The vehemence with which the bicyclist opponents of bike helmet use attack the practice of wearing one makes me wonder if they secretly (or not so secretly) feel they might be wrong about not wearing one. They feel the need to state (even screech) over and over that helmets HURT CYCLING! DO YOU UNDERSTAND!? HELMETS ARE BAD, VERY BAD, NOT GOOD! GET RID OF YOUR HELMET AND REALLY HELP CYCLING TO GROW!
Sorry, I've just been following this thread on another cycling site. The helmet debate heats to a boil instantly. Each side throws its statistics at each other. Then the snide meter goes through the roof.
I hate wearing my helmet. But then, the designers of the Titanic hated how their pretty ship would look with a bunch of fugly lifeboats all over it. The vast majority of ships make it to harbor without ever needing lifeboats. If you have a good ship and know how to operate it, you'll never need those lifeboats anyway. Lifeboats, in fact, give the impression that SHIP TRAVEL IS DANGEROUS. Ticket bookings drop precipitously when potential customers think they might be in danger out there. And if you've ever actually been in a lifeboat, you will surely agree, those things will only save your life by the wildest stretch of luck. They're so small, in that huge ocean. Every passenger should have the choice of bringing their own lifeboat if they feel it will enhance their safety. The poor misguided sods.
Brothers and sisters, people started to stop riding on the streets in the 1980s, long before there was a thriving bike helmet industry. Their perception of the danger stems from large numbers of pushy bastards shoving ever increasing numbers of vehicles through curb-lined death canyons in city and suburb. In fact, cyclist numbers began to drop well before the advent of the SUV. Maybe things were different in some specific regions, but in general many industrialized countries spent the 1980s falling out of love with the bicycle. Why do you think those of us who rode through that period are so shell-shocked and bitter? We believed all that 1970s horse shit about peace and love and ten speeds. We knew from experience that a better life was as close as our local bike shop and your own streets and roads. And the vast majority of our fellow citizens couldn't shit on us enough.
The tide seems to be turning, hallerlooya. A whole bunch of people have suddenly gotten the word, and that's good. I'm willing to bet that a large number of the people in the helmet debate weren't there from 1975 to the present.
Skimming the principal (and possibly only) study by Dr. Ian Walker regarding motorists overtaking cyclists with and without helmets, I see only points of departure for further, better organized and targeted studies no one will ever undertake because of the trouble and expense involved. For instance, Dr. Walker states that motorists passed cyclists much closer when the riders were farther out in the lane, "contrary to what many experienced cyclists believed would happen."
Dr. Ian, I don't expect motorists to give me more room when I cover the lane. I either intend to block them completely until it is safe for them to pass, or I'm just trying to gain myself a little more escape room when something big decides to wedge in beside me.
Dr. Walker states that helmets do protect the head in low speed crashes. Because of this, he says, they are good for children, but of dubious benefit to adults. Of course. Adults never ride slowly. Here's an idea: as soon as you get up to a really safe speed you can take your helmet off and put it on the rear carrier until you plan to slow down again. "Please return seat backs and tray tables to the upright position and fasten seat belts as we make our approach to the runway."
I know a lot of slow adults. Indeed, many of the "street clothes cyclists" who make the loudest noise about the massive benefits of riding helmetless make a big point about how they ride upright bikes in a non-strenuous way: SLOWLY.
None of this would draw my interest except for the ululating of the faithful on both sides of the battle lines.
"Ayeyeyeyeyeyeyeyeyeye!! Death to helmets!"
"Ayeyeyeyeyeyeyeyeyeyeye!! Death to the naked-headed!"
Yeesh.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
A Talking Head for Cycling
Many people are already aware that former Talking Heads front man (and much, much more) David Byrne is a cyclist and cycling advocate. If this is or isn't news to you, enjoy his review of the book, "Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists are Changing American Cities," by Jeff Mapes.
Byrne points 0ut an important aspect of bike transportation: it's fun. It requires effort, but gives enjoyment. The exercise just comes along for the ride:
“Pedaling Revolution” is not all facts and figures. Mapes, a journalist who covers politics for The Oregonian, describes how he gained weight and started feeling a bit down when he was forced to exchange his 10-mile daily bike commute in Portland for a “super-sized, 50-mile” drive to the Legislature in Salem. He argues that cycling promotion can raise society’s level of general fitness, since people exercise more when it seems less like exercise and more like something mostly enjoyable that also performs a function, like getting to work. “Bike and walking advocates,” he writes, “have been rebranding their cause as ‘active transportation,’ which manages to come off as nonthreatening to your average couch-bound American while carrying a nice touch of gravitas as well.”
Byrne points out that some of the more extreme manifestations of cycling hobby and sport may give the public the impression it is too intense an arena for them. The industry's fumbling for silver bullets that will suddenly turn bikes into the hot commodity they were at the early peak of the mountain bike boom hasn't helped. Consumers are more confused than ever by all the choices. Manufacturers continue to apply technology to what is a communication problem.
As an urban cyclist, Byrne understands that facet of transportation cycling very well. I would have stayed in a town if I could have afforded to live there. Annapolis was great for cycling, but lousy for a member of the working class. Now I live in a rural area, so my bike commuting is a more athletic and time-consuming endeavor. The work I do here is important. I worry a little, however, that the longer-distance cyclist in a growing area might get plowed under and paved over by arteries between urban enclaves. True urban areas need attention, but areas of lower density present more of a challenge. Meat grinder traffic churns in six-lane troughs with high curbs and deep storm drains, from stoplight to stoplight, mall to mall. That, my friend, is Hell.
Anyway, the book sounds like a good one to own and share. Cycling advocacy has to proceed on many fronts, to allay the fears of uncommitted riders and slay the notion that bike riders are freeloaders sucking off the financial contributions of the dutiful motorists.
Remember, the jersey should say "One More Parking Space" not "One Less Car."
Byrne points 0ut an important aspect of bike transportation: it's fun. It requires effort, but gives enjoyment. The exercise just comes along for the ride:
“Pedaling Revolution” is not all facts and figures. Mapes, a journalist who covers politics for The Oregonian, describes how he gained weight and started feeling a bit down when he was forced to exchange his 10-mile daily bike commute in Portland for a “super-sized, 50-mile” drive to the Legislature in Salem. He argues that cycling promotion can raise society’s level of general fitness, since people exercise more when it seems less like exercise and more like something mostly enjoyable that also performs a function, like getting to work. “Bike and walking advocates,” he writes, “have been rebranding their cause as ‘active transportation,’ which manages to come off as nonthreatening to your average couch-bound American while carrying a nice touch of gravitas as well.”
Byrne points out that some of the more extreme manifestations of cycling hobby and sport may give the public the impression it is too intense an arena for them. The industry's fumbling for silver bullets that will suddenly turn bikes into the hot commodity they were at the early peak of the mountain bike boom hasn't helped. Consumers are more confused than ever by all the choices. Manufacturers continue to apply technology to what is a communication problem.
As an urban cyclist, Byrne understands that facet of transportation cycling very well. I would have stayed in a town if I could have afforded to live there. Annapolis was great for cycling, but lousy for a member of the working class. Now I live in a rural area, so my bike commuting is a more athletic and time-consuming endeavor. The work I do here is important. I worry a little, however, that the longer-distance cyclist in a growing area might get plowed under and paved over by arteries between urban enclaves. True urban areas need attention, but areas of lower density present more of a challenge. Meat grinder traffic churns in six-lane troughs with high curbs and deep storm drains, from stoplight to stoplight, mall to mall. That, my friend, is Hell.
Anyway, the book sounds like a good one to own and share. Cycling advocacy has to proceed on many fronts, to allay the fears of uncommitted riders and slay the notion that bike riders are freeloaders sucking off the financial contributions of the dutiful motorists.
Remember, the jersey should say "One More Parking Space" not "One Less Car."
Daisies
The daisies along Route 25 look like snow
Sun sparkles and clear water from the bridge
More daisies on the far shore.
Huntress Bridge Road bisects a wetland and delineates a change in type that probably predates the road. It's also just pretty. Wild irises and azalea-like things make tiny spots of color amid the jumble of green shades and textures.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Input from Virginia Beach
Paula: I fenced in college and have felt that a little training in a combat sport has helped with my attitude in traffic. Do you think your martial arts training has helped your riding? I wonder if the temperament that gravitates to sports like that helps us accept the flow of action and assert ourselves more strategically.
I also raced a little. I wasn't very good at it, but it also seems to have helped in the traffic criterium. I feel safer with the cars and trucks than I did with a bunch of fired-up Cat Fours.
Grease Before You Roam
This seatpost came out of the "Groovy Girls" bike pictured in the previous post. It shows what happens when you don't grease a seatpost when you assemble a bike.As I said in "Detailed Assembly," grease everything with threads, too. I spent the day following up on substandard assemblies from our shop and elsewhere in today's repairs. In particular, I had to grease brake post threads in order to complete proper adjustment and threadless headset top cap bolts. I also extracted ungreased crank arm bolts from a Trek.
Without grease on the threads of brake shoe posts, the nuts bind on the threads so the pad will rotate as you try to tighten it fully. Or you can stop where it binds and find out if that pad will suddenly loosen while you are using it. Do you feel lucky?
All this is made more amusing when the two conscientious technicians are told to work faster as we redo work done shoddily by some of our own personnel. The attitude from on high seems to be if you want to do it right it's your own business. It's not our business, of course. We don't own it. But I often feel self-employed as I pursue my standards in the face of such disinterest from the owners. This is the down side of family businesses. The clan closes around its members rather than respond professionally. When we get "help" from certain people we know that job will need to be completely redone. Then we get called "anal" and worse when we take it apart and start over.
I furnished my own lifeboat with all the tools necessary to ply my trade in the event that their style ultimately undoes them. In the meantime it does more good to try to pump at least some good work out of there. They are an organic product of their community, with connections to many good things. Their collapse would be somewhat of a loss. I won't jump in front of a bullet to keep them from bringing it about by themselves. Nor will I pull the trigger. The community could learn to live without them, but it does no good to hasten their demise. My co-mechanic and I just do what we can.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Dirtbags, Tax Evaders and Self-Righteous Fitness Freaks
People who don't like bicyclists portray us as filthy parasites on the shining body of their magnificent, motorized society. They depict us as insufferable snots who refuse to understand the realities of the modern sedentary lifestyle, as in this comic from Pearls Before Swine.
Unfortunately for cycling's public image, our numbers include cycling chauvinists and destructive outlaws. Enough riders use the road as if they owned it, as arrogantly and uncooperatively as the worst motorists, to feed the stereotype that we are all that way. Because they do it without an armored shell, powered by their own muscle, these cyclists believe they deserve to make their own rules. Then when any one of us protests motorist misbehavior and oppression, these bad examples are flung in our faces.
The parallels to any minority group are striking, because of the homogenization of our image when viewed by outsiders and the difficulties of managing our own internal diversity. It's made more difficult by the fact that activists have to be passionate people to speak out in the first place. Their strong feelings can convey an intensity that repels as many people as it inspires.
Cycling hits people in multiple sensitive areas. How do they feel about exercise? Their weight? Their shiny, expensive motor vehicles they may have enslaved themselves to buy? The economy? Society? What constitutes "the good life?" You make people feel guilty about their choices, then they feel resentful. How dare you question their assumptions or the paths they feel they had to take? Get out of my face, you sweaty freak! My Suburban could crush you like a bug!
Professional mockers smell blood in the water and swarm around the people everyone loves to hate: those idiots on bikes clotting up the flow of traffic on roads they don't even pay for!"
While a minority of cyclists may manage to evade the taxation dragnet and therefore contribute nothing to infrastructure, they are probably living in abandoned buildings and eating from garbage cans. Many of the rest of us actually own and use motor vehicles and contribute to the public coffers in numerous other ways. On top of that, every cyclist represents one more precious parking space that the motoring public so desperately needs. The dedicated motoring public should be doing everything possible to encourage bike riding on plentiful safe routes so the die-hard motorists have more room to express themselves on uncrowded expressways and convenient places to dock the barge on arrival. That's the message we need to keep selling.
Unfortunately for cycling's public image, our numbers include cycling chauvinists and destructive outlaws. Enough riders use the road as if they owned it, as arrogantly and uncooperatively as the worst motorists, to feed the stereotype that we are all that way. Because they do it without an armored shell, powered by their own muscle, these cyclists believe they deserve to make their own rules. Then when any one of us protests motorist misbehavior and oppression, these bad examples are flung in our faces.
The parallels to any minority group are striking, because of the homogenization of our image when viewed by outsiders and the difficulties of managing our own internal diversity. It's made more difficult by the fact that activists have to be passionate people to speak out in the first place. Their strong feelings can convey an intensity that repels as many people as it inspires.
Cycling hits people in multiple sensitive areas. How do they feel about exercise? Their weight? Their shiny, expensive motor vehicles they may have enslaved themselves to buy? The economy? Society? What constitutes "the good life?" You make people feel guilty about their choices, then they feel resentful. How dare you question their assumptions or the paths they feel they had to take? Get out of my face, you sweaty freak! My Suburban could crush you like a bug!
Professional mockers smell blood in the water and swarm around the people everyone loves to hate: those idiots on bikes clotting up the flow of traffic on roads they don't even pay for!"
While a minority of cyclists may manage to evade the taxation dragnet and therefore contribute nothing to infrastructure, they are probably living in abandoned buildings and eating from garbage cans. Many of the rest of us actually own and use motor vehicles and contribute to the public coffers in numerous other ways. On top of that, every cyclist represents one more precious parking space that the motoring public so desperately needs. The dedicated motoring public should be doing everything possible to encourage bike riding on plentiful safe routes so the die-hard motorists have more room to express themselves on uncrowded expressways and convenient places to dock the barge on arrival. That's the message we need to keep selling.
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I'm a Virginia Beach resident, and it's not the worst place to ride, nor the best. A lot of it depends on what part of the city. The area is unfortunately a victim of sprawl and the cul-de-sac, and there just are some just plain unsafe roads with no alternative route. That being said, I commute by bicycle pretty regularly and don't have that many problems. Things can be a bit stressful if you can't bike comfortably over 15 mph in some places though.
It's just such a large city to get from place to place, and it's connected by mostly 45-50 mph main roads, some of which have nice wide shoulders, some have widened sidewalks, and some have "bike routes" on regular sidewalks, which doesn't work. City planning needs to be pressured more, but the general attitude isn't that bad.
On the downside, local legal official have proven they don't really give a damn if a cyclist gets hit, even if they have a reflective vest, front and back lights, are rear-ended, then killed. Definite anger at that bit.