The Biking in Austin website has
been dramatically overhauled. New content includes:
* "Road Justice" page
* "How Not to Get Hit by Cars",
complete with illustrations
* Archived News Items
* Updates to existing
content
Also, a new navigation bar has been
added to help users find their way around the voluminous
content.
1400
new bike racks to be installed (7-21-98)
-----------------------------------
The City of Austin has contracted
with local cyclists David Baker and John Thoms to install 1400 new
bicycle parking racks throughout the city. Baker and Thoms are
founding members of the Yellow Bike Project, although the Project
is completely unrelated to this bike rack installation effort. The
downtown racks are green, and the racks in the rest of the city
will be regular galvanized metal. The money for this effort came
from a grant, not from the City budget. The project started a
couple of weeks ago and will continue through October or
thereabouts.
Bands:
"Bicycle Pilot" and "This Bike is a Pipebomb"
(6-98)
Austin is home to a band called
"Bicycle Pilot". They performed at Emo's recently with a touring
band from Florida called "This Bike is a Pipebomb". I guess this
is the 90's answer to "The Cars"...
Bicycle
Stocks show mixed performance (7-21-98)
-----------------------------------------------
Change Change
Current since since Stock
Price* 1-1-98 IPO** Symbol Company Name
------- ------ ------ ------- --------------------------------
2.69 -10% -43% ATYR -- American Tire Corporation (5-97)
9.97 18% -59% BSPT -- Bell Sports
87.75 4% 12% BSPTG - Bell Sports (11-96)
13.00 -38% 0% BIKE -- Cannondale (11-94)
7.50 22% -29% GTBX -- GT Bicycles (10-95)
18.88 34% 18% HUF --- Huffy Corporation
0.05 -26% -39% WPB.V - World Power Bicycles (8-96)
4.88 -19% -19% ZAPP -- Zapp Power Systems (6-98)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-2% -20% AVERAGE OF BICYCLE STOCKS
-----------------------------------------------------------------
22% 145% STANDARD & POOR 500
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* "Current Price" is as of
the market close on 7-21-98.
** "Change since IPO" is
the change since the stock's Initial Public Offering -- the date
it first became available. For stocks whose IPO's occurred before
1/4/93, we used the closing price on 1/4/93 to calculate returns
to date. IPO month & year appears after the company name for
IPO's occurring after 1/4/93.
DISCUSSION: Bicycle stocks,
in general, have performed quite miserably compared to the rest of
the market. However, individual bicycle stocks often perform well
at various times. This means you would not have made money with a
"buy & hold" strategy applied to all bicycle stocks, but you
could have made money by selectively buying certain bicycle stocks
at certain times. Note that Huffy has handily the market average
this year, while GTBX has matched it.
COMPANY
DESCRIPTIONS:
ATYR -- AMERICAN TIRE CORPORATION.
Has developed a special airless, flat-free,
environmentally-friendly tire for bicycles.
BSPT, BSPTG -- BELL SPORTS.
Manufacturer of helmets and other accessories. No, I don't know
why they have two different symbols either. The two symbols have
different prices and different histories.
BIKE -- CANNONDALE. Bicycle
manufacturer. Has also recently started making off-road
motorcycles.
GTBX -- GT BICYCLES. A bicycle
manufacturer.
HUF -- HUFFY. Famous manufacturer of
cheap department store bikes. Also makes lawn care
equipment.
WPB -- WORLD POWER BIKES. Their only
product is a new-fangled crank arm which grows longer on the
downstroke for more power and less stress on your knees. They're
traded on the Vancouver Stock Exchange. The stock symbol on Yahoo!
is "WPB.V".
ZAPP -- ZAPP POWER SYSTEMS. Makes
electric-powered bikes and electric-assist motors for existing
bikes.
More detailed information about
bicycle stocks and other socially-responsible stocks is available
at the Socially-Responsible
Stocks page.
Nothing herein should be construed
as a recommendation to buy, or to avoid buying, any particular
stock, or stocks in general.
Book
Review: "Bicycle Commuter" by Trudy E. Bell
(7-22-98)
------------------------------------------------
review by Chris Symank
Bicycle Commuter by Trudy E.
Bell, Ragged Mountain Press/McGraw-Hill Companies Book, Camden ME
(1998),ISBN 0-07-005503-3,168 pages
(Thanks to Book People for their
gift certificate to Austin Bike Week '98 that funded my purchase
of this book!)
For those of you interested in
learning to commute by bike and those of you who want some great
tips, this is an excellent book. Almost every commuting-related
issue is packed into this volume. It is easy to access and to
apply to your ride, whether you want to commute once or five to
six times a week. Several other topics of interest include
selecting a commuter bike, kids on bikes, using bike for errands,
choosing routes, bonehead maintenance, emergency roadside repairs,
weather, and theft prevention. The illustrations and layout are
good, and there are some good references in the back such as
reviews of other books and magazines, where to get rain ponchos,
and even a synopsis of the Uniform Vehicle Code. The only thing I
thought missing was a thorough guide to emergency bike maneuvers,
but to really cover such info requires a great deal of pages and
can already be found in other books such as Effective Cycling (by
John Forrester) and Urban Biker's Tips and Tricks (Dave Glowacz,
Wordspace Press Chicago,1997; Note: this book does illustrates
illegal and dangerous practices with warning however!)
R O A D W A
Y ..
N E W S
* Bicycle Plan,
Pt. II, passed by City Council
* Getting Cars
out of Bike Lanes
* Roadway
Improvements
Bicycle
Plan, Pt. II, passed by City Council (5-7-98)
--------------------------------------------
The Austin City Council passed Part
II of the Bicycle Plan on May 7th. This is a comprehensive plan
spelling out specific roadway improvements to improve cycling
throughout the city over 1300 miles of routes. Improvements
consist mostly of new bike lanes, wide outside curb lanes, and
traffic calming measures. This is the first real effort to improve
cycling in the city since the early 80's. Implementation of the
plan is starting now, and the most important parts of the plan are
aggressively scheduled to be completed in six years.
The Urban Transportation Commission
(UTC) voted unanimously tonight to ban cars from parking in the
bike lane on Duval on a trial basis. The ban will be in effect
from 7am-6pm, for the next six months. The City will conduct usage
surveys to determine whether cycling use on Duval increases, and
these figures will be used in determining whether to make the ban
permanent. In the meantime, the UTC is also considering
recommending that the City Council pass an ordinance prohibiting
cars from parking in bike lanes city-wide, 24 hours a day; if that
ordinance passes, then the trial run on Duval will become
moot.
Part of the credit for this effort
goes to local cyclist Michael Zakes (proprietor of Waterloo
Cycles), who got appointed to the Urban Transportation Commission
to make certain that cyclists' interests were represented, and
bicycle vigilante Tommy Eden, who actively lobbied for the change,
and to other cyclists, including some Yellow Bike Project
volunteers, who spoke to the UTC in favor of the
proposal.
There are a few bike lanes which are
already designated as No Parking, including those on Nueces and
Rio Grande in West Campus. To report cars parked in one of the
special No Parking bike lanes, call the Austin Police Department
on their non-emergency number at 311. The fine for illegally
parking in a bike lane is $40, or $20 of you take advantage of the
early bird discount by paying quickly. (For comparison, the fine
for running a red light on a bicycle is $200.)
In other bike lane news, the UTC is
considering a proposal to change Barton Springs Road from four car
lanes/no bike lanes to 2 car lanes/2 bike lanes.
Roadway
Improvements (mostly by Public Works Dept.)
(6-22-98)
Here are some recent local roadway
improvements which are of benefit to cyclists:
* Bike lanes on EACH side of the
"drag" portion of Guadalupe
* Guadalupe bike lanes now extend to
MLK
* Restoration of bike lane on
Exposition to 35th
* Bike lanes on San Jacinto between
26th and Duval
* Bike lanes on S. Congress, south
of Ben White (over the objections of TxDOT)
* Removal of a barrier on Loop 360
at Spicewood Springs
* Improvement of signs on RM 2244
(Bee Caves Rd.) to make them more bicycle friendly.
* Bike lanes on Chicon from Town
Lake to 6th St., complete with "No parking" signs.
* Installation of a pedestrian
traffic signal, curb ramps, and a crosswalk at Morrow and N.
Lamar
* Bike lanes on Metric between
Rundberg and Rutland. (This was actually built by Dell and later
transferred to the City of Austin; bike lanes were included, but
the "No parking" signs never were installed, as far as I
know.)
* Temporary installation (and
subsequent removal due to local employer's objections) of bike
lanes on Woodward St. from IH-35 east to Ben White
* Installation of bicycle sensors
for traffic signals throughout town
L O C A L
..
P O L I T I C S
* Keith Snodgrass
succeeds Rick Waring as Bicycle Coordinator
* Worse turnout
on City Councilmember ride this year
* Local Cyclists
appointed to City Boards
Keith
Snodgrass succeeds Rick Waring as Bicycle Coordinator
(1-98)
Keith Snodgrass replaced Rick Waring
early this year as the Bicycle Coordinator for the City's Bicycle
and Pedestrian Program, following Waring's resignation in October
of last year. Rick entered the job in '94, as the first director
of the newly-created program. During his tenure, the program got
Part I of the Bicycle Plan passed by City Council, and did the
bulk of the work on preparing Part II of the Bicycle
Plan.
Worse
turnout on City Councilmember ride this year
(5-8-98)
Last year, local cyclist David
Foster organized a downtown bike ride and invited local and state
officials. Every single last damn one of the current members of
the Austin City Council participated in that ride (although at the
time, a couple were only candidates for council and not yet
elected to council positions). On this year's version of the ride,
only three out of seven councilmembers attended &emdash; could
that be because last year was an election year and this year was
not? In attendance this year were Mayor Pro Tem Gus Garcia,
Councilmembers Jackie Goodman and Daryl Slusher, and Texas Land
Commissioner and Gubernatorial candidate Garry Mauro.
Councilmembers who did NOT participate this year include Mayor
Kirk Watson, Bill Spelman, Willie Lewis, and Beverly
Griffith.
The helmet ordinance was still in
effect at the time of last year's ride, and councilmembers got to
witness firsthand how out of control the police were regarding the
helmet law, threatening riders with JAIL (not just tickets) for
not wearing helmets. The article about last year's ride is
archived on the Biking in Austin website.
Local
cyclists appointed to city boards (7-98)
---------------------------------------
After years of attending city
planning meetings begging (often unsuccessfully) for city planners
to consider cyclists' concerns when designing roadway projects,
cyclists are taking another tactic -- getting themselves appointed
to those same City boards. Earlier this year, Michael Zakes
(proprietor of Waterloo Cycles) secured an appointment to the
Urban Transportation Commission (UTC), and Mike Librik (of Easy
Street Recumbents) landed a spot on the Parks & Recreation
Board. And already we've seen action from the UTC favorable to
cyclists, such as a trial ban on parking in bike lanes on Duval,
and consideration of an ordinance to ban parking in bike lanes
city-wide.
A L T E R N
A T I V E ..
R I D E S
*
Clothing-Optional Rides revived
* Upcoming
Bicycle Parade
* New web page
for Austin Critical Mass
* Worldwide
Critical Mass page established
Clothing-Optional
Rides revived (6-21-98)
-------------------------------
The clothing-optional bike rides
have been revived, leaving from Manor Road Coffeehouse (1809 Manor
Road) at 10:00pm every time there's a full moon. Several of the
rides have been well-attended and all have completely cop-free,
except for some minor hassles from police on the first ride last
year. A discussion of what's legal and what's not with regard to
nudity (i.e., exactly how far you can go) is available on
this
website.
Upcoming
Bicycle Parade (7-22-98)
-------------------------------
by Chris Symank
We are now having workshops and
planning for designing human powered parade floats and props at
Austin's Yellow Bike Project's temporary location, 419 West
Johanna St., Fridays from 4-7 p.m. For more info call me (Chris)
at 478-7666. We are still trying to organize a permitted parade
for the Saturday before Labor Day. Regardless of whether the
parade happens we want to get some human powered floats ready for
any event where human powered floats are needed!
New web
page for Austin Critical Mass (7-21-98)
-------------------------------
The new Austin
CM page explains the details
of the local ride, and features some historical articles about the
police crackdowns of '93-'94, along with tales of how CM'ers won
their cases in court or had their charges dismissed.
Worldwide
Critical Mass page established (7-21-98)
----------------------------------------
There are dozens of Critical Mass
web pages for different cities around the world that have Critical
Mass rides, and now there's a centralized hub that links them all
together. The Worldwide
Critical Mass Hub has links
to all the other CM pages all over the world, as well as
carefully-selected links to the best pro-bike and anti-car sites
around.
C O L L I S
I O N S..
& ..I
N J U R I E S
* New "How to Not Get Hit by Cars"
website
* "No Justice for Cyclists"
documented on website
* Motorist actually charged in
cyclist's death!
* Two local bike activists crash
with no cars involved
* Jennifer Schaeffer victim of hit
& run
* Motorist who hit Andrew Turner
& Heather Sealy goes free
* Deaths on Texas highways during
recent holidays
New
"How to Not Get Hit by Cars" webpage 7-21-98
----------------------------------------
A new
web page graphically details
seven of the most common ways that cyclists get hit by cars, and
provides specific, detailed advice for avoiding those collisions.
This is a far cry from normal Bike Safety publications which focus
on such things as making sure you signal turns and wear a helmet.
Rather than signaling, you shouldn't be riding in such a way that
a motorist would hit you if they didn't know where you were going
in the first place! As for helmets, simply wearing a helmet does
not magically make you safe, and more importantly, wearing a
helmet will do *absolutely nothing* to prevent you from getting
hit by a car! Sure, helmets might help you if you get hit, and I
wear one myself, but your #1 goal should be to avoid getting hit
in the first place. Plenty of local cyclists have been killed by
cars even though they were wearing helmets, including Tom
Churchill, Andrew Turner, and Thomas Linsley. Ironically, if they
had ridden WITHOUT helmets, yet followed the guidelines listed on
this web page, they might still be alive today.
"No
Justice for Cyclists" documented on website
(7-21-98)
-----------------------------------------------
Another new
web page provides several
examples to demonstrate that motorists who hit and maim or kill
cyclists in Austin rarely get ticketed or face criminal charges.
It further shows that a majority of the serious collisions in
recent years have been hit & runs. After reading this page
you'll understand why Critical Mass exists.
Motorist
actually charged in cyclist's death! (7-5-98)
---------------------------------------------
A motorist hit and killed an
unidentified cyclist with his truck in East Austin at night over
the July 4th weekend, and then tried to flee. He was arrested and
charged with intoxication manslaughter and failure to stop and
render aid. On that Sunday he was in jail with $22,500
bail.
We're angry and sad that another one
of our own has been taken out by the car culture. We're infuriated
that this ups our figure to *71%* of serious collisions that we
know about which were hit & runs. (And how many of those 29%
who DID stop would have kept going had their vehicles been capable
of leaving or if they thought they could get away with it?) It's
distressing to look out among a sea of cars and realize that 3/4
or more of the motorists out there are willing to hit us, leave us
for dead, and then just keep driving. Although we're angry about
these things, we are pleased, and surprised, to see that a driver
was actually charged with a crime for hitting and killing a
cyclist.
What could account for this sudden
change in policy? Are law enforcement officials suddenly tuned in
to the idea that cyclists have an equal right to the road?
Probably not. In this case, the accident happened on the East
side, the driver was Hispanic, and perhaps most importanty, the
driver hit a police car a few minutes after he killed the cyclist.
The police officer reportedly received minor injuries.
The Austin American-Statesman
reported that the motorist is David Rodriguez, 34, or 1311 E. 52nd
St. The motorist killed the bicyclist at E. 7th & Chalmers
Avenue, and he hit the police officer at the 1200 block of E. 7th.
The cyclist had not been identified when the Statesman story
ran.
Two
local bike activists crash with no car collision
(7-21-98)
Two local bicycle activists, both
experienced cyclists, managed to crash in separate incidents this
month, neither one involving a collision with a car, and suffered
substantial injuries. Eric Anderson of the Yellow Bike Project
apparently hit something in the road, and flipped his bike.
Unfortunately, he was using clipless pedals that his shoes were
stuck to, and he took the bike with him when he flipped, instead
of just being thrown clear over the handlebars. He broke his hip,
spent several days in the hospital, had surgery to insert a metal
plate into his hip, will be using crutches for six weeks, and
won't be able to bike again for four months. Eric did not have
health insurance and his friends are planning to organize some
benefits to help him pay the rent while he's unable to
work.
In an unrelated accident, Austin
Cycling Association President and Effective Cycling Instructor
Preston Tyree ran into a low-hanging branch while demonstrating
the bicycle lane on Duval for a KEYE-42 news crew. Preston cracked
his helmet, was thrown into a utility, pole, and rendered
unconscious until he woke up in Brakenridge Hospital, where he
spent nearly 24 hours.
Both these incidents are fairly
alarming, since they both happened to extremely experienced
cyclists, there was no collision with an automobile, the injuries
were substantial, and they both happened within two weeks of each
other.
Jennifer
Schaeffer victim of hit & run (1-98)
---------------------------------------------
Jennifer was struck by a motorist on
North Loop while she was biking to work. She was thrown off her
bicycle and rendered unconscious. She was taken to the hospital,
and was lucky to make a full recovery. Consequence to the
motorist: None. The motorist left Jennifer for dead (as far as
s/he knew), and didn't even bother to stop.
Motorist
who hit Andrew Turner and Heather Sealey goes free
(2-98)
Andrew & Heather, who were
engaged to be married, were struck by a drunk driver (Melissa
Graham, 28) in Bastrop on June 14 last year. Andrew was killed,
while Heather suffered massive injuries, including a crushed
vertebra, crushed pelvis, broken leg, fractured skull, and brain
damage. Graham's blood alcohol level was "well above the .10
level" according to the Bastrop police. Though the police did not
determine how fast Graham was driving, they did determine that she
never hit her brakes before striking the cyclists. The cyclists
were riding single-file on the extreme edge of the roadway, but
the accident apparently happened after dusk, and the cyclists
didn't have lights on their bikes (although they did have rear
reflectors). By the way, we'd like to once again publicly
challenge all bicycle shop owners to equip every bike they sell
with a white headlight, a flashing red rear light, and a mirror.
It's high time that bike shops took more responsibility for the
safety of their customers.
Consequence to the motorist: None.
The motorist's trial in 2-98 ended in a hung jury. The defense
attorney was apparently able to convince the jury that it was the
cyclists' fault for getting hit.
A witness to the trial (June Elliott
of Dynamic Cycles in Bastrop) said, "It amazed and disappointed me
to see the way the rights of the accused compared to the rights of
the victims. Melissa Graham [the motorist] sat with her
head lowered, crying and whimpering. She was allowed to show her
emotions, but at the same time, Andrew's mother and father were
not. Mrs. Turner let one tear fall and was asked not to re-enter
the courtroom."
Deaths
on Texas highways during recent holidays (7-5-98)
-----------------------------------------------
In an above article we reported
about a motorist who killed a cyclist over the July 4th weekend
and then tried to flee. But motorists weren't just killing
cyclists over the holiday, they were killing each other. The Texas
Department of Public Safety reported on Sunday afternoon that 39
people died at the hands of motor vehicles on Texas roads over the
July 4th weekend, which exceeded DPS' worst-case estimate of 30,
and had the state heading for a record-breaking number of deaths
by the end of the weekend. Over the Memorial Day weekend, nineteen
people died in automobile-related accidents on Texas roads. Isn't
this kind of ironic? Memorial Day is a day in which we're supposed
to honor those who were killed, and how do we honor them? By
killing even more people!
E Q U I P M
E N T ..
N E W
S
* Recliner bikes
catching on
* New "automatic
transmission" bikes introduced
Recliner
bikes catching on (3-98)
--------------------------
Recliner bikes (also called
"recumbent bikes") are becoming increasingly popular. These are
long bikes in which the rider sits in a bucket seat with his/her
legs in front (instead of straight down). The steering mechanism
can be over the seat or under the seat depending on the bike. The
principal advantage of this design is comfort -- recliners
eliminate the stress on the neck, shoulders, arms, wrists, hands,
and butt. This design has actually been around since the 30's, but
when recliners started winning all the bike races, they were
banned from racing competitions and so manufacturers didn't want
to keep producing them. Since then, recliners have been built
mostly by very small companies one at a time, which has kept the
costs high, which is why you haven't seen many of them -- until
now. Now that Huffy has entered the market (with their "Re-Bike"
brand), you can get an entry-level recliner for $329 (and you can
get a "good" recliner for as little as $650). This is a stark
contrast to the past -- as recently as just a few years ago it was
hard to find a recliner for less than $1000. In Austin, some of
the more visible bike advocates and personalities ride recliners,
including Tommy Eden, Mike Librik, Amy Babich, Jay Beeson, and
Michael Bluejay. In fact, Mike Librik and Amy Babich like
recliners so much that they've become dealers. Contact them at
453-0438 to check out their bikes, or visit their
website.
New
"automatic transmission" bikes introduced (7-98)
A new innovation in bicycle design
is CSA's "AutoBike", which is a bike that shifts gears for you,
automatically. No more manual shifting. Sensors determine how fast
you're pedaling and change gears so that you're always spinning at
a comfortable number of RPMs. My first thought after seeing this
bike was, why bother with automatic shifting? I never thought that
shifting manually was any more difficult than using a toaster, and
I've never felt that shifting was inconvenient. Well, apparently,
that's where I'm wrong, since two of my friends just snatched up a
couple of these new bikes and they love them. They're available by
mail-order directly from the manufacturer, CSA,
for $240, although Heartland
America has them for
$200.
Are there any problems with these
bikes? Plenty. First, it's rarely a good idea to purchase a bike
mail-order, especially if it's a specialty bike. Dealing with
service, missing parts, warranty issues, and returns is a big
hassle compared to being able to just take your bike to your local
dealer. And that's even if your mail-order company makes a decent
attempt to provide customer service. I read plenty of accounts on
Internet newsgroups of customers who repeatedly got busy signals
when calling CSA, were on hold for literally hours when they
DIDN'T get busy signals, and then found that CSA didn't follow
through on refunds or parts replacement after they WERE able to
talk to a rep. Customers reported bikes arriving without parts
(such as kickstands and manuals), or even arriving broken. Repairs
can be problematic because your local bike shop probably won't
stock automatic transmission parts.
As for quality, the bike is heavy --
38 pounds. And with only six gears, it doesn't have low enough
gears for steep hills. One customer complained that his front fork
was unadjustable -- it had to be either too tight or too loose,
and that the metal flexed when the nut was tightened
down.
Automatic transmission bikes may be
a good idea for extremely inexperienced riders who have no
interest in learning how to shift gears, but not this particular
model. And it's doubtful that any manufacturer will be willing to
charge the $400+ it would take to make and support a quality
automatic transmission bike. For the novice rider wanting a
comfortable ride without spending a lot of money, a low-end
mountain bike with grip-shifters is a better bet.
Another site by Michael Bluejay...
Michael Bluejay explains slot machines. I know about more stuff than just bikes. My explanation about how slot machines work is probably the best you're gonna find anywhere.'
