Riding in Memory

This morning was the tribute ride for Danielle Naçu, the cyclist who was killed last week when she was hit by an opening car door and thrown into traffic. I was expecting a crowd: I certainly wasn't expecting the hundreds that showed up. One policeman I spoke to afterward said he thought there were about 500 people walking or riding down Queen Street (where Danielle was killed); the folks at Spacing Ottawa think they counted more like 700 (in this video of the ride setting off from Bronson and Queen.)



I was somewhere toward the front end of the group, by virtue of having been inside at the Christ Church Cathedral hall till nearly ride time: they'd opened the hall and brought out coffee and muffins for the riders, and my friend Steve was there volunteering, so I popped in for a cup of coffee and to give him a hug.

 

Steve manning the coffee table.

The ride set off a bit after nine, led by Danielle's family, her brother carrying a huge bunch of yellow balloons. From the 'dozens' predicted on CBC Radio that morning, we were already up to hundreds and more joined the ride along the way. (CBC's Ottawa Morning show was playing an update about the ride every half hour from about 7:00 AM this morning, and correspondent Giacomo Panico was at the starting point by 8:00, about half an hour before I got there.)

Setting off.

"Jordan L" (@supposedly_fun) posted this on Twitter: the ride as seen from an office block on Queen.

The weather stayed lovely: about 10 degrees, with the sun trying to break through and very little wind. I was riding alongside my friend Kevin, trying to remember how to ride that slowly - I caught on after a block or so. Hundreds of bike bells ringing meant we rode along in a bubble of chiming sounds. People stopped at the side of the street in respect, or took pictures of the stream of cyclists and walkers. We wound to a halt at the ghost bike installed on the north side of Queen, where Danielle died, and Danielle's brother Brent climbed up onto the bike (which was already nearly buried in flowers) to speak to the crowd, and everyone burst into applause (and the ringing of bike bells.)

That was when I started getting choked up. He released the balloons he was holding, and we all watched them drift up and away. Then Brent thanked everyone for being there, talked about Danielle's love of the city, and said that it was the support and warmth of people in Ottawa that had been helping them get through.

Sam McGavin, who had organized the ride, was a tiny woman, who was lifted up onto Brent's shoulders so she could speak to the crowd as well. She said that she heard about Danielle's accident when her partner called her, frantic to know if she was all right, and that it was probably the same for a lot of us. "For a day, we didn't know who she was," she said, "only that one of us had died, and it could have been a friend, or a sister, or a girlfriend, or a mother, or a daughter." She called on everyone to share the road, and on the city planners to take cycling into account when they design roads, build public spaces, and plan streets, and told everyone to be cautious - "not afraid," she said, "but cautious and aware."

Looking around, I was amazed at the size of the crowd. It stretched back at least a block, probably more. 

After Sam stepped down, the crowd slowly dispersed, with a number of people waiting to place flowers that they'd brought on the already buried ghost bike, and the media interviewing a few people, as well as the Naçu family. I stayed for a moment, not wanting to simply ride away, and then, of course, I did: down blocked-off Queen Street and onto Bank, where all the cars and bikes were rolling along as usual, but, I imagined, a little more somberly.

(Photo: Pat McGrath, The Ottawa Citizen: The story, with photos and videos, is on the Citizen website.)

Tribute Ride tomorrow

(Cross posted on Spacing Ottawa)

The ghost bike on Queen, Sat. night.

Tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM, hundreds of cyclists and allies (non-cyclists are welcome to walk with the group) will be meeting at Bronson and Queen for a tribute ride for Danielle Naçu, the cyclist who was killed last week on Queen Street. Christ Church Cathedral, at Bronson and Queen, will be serving coffee from 8:00 AM, and supplying shelter in case of rain. Anyone participating is encouraged to wear yellow if possible, as a symbol of the ‘ray of sunshine’ that Danielle was to those who knew her. The ride/walk will travel up Queen Street with a police escort (also on bikes), stopping at the ‘ghost bike’ installed at the place where Danielle was struck. The flowers from the funeral home are due to be moved to the ghost bike tonight: if the number of flowers piled on the bike two days ago are any indication, the bike should be completely buried by tomorrow morning. Members of her family will speak, and other members of the cycling community are welcome to say a few words, regardless of whether they knew her.

And thanks to Spacing Ottawa, here's a gorgeous little piece by Belfast journalist Malachi O'Doherty, who I had the real pleasure of meeting a few years ago at the Writers Festival: worth watching, in memory of any cyclist killed on the roads.

Reason #462

... that drivers should give cyclists a little elbow room:

Sometimes there are surprises. Like large chunks of inexplicable concrete sitting there at the edge of the road.

 

This was on Main Street, in front of Saint Paul's University, where, believe it or not, a cyclist often finds herself squished that close to the curb (it's a narrow, fast street with a serious pothole problem.) I'm baffled. And glad I had space to swerve. And considering starting a catalog of the odd things I've had to swerve to avoid.

Cyclists do it too...

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.

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 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.)

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.

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!