January 6, 20178 yr I have a hunch that people are letting this stuff happen merely to attract attention to the sport. Obviously it's a ridiculous situation. Genetics seem to have a pretty dominating roll in race outcomes...some people are genetically predisposed to sprint whereas others are born to climb. The top male sprinters put out in excess of 1,000 watts for 10+ seconds which is a power level no woman can approach. A pro bicyclist is also helped by having a slender frame, otherwise they need legs that can put out an unholy amount of power to overcome wind resistance. Nelson Vails, the silver medalist in a 1984 velodrome event, probably had the biggest frame of anyone in the history of the sport. I'm not sure power meters existed back then but he was probably the most powerful guy to ever compete at the top level. He's also noteworthy for unintentionally planting the seed for the hipster fixie bike movement of the 2000s since he was the first guy to work as an NYC bike messenger on a fixed gear track bike. He did it for training purposes back in the early 1980s and some other bike messengers started doing it. It took 20 years but it exploded in popularity around 2005.
January 19, 20178 yr Seattle scraps its bikeshare program: http://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/01/17/seattle-just-canned-its-bike-share-system-what-went-wrong/
June 13, 20178 yr New York City experiences first Citbike fatality...oddly it looks like this guy was a regular recreational bike rider and not a rookie: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/nyregion/citi-bike-death-manhattan.html?module=WatchingPortal®ion=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=4&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F06%2F12%2Fnyregion%2Fciti-bike-death-manhattan.html&eventName=Watching-article-click
July 10, 20177 yr Angry white guy intentionally runs over cyclist on the Natchez Trace Parkway, caught on tape: http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/williamson/2017/07/10/man-charged-natchez-trace-parkway-hit-and-run-said-cyclist-threw-bike-his-car/464581001/ I have biked this road about ten times (no, not the entire 400+ mile length!). It is a limited-access parkway. Exits are spaced every 7-12 miles. Has almost no traffic. It's very popular with bicyclists. But nothing you can do when somebody decides to hit you on purpose!
July 10, 20177 yr I saw this video on Twitter and there's a lot of victim blaming tweets following it. It's typical for people who never ride a bike to have some animosity towards cyclists.
July 10, 20177 yr I assume that some people watching the video don't realize that the Natchez Trace is a special road. I could understand people getting upset by side-by-side riding on normal country roads. But the Natchez Trace is a park road. The driver is claiming that he had a bicycle thrown at him. Um, okay. If the guy threw the bike at him it wouldn't have been rideable.
July 10, 20177 yr ^Also, I told a guy I work with about the video and he immediately demanded was he wearing a helmet? I was like why does that matter. He followed up with I asked was he wearing a helmet?, then refused to watch the video. I think a lot of the anger toward recreational road bicyclists comes from guys who aren't in shape anymore and they resent that there are 40-60 year-olds out there who stay in shape thanks to an activity that they consider nerdy and feminine.
July 10, 20177 yr Anyone complaining about riding two abreast doesn't get it. If the lane isn't wide enough for a car to pass a single cyclist safely without crossing the yellow line or violating 3-foot passing laws (which on the Natchez Trace Parkway it's not), then there could be two or three or five cyclists all riding next to each other and it doesn't change anything, passing is still illegal and cyclists are not required to put themselves in danger by riding on the edge of the pavement or encouraging a following vehicle to make an unsafe pass. In fact a bunch of cyclists riding two or three abreast is easier to pass than a single-file string stretching far down the road. There's no shoulder on this road either, so even if Tennessee has a law requiring that slow moving vehicles make way after a certain number of vehicles are backed up behind them (one vehicle is not enough), or if like Ohio they allow passing very slow moving vehicles on a double yellow line, there's still zero fault on the cyclists part whether riding two abreast or not.
July 11, 20177 yr Angry white guy intentionally runs over cyclist on the Natchez Trace Parkway, caught on tape: http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/williamson/2017/07/10/man-charged-natchez-trace-parkway-hit-and-run-said-cyclist-threw-bike-his-car/464581001/ I have biked this road about ten times (no, not the entire 400+ mile length!). It is a limited-access parkway. Exits are spaced every 7-12 miles. Has almost no traffic. It's very popular with bicyclists. But nothing you can do when somebody decides to hit you on purpose! Curious, why was the color of his skin intentionally mentioned? I don't get what that has to do with anything?
July 11, 20177 yr ^As someone who has been heckled and harassed many times while bicycling, I can attest that virtually every single time it's an angry 40-60 year-old white guy in a truck or other macho vehicle. It's never someone in a compact car. The only minority I can recall harassing me was a pair of 22~ year-old black girls on Race St. near Findlay Market who honked at me for biking too slowly across the unused streetcar turnouts. That's it. Out of dozens and dozens of incidents. I got in a pretty awesome shouting match last year in Madisonville. I wasn't really mad at the guy for passing too closely and honking but I acted like I was and he flipped the hell out. It was hilarious. Expensive silver pickup truck, of course. If I had a gopro it would have a million hits.
July 11, 20177 yr So the idiot spoke to police before he was aware that video existed of the incident. Has to be read to be believed: http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2017/07/10/accused-natchez-trace-hit-and-run-driver-say-sim-good-person/466206001/
July 11, 20177 yr ^As someone who has been heckled and harassed many times while bicycling, I can attest that virtually every single time it's an angry 40-60 year-old white guy in a truck or other macho vehicle. It's never someone in a compact car. The only minority I can recall harassing me was a pair of 22~ year-old black girls on Race St. near Findlay Market who honked at me for biking too slowly across the unused streetcar turnouts. That's it. Out of dozens and dozens of incidents. I got in a pretty awesome shouting match last year in Madisonville. I wasn't really mad at the guy for passing too closely and honking but I acted like I was and he flipped the hell out. It was hilarious. Expensive silver pickup truck, of course. If I had a gopro it would have a million hits. That's the difference between someone who saw Bigfoot on TV crushing all those cars and letting nothing get in the truck's way and said "Man, that is sweet" and someone who saw "Rad!" and said "Man, that is sweet."
July 11, 20177 yr Anyone complaining about riding two abreast doesn't get it. If the lane isn't wide enough for a car to pass a single cyclist safely without crossing the yellow line or violating 3-foot passing laws (which on the Natchez Trace Parkway it's not), then there could be two or three or five cyclists all riding next to each other and it doesn't change anything, passing is still illegal and cyclists are not required to put themselves in danger by riding on the edge of the pavement or encouraging a following vehicle to make an unsafe pass. In fact a bunch of cyclists riding two or three abreast is easier to pass than a single-file string stretching far down the road. There's no shoulder on this road either, so even if Tennessee has a law requiring that slow moving vehicles make way after a certain number of vehicles are backed up behind them (one vehicle is not enough), or if like Ohio they allow passing very slow moving vehicles on a double yellow line, there's still zero fault on the cyclists part whether riding two abreast or not. I agree with this comment. Also, a lot of drivers do not understand the concept of taking the lane and they view it as a cyclist being a jerk. They only thing I think about when biking is my own safety. I am unconcerned with trying to be a jerk to someone driving.
July 11, 20177 yr Cyclists cause drivers a special kind of road rage. The situation of car vs. bike creates something of a superiority complex for the car. A few years ago I was biking home from a late at night after work. I was waiting at a light on Superior at Public Square when a few close-call speeding cars making turns got me nervous. I'm in the middle of the road feeling like a bowling pin. For my safety I ran the red light before any more cars could get near me. At the next block a guy slows beside me in his car and is livid, berating me for breaking the law and he's about to have a complete nervous breakdown. But then after he finally realizes I'm not going to fight him or something, he peels out and over the Detroit-Superior bridge easily going twice the speed limit lol. That's logic for you.
July 11, 20177 yr Cyclists cause drivers a special kind of road rage. The situation of car vs. bike creates something of a superiority complex for the car. A few years ago I was biking home from a late at night after work. I was waiting at a light on Superior at Public Square when a few close-call speeding cars making turns got me nervous. I'm in the middle of the road feeling like a bowling pin. For my safety I ran the red light before any more cars could get near me. At the next block a guy slows beside me in his car and is livid, berating me for breaking the law and he's about to have a complete nervous breakdown. But then after he finally realizes I'm not going to fight him or something, he peels out and over the Detroit-Superior bridge easily going twice the speed limit lol. That's logic for you. ^As someone who has been heckled and harassed many times while bicycling, I can attest that virtually every single time it's an angry 40-60 year-old white guy in a truck or other macho vehicle. It's never someone in a compact car. The only minority I can recall harassing me was a pair of 22~ year-old black girls on Race St. near Findlay Market who honked at me for biking too slowly across the unused streetcar turnouts. That's it. Out of dozens and dozens of incidents. I got in a pretty awesome shouting match last year in Madisonville. I wasn't really mad at the guy for passing too closely and honking but I acted like I was and he flipped the hell out. It was hilarious. Expensive silver pickup truck, of course. If I had a gopro it would have a million hits. This is a function of the whiteness of the Cincinnati area. This in not a predisposition of just older white people. I've seen plenty of drivers of all skin colors and from all over the world here in the DC area get very aggressive with cyclists and pedestrians. It's not a racial thing.
July 11, 20177 yr Just this past weekend, I went for a ride with some friends north from San Francisco in to Marin County. Part of the route takes you across the Golden Gate Bridge and down a local access road that passes through a tunnel under HWY 101. The tunnel is narrow; two lanes in each direction with no shoulder, and about 75-100 ft long. When I ride through, in either direction, I always ride in the middle of the the lane. On this particular Saturday, some asshole in a pickup truck decides he wants to pass. This isn't that uncommon, though it is dangerous, as the sightlines are obscured by the curve in the tunnel, but people will pass cyclists in the tunnel all the time - usually tourists. What was uncommon was that this particular asshole decided he was going to squeeze me over while passing by moving right in the lane. By the time he actually passes me, I'm nearly up against the wall and he's only a couple feet from clipping my front tire. I scream 'hey' and wave my arm in case he can't see me, but I can see he's watching my in his side mirror. At the stop sign just after the tunnel, he has his window down as I catch up (there's a bike lane in the shoulder at this point) and he hollers 'share the lane, bro', to which I respond 'You nearly ran me in to the wall back there'. He repeats himself and starts to pull away, so I said (i thought not loudly enough for him to hear since he was rolling up his window) yeah and you go F*ck yourself. So he slows down and proceeds to pace along side me on this downhill passage in to Sausalito saying 'don't be a tough guy' and I repeat "you almost ran me in to the wall" and he repeats back 'share the road'. So I told him to go f*ck himself again. Eventually he pulls away from me. Up ahead is an area of rougher pavement, and since it's downhill and I can get up to about 25-30 mph, I took the lane again so that I can be sure I don't wreck in the messy pavement. I see him pass one of my friends again who is also taking the lane, and he squeezes him over to the shoulder. This whole incident pissed me off to know end because he used the 'share the road' slogan against a cyclist. We have no quick quip to respond with. I was so livid and also a bit frightened by it.
July 12, 20177 yr Guys like that loved the mid-'90s because bigass trucks, nu-country, nu-metal and aggressive dogs started taking over. Also everyone else started getting fat.
July 12, 20177 yr Road biking has always had an effeminate connotation in the United States because of its origins in Europe, similar to soccer. That said, the late-80s lycra bicycle short trend made absolutely no sense. But there is a curious paradox...if you ride a city or mountain bike in the city or on a country road, the passing heckler can pinpoint your character and deliver his cleverest insult. If you are dolled-up in lycra with a helmet and sunglasses, it's tougher to see just what kind of loser you are. Geek, Dweeb, or Spaz? He needs more information. So you get just a general insult.
July 12, 20177 yr Admittedly, I was 'all dolled up in lycra, helmet, and sunglasses' but I was out for a 50-mile ride. He probably does hate cats.
July 12, 20177 yr What I've never understood is how the guys in the big pick ups think their truck makes them tough and manly and the bike is weak and girly. But I have to actually use muscle to move my bike and you only need to press a pedal down to make a truck move. Just something I always thought was weird.
July 12, 20177 yr What I've never understood is how the guys in the big pick ups think their truck makes them tough and manly and the bike is weak and girly. But I have to actually use muscle to move my bike and you only need to press a pedal down to make a truck move. Just something I always thought was weird. That's a good point. Biking 50 miles burns like 1800 calories. Driving 50 miles - maybe 18? Haha. If it's not muscle-work in a gym or on a sportsball field, it doesn't count, though.
July 12, 20177 yr Incidentally, it's amazing how much more comfortable biking is in actual bicycling clothes is as opposed to regular athletic clothes or just regular shorts and shirt. The size and fit of a particular bicycle is probably the #1 most important thing for comfort, but clothes are probably just as important. Any time you bike on the Loveland trail you inevitably see people out there with ill-fitting bikes and ill-fitting clothes. Then they're sore and cursing bicycling after a 5-mile ride.
July 12, 20177 yr That's a good point. Biking 50 miles burns like 1800 calories. Driving 50 miles - maybe 18? Haha. When you go out for a really long ride, you switch over to burning just fat somewhere between hour 2 and hour 4. The feeling is really obvious. You get like a 10 minute warning and then your energy level takes a nice dive. If you stop to get any kind of food, even fast food, you get an incredible energy boost. Bike for 10 hours then drink a coke and you'll know how much energy is in a can of that stuff! Each year I seem to mess up on food on a long ride. In 2015 got to the Little River Tavern in Oregonia about an hour before they opened. So I rode and extra 30 minutes north, turned around, and got to the place that much more depleted. I ate like an entire chicken, a hamburger, a salad, and about 4 sides. By the time I biked 35~ miles back to the parking lot in Newtown I was almost hungry again. That ride was about 80 miles total. When I was younger and in better shape I could do that distance a lot faster and with less food.
August 3, 20177 yr A nice meat-and-potatoes cross-country bike ride story: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/08/03/trip-lifetime-delayed-years/KiMiCcnWCgnmXK5ojcQnfO/story.html The technical detail that is striking is that he only had one flat tire in 3,000+ miles. That's definitely a testament to the durability of modern touring tires, although I'm not sure which ones he had.
August 4, 20177 yr The technical detail that is striking is that he only had one flat tire in 3,000+ miles. That's definitely a testament to the durability of modern touring tires, although I'm not sure which ones he had. I use Conti Gatorskins, and although they're slightly heavier (for weight weenies) and a pain to get on most rims, they are very durable. I rarely get flats anymore as long as I pay attention to wear. It's so nice.
August 4, 20177 yr I had one of those on my city bike for a few years. I never got a flat but it was a total pain to get off the wheel when I decided to buy two new matching tires for that bike. The racing tires like Continental 4000s have a much better ride quality than any tire I've had with sidewall protection. But I threw in the towel on my road bike when I got a blowout from a tiny twig going about 40mph downhill in the Smoky Mountains. If you're never going to enter a race (like me) there is really no reason to ride with racing tires other than bragging rights on Strava or a similar app.
September 22, 20177 yr Mayor Peduto tweeted: @billpeduto Sep 19 Back in the 90s, Pittsburgh was rated one of the worst 10 cities - today we just joined one of the 10 best. Pittsburgh just joined the top ten cities for bike commuting! So what's going right? We break it down in our blog: http://bit.ly/2wtEJYO "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
September 22, 20177 yr ^Thanks for the post KJP. No reason a hilly city like Cincinnati can't do the same, considering Pittsburgh has done it!!!
September 22, 20177 yr You just gotta make sure you've got gears if you're journeying outside the basin. When I lived in Cincinnati all I had was a BMX despite being in my late 20s. I rode to Ault Park from Oakley one time and it was murder. I don't know why I didn't get something with gears, though if you go over 30mph on a BMX down a hill you feel like you're breaking the speed of sound since pedaling a BMX is pointless at that speed.
September 22, 20177 yr ^What I like about Dayton is that in the few places where there actually are hills (like going from UD to Oakwood), there's always a rails-to-trail that is basically flat to get you to where you're going. So it's easy to get up the hill at a shallow grade and then you can just fly down a different steep hill on the way back. “To an Ohio resident - wherever he lives - some other part of his state seems unreal.”
November 21, 20177 yr This video is ridiculous. The guy who made it obviously intentionally caused problems in traffic to mess with pedestrians and vehicular traffic. I called him out in the comments and he got upset. However, the video is useful for illustrating just how chaotic things often are in bike lanes. They simply are not the panacea people want to believe they are...as is obvious in this video, pedestrians and other bikers are a much bigger problem than cars:
May 5, 20187 yr Dude in Tennessee changes plea, now pleads guilty to purposefully hitting bicyclist on Natchez Trace Parkway in 2017: http://www.wsmv.com/story/38105823/man-accused-of-hitting-bicyclist-on-natchez-trace-to-plead-guilty
August 6, 20186 yr Reporter spoke to LeBron James about the power of bicycles. And it got *dorky.* Cannondale, Huffy, Mongoose, commuting, Critical Mass, whether or not he's tried clipless pedals, hybrids, spandex... LeBron James: The Bicycle Interview. For @WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lebron-james-interview-about-bicycles-1533561787 "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
August 9, 20186 yr The NY Times profiled the American bike touring couple that was recenlty run over and killed by ISIS: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/07/world/asia/islamic-state-tajikistan-bike-attack.html
August 9, 20186 yr The NY Times profiled the American bike touring couple that was recenlty run over and killed by ISIS: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/07/world/asia/islamic-state-tajikistan-bike-attack.html “You read the papers and you’re led to believe that the world is a big, scary place,” Mr. Austin wrote. “People, the narrative goes, are not to be trusted. People are bad. People are evil....I don’t buy it. Evil is a make-believe concept we’ve invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own …" And sadly, what most people will remember about his life was not how right he was, but how wrong he was.
August 9, 20186 yr I'm not trying to heap on him, but imagine if he had survived but his girlfriend hadn't. Would he have been able to maintain those beliefs? I definitely agree with him, but accept that random bad things happen. Also, I'm not a fan of "adventure" tourism for the simple fact that medical care for routine problems, let alone exotic ones, can't be counted upon. Luckily we speak English, so there's a good chance that the staff will have someone who can speak to the injured party and whoever they were with, but that's just one problem of many.
August 9, 20186 yr I'm not trying to heap on him, but imagine if he had survived but his girlfriend hadn't. Would he have been able to maintain those beliefs? I definitely agree with him, but accept that random bad things happen. Also, I'm not a fan of "adventure" tourism for the simple fact that medical care for routine problems, let alone exotic ones, can't be counted upon. Luckily we speak English, so there's a good chance that the staff will have someone who can speak to the injured party and whoever they were with, but that's just one problem of many. It may be because it's more memorable and shocking, but it sure seems to me like these things end with the cyclist being seriously injured or killed by a car.
August 10, 20186 yr Lance goes down hard: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/cycling/2018/08/09/lance-armstrong-goes-hospital-shares-bloody-selfie-after-bike-crash/949891002/ Getting back to my previous comment...even in the mountain west, you can get to a good hospital. We've got helicopters, working phones, etc. Good luck getting treatment for a fall in Central Asia.
August 17, 20186 yr One of Queen Elizabeth's doctors killed in a cycling accident in London on Cycle to Work Day: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/queen-elizabeth-iis-personal-doctor-killed-in-cycle-crash/ar-BBM0zGW?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=LENDHP No details on the crash but the truck driver was not arrested, meaning the doctor might have been a novice cyclist and he was at fault.
August 29, 20186 yr No helmets, no problem: how the Dutch created a casual biking culture https://t.co/NDAc5gezax via @voxdotcom "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
December 8, 20186 yr On 8/28/2018 at 10:11 PM, KJP said: No helmets, no problem: how the Dutch created a casual biking culture https://t.co/NDAc5gezax via @voxdotcom Last spring I couldn't find the $140 bike helmet I had just purchased the previous fall. I tore my house upside down. I rode without a helmet for about a month waiting and waiting for the thing to turn up. Eventually I gave up and bought a new helmet. Then, today, December 8, I found the damn thing. In a box with one of those green hi-viz construction site vests. In my family room closet.
April 23, 20196 yr I own three bikes and two went down in the past 3 or 4 days. The first one had its front brake caliper spontaneously fall apart. The second had about the tenth flat in the past year. I bought a new bike last year with a supposedly puncture-proof tubeless tires. I have had one problem after another with these tires, mostly because of leaks around the rim. This past Sunday I got a true puncture flat that the fix-a-flat failed to seal and had to walk the bike several miles back to my house.
April 23, 20196 yr It is amazing how much broken glass is all over the city. There are also stray screws from construction sites, but mostly broken glass everywhere. It is hard to avoid getting flats.
April 23, 20196 yr I haven't noticed as much glass as just gravel and muck. The problem with the gravel is that if it's not removed properly, it just keeps getting pushed around and won't go away on its own. At least leaves decompose after a while.
April 23, 20196 yr 8 hours ago, Jimmy Skinner said: It is amazing how much broken glass is all over the city. There are also stray screws from construction sites, but mostly broken glass everywhere. It is hard to avoid getting flats. Spring Grove Ave. is always really bad. If we had a large network of bike lanes then the city could justify buying a special small street sweeper just for the lanes and run that thing down each lane each day. The labor and machine would cost $100k per year but that's nothing for a city with a general budget pushing $400 million.
April 23, 20196 yr The city HAS a small street sweeper, they got it back in 2017, they just refuse to sweep bike lanes.
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