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Archives for November 2010

Let’s Ban All Drivers From the Roads!

11.23.2010 by Ray Niekamp // 8 Comments

It was Friday evening rush hour.  I was driving home from a full day at work, and was just as glad as everyone else on the road to get a jump on the weekend.

Friday evenings have some weird effect on drivers.  Here’s what I saw just a few blocks from my house:

I turned onto a residential street, and noticed a Saturn sedan on my tail.  I recognized it by sight; it lives two blocks from me.  The high school aged girl driving it was obviously impatient with my speed on the street — I was going 30 in a 30 mph zone. She tailgated me closely. At a fork in the road, I went right. She went left.  I knew our two roads would converge again in moments.  When they did, at a 4-way stop, I was on the right, so had the right of way at the stop sign.  She came up on the left, and tried to jump out ahead of me. I wouldn’t let her, and took my rightful turn.  I’m sure she’ll make a note of my car in her s__t list, after I held her up from getting home by … oh, I dunno … maybe five seconds.

A half hour later, I was making a run for take-out food.  At a stoplight, I was in the right lane, a big black Tahoe or something on my left.  I guess the driver was trying to signal me at the light, but because we were side-by-side, I didn’t see her wave at me, or see her turn signal.The Tahoe must have needed to make a right turn real bad, because when the light changed, the driver jumped ahead, shot me a dirty look, signaled her turn, and nearly cut me off.  I eased up and let her go. Then, just as she reached the street where she was going to turn, she had second thoughts.  She signaled left, swerved into the left lane, then shot across to a left turn lane at the next corner, and did a U-turn.

Both these incidents happened in less time than it takes to read about them.  I just shrugged my shoulders and mentioned to my wife when I got home that drivers were a bit loony tonight.  That was it.

Now suppose those two drivers were on bikes instead of behind the wheels of cars?

When bikes jump in front of cars at stop signs, motorists get pissed.  When cyclists drive erratically, motorists write to the newspaper, or call the local talk show blowhard, and bitch about those rotten bikers and how they all oughta get off their bikes and drive cars the way God intended.

Now suppose every time a biker experiences bad driving by a motorist, he or she writes the same newspaper or calls the same talk show?

Nah. Their letters wouldn’t be published, and the call screener wouldn’t let ’em on the air.

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Categories // Odds 'n ends Tags // car vs. bike, road rage

Training With a Group

11.21.2010 by Ray Niekamp // 3 Comments

Saturday morning, in what is truly a departure for me and my style of riding, I signed up for a training workshop.  It was going to take place near my house, so it was convenient, and it was going to do hills, which I need lots of help on.  So I rolled out of my driveway at 8:30 and 15 minutes later was with a group of like-minded cyclists near the Austin Veloway, waiting for the fun to begin.

Waiting to get started.

Austin Cycle Camp is putting on free workshops every Saturday in November.  I missed the first two, because of lousy planning on my part, and was anxious to see what these 90-minute sessions involved.  In all, 26 people showed up.  The AC2 (Austin Cycle Camp) coaches divided us into two groups, and explained what was in store for us.

My group started with long hills.  Actually, just one long hill, and it just happened to be one with which I am intimately familiar, since it’s part of the Mopac route I ride all the time.  The hill is about three-tenths of a mile long, not too steep, but it can kick a cyclist’s butt.  Coach Trey told us we were to pick a base cadence and maintain it all the way to the top.  Okay, not too tough.  I figured I could hold 80 rpm easily enough.

Not so easy.  About 100 yards from the top, I fell to about 77, and just couldn’t get it any higher.  I cruised around a corner to regroup with Trey and some of the other cyclists.  He told us to do it again — three times in all — and increase our cadence each time.

When we regrouped after the third climb, everyone was glad of the chance for a breather.  The other group had been working on short, steep hills, and they joined us so we could switch places and coaches.

Now, Coach Dave took us a short distance away, down an easy hill to a turnaround, where we stopped to hear what he had planned for us. It was all about cadence again, but this time, we were to start in a low, comfortable gear and ride that same gear to the top.  Looking back at the hill we had just come down, I wasn’t impressed. It was nowhere near the really steep hills Austin is famous for.  But Dave said this exercise would be a good training session.

Okay, quick pedal to the top, turn around, come back down.  Now, he said, do the hill one gear higher.  And each time, we had to shift up one more gear.  Six times in all. Then he had us do the last climb out of the saddle.

I don’t think anyone was beaten by the drills.  As one rider noticed, “Nobody threw up.” But I found them to be very useful. These are streets right in my neighborhood, and the session gave me several ideas for making my rides around here more challenging.  I already do hill repeats just a few blocks from where our workout was — but I’ll be doing them differently from now on, shifting up each time, maintaining cadence.  It’s a more structured kind of training than I usually go in for, but I know it’ll help.  And there’s one more free clinic to go this month — I’ll be there next Saturday.

 

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Categories // training Tags // coaching, training

Causes of Bike Crashes

11.18.2010 by Ray Niekamp // 5 Comments

I recently came across data from two different sources that sheds some light on the causes of bicycle crashes.  The first is a report from the Twin Cities Bike Club of Minnesota.  The second is a report prepared by the city of Fort Collins, Colorado.  While the two sets of data covered different time periods and were compiled in different ways, they are interesting to look at.

The Twin Cities Bike Club has a Safety Committee that compiles records of all of its members’ bike crashes throughout the year.  The most recent data is from 2009.  In all, 34 crashes were reported,  and they fell into three categories:

Falling from a bike, 23; bike-bike collisions, 5; and bike-car collisions, 6.

The falls ran the gamut of causes, from silly to unfortunate.  My favorite: “Rider was drinking from camelback with one hand and braking with the other while negotiating a curve, went down.”  Other falls happened because of trouble with pedals and cleats, skidding on wet pavement, going off a paved bike trail, and handlebar grips coming loose.

Falls aren’t a laughing matter, though.  Falls can hurt.

In Fort Collins, the city’s report didn’t count falls from bikes.  It focused solely on car-bike crashes, with an eye to making the city’s streets safer for commuters.  It covers police reports filed between Jan. 1, 2007-June 30, 2009.  In all, 354 bike-car crashes were studied.  The conclusion:  Both motorists and cyclists share the blame.

The biggest cause of bike-car crashes may be considered somewhat of a surprise: Bikes traveling against traffic and ending up in a broadside collision with a car.  These kinds of crashes accounted for more than half of the fatal or severe injury crashes, and 60 percent of all crashes, in the report.  A broadside is a crash when a bike hits a car on a perpendicular road.

A broadside crash in the making.

Those of us who ride regularly might be surprised to learn that most of the broadsides happened when the bike was riding against traffic.  Part of the reason might be that Fort Collins, a city of about 140,000 people, is home to Colorado State University, which enrolls 26,300 students.  Many of these students commute to campus by bike.  The city’s bike coordinator says the crash data shows that university students could benefit from bicycle education efforts.

Other car-bike crashes included the overtaking, or “right hook” crash, where a car passes a bike, then turns right.  Those were 13 percent of the crashes.  Sideswipes, where bikes and cars were going in either the same or opposite directions, accounted for seven percent.

The Twin Cities crash data is less clear about the causes of bike-car crashes.  Only one seemed to fit the “right hook” description, and none apparently were broadsides.  Inattention by cyclists was the evident cause of some crashes: A rider was hit in a right turn lane, and another rider crashed into the back of a school bus when the bus suddenly stopped for railroad tracks.

So, what do we learn from these very different reports?  Both bikers and motorists have lots of room for improvement.  Clearly, if you ride predictably and obey the rules of the road, your chances of tangling with a car diminish.  But you must be alert and attentive all the while you are on your bike.  It’s not just the cars that can knock you down.  It’s yourself, too.

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Categories // crash, Safety Tags // crash

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