Taking Flight In The Snow

So...How am I ending 2018 or beginning 2019?

The more accurate questions are "where?" and "with whom?"

As to the first question, here is a clue:

I arrived in Florida yesterday.  Palm Coast, to be exact.  That's my parents' yard, complete with canal.   

So I answered the other question.  The last few years, I've come down to the Sunshine State around the 6th or the 7th of January, to avoid the holiday rush.  But I decided to come earlier this season for a couple of reasons I'll mention later.

It started to snow in New York about five minutes after my flight took off.  When I got off the plane in Daytona Beach, it was warm enough to jump in the ocean. I didn't do that, of course. But I might today, during the course of the ride I'll take.

Then I'll join my parents in sending out the old year and bringing in the new one.  It's funny that in my advanced middle age, I am doing something I did as a child.  The difference, of course, is that this is a choice.  And, of course, it will be preceded by a bike ride.

The Sidewalk Was The Path To His Death

One thing I've learned during my trips to Florida is that many sidewalks are de facto bike lanes.  

More precisely, there are ribbons of concrete that wind and wend alongside multilane roads where the speed limit is 45 MPH (70 KPH)--which, in Florida, means 65 MPH.  One rarely sees a pedestrian on those "sidewalks", so there are no prohibitions against cycling on them.  

The good thing about them is that they are usually separated by at least a meter of something--usually grass or other vegetation--from the roadway.  Interestingly, I almost never see motorists pulling into them. I don't know whether there's a law against doing so.  My theory is that the drivers know some of those little "lawns" might actually be mini-swamps, and their vehicles could get stuck in them.

Riding on the "sidewalks" isn't bad:  Most are well-maintained and rather spacious.  But there are two major hazards I've found, both of which might be reasons why Florida has, by far, the highest death rate for cyclists in the US.

One is crossing traffic intersections.  Nearly all of those sidewalks lead cyclists and pedestrians into the path of right-turning vehicles, who are often going fast.  To make things worse, sightlines are often poor, so even the most conscientious of drivers could hit a cyclist who's clad head-to-toe in safety yellow.

Another is that, sometimes, parts of those sidewalks are blocked, without warning.  So, if you are moseying along and suddenly you find a crew from the power or water company drilling into your path, you have nowhere to go--except the roadway which, as often as not, doesn't have a shoulder.

Dr. Robert Dalton Jr.

Dr. Robert Dalton Jr. encountered such a scenario while pedaling from his home to the Maitland Sun Rail station where, on a normal day, he'd catch the train that would take him to Orlando Health, where he practiced his profession as a cardiologist.

His work no doubt saved more than a few lives.  But nobody could save his on 17 December, when he was struck by a driver.

The sidewalk was blocked for construction of an apartment complex.  This has led to some finger-pointing between the local officials--who say that the construction company should have erected scaffolding that would have allowed cyclists and pedestrians to pass underneath--and the construction company, who say that the city or county or whomever should have put out blinking lights or other warnings for drivers to slow down.

Of course, the scaffolding would have been the better alternative.  But even that would not have addressed other problems, like the ones I've mentioned, that are found on Florida sidewalks-cum-bike lanes.  And, of course, nothing will bring back a well-regarded doctor and beloved member of his family and community.

He's Back--And He Has A Story!

Kids always want stuff for Christmas.  When I was growing up, bikes were usually high on the list of things kids wanted "Santa" to leave under the tree.

That has changed.  The days when bike shops could round out their yearly profits with Christmas bike sales (mainly for kids) are long gone.  It seems that even department and toy stores don't sell a lot of bikes at Christmastime, as video games and other electronic toys top "wish lists" today.

Whatever we wanted as kids, our wishes change as we get older.  For one thing, those of us who cycle as adults usually buy our own bikes: We become more particular about what we ride, and it's hard to get someone else, even if he or she is inclined to give a bike as a gift, to buy the right one for our style of riding--and, sometimes, even our sense of style.

Then again, for most of us, Christmas becomes less about getting stuff.  If anything, we start to care more about other "gifts", which can include experiences or simply knowing that someone is alive and well.

I feel that way about Alan Snel.  I have never met him, but I enjoyed reading his blog Bicycle Stories.  

Nearly two years ago, he was struck and nearly killed by a driver in--where else?--Florida.  That driver didn't get so much as a ticket for leaving Alan with a concussion, spinal fractures and a knee that had to be drained of blood.  

He posted several times after that, talking about his move back to Las Vegas (where he'd previously lived and worked) and projects in which he'd gotten himself involved.  Then, after a post about the Interbike show in September 2017, there was nothing on his blog.  I'd hoped that his absence was a result of plunging himself further into the advocacy work in which he's long been involved.

Turns out, that was the case.  He's been writing a book about his road to recovery--which was fueled by his involvement in the budding Las Vegas sports scene-- and is now promoting it.  He even got time on a local TV station:



I'm so glad he's back.  He's been through so much. But, really, what can stop a man who taught his mother to ride a bicycle when she was 64 years old?

And what more should we want for Christmas than to hear a story like his?

(Ironically, when I saw this segment, it was preceded by an ad for a personal-injury attorney!)

Where Cycling Isn't All Sunshine

For years, Florida has had, by far, the highest death rate for cyclists and pedestrians of any US state.  One study found that in 2012, as many cyclists were killed by motor vehicles in the Sunshine State as in Great Britain, which is roughly the same size, but has three times as many people and about as many more cyclists.

So, perhaps, it is no surprise that the Tampa Bay area has the highest cyclist fatality rate of any metropolitan area in the US, and that Pinellas--one of the four counties that comprises the area--has the highest rate of any county.

Florida's and the Tampa Bay Area's statistics are part of a study conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and reported yesterday in The Wall Street Journal.   

The article also included another interesting and disturbing--for folks who cycle in Florida (as I do for a few days every year), anyway.  Of the 50 major metropolitan areas in the US, the four with the highest rates of cyclists killed by motor vehicles--Tampa Bay-St. Petersburg, Jacksonville, Orlando and Miami--are all in Florida.  

I have cycled in Miami and near Jacksonville and Orlando.  For all the pleasure I've had in riding in those places, I can't say I'm surprised.  I do exercise more caution when I cycle in the land of manatees and armadillos than I employ even in New York, my hometown, or Paris.  I have my reasons.

For one thing, Florida, like much of the southern and western US, has an infrastructure and culture that is more auto-centric than they are in The Big Apple.  Although there are many nice side roads and trails, many of them are accessible only by highways or other heavily-trafficked roads.  And those main roads, as often as not, don't have a shoulder, let alone a dedicated bike lane.

Also, while there are more vehicles in New York than in any Florida city, people from the Keys to the Panhandle drive more often and longer.  That means traffic that can be as heavy as--and less regulated than--its counterparts in Northeastern or West Coast metropoli.

That also means drivers are more likely to be driving only themselves.  In my experience, solo drivers are more likely to take risks or simply lapse in concentration than drivers with passengers.

And, as we all know, Florida is a haven for senior citizens.  I have found nearly all of them to be careful, courteous drivers.  But--and I mean no offense to any seniors reading this--after a certain age, people's reflexes slow down, their sight dims and their hearing dulls.  I have seen at least a few people during my travels (and, to be fair, here in New York) who probably shouldn't be driving any more.

Finally, as the Journal article mentions, alcohol and distracted driving also play roles.  They also are hazards for cyclists in other places, but if my own experience is any indication, there is more of both in Florida than in other places I've ridden.  To be fair, I think the police, at least in some areas of the state, are making more of an effort to crack down on drinking or texting while driving.  But even the most vigilant gendarmes can catch only a small number of offenders and, I believe, there isn't as much of a cultural taboo against drinking and driving in Daytona Beach as there is in, say, Park Slope or Back Bay.

A Ride Of Silence To Speak For Him

In Greek tragedies, the hero falls to a combination of circumstances and his or her personal failings or shortcomings.

One of the reasons such stories endure is that they make the world make some kind of sense.  The combination of situation and personal flaw give a sense of symmetry, if not justice, to the demise of the hero.

Of course, it doesn't always work out that way in life.  Sometimes a person meets his or her fate due to an incident that he or she did not bring on and cannot control.

Such is the story of Roger Grooters, who went on a ride to help people whose lives were changed for the worse by a circumstance not of their making.  

Eight years ago, the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (better known as the BP Oil Spill) spewed seemingly endless streams of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, befouling beaches in five US states and Mexico and leaving birds, fish and marine mammals sick, helpless or even dead.  Grooters wanted to help the people from whom the spill their property, livelihoods and health.  

His pastor and fellow church congregants told him there was nothing tangible he could do.  He thought otherwise.  So, on 10 September of that year, he got on his bicycle in Oceanside, California, near San Diego, with the intention of reaching Jacksonville, Florida.  He documented his trip, which raised $12,000, on a blog called Roger X Country.

The name of that blog has been changed to We Ride For Roger.  A little more than a month after he started his ride, a pickup truck was barreling down State Road 20 just outside of Panama City, in the Florida Panhandle.  The driver was texting and--unfortunately, you can guess what happened next:  He plowed right into the back of Grooters.

You can probably guess what happened next:  He didn't make it to Jacksonville.  He didn't make it, period.  His ride ended after 2179.4 miles, or about 300 miles short of his destination.

The following year, a group of cyclists that included some of his family members gathered at the crash site and continued his ride to Jacksonville.  He rode to raise awareness of the victims of one disaster; they were riding to raise awareness of the victims of the kinds of disasters that occur all too frequently on roadways in Florida and elsewhere.

The Ride Of Silence

A cyclist has a greater chance of being killed by a motorist in the Florida than in any other state in the Union.  I am sure that at least some of the 100 riders who gathered yesterday at Pensacola State College were aware of that. They participated in a seven-mile "Ride of Silence" along the city's streets in drizzle and rain.  At the beginning of the ride, organizers read the names of dozens of cyclists who have been killed while riding in the Florida Panhandle as bagpipers played "Amazing Grace".

The riders wore armbands--black for those who'd never been struck by a car, red for those who had.  I couldn't find a count, but from the photos I saw, the red bands were numerous.

Oh, by the way....The driver was so immersed in his texting that he didn't realize what he'd hit until the police stopped him.  He was cited and fined but never apologized to Roger Grooters' family.

Leaving The Sunshine In State

I've left the Sunshine State.

Did I leave in a state of sunshine?  

Maybe I left the sunshine in the state:

Yes, I'm back in New York now. The sidewalks look like 7-11 Slurpees without the bright colors.  And snow is fluttering down.

One thing I didn't bring with me was the wind I experienced while in Florida.  Oh well.  ;-)

An Ocean And A Desert

The temperature felt more like New York in March, or the coast of Belgium in any month besides July and August.  And while strong wind is not unusual in this part of the world, I have never felt it for days on end during my visit.

At least the colors and light at Matanzas Bay looked more like those one associates with Florida:

So did those of Painters Hill

Some places, though, looked more like deserts.

During my visit last year, there were palm trees and littoral plant life here.  The storms that struck a few weeks ago have laid them to waste.

Believe it or not, this is a roadway:

Old A1A, to be exact.  It's closed.  Even though I was riding the beach cruiser, I didn't ride this road:  I managed to go only a few meters before the wind whipped me around and blew enough sand in my face to make me even less of a navigtor than I normally am!

Still, I had a great ride.

Pedaling A Parallel Universe

Yesterday I pedaled into a parallel universe.

All right...You might think Florida--or anything south of the Potomac, for that matter--is a different world if you come from anyplace north of it.  You would not be wrong.  But I am not talking about culture, politics or even climate.  Rather, I mean a waterway that, for about 5000 kilometers, runs as close to the Atlantic Ocean as it can without actually being the Atlantic.

I am talking about the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, which runs just inland of the Atlantic Ocean all the way from Boston to the tip of Florida.  The purpose of it was to provide navigable waterways for shipping along the Atlantic Coast without having to deal with the hazards of the ocean.

 One hardly thinks about the AIW in Massachusetts or New York or New Jersey because it's known by other names.  Actually, in those states, it's a series of rivers, bays and other bodies of water linked by canals. 

The stretch I rode yesterday is one of those canals.  It hooks up with the Halifax River to the south. Its shoreline is dotted with gazebos on piers:  the sort of thing one envisions when thinking about life in Florida. 

The weather, however, was another story--overcast, which I didn't mind, but colder than yesterday and colder by the end of the ride than at the beginning.  And windy, again. I was reminded of why I don't have kickstands on my own bikes:  Using the one on the bike I rode today virtually guaranteed that it would be toppled.  Such falls wouldn't damage the bike; still, I laid the bike on the ground when I stopped, figuring that I would have had to pick it up anyway if I stood it up.

One interesting feature of the trails that line the Intracoastal Waterway, and connect it to several parks, are bike maintenance stations operated by the city of Palm Coast and local businesses.  

They include small tools such as screwdrivers, adjustable wrenches and tire levers attached to cords, and a tire pump.  

I actually rode a technical section of a mountain bike trail near Herschel King Park (one of my favorites in this area).  And, no, I didn't need those tools--or anything to repair my body!

A New Light And Less Heat To St. Augustine

Yesterday I rode into stiff wind,  though sunshine breaking through trees and opening clouds over the sea.  Then, as I had the wind at my back, a curtain of clouds drew across the sun and darkened, and I got caught in the kind of late-afternoon downpour this part of Florida experiences in summer.  Then again, by that time, the temperature, at about 27C, or 80 F.

Today I pedaled about the same distance--about 100 kilometers--as I did yesterday, but in the opposite direction.  I did that on purpose:  The wind,  not quite as stiff as yesterday's, was blowing from the north instead of the south.  That is probably what dropped the temperature by about 17 degrees Celsius to about 10 C, or 50F. 

The sky and sea even looked colder:

I never saw that kind of light before in Florida--not even at the place in the photos:  Matanzas Bay, where it enters the ocean.  

Under that light I pedaled, against the wind but full of good energy, all the way up Route A1A to the Bridge of Lions, which leads to the historic center of St. Augustine:

I think the temperature dropped by another 10 degrees Celsius when I crossed the bridge.  At least, it felt that way, even after I pedaled to the old fort.

I must say, though, it's a lovely place, even when it's (comparatively) cold and still full of tourists.

And, yes, the skies cleared for my ride back to my parents' house.  And I had the wind at my back.

Sun, Sea And A Summer Storm In January

Since I've come to Florida, I think I've seen every kind of weather one can find when the temperature is above freezing.  Today, I thought I was entering a path of sunshine.

Light and warmth threaded through those tree limbs and filled the sky as I rode the Lehigh Trail, which begins about two kilometers from my parents' house and extends for five kilos to Colbert Road, which leads to SR 100 and the bridge to Flagler Beach.

There are few things in this world that I love more than descending a bridge to an ocean I can see on the horizon

even if I turn right at the end of the bridge and pedal 50 kilometers straight into a 30 kilometer per hour wind that, at moments, gusted to 40 KPH.

I mean, how could I complain when my ride was filled with the wind, the light and the hiss of the ocean--which meant that they were filling me>

Like Flagler Beach yesterday and today, Daytona Beach did not lack for people walking along the sand on the warm day.  At Flagler and Daytona, however, swimming was not allowed.  No one was allowed even to enter any of the beaches along the 50 or so kilometers of Atlantic Coast between them.

After savoring two of mom's meatball sandwiches and polishing them off with some strawberries and a mandarin orange, I started my ride back.  After the ride down, it was almost too easy:  the wind I'd fought on the way down was blowing at my back.  But that wind also brought something else:

gray clouds thickening ahead of me.  The fact that I was riding about as fast as my body could move the ballon-tired beach cruiser under it meant that I could ride right into the rain.

Which is what happened after I turned left from the Flagler Beach pier onto the SR 100 bridge.  After climbing away from the ocean and descending on the "mainland", a cascade dropped from the sky on me.  There was no prelude of light showers gradually turning to rain; that storm dropped straight on me.  It was like the "instant storms" that often soak this area, momentarily, late on summer afternoons.  The difference was that this storm didn't include lightning and thunder.  But it ended about halfway into the Lehigh Trail--about fifteen minutes before I got to my parents' house.

In The Sunshine State, In A Cloud

The rain that pattered the canal yesterday turned, for a time, into a barrage last night.  When I woke this morning, raindrops were poking ephemeral pockmarks in the face of the water.

But, by the time Dr. Phil's show ended (Yes, I watched it with my mother and father.), the rain had stopped and the sun looked like it was trying to wedge itself between clouds.  I got on the bike a while later, and the clouds closed ranks on the sun.  Still, I managed to ride along some trails to the Palm Coast Parkway Bridge, where the scene changed just a bit.

Of course, when you see something on your left, you look to your right.  Or is it the other way around?  Who told me that, anyway?

In any event, I looked to my left and saw this:

I thought, for a moment, it was sea mist.  After I descended the bridge and turned onto the Route A1A bike/pedestrian lane, it thickened faster than the makeup of a reality TV star.

The shrouded area is known as Painters Hill.  It's a very lovely area where, on many a day, breezes skip across sea oats and other grasses and shrubs on the dunes that line the ocean.  I would have loved to see how a painter might have rendered it in the light I saw today.

The Flagler Beach pier jutted out into water that dissolved into mist.  The eponymous beach, about 10 kilometers south of Painter's Hill, was the only one open along  A1A from Palm Coast to Ormond Beach.  The area is still recovering from recent storm and the surf was rough.  Nobody was swimming at Ormond, but of course, a few surfers flung themselves into the tides.

Finally, as I reached Ormond Beach, the fog began to dissipate and the sun that, earlier, had been trying to get a few waves in edgewise pushed some clouds aside--and shone through a light mist.

I must say, though, that I don't recall much, if any fog in my previous two dozen or so trips here.  Certainly I had never before seen what I saw today.

What Kind Of Man Is He?

Most of us, at one point or another, have broken up with a boyfriend, girlfriend or spouse--or simply ended a friendship.

There are, as often as not, sadness and hurt feelings. Fortunately, in most breakups, both parties have at least some sense that the end of their relationship coming and they go their separate ways.

On the other hand, there are those splits that don't end so quietly, especially if one or both parties are particularly angry, resentful or vindictive.  I know:  I've been involved in a couple of them.  In some of the worst cases (including one of mine), the one who's at the receiving end of the breakup says or does something in an attempt to damage the person who broke up the relationship.  Facebook can be a particularly nasty but effective weapon to achieve that.

So, why am I writing about such things on a bike blog?  Well, in Boca Raton, Florida, 65-year-old George Morreale was riding his bicycle near Yamato Road and Interstate 95 in April 2014.  It would be his last bike ride:  A pickup truck struck him, fatally.

Paul Maida, a 33-year-old West Boca Raton resident, claimed that he was in the passenger's seat while his girlfriend, 27-year-old Bianca Fichtel, was at the wheel.

She was initially charged but turned over e-mails that pointed to Maida driving at the time of the crash.  Those e-mails, according to prosecutors, showed that he asked her to switch seats before they returned to the scene of the crash.

So now you know one of the crimes for which Maida was found guilty in July:  leaving the scene of a fatal crash.  He was also found guilty of driving with a suspended license and filing a false report to the police.  He was, however, acquitted of DUI manslaughter.

Yesterday he was sentenced:  12 years in prison.

I know I shouldn't make light of something like this, but this thought popped into my head:  If I were Ms. Fichtel, I wouldn't visit him.

Mickey Johnson: Father, Friend And Pillar Of His Community

I know that, lately, I've portrayed Florida as a "killing field" for cyclist.  Such a reputation is not undeserved; after all, it has, by far, the highest per-capita cyclist mortality rate of any US state.

Also, I am angry about the way authorities in the Sunshine State handled the case of Alan Snel, the author of Bicycle Stories.  In brief, a driver who may or may not have been impaired by his medications drove straight into Alan's back and got off scot-free.

Well, today I want to point out something local police in at least one community are doing right--and praise the way the local media are portraying the cyclist.

As I have said in a  previous post, few non-cyclists will care about the often-cavalier treatment we get when we are victimized by errant, careless or impaired motorists as long as we are seen as abstractions or monsters--cyclists or cyclists!--and are instead recognized as siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, spouses, lovers or loved ones, friends, colleagues, co-workers and members of our communities, whatever those may be.

Thankfully, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune has portrayed Mickey Johnson in such a way--in a headline, no less:  "Victim in Bicycle Crash Was Family Man."  The article, written by Earle Kimel, mentioned Mr. Johnson's extended family and deep ties to his community, where he lived for nearly four decades, or half of his life.  He started two businesses, heading both of them until the day he died. He was also a member of Friends of the Legacy Trail, Volunteer of the Year with the Manasota Track Club and served on several boards of his church.  If all of that doesn't spell "pillar of the community," I don't know what does.  

Oh, and he was an Army veteran.  

Mickey Johnson

Now, of course, I didn't see the crash, but Kimel seems to have given a sober, unbiased account.  Although he doesn't directly place blame, he does show how driver Anthony Alexander and his passenger, Dillon Cooper, tried to impede the invstigation, which is being treated as a traffic homicide.  Both have been arrested and, so far, Alexander has been charged with driving with a suspended license and causing death. Both men have also been charged with perjury and obstructing a criminal investigation/giving false information to a police officer. (Cooper initially said he was the driver, which was contradicted by witness accounts.)  Further charges may be pending.

From what I've read, the only real fault I can find is the relatively low bond:  $3500 for Alexander and $2000 for Cooper.  Then again, I know nothing else about their circumstances, so those amounts may indeed be enough to deter the from taking flight.

Anyway, there is nothing that can, for his family and community, make up for Mickey Johnson's loss.  But, so far, the local authorities are doing a better job of investigating and prosecuting it than their counterparts in Florida have done in other recent cases of motorists running down cyclists.

Escape From The Sunshine State

People move from one state to another for all sorts of reasons.  Chief among them, I suppose, are jobs, family and schooling.  Then there are those who have a warrant out for them in the state they left (One of the great things about getting older is that the statute of limitations runs out!  You didn't hear that from me!) or are simply running away from any number of things.  I fit into that category when I left New Jersey:  Although my childhood wasn't Dickensian (It was more like Everybody Loves Raymond), a day came when I didn't want to be around my family or anybody or anything I knew.

Back then,  I said I'd "escaped" from New Jersey.  Other people, I'm sure, see their exits from one locale or another that way.  And that is how Alan Snel regards quitting Florida and going back to Nevada.

"Ghost Bike" dedicated to Johnny Jones in Jacksonville, Florida

As he reminds Governor Rick Scott in his open letter, posted on his blog Bicycle Stories, the Sunshine State leads the nation in cycling fatalities.  Given that it is the fourth most-populous state, it's not surprising that it also has the highest number of fatalities per million people.  What's most shocking, though is that no other state comes close, with almost twice as many deaths per million as second-place Louisiana and in absolute numbers, it edges out California, which has nearly double the population.

Two months ago, Alan Snel nearly became one of those statistics. He pointed that out in his letter to the Governor, in which he makes this judgment:  "You have showed no political leadership to try and reduce [the number of cycling fatalities] and you and the political leaders just don't care enough to do anything about keeping cyclists alive in your state."

Now I'll admit that my experiences of cycling in Florida are limited to a week or so I spend there every year.  And while there are great beaches and scenery, and it's nice to ride in shorts and T-shirts in December or January, I have even less of a sense that whoever makes decisions there knows or cares even less about cycling than in other places.  That is particularly troubling when you realize how many people ride.  

I always had the sense that, more than in anyplace else I've ridden, planners seem to think that throwing a bone to cyclists by painting a lane here or there is "policy".  And on Florida roads, you're more likely to encounter motorists driving way over the speed limit while under the influence of some substance or another--or are simply ignorant of, or hostile to, cyclists--than you are in, say, Portland--or even New York.

So...Although I usually enjoy the time I spend in Florida, I have no plans to move there.  And I understand why Alan Snel is moving out of it.

A Story I Didn't Want To Repeat

One of the things my students learn--if they don't already know it--is that the same stories repeat themselves, whether in literature, the other arts, journalism or "real life".

As for the latter:  Yes, another story repeated itself in life.  In fact, it's one I wrote about just yesterday in this blog.  Unfortunately, it's not the sort of account I, or anyone else, enjoys repeating.  But here goes:

Another motorist drove into the back of another cyclist in Florida--in more or less the same part of the Sunshine State, no less.  

Frank Atkisson in the Florida State Legislature, 2003

Yesterday, I told you about Alan Snel.  He survived the ordeal, although he still has a lot of recovery ahead of him.  Frank Atkisson, on the other hand was not as fortunate:  The force of 26-year-old Kristie Jean Knoebel's car ended his life shortly after he was struck while riding at around 7pm the other day.

Although Snel's experience garnered a lot of attention among cycling advocates and journalists--Alan is both--it didn't reverberate through the general population the way Atkisson's unfortunate encounter has.  At least, his tragedy has caused the general public--in Florida, anyway, to take notice.

You might say that it's because Atkisson, unfortunately, died.  But another reason is that he served in the Florida House of Representatives for eight years, and was also a city council member and the mayor of Kissimmee as well as a Commissioner in Osceola County.

I don't want to trivialize his death, or even to seem overly cynical, when I say that his visibility to the people of Florida--especially to his fellow politicians--might be the impetus to make conditions safer in what is the deadliest state for cyclists.

Maybe, just maybe. We can always hope.  But for now, we can only mourn him--and be thankful that Alan Snel is still with us.

Pumping And Sailing

A couple of days ago, I returned from a week in Florida.  Aside from a couple of brief spells of rain, which passed quickly, the days were sunny and warm, so  I did a fair amount of riding.

Now, I know that spending a week or two there every year hardly makes me an expert on cycling in the Sunshine State.  But I can comment on something I've noticed whenever I've ridden there:  wind.  I wouldn't say there is more of it than in New York. It is however, more noticeable, as the terrain is flat and even in the urban areas, the buildings aren't as densely clustered--and certainly not as tall!--as in even the most suburban neighborhoods of New York.  

When I rode to St. Augustine from my parents' house, I pedaled into a fairly stiff wind almost the entire way there.  The flip-side of that, of course, is that I breezed back:  I completed the 52.5 kilometers back to my parents' house in about half an hour less than it took me to pedal the same distance to St. Augustine.  I had a similar experience in riding to Daytona Beach, although the wind wasn't quite as stiff.  On the other hand, on another ride, I breezed down to Ormond Beach but fought the wind on my way back.

Today the wind will be much stiffer than anything I experienced last week:  Gusts of 80-110 KPH are predicted.  This would certainly be a day to plan a ride into the wind and with it coming home!  The thing is, though the cross-winds could be really tough.  

Hmm...If I could manage to ride into the wind for a bit, perhaps my ride home could look something like this: