I don't know what it was, but today seemed like a day where I kept running into traffic problems, not with cars, but with other cyclists. At one point I was heading along the bike lane when a man on a commuter cut lazily across from the opposite bike lane, pedalling away, and drove slantwise across the oncoming lane and into the bike lane, where he wound up heading straight for me, the wrong way up the bike lane. I dodged, and said something like, "Watch it!" as he arced left onto a side street and continued on his way. I guess merging with traffic and slowing down to make the turn at a sharper angle would have cramped his style.
Then a few blocks away, I was waiting in the left turn lane at a pretty big intersection when a man rolled up beside me on his bike, and glanced at me with a vague sort of expression. I was too busy wondering why he'd pulled up on my outside to be particularly social, and when the light did turn green, he did just what I'd been worried he was going to do: he headed out into the left turn beside me, which meant that when we finished the left turn, one of us would have to hit the brakes or we'd collide as we both headed for the outer edge of the road. I shouted, "What are you doing!?" but he didn't seem concerned. I pedaled faster just to get away from him in case he did anything else wonky.
I know, I know. In those bike-flotillas you see so often in videos of Copenhagen that make it look like cyclist heaven, I'd have to put up with more jostling than this. But I also wouldn't be putting up with the added factor of adjacent motor traffic. And I figure if we're all vehicles together, we should all try and act like it.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Friday, September 16, 2011
Appalled by Nepean High School
I had been trying to avoid even looking at this story over the last couple of days, but I finally couldn't ignore the churning feeling in my stomach. I mean the story about Nepean High School student (now ex-student) Mykal Baytaluk chasing down a freshman in his car as a hazing ritual. His friends threw eggs out the window of the car at the other kid, then Baytaluk chased him along the road, and finally ran over the bike and drove away.
What repels me about this isn't that it happened. People do stupid things. People do stupid things with cars. In high school and out of it. (I myself have done stupid things with cars while in high school.) But the outcry supporting his moronic behaviour from his fellow students is just appalling. And the fact that he said he would "probably do it again" and thinks it's 'unfair' that he was expelled is also pretty repellent.
I don't have much of an opinion about hazing, except that it didn't happen at my high school, and if it had I would have been as far from it as I could possibly manage to be (I avoided all the 'frosh week activities' in first year university, too.) Come to think of it, maybe I do have an opinion about hazing, which is that it reinforces the superiority of the ones with social, psychological, and emotional power, and anyone who doesn't like it is forced to participate. Maybe it's bullying, maybe it's not. Apparently these kids - the ones protesting - think it's all in good fun. But the fact remains that a 17-year-old kid got behind the wheel of a car and pointed it at another human being, and his fellow students are okay with that.
That leads to people that think it's okay to bully and harass cyclists and other drivers. People that think that because you feel like you're in control of a car, you are (things can go wrong - gas pedals can stick, you can misjudge, hell, you can sneeze.) Throwing eggs at a Grade 9, whatever I may think of the practice, is nowhere in the same league as running them down with a car, and it scares me that these kids don't seem to know the difference.
What repels me about this isn't that it happened. People do stupid things. People do stupid things with cars. In high school and out of it. (I myself have done stupid things with cars while in high school.) But the outcry supporting his moronic behaviour from his fellow students is just appalling. And the fact that he said he would "probably do it again" and thinks it's 'unfair' that he was expelled is also pretty repellent.
I don't have much of an opinion about hazing, except that it didn't happen at my high school, and if it had I would have been as far from it as I could possibly manage to be (I avoided all the 'frosh week activities' in first year university, too.) Come to think of it, maybe I do have an opinion about hazing, which is that it reinforces the superiority of the ones with social, psychological, and emotional power, and anyone who doesn't like it is forced to participate. Maybe it's bullying, maybe it's not. Apparently these kids - the ones protesting - think it's all in good fun. But the fact remains that a 17-year-old kid got behind the wheel of a car and pointed it at another human being, and his fellow students are okay with that.
That leads to people that think it's okay to bully and harass cyclists and other drivers. People that think that because you feel like you're in control of a car, you are (things can go wrong - gas pedals can stick, you can misjudge, hell, you can sneeze.) Throwing eggs at a Grade 9, whatever I may think of the practice, is nowhere in the same league as running them down with a car, and it scares me that these kids don't seem to know the difference.
Monday, August 29, 2011
What the hey?
My friend Marty posted this picture today on Facebook; the Bixi rack at the Musuem of Civilization.
Melbourne?
And then, not twenty minutes after I saw this, came the answer, from CitizenCycle. Apparently there's a bit of a foreign-exchange program going on at Bixi. To demonstrate that there are Bixis all over the world, these bike ambassadors are hanging out in the Bixi networks of various cities. Mystery solved! (And, I might add, it's a kind of endearing answer.)
Melbourne?
And then, not twenty minutes after I saw this, came the answer, from CitizenCycle. Apparently there's a bit of a foreign-exchange program going on at Bixi. To demonstrate that there are Bixis all over the world, these bike ambassadors are hanging out in the Bixi networks of various cities. Mystery solved! (And, I might add, it's a kind of endearing answer.)
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Project Aura
Okay, I admit it: this is pretty cool. It's funny how some ways of lighting up your bike at night come off as dorky and others don't: I think what really appeals to me about this is the way it also indicates when you're slowing down, and does that intuitively, using a visual language that would be (one hopes) totally instinctive.
I would buy this! Even with my blinking tail light and Mike's googly white eyes in front I still worry that I'm invisible at night. Even when I've also got my panniers with their (I know, because I've seen it) blindingly reflective orange patches on the back.
No, I swear, it's *not* the same as getting spinners. Or those purple undercarriage lights people put on their cars. It's not! It's cool!
Project Aura: Bicycle Safety Lighting System from Project AURA on Vimeo.
I would buy this! Even with my blinking tail light and Mike's googly white eyes in front I still worry that I'm invisible at night. Even when I've also got my panniers with their (I know, because I've seen it) blindingly reflective orange patches on the back.
No, I swear, it's *not* the same as getting spinners. Or those purple undercarriage lights people put on their cars. It's not! It's cool!
Monday, August 22, 2011
R.I.P. Jack Layton
Adding my voice ... I can't really focus today because I'm suddenly, and totally by surprise, gutted by the loss of Jack Layton. Among many, many other things, he was a proud cyclist: and I just (thanks to Spacing Ottawa) found this absolutely moving tribute on Flickr - his name written in chalk on bike lanes in Toronto.
The Citizen's cycling blog just posted a series of pictures of Jack and bikes, too: one of my favorites:
It sucks that I'm coming back to this blog after a long hiatus for such a sad reason. . . I've been extremely busy this summer - general life-related chaos, which I hope is beginning to settle into shape and will give me more time for blogging.
But right now, I'm just mourning the loss of a man who stuck to his guns, fought hard with a smile on his face, and will leave a gaping Jack-shaped hole in Canadian politics.
The Citizen's cycling blog just posted a series of pictures of Jack and bikes, too: one of my favorites:
It sucks that I'm coming back to this blog after a long hiatus for such a sad reason. . . I've been extremely busy this summer - general life-related chaos, which I hope is beginning to settle into shape and will give me more time for blogging.
But right now, I'm just mourning the loss of a man who stuck to his guns, fought hard with a smile on his face, and will leave a gaping Jack-shaped hole in Canadian politics.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Maybe it's just me...
I got home tonight, switched on my computer, and spotted the following two posts on Twitter, both by someone named @taybridge:
Tweet the First: "#ottbike - Dear bonehead. Passing on the shared path with inches to spare and almost clipping me and a runner is stupid. Smarten up."
Okay, fair enough, can't argue with sharing the multi-use paths. But then he follows it up, literally less than a minute later, with:
Tweet the Second: "#ottbike - One more thing about the path. The parkway has two paths. Why, during rush hour, stupid cyclist, are you riding on the road? Argh"
Well, I didn't answer either one (although I almost answered the second. But 140 characters isn't enough time to explain that sometimes you wind up on the parkway because the path isn't going where you need to go, etc. etc.) I'd like to mention, though, that these two comments, hard on each other's heels, are a bit depressing to me. To this guy, bikes shouldn't be on the path, because they're dangerous to joggers and walkers, and shouldn't be on the road, because they should be on the path.
Circular much? What you're telling me, @taybridge, is that bikes don't belong anywhere. And that's why I'm not getting into it with you.
Tweet the First: "#ottbike - Dear bonehead. Passing on the shared path with inches to spare and almost clipping me and a runner is stupid. Smarten up."
Okay, fair enough, can't argue with sharing the multi-use paths. But then he follows it up, literally less than a minute later, with:
Tweet the Second: "#ottbike - One more thing about the path. The parkway has two paths. Why, during rush hour, stupid cyclist, are you riding on the road? Argh"
Well, I didn't answer either one (although I almost answered the second. But 140 characters isn't enough time to explain that sometimes you wind up on the parkway because the path isn't going where you need to go, etc. etc.) I'd like to mention, though, that these two comments, hard on each other's heels, are a bit depressing to me. To this guy, bikes shouldn't be on the path, because they're dangerous to joggers and walkers, and shouldn't be on the road, because they should be on the path.
Circular much? What you're telling me, @taybridge, is that bikes don't belong anywhere. And that's why I'm not getting into it with you.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Spike Bike (a little healthy escapism)
I shouldn't read the comments. I know this, and yet... and yet I keep reading the comments.
I mean, of course, the comments on any article about cycling, or bike lanes, or sharing the road. I know I shouldn't look, because I'm just going to run into an ugly stream of vitriol, anger, and threats of violence. On both sides. Cyclists will be accused of being smug and self-righteous, and the cyclists in turn will proceed to prove those accusations right by telling drivers that they're fat, lazy, and polluting the planet.
But then, I came across a comment thread that was getting the full back-and-forth flame treatment (you've all seen the kind of thing that gets said by anonymous jackasses) and someone, bless him, said something along the lines of, "Alright, I submit here the only possible response, for your reading pleasure," with a link to this archive.
Spike Bike. "In the year 1998 [this was written in 1989, on one of those old BBS boards], one man fights the tyranny of the automobile. . ."
It was just what I needed. Hilariously overblown Mad Max ultraviolence. A little fantasy fulfilment that takes the whole us-and-them hyperbole that always erupts in these comments, and extrapolates it. Here's your 'war on bikes,' and your 'war on cars.' Besides, it has a wry sense of humour that really endears it to me somehow. It catches the lunatic feel of 80's road warrior movies, and just in case you've ever fumed silently and helplessly as some jerk cut you off or buzzed you or hollered out their window trying to startle you into falling... this is guaranteed to be way more violent than anything you might have pictured yourself doing. And it's funny.
The paragraph that won me over:
I mean, of course, the comments on any article about cycling, or bike lanes, or sharing the road. I know I shouldn't look, because I'm just going to run into an ugly stream of vitriol, anger, and threats of violence. On both sides. Cyclists will be accused of being smug and self-righteous, and the cyclists in turn will proceed to prove those accusations right by telling drivers that they're fat, lazy, and polluting the planet.
But then, I came across a comment thread that was getting the full back-and-forth flame treatment (you've all seen the kind of thing that gets said by anonymous jackasses) and someone, bless him, said something along the lines of, "Alright, I submit here the only possible response, for your reading pleasure," with a link to this archive.
Spike Bike. "In the year 1998 [this was written in 1989, on one of those old BBS boards], one man fights the tyranny of the automobile. . ."
It was just what I needed. Hilariously overblown Mad Max ultraviolence. A little fantasy fulfilment that takes the whole us-and-them hyperbole that always erupts in these comments, and extrapolates it. Here's your 'war on bikes,' and your 'war on cars.' Besides, it has a wry sense of humour that really endears it to me somehow. It catches the lunatic feel of 80's road warrior movies, and just in case you've ever fumed silently and helplessly as some jerk cut you off or buzzed you or hollered out their window trying to startle you into falling... this is guaranteed to be way more violent than anything you might have pictured yourself doing. And it's funny.
The paragraph that won me over:
My weekly raid on the old Joliet Arsenal yielded what I needed: a bazooka and a couple of crates of armor-piercing rockets. As usual, the morons the Army has watching the place didn't see anything. All the approaches to the arsenal are pretty well guarded, but nobody expects a guy on a mountain bike sneaking up from the river bank. I slung the bazooka over my shoulder, stuffed all the rockets I could carry into a set of panniers and a backback, and slipped away unnoticed.
Back in the garage, I set about converting the bazooka and some old Reynolds tubing into a bikezooka. When I was finished, it looked pretty much like any other fat-tube bike, except your every-day Kleins and Cannondales aren't capable of firing antitank rockets out both the front and back ends. The bike handled a little funny, but I wasn't going to do any criteriums on this baby.
If you have a moment, it's worth it for the chuckles. And the bikezooka.
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