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OK, I'll kill 2 birds with one stone. I've been meaning to post the web site I created regarding riding wide shoulders. I added the photo of the flag and Dinotte head light to the "Contact" tab on this web page. Note that it's not the intro photo, but rather the one on the "Contacts" tab:
http://www.ridetheshoulders.com
Michael,
Odd, it works for me, in both the forum web view and the email digest. Try the link below. If there is a way to upload or attach photos I can do that too, but I could not find an obvious way to do that in the forum.
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir? … feat=email
Very glad the cyclist is OK. I've been commuting up and down 360 (and/or 620) for many years. When the guy got killed earlier this year near Westbank, it scared me off the bike for months. Seemed like he was doing everything right, and just got run over from behind on the shoulder. There are too many distracted drivers out there, and the cars are becoming even more loaded with dashboard distractions. Not to mention smart phone fiddling. It's amazing and infuriating how our society accepts the carnage as an acceptable cost for the ability to be entertained in our vehicles.
I'm bike commuting again, with more attention-grabbing paraphernalia. Picked up a tall flag from Mike Librick at EasyStreet, and spent $$$ on Dinotte lights which can be seen from very far away even in daylight. One problem on 360 is that when traffic is backed up, it is hard for a motorist to see the shoulder clearly beyond the cars in front of him. I am hoping the flag will help at least a little. Here's a photo:
https://picasaweb.google.com/1020112805 … agAndLight
Regards, and safe cycling,
Phil Hallmark
I found this link regarding a bicycle route from Austin to San Antonio:
http://bicycleaustin.info/getaround/rou … tonio.html
If anyone knows anything that has changed regarding the segment
between far S. Austin and New Braunfels, please let me know. I'm
planning on riding down there Friday afternoon. Don't worry about
getting me out of Austin. I will be starting way south of town.
Regards,
Phil Hallmark
I am Site Facilitator for a League Cycling Instructor seminar coming up in Austin in September. We are in need of some classroom space, preferably not too far from downtown.
If you are in possession or control of such space, and would like to allow it to be used for furthering cycling education in Austin, please read on.
We need a room roughly 18'x20' at the very least, and we need full, uninterrupted access to it the weekend of Sep 12-14:
Fri Sep 12 about 5pm until 10pm
Sat Sep 13 all day and into the evening
Sun Sep 14 all day, into late afternoon
Ideally we would have control of the room and be allowed to lock up classroom material overnight Fri and Sat.
I know this is a tall order, and we are currently scouting out some possibilities, but I thought I would open it up to the list and see if anything nice and easy falls into our lap.
If you can provide such lecture space, or have firsthand knowledge that such space is likely available, please contact me off list.
We are also going to need a fairly large paved space for drills, but that is another issue and it does not have to be directly related to the lecture space.
Regards,
Phil Hallmark
LCI #1656
Airless tires ... Sheldon Brown certainly didn't seem to like them: http://www.sheldonbrown.com/gloss_aa-l.html#airless
I always trust what Sheldon wrote on bike issues. Being a recovering clean chain fanatic (borderline obsessive), I got a good chuckle out of his April fool's riff on cleaning chains:
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/chainclean.html
R.I.P. Sheldon Brown! :(
Regards,
Phil Hallmark
i wasn't riding through it, but i found that lawnmowers were kickign up the sandburs on my path (sidewalk and road) near the YMCA Town Lake baseball fields. it took me a while to find the source.
That is EXACTLY where my wife picked up a bunch of brassburrs - we rode through the grass there on the way to the jingle bell ride a couple years ago. What a nightmare. She flatted during the ride, and I have no idea how we finished the ride after that because when we got home she had another flat then several more in the weeks that followed.
Regards,
Phil Hallmark
I feel like bicycles should really never get a flat, ever - or, at a minimum, we need to be able to let folks spend a bit more money so that they can avoid a flat in perpetuity.
Well, if you are willing to give up some performance and ride comfort, here ya go. I've never used them, so I don't know if they are practical:
http://www.airfreetires.com/
I just filled my tires with air. My tires say they take anywhere from 35 to 80 psi. I had realized air was getting low and just put 75 psi in both tires Saturday. Seems like every time I air them up real good, I start getting a series of flats.
Is it always glass or a thorn, etc, causing your flats? I've seen worn out rim strips that let the spoke nipples cause multiple flats. Also my wife had a rash of flats after riding through some grass that had a bunch of grass burrs (stickers, whatever). For weeks after that another little spine would work its way in and cause another flat. The individual spines are hard to see once the main sticker body is gone.
I have heard, and it has been my experience, that inflating tires at or near max pressure reduces the likelihood of flats.
Old worn out tires will also be more prone to flats.
I've never used the liners, but I have talked to people who swear by them.
Regards,
Phil Hallmark
I want 3' of safety buffer on EACH side of me. so if I am 2.5' wide as people have said that means I need a 8.5' space to feel truly safe, 6' is an acceptable compromise, but anything less is a threat to my safety.
Don't forget, you can control the lane and have all the safety you desire. If the lane is too narrow to safely share, you are completely within the law and your rights to "take the lane". This gets easier and less stressful with practice. I also recommend a rear-view mirror as a great help in controlling your situation on the road. Once you are sure that the car(s) behind you have seen you and have slowed down, you can move to the right and let them pass - on YOUR terms. Check out a League of American Bicyclists "Road I" course to learn the ropes. Thanks to Preston Tyree, Austin has perhaps one of the most active cyclist education programs in the country.
Regards,
Phil Hallmark
According to this report, even the much-maligned "Tri-Rail" system in S. Florida has standing room only on its trains. I can't help but think this bodes well for our very own commuter rail line, scheduled to open later this year. It is surprising to me that $4 gas is the tipping point. This may be a short-lived surge once people figure out they can just sell that Hummer for scrap metal then go out and buy a used Corolla for 8 grand. In the meantime, it sure looks like these rail systems around the country - even the ones that do not carry people door to door - are operating at or well beyond capacity.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20080604/ts … b.16Ss0NUE
Regards,
Phil Hallmark
I did a search on that book, and the most recent edition was 1984. I'm sure trends have changed over the last 24 years. Is there a more recent reference for bicycle accident data?
Mine is the 6th edition, 1993. While not exactly up-to-the-minute data, I would think his research still has value.
Regards,
Phil Hallmark
I think that in order to reduce bike/car accidents and deaths, we need to first understand what the real problems are. This requires understanding what factors contributed to *actual* accidents and deaths, so that problems can be rationally prioritized. My gut tells me that cyclist education (particularly for kids) would provide the biggest bang for the buck, but without real data showing that uninformed cyclist decisions are the biggest contributor to bike/car accidents, I don't know for sure that's the highest priority - or what the priorities should be in general.
John Forester's book "Effective Cycling" has tons of data on bicycle accidents. If I recall correctly, riding at night with no lights, or being a kid, are the 2 most common causes of cycle crashes. As for tangles with cars, they are indeed relatively low on the list of causes, and the most common place where bikes tangle with cars is at intersections. The fear we all have about being run over from behind is not supported by Forester's research. Ironically, most of the things we do to alleviate that fear put us in more danger at intersections, where most of the accidents occur (hugging the curb, riding against traffic, etc).
Regards,
Phil Hallmark
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