty of width for more trail as well as the trailside benches and fishing spots that users already enjoy.

And then there's this. The erosion is undercutting the trail. The rails may be holding it in, but their long-term, barely utilized presence has prevented anyone from properly stabilizing and grading the causeway for longer-term survival and usability.

Beyond Whitten Neck Road, the trail takes a fun little up-and-over, leading to a level section with some sweeping bends. Nice! Except when it rains.

 See the rails over there? They're on a built up level with ditches on either side. And basically no one uses them. The path, meanwhile, is over here, with a little swale to the left and a slope to the right, channeling runoff into it.

At the end of this stretch, the path kinks left to launch riders into another section between the rails.

When I walked the path on Sunday, I saw riders coming toward me as I approached that crossing. As a rider myself, I knew what I would want a pedestrian to do. I walked up to the right of the rails rather than stepping between them exactly at the crossing. I had barely taken my first step on the tie ends right next to the path when I felt a burning pain in my left calf. A wasp stung me, because there was a ground nest in the tie end right next to the path.

That tie end, right there. The pale one with the crack in it. Don't forget your epi pen.

Next causeway, new erosion issues. Here you can see that the fill has actually started to wash down from between the rails. That can spread quickly. 

Here's the outlet and its little gully.

Here are another couple of shots of nasty things for a cyclist to land on if an encounter with oncoming traffic goes wrong. It also shows more of the deterioration of the causeway structure itself.

Looking back toward the causeway, this is just another example of space wasted on the unused rails. On heavy traffic days, riders fan out onto the grass to gain a few places before they get squeezed between the rails again.

This sandy road crossing is usually quite unstable. When the sand is dry, it's very fluffy. The shape of the path going through the crossing does not help a rider set up a good, square angle of attack.

 On the plus side, the rails are often covered by the sand, so they're not as much of a crash hazard. On the minus side, on the rare occasions when a rail car user has come through, the rails are freshly dug out and protruding, and the sand is still soft and treacherous. If the rails are only dug out for "maintenance" operations on the non-motorized facilities of the trail, the danger they present is not worth the benefit they confer. That could be achieved in better ways. This spring, trail crews didn't use rail cars. They drove their personal vehicles in and half-blocked the path with them.

Here's more encroaching vegetation on the approach to the diversion into the Allen A Beach parking area.

I call this Pinch Flat Bridge. The edge of it protrudes more and more as fill settles and washes away. It gets refilled maybe once or twice a year. You get used to it.

The diversion into the Allen A isn't wide, but it's fun. For some reason it just works. 

When traffic is heavy, a rider can stay on the dirt road outside the trail, dive through a few yards down there at the corner, and bail into the beach parking lot itself to reach another dirt road on the far side.

Just watch out for Thumpy Stump, just before the corner. Thumpy Stump has been there for years. You get used to it. But it does suddenly reduce the available space to maneuver past each other.

The parking lot has a big gate in this fence, which is never closed. The path goes in this little gap. It was supposed to serve some purpose at some time. Now it's just another meaningless obstacle, as far as I can tell.

This fallen tree hasn't become a landmark yet, but it's been down for more than a week.

Because I didn't walk any further, I have no pictures beyond this point. There are railed sections between the Allen A and Route 109, all of which would be improved by the removal of the rails. They're just short bridges, but the sharp turns to get between and move out from the rails make them dangerous. The rails protrude when the fill settles, and minor crossings are more likely to be overlooked in a big list of maintenance tasks.

I do like the zigzag maneuvers that relieve the tedium of straight-ahead riding so common on rail trails. In a rail-less environment, I wouldn't mind seeing the ghosts of the crossings left there just to break the monotony. The trail could still be wider and smoother than it is, with the occasional chicane for entertainment. A wider trail would benefit all non-motorized users in and out of the railed sections.

Beyond Fernald, riders are still stuck with the rails for the foreseeable future. You take what you can get. Bike riders represent a much larger demographic than the rail car club, providing a more consistent economic engine. Accommodating them and encouraging them would make financial sense. But maybe a cost/benefit analysis would show that the returns wouldn't be worth the investment. As the trail is currently built, it does send business to the local hospital, and sometimes all the way to Boston, if the injuries are worth the air lift. We just have to work on attracting riders with good health insurance.

Fool the eye

Yesterday's rides featured visual phenomena.

It was the first day of the regular firearms deer hunting season. Pickup trucks were stuffed off the sides of the road everywhere. It's not a day to wear your brown coat and white mittens and prance around flapping your hands. I wore my usual school bus yellow jacket and added a blaze orange flag to my trunk pack. Nothing on my usual ensemble suggests the color of a deer, but a bit of orange helps seal the deal.

Nothing you can do about a stray shot. But that's true in any season.

A few hundred yards down rail from where I enter the path I saw a couple of runners ahead of me, out at the limit of sight. They both seemed to be sporting please-don't-kill-me-yellow vests. A wise precaution.

In due course I caught up to them. I discovered that only one of them wore PDKMY. The other one's jacket was merely a light color in the yellowish greenish whitish family. My brain had assigned the same intensity as the other runner's much brighter clothing when I saw them from the farthest distance. The illusion persisted until I was just a few yards behind them. Then the duller jacket suddenly faded, like a wet gleaming gem turning into a plain dry pebble.

If you aren't wearing real high viz, apparently you can stay near someone who is. Or perhaps the duller jacket was from Chameleon Wear, Inc., a company about to launch its line world wide. It would be nice if the eye-insulting PDKMY would moderate to a gentle hue when you got close to it.

The evening's optical trickery was less benign. I don't think I broke any ribs, but one arm was under me when I hit, concentrating the force and creating bruising that makes every breath painful.

It was one of those crashes where you get up giggling like an idiot afterwards. Sure it hurts, but it was also too stupid to take seriously. Here I am, well up in my 50s, stuffing it in a corner in the dark.

The only real turns on the Cotton Valley Trail are in the vicinity of the Allen A Beach. The path leaves the rail line to go over to the beach parking area, parallels the parking lot and then winds its way back to the railroad corridor. I guess I don't know those turns as well as I thought I did.

The powerful lights on my night-equipped bikes throw enough illumination to provide more context than the average battery-powered groper. The lighted area goes far enough ahead and spreads to the side enough to alleviate the illusion of being stationary in the dark behind a patch of light with things suddenly appearing in it. But in the Allen A turns the trees are close. The variegated brown leaves now covering the ground break up the light, reducing its power to provide a readily interpretable image. They camouflage the outline of the trail. Suddenly, in one of the bendier bits, I was headed for the weeds.

The trail is not wide. In the instant that I recognized the problem and tried to snap back into the proper line I was only able to avoid riding off down the little dropoff into the rough and land my crash on the smooth -- but hardened -- trail surface. After the initial impact on my arm and chest I somehow ended up on my back. I felt the bruising of my chest, but I knew I wasn't going to see any bones sticking out through my flesh or anything. The laughing set in as I checked over the bike and my small cargo before resuming my journey. Ouch! Ha ha ha ha! Ow! Snort!

I don't know why it seems so funny, but I continued to stab myself in the chest with mirth for the rest of the evening whenever I thought about it. There's something peculiarly funny about certain ways of biffing.

Today's stupid crash brought to you by too much coffee

I am not naturally a morning person. It's even harder this time of year, when morning looks a lot like night until suddenly it's time to hurry out the door.

Yesterday morning I lost half a cup of the morning elixir when I started to pour the potful into the thermal carafe without emptying the warm water out of it first. So last night I made a tad more than usual. It makes no sense. I wasn't going to make the same mistake again. But once I poured the water I went ahead and added grounds to match. When it comes to coffee, if a little is good, more is better.

To combat the diuretic effect of my drug of choice I try to eat something absorbent for breakfast, like a big pile of toast. There are a lot of variables. The system does not always work. So I've located suitable stopping places on my regular routes.

For the park and ride route I recently changed to a spot nearer where I park, so I don't interrupt a nice long downhill. This was probably an old logging access. Now it is guarded by a ditch. And that's where the problem starts.

I have not figured out how to get across that ditch smoothly. It's not very deep, but the far side of it is nearly vertical. Coming in at various speeds and angles I have not managed to cross it stylishly. At least half the time I haven't even managed to stay on the pedals.

Despite more than adequate caffeine, my departure from the house was marked by fumbles and stumbles.  I should have been warned.

Due to the surfeit of coffee, I really needed that stop. I aimed for the ditch with my weight well behind the saddle. The front wheel plugged into the far side of the ditch and stopped dead. I was headed up over the bars without an instant to try to do anything. It happened fast enough to be unstoppable,  but slowly enough to fully experience and enjoy the trip. Up, over...and -- down. Blat!

I was simultaneously glad and sorry that no one was recording my performance on video. I would have liked to see how it looked.

Nothing was bent or broken on me or the bike. So that was good.

Rider in coma, bike basically fine

Today I'm doing a post-crash assessment on a road bike. The rider is out of the hospital now, but the first reports sounded very serious. I hear he looks pretty rough.

We first heard about the accident about a month ago.Maybe it's been longer, but in the autumn, certainly. The rider's wife told us they had been on a ride in Maine. He had crested a hill ahead of her and launched into the descent. When she crossed the summit and started down she saw a group of other riders gathered around the fallen form of someone she did not recognize until she got closer. He was unconscious.

None of the riders saw the crash. No one saw a motor vehicle near the time it happened. As is often the case with head injuries, the rider himself does not remember what happened.

Looking at the bike I can guess, but that's all. Based on the scuff marks I envision an endo after hitting a pothole or other pavement damage. The injuries to the rider combined with the lack of damage to the bike indicate to me that he took the major impact. The saddle is bent but not scuffed, so I think he was still between it and the pavement when it hit. The right brifter was twisted inward. Both brifters had scuff marks on the front of them. The rear derailleur hanger was bent in, but the scuff marks on the derailleur did not show a lot of sliding movement. There was no damage to either pedal. The wheels are barely out of true, although the front tire bead was crawling off the rim in one spot. The rims have no dents or flat spots. The tires look perfectly usable. They're both holding 100+ psi right now. There's no indication of skidding.

I hate not knowing. All any rider can do is pay attention. I've twitched the bike at speed to avoid bad pavement more than once. If I had been distracted I could have joined the ranks of the mystery crashers. But in the end we really don't know how this guy went down.

Let's all be careful out there.

Expensive Slapstick Moment

A local rider took offense at an illegal advertising sign placed on his residential street near his house, so he snatched it up as he rode by at the end of his morning training ride. The sign was one of those temporary ones used by politicians and other questionable enterprises, cardboard over a wire frame. The wind caught the sign and blew it into his front wheel. He crashed immediately.

The wire sign frame bent one spoke in his Shimano Dura Ace front wheel. That had to be ordered. Only later did he notice that the end of the wire had punched a hole in his carbon fiber fork.

Hole is marked with an arrow

Here is a closeup of the damage.

A steel fork might have bent when the sign stopped the front wheel. An aluminum one might have bent or cracked depending on the forces involved. Anyway, it was an expensive morning for the guy.

Composite Education Continues

Steve A is really gittin' down with the carbon info at DFW Point-to-Point. The blog is now linked in the sidebar. Keep checking it for updates as he goes forward with his carbon series.

Here is his outline for the series he promises us. But since we're all riders here, we won't demand it be completed any faster than the riding schedule allows.

Excellent Information on Carbon in Bikes

Engineer Steve A has begun to address the questions I have raised about inspection of carbon bikes and parts. This post on his blog, DFW Point-to-Point discusses the issue of how to assess potential risk. Unfortunately, for those without ultrasound, x-ray or other imaging equipment it still comes down to what you see and what you suspect. It's still good to get a briefing from someone outside the bike industry, who has considerable experience with the material. I look forward to more.

Trying to be a responsible mechanic...

The lowly bicycle mechanic has fallen under a vast load of technical crap in the past couple of decades.

First came the frantic "innovation" of the mountain bike era. As the avalanche of technology crushed the enthusiasm out of most casual recreational participants, the industry grabbed at the straw of advanced materials to try to stimulate addiction among a clientele with plenty of disposable income. And so, carbon fiber became commonplace. It mated well with the resurgence of road biking, as the surviving cyclists moved toward smoother rides and fewer mechanical problems.

Carbon fiber brings its own special issues which require dire warnings to the consumer. Blah blah blah, risk of serious injury or death, etc. The owner's manual and any supplemental bulletins always say, "If the bike suffers any impact, have it inspected by your Authorized Dealer."

Since the only qualification to be an authorized dealer is a credit rating acceptable to the accounts receivable department at Wonderbike, Inc., just exactly what makes the poor dingus at the Greasy Hub Bike Emporium more qualified than anyone else to say with any certainty that the expensive part under scrutiny is actually safe?

The warning sheet that came with a Specialized I just assembled says, "Damage to composite is difficult to visually identify." So I went looking --not for the first time-- for more advanced and reliable methods. With all the carbon fiber used in aerospace and other truly serious applications, someone must have better advice than, "Examine it carefully. If you have a bad feeling about it, throw it away and buy a new one."

Here is the result of about an hour trolling on the Internet for articles related to "inspection carbon fiber impact damage:"

From IEEEXPLORE

A high critical temperature SQUID magnetometer has been successfully employed in the evaluation of the behavior of multi-ply carbon fibers reinforced composite panels for aeronautical applications under low-velocity impacts.

Measurements of the induced magnetic field have been carried out above specimen damaged with energy impact from 1 to 40 J. A quasi-linear behavior in two different regimes between the SQUID's response and the energy of the impact has been found. This suggests a correspondence to the detection of intrinsically different damage that occurs in the laminates at different energies

I wants me a SQUID magnetometer, just so I can say I have one.

"Is my fork okay?"

"Quickly! To the SQUID magnetometer!"



From POLIMEROS:

Polímeros
version ISSN 0104-1428
Abstract

TARPANI, José R. et al. Thermographic inspection of impact damage in carbon fiber-reinforcing polymer matrix laminates. Polímeros [online]. 2009, vol.19, n.4, pp. 318-328. ISSN 0104-1428. doi: 10.1590/S0104-14282009000400012.

Continuous carbon fiber reinforced thermoset and thermoplastic composite laminates were exposed to single transversal impact with different energy levels. The damages impinged to the structural materials were evaluated by active infrared thermography in the transmission mode. In general, the thermoplastic laminate thermograms showed clearer damage indications than those from the thermosetting composite. The convective heating of the samples by controlled hot air flow was more efficient than via irradiation using a filament lamp. It was also observed that longer heating times improved the damage visualization. The positioning of the specimen's impacted face regarding the infrared camera and the heating source did not affect the thermo-imaging of thermosetting specimens, whereas it substantially influenced the thermograms of thermoplastic laminates. The results obtained allow concluding that infrared thermography is a simple, robust and trustworthy methodology for detecting impact damages as slight as 5 J in carbon fiber composite laminates.

[Impact damage of carbon fiber polymer–matrix composites, studied by electrical resistance measurement
Purchase the full-text article

References and further reading may be available for this article. To view references and further reading you must
purchase this article.] Dealer tax and title not included. Some restrictions apply.

Maybe infrared thermography is the affordable solution. I haven't priced the equipment yet.

AND AS CITED:

Shoukai Wanga, D.D.L. Chunga, Corresponding Author Contact Information, E-mail The Corresponding Author and Jaycee

H. Chungb

aComposite Materials Research Laboratory, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260-

4400, USA

bGlobal Contour Ltd, 1145 Ridge Road West, Rockwall, TX 75087, USA
Received 24 June 2004;
revised 20 February 2005;
accepted 24 February 2005.
Available online 13 May 2005.

Abstract

Drop impact damage of continuous carbon fiber epoxy–matrix composite laminates, was studied by electrical resistance measurement, which was shown to be more sensitive than the ultrasonic method. The oblique resistance at an angle between the longitudinal and through-thickness directions was more effective than the surface longitudinal resistance in indicating damage, particularly interior damage. The oblique resistance values from longitudinal segments of a specimen were not additive, but the surface resistance values were.

In the case of a unidirectional composite, electrical contacts at 45° from the longitudinal direction in the plane of the laminate were more effective than those at 90°. Even minor damage associated with negligible indentation was sensed. The spatial distribution of damage was also studied.

AND....

Shoukai Wang1, Daojun Wang1, D. D. L. Chung1 Contact Information and Jaycee H. Chung2
(1) Composite Materials Research Laboratory, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY

14260-4400, USA
(2) Global Contour Ltd., 1145 Ridge Road West, Rockwall, TX, 75087

Received: 7 April 2005 Accepted: 24 June 2005 Published online: 3 March 2006
Abstract The method of sensing impact damage in carbon fiber polymer-matrix structural composite by DC electrical resistance measurement was evaluated by measuring the resistance of the top surface (surface receiving impact). The resistance obtained by using the four-probe method is a more sensitive, more precise (less data scatter) and more accurate indicator of composite damage than that obtained by using the two-probe method. The data scatter is low for both four-probe and two-probe resistances for impact energy up to 5 J, but it is lower for the four-probe resistance than the two-probe resistance. The data scatter increases with damage. It is attributed to electrical contact degradation. The four-probe resistance of the 8-lamina composite increases upon impact, such that the fractional increase diminishes as the distance from the point of impact increases. The four-probe resistance of the 24-lamina composite increases upon impact for the specimen segment containing the point of impact, but decreases slightly upon impact for the segments within about 20 mm from the point of impact. The two-probe resistance has less tendency to decrease upon impact than the four-probe resistance.

Hmmm. If you really want to know, check the four-probe resistance.

Until we upgrade our testing equipment, all you can do is look for dings or cracks, listen for scary noises, wear a mouth guard, and if something makes you nervous, replace it, no matter how much it costs. The bike industry thanks you for your business. That noise, that gouge? They're probably nothing.

The Rails Run Parallel and the Parallels are Interesting

Members of the Cotton Valley Rail Trail Club found my post about injuries on the trail and started chewing on me in the comments.

One point in particular stood out. The aggrieved rail car operator pointed out that bicyclists could ride in a great many places, but the rail car drivers can only operate on a couple of lines in the entire region. Enthusiasts drive hundreds of miles with their rigs on trailers to run the Cotton Valley line.

While I'm no fan of recreational burning of fossil fuels, I have an open enough mind to accept that not everyone will see the sense in that point of view. People like what they like. I don't know what went into the negotiations when the trail was conceived, but it seems generous of the rail buffs to try to accommodate other classes of user.

Viewed in this way, one must describe the Cotton Valley Trail as a rail line that pedestrians and bicyclists get to use rather than a bike-ped trail strangely hindered by vestigial rails. It's the rail club's separate but unequal piece of rail because they CAN'T go play on the big-boy tracks with the real trains. They've been run off to a segregated venue where they won't interfere with the real business of transportation.

Without Warning

A rider came in today because "her gears suddenly started skipping."

"It made me swerve so suddenly I veered into traffic. I thought I was going to get hit," she said.

Something was clearly loose in the hub and cassette area. The freehub body had fractured at the lock ring threads, causing the cogs to detach from the splines. The whole mess was afloat. The chain could not possibly stay on one of them when nothing would stay in place.

The wheel was a first-generation Rolf from the mid 1990s. I believe those were Formula hubs. The freehub bodies were supposedly replaceable, although they could be difficult to detach from the hub shell.

I had never seen a freehub body fail in this way. If it happened while sprinting hard a crash would be almost inevitable. Fortunately, this rider was only hopping out of the saddle for a couple of quick pedal strokes to close a gap to her companion close ahead.

Wolfeboro Rail Trail Sends More Victims on Express Train to ER

Over the weekend, Wolfeboro's problematic recreation trail claimed at least two more victims, sending one of them to the emergency room with a broken hip. That rider is one of the leading kidney disease researchers in the United States. The other victim would have gone to the emergency room, but said he was vacationing with a relative who is a doctor, so he would get patched up by her.

Earlier in the week we had repaired a hybrid bike for a rider who said the rear tire jammed in one of the rail crossings while she was towing a trail-a-bike. Apparently the bike sufferd the serious injuries in that case. The rear wheel was ruined.

Dr. Kidney is a very benevolent human being and an experienced road rider. He and his companions usually ride the road when they visit. For some reason he decided to check out the path. We did not know he was headed that way, or we would certainly have warned him about the trail's peculiarities.

I've joked that we should cross-promote with the hospital when we do bike rentals. We could offer a discount coupon or a gift basket of first aid supplies. But Dr. Kidney's injuries are no joke. He has been extremely helpful to people near to me who are in research studies for polycystic kidney disease. He and the other study doctors can't do anything about the fact that we have no health coverage, but it somehow feels a little better just being able to talk to him.

When we heard about the crash a couple of us really felt like heading over to the tracks with sledge hammers. It wouldn't fix the many treacherous spots designed into the trail, but it would help us pound out our frustration at it. It's basically a tantalizing trap, an illusion of a trail. We warn every rental group.

Wolfeboro's trail is certainly one of the best examples of so-called biking infrastructure that is actually harmful. We make do with scraps of money and awkward mergers. In this case it's a rail car club that insisted the rails be left or the trail could not be built at all. Perhaps one or more of their members should be required to pull a shift every day to help evacuate the injured.