Knowing The Difference

Photo by Lauren Segal, for the San Francisco Chronicle 

 

One thing I’ve noticed is that in complaining about scofflaws on two wheels, people often conflate bicycles with e-bikes and what I think of as miniature motorcycles.

When I ask people to recount their “close encounters,” I learn, more often than not, that they were “buzzed “ by a delivery worker on a mini-motorcycle, a young person cavorting on an eBike or a motorized scooter who ran a red light.

So I was gratified to learn that in Marin County, just north of  San Francisco, two communities are explicitly targeting pre-adults who dart and weave among pedestrians.

Lancaster Bans eBikes From Sidewalks

Some of you may believe that I have a bias against e-bikes.  I won't try to disabuse you of that.  My prejudice stems, in part, from pride (apologies to Jane Austen):  I can pedal; I don't need no stinkin' motor," I tell myself.

OK, now I have revealed two more things about myself:  I talk to myself and, worse, I use double negatives. About the latter, I tell myself, if they're good enough for other languages, why not English?

Anyway, now you can, if you wish question my grammatical competence and my mental health along with my impartiality when it comes to two-wheeled vehicles.

Oh, but there's another component to my bias against eBikes, which I haven't revealed to very many people--until now. (And it still may not be very many people, depending on how many readers this post garners!)  You see, one of my very first encounters with an e-bike, a couple of years or so before the pandemic, was much too close.  I crossed Broadway at Crescent Street and was walking toward one of those stores you go to for a light bulb or a battery when something glanced off my left elbow.

I recognized the guy--a delivery worker I'd seen before on a mountain bike that had as much rust and gunk as paint or rubber (and possibly metal).  That night, he was astride one of the first eBikes I'd seen in this city.  I cursed at him, not only for nearly knocking me down, but for his seeming indifference, which was reflected by the manager of the restaurant when I complained to him.

I haven't patronized that restaurant since--which, to be fair, I hadn't patronized much up to that point.  But I guess that, like most New Yorkers, I have become accustomed or resigned to the eBikes.  As I've mentioned in other posts, I can understand why some delivery workers would use them:  They might be delivering orders from one of those apps that promises you'll get your pizza, tacos or whatever within a certain time frame.  Or they might be a family's main breadwinner--whether that family is here or in El Salvador or China or some other far-away place-- speak little or no English and be aging--and have few or no other employment prospects.  

But one opinion I've developed, and won't change, is this:  They don't belong on any path lane, sidewalk or other pathway used by bicyclists, pedestrians or anyone else moving about without a motor--with the exception of motorized wheelchair users.

The Bureau of Police in Lancaster, Pennsylvania seems to share my opinion.  This week, they released a statement banning electric bikes--along with skateboards and unicycles-- from sidewalks. 

Now, since I don't cross paths (pun intended) with  skateboarders and unicycles as often, I haven't developed as strong feelings about them.  My main complaint about skateboarders is that they stop frequently, sometimes in the path of cyclists, often without intending to do so.  The few times I've had to do a quick dodge around a skateboarder, he (nearly all I've encountered have been teenage boys and young men) was apologetic and polite.  And I've had so few encounters with unicyclists that I really don't think about them.   But, I can understand why some pedestrians--especially if they are elderly and have mobility issues--would feel endangered by skateboarders and unicyclists.  

Note To North Country: Don't Repeat NYC Bike Policy Mistake

Yesterday I wrote about an example of bicycle infrastructure and policy crafted, so it seems, by non-cyclists.  The new Brooklyn Bridge bike lane seems to combine every bad decision made by this city's planners when it comes to cycling.  What's worse, or at least as bad, as the lane itself is that motorized bicycles and scooters are allowed to share it with completely human-powered bikes.

Photo by Jay Petrequin for 

Now the folks in Warren County--part of my home state's "North Country"--are contemplating that same policy mistake on a popular bike lane.  The Warren County Bikeway winds its way through the woods from the village of Lake George through the city of Glens Falls, and connects cyclists with Adirondack Park and other parts of the North Country.  The county administrators are debating whether to allow electric bikes on the lane.

Now, I am not against electric bikes in principle:  They keep people on two wheels after their bodies have been decimated by injuries, disease or simply old age.  And, they are quieter and less polluting--at least in their normal state--than the motorized bikes--which, in my opinion, are just scaled-down motorcycles-- commonly used by delivery workers. 

E-bikes differ from their motorized counterparts in several ways.  First, of course, is their power source.  But more to the point, the motor in an e-bike is not made to power the bike by itself.  Rather, it's there to augment the rider's leg juice on a hill, against the wind or simply when the rider tires out.  

Within the category of e-bikes, there are three basic types: 

Type 1 is designed to assist the rider in getting the bike to speeds up to 20 MPH.  At higher speeds, the motor cuts off until the bike slows down.

Type 2 is like Type 1, with a throttle added.  This feature can be used to cross an intersection, make a right turn or in any other situation in which quick acceleration is helpful.

Type 3 is the same as Type 2, but with the ability to reach 28 MPH.

If the bike lane is wide enough and secluded from traffic, I have no problem with Type 1, or even Type 2.  The problem is that the latter is often modified into a Type 3, and Type 3s are made to go even faster.  Also, Type 3 riders tend to ride more than they pedal. 

I think making clear distinctions about what is and isn't allowed, and enforcing such regulations, would make it safe and practical for Type 1 and even Type 2 riders to share a lane with those of us who ride completely human-powered bikes.  Such an arrangement would make particular sense on the Warren County bike lane, as many riders are vacationers who bring their bikes on RVs or trailers to Lake George or some other North Country destination.  And many of those arriving in RVs are retirees who might not otherwise cycle if there wasn't a "boost."

These Wheels Are Returning To Their Roots

Henry Ford was a bicycle mechanic.  His first car was basically two bicycles connected to a carriage and a motor.  But, even though he made four-wheeled motorized vehicles available to the masses, Ford never abandoned his pedaled two-wheeled.  Even after he became one of the world's wealthiest individuals, he took a three-mile spin every day after supper.  Time magazine showed him on one of those rides, which he took on his 77th birthday.

Around the time Ford was fixing bikes, two brothers in Detroit were doing the same. They would patent a dust-repellent hub and bottom bracket and found a company that manufactured some of Detroit's earliest bicycles.  Later, they would enter the same line of business that would make Ford--and Detroit--famous.

The siblings in question are John and Horace Dodge.  

Then there was a bike mechanic and racer from France who, like Ford and the Dodges, would turn his energies from two wheels to four and add a motor.  He achieved renown as one of the early auto racers and, like Henry, John and Horace, would start his own auto-making company.

I am referring to Louis Chevrolet.

Of course, if you have too much time on your hands and idle brain capacity, you can speculate about what bikes might be like if the companies Ford, the Dodge brothers and Chevrolet made them.  

Actually, we might get an idea of what Chevrolet Cycles might be by looking at what's on offer for 2019.  Chevrolet, of course, became one of the most iconic marques of General Motors.  

Yes, GM is going to make and market two models of bicycle for the coming year.  But they won't be like the offerings of Shinola or the Detroit Bike. Instead, the company's two-wheelers will be pedal-assisted e-bikes.  General Motors CEO Mary Barra said, in a press conference, that the new e-bikes would be "designed to help people stay mobile in an increasingly difficult-to-navigate urban landscape."

There is a kind of irony or poetic justice in all of this:  GM, Ford, Chrysler and other auto companies helped to make the "increasingly difficult-to-navigate urban landscape."

Is Amazon Sending UPS Back To Its Roots?

I could've been....a UPS delivery person.

Actually, I was, for about four weeks.  The venerable delivery company hired me one holiday season:  from the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve.  Back then, the company employed a lot of "helpers" during that time of year.  Many of us were students, as I was.  We didn't drive:  We rode the trucks for a minute or two, leaped off, delivered a few packages, leaped back on and repeated a few hundred times.

I don't know whether UPS still hires extra help during that season.  The pay, as I recall, was decent, but as my driver said, "You earn it."  He was right:  Even though I was young and in good condition (mainly from cycling), I was still tired at the end of a shift:  I'd have just enough energy to ride my bike home.  But it was, in some ways, a satisfying job, at least for those few weeks:  People were usually happy to see us, and I got a few tips and gifts.

That driver, and our supervisor, suggested that I might want to get a driver's license and work for them permanently.  Sometimes I wonder whether I should have:  I understand the retirement benefits are good, and I could have retired by now.  Then again, even if I had more desire to drive at all, I'm not sure that I would have wanted to do it all day.

If I'd been born a few decades earlier, I could have been a bike messenger for them.  After all, I later plied the streets of Manhattan on two wheels, delivering everything from slices of pizza to documents pertaining to mergers, divorces and every other proceeding you can think of--and a few small packages with mysterious contents. (Well, at least I wasn't supposed to know what was in them. But, given their destinations, it wasn't hard to tell.)  And UPS was in the bike messenger business.

In fact, that's how it started more than a century ago:  a few young men delivered packages by bicycle and on foot in Seattle.  Now, it seems that UPS is returning to its roots, sort of.

It's partnered with the Seattle Department of Transportation and the University of Washington in a pilot program to make deliveries in the city's downtown area, around the Pike Place Market.  The program will involve e-bikes pulling wagons with detachable cargo trailers.  Those vehicles remind me a bit of the tuk-tuks I rode while in Cambodia and Laos. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the designers were inspired, at least in part, by them:  these containers can carry up to 400 pounds, and four adult humans (of Western size) can ride in the cab of a tuk-tuk.

According to Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, the alliance will "help us better understand how we can ensure the delivery of goods while making space on our streets for transit, bikes and pedestrians."  Seattle, like other American cities, has experienced an increase in motorized traffic in spite of growing numbers of cyclists, pedestrians and people who use mass transit.  

While UPS and other couriers (including the US Postal Service and Fed Ex) can't be blamed for it, one could say they are vehicles (no pun intended) for it:  According to a report from the World Economic Forum and Deloitte, in the decade from 2005 to 2015, the global total number of parcels delivered increased by 128 percent.  Much of this increase, according to researchers, is a result of consumers increasingly having single items shipped at a time.  This trend has been fueled, in large part, by retailers like Amazon and Walmart--who use UPS and the other carriers I've mentioned--who make it easy to order, and offer free shipping on, cheap items.   

If the collaboration between the UPS, the city and the university proves successful, UPS says it will be expanded to other parts of the Emerald City.  It could also be exported to other cities experiencing traffic congestion problems.

Elettricita

Its romantic style with dips and crests take (sic) us back in time onto the bumpy, narrow passages of Italy.


Does anyone describe anything Italian in the English language without using words like "romantic", "love" or
"amore"?

This year, a beautiful pair of Sudini boots I wore for years finally gave out.  What I'll remember as much as the boots themselves is the box in which they came.  It was unremarkable, at least as Italian boxes go, except for the slogan underneath the Sudini name:  "Make love to your feet."

I am guessing it was, shall we say, an idiosyncratic translation of something.  To my knowledge, there are no more foot fetishists, per capita, among Italians in Italy or the diaspora, than among any other people in the world.

So what has the "romantic style" with "dips and crests" that are meant to remind us of "the bumpy narrow passages" (Sounds like a relationship or two in which I've been involved!) of my ancestors' (some, anyway) country?

It's something called "Velorapida".  That, of course, means "fast bike" in Italian.  There's nothing wrong with a name like that:  After all, "Motobecane" means "motor bike" in French.

But the "Velorapida" is something I don't normally associate with romance:  an e-bike.  Most of the ones I've seen here are ugly and are, most of the time, ridden by delivery workers or people who want to believe they're riding bicycles but don't want to put forth the effort.

I must say, though, that the Velorapida does challenge my belief, at least a little, even if it won't turn me to an e-biker:

To me, it looks like a newer, updated version of bikes you see all over Europe.   It even has the requisite charm and character.

The handcrafted leather bag, however, is not there to merely to add charm or even to carry formaggio or frutta from the local market.  Instead, it encases a "secret" battery pack.  

Oh, no!  I'll never look at leather bike bags the same way again!

I must say, though, that if someone is riding an electric bike instead of driving a car--or because he or she, for whatever reason, can't ride a regular bike--I am happy.  And I can't begrudge someone who's trying to make a living on an ebike:  If it's more expedient for them in any way than any other delivery vehicle, I can understand why they'd ride it.

I don't know what the Velorapidas cost.  If I were President (tee hee), I would decree that employers could provide them (or regular bicycles) for their workers and deduct them from their tax bill!

Loving And The Dandy Horse

Today is the 50th anniversary of one of the most important (in my opinion, anyway) legal decisions in the history of the US.  On this date in 1967, the Supreme Court ruled that laws against interracial marriage ("miscegenation") were unconstitutional.

Earlier this year, I saw "Loving", a film inspired by the case.  I'm surprised the film isn't better-known.  For one thing, few cases or films ever had a more apt name.  Mildred Jeter was a black woman who married her childhood sweetheart, Richard Loving, nearly a decade before the Supreme Court decision.  Because their home state, Virginia, had "miscegenation" laws on its books, they went to Washington DC to get married.  Then they returned home, where their union was illegal. So, acting on what is said to be an anonymous tip, police officers of  Old Dominion dragged them from their bedroom just five weeks after they married.

They pleaded guilty, and the judge allowed them to flee to Washington DC.  But the Lovings were country people; city life did not suit them.  After five years in the nation's capital, one of their children was struck by a car.  

That was the "last straw" for Mildred.  She wasn't looking to "make history" ; she simply wanted to go back to Virginia and live in peace with her husband and kids.  She appealed to then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who referred them to the American Civil Liberties Union, whose lawyers took the case to the nation's highest court.

A few of my students saw the film, which sparked discussions in class.  They were astonished to learn that the entire story unfolded during my lifetime:  The Lovings, in fact, married one week after I was born!  My students--save perhaps for those who come from cultures in which marriages are arranged--simply can't imagine not being allowed to have relations with whomever their hearts dictate.

Anyway, I know none of this has anything to do with cycling, so I will tell you about something that does:  On this date 200 years ago, Karl von Drais took his "dandy horse"--what is now commonly called the "Draisenne" or "Draisine"--for its first relatively long ride.  That is seen as the day when the potential of his creation--commonly acknowledged as the first true ancestor of the modern bicycle--was first recognized, much as the Wright Brothers' flight over Kitty Hawk showed the possibility of flight.

Of course, much of the "buzz" today concerns electric bicycles.  So, perhaps it was inevitable that to commemorate this bicentennial, someone would come up with--you guessed it--an electric Draisenne.  

And what is it called?  The Draisine 200.0, of course!

What would Karl think of it?