Hands During A Ride

 No, they’re Michelangelo’s hands of God and Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

Nor are they Albrecht Dūrer’s Praying Hands

or Auguste Rodin’s Cathedrale.

Nor is it the work of any other dead white guy whose work I love.

Rather, it’s from a woman who, old and white as she is, very much lives among us.

I saw Sassona Walter’s “Touch” yesterday in front of the old Greenwich Town Hall. I pedaled Negrosa, my vintage Mercian Olympic on an all-but-perfect first-Sunday-in-August morning. 

The ride home was pleasantly uneventful until almost the end.  On the Randall’s Island-to-Queens span of the RFK Bridge, a young guy on a motor scooter just missed my elbow.  

Something seemed strange about the encounter.  A moment later, I realized I hadn’t cursed the guy out, even to myself. Was I becoming more of a lady—or simply more accustomed to such things?

Well, a couple of moments later, he took a tumble about ten meters in front of me.  I stopped, and a guy on a motorized bike pulled up.

Turns out, the guy on the scooter jammed his brake when he hit a bump. He had a few scrapes but, fortunately, didn’t hit his head. 

The guy on the motorized bike and I offered him water, which he turned down. But when we reached our hands to his, he let us lift him up. Then, on discovering that the brake mechanism had broken, we walked with him the rest of the way across the bridge.

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.

Is It Still A Bicycle?

An Outside magazine article raised this question, specifically in reference to the HPC Revolution.

Here is the verdict, from Ty Brookhart and Wes Siler, the article's authors:  "Because no one is going to buy an 82-pound bicycle, that essentially means HPC is selling a very light electric motorcycle that, thanks to pedals and post-sale programming, is legally considered a bicycle."

Got that?  The pedals are there simply to fit the legal definition of a bicycle.  That confirms what I suspected about many of the e-bikes I've seen lately:  It's hard to imagine that their riders actually used the pedals.  Or, if they did, it was difficult to conceive of using them for anything but starting the bike.  

My purpose in raising  that issue is not to rebuke riders who choose to motor rather than pedal.  Rather, I mention it because of a concern I have:  Those bikes are often ridden at motorcycle speeds, often in places where motorized vehicles don't belong.

I am not merely expressing anxiety over a "what if?"  Instead, I am speaking from observation and experience--in particular, a close encounter I had with one of those "bikes" on the Queensborough Bridge bike lane last night.  It was rolling faster than the cars on the main roadway, where traffic volume was considerably below that of the rush-hour peak.  It was also faster than the train that rose from the tunnel and up the ramp--just a few yards to the side of the bike lane--to the Queensborough Plaza station.

The worst part was that I didn't hear the e-bike approaching me until the rider came within a few hairs from brushing against my elbow.

And, yes, that "bike" had pedals.  More than likely, it also had the "programming" Brookhart and Siler mention--a speed limiter that caps the bike's velocity at 20MPH.  That limiter, along with the pedals, allows such machines to be sold as "bicycles".  As often as not, users remove that limiter.  I'm sure that the guy who almost knocked me down removed his--or had it removed.

I am not the first to argue that such "bikes" shouldn't be ridden anywhere near where human-powered bikes are pedaled.  If anything, those bikes are even more dangerous, to pedestrians as well as cyclists, because they are silent and less visible than cars or other motorized vehicles.  But, as best as I can tell, as long as those "bikes" can be classified as bicycles, there isn't much anyone can do to restrict them.

The Ban On Motorized Bikes In NYC

It's not often that cyclists and motorists agree on something, at least here in New York.

Then again, lots of other people who are neither motorists nor cyclists agree with us, at least when it comes to one thing.

I am talking about motorized bicycles.  Like many other New Yorkers, I have had a close encounters with them--including a time when a rider grazed my elbow when I was walking on a sidewalk around the corner from my apartment.

The rider was, like most motorized bikers, making a delivery for a restaurant.  Just after my encounter with him, he parked the bike.  I tried to talk to him, but we didn't speak any of the same languages.  So I went to the owner of the restaurant, who promised to talk to the guy and the rest of his delivery crew.

That the driver parked so soon after the near-miss, and that I therefore knew for whom he was working, made me more fortunate than others who've had similar encounters with motorized bikes.  So is the fact that I sometimes patronize the restaurant and the owner recognized me.  And, of course, the fact that I wasn't hurt.

Others, though, haven't been so lucky.  And I nearly crashed on my bike once when a motorized biker made a sudden turn in front of me.

More than a few stories like mine, and worse, have no doubt reached the Mayor's office during the past few years.  Perhaps as a response,  Bill de Blasio  recently announced a crackdown on motorized bikes.  When police officers have stopped motorized biker, in some cases, the biker has received a ticket.  Henceforth, said the Mayor, the city will fine owners of restaurants whose delivery workers use the bikes.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, but I have to wonder how that mandate is carried out.  You see, while it's illegal to operate such bikes in the five boroughs of New York--get this--it's not illegal to own one.  I would guess that some delivery workers own their wheels, but the vast majority of bikes are owned by the owners of the restaurants and other businesses who employ the delivery workers.  So, I have to wonder what will be the charge(s) against the business owners who are fined.

Does that mean the burden of penalties will fall to the riders, most of whom are eking out a living?  

Also, it's been pointed out that some delivery workers, mainly the older ones, can't pedal through an entire shift because of injuries or other debilitating conditions.  De Blasio expressed hope that such workers "could find some other kind of work with that restaurant or business."  There are two problems with that:  1.) Most of the restaurants and businesses are small and have few, if any, other jobs, and 2.) Most of the delivery workers are immigrants, many of whom don't speak English, lack other skills or don't have the documentation necessary to get other employment.

That said, I certainly think motorized bikes should not be allowed on sidewalks and bike lanes.  Ideally, I'd like to see them barred from the streets, too, but implementing such a ban might prove more difficult than the Mayor realizes.

Record Holder Is Gissy, Not Evel

The next time you're sideswiped by some guy delivering Chinese food on a motorized bike,  call him the  slowpoke he really is.  After all, he can't hold a candle (especially a Roman one) to this courer:





On a track neaer Mulhouse, in eastern France, Francois Gissy rode a rocket-powered mountain bike in the slipstream of a dragster.   In the process, he set a new speed record for mountain bikes--163 mph--which fell just short of the overall record of 167mph.  

With his bike and white suit, he reminds me, in a way, of Evel Knievel.  Evel couldn't jump the Snake River Canyon on a motorcycle that looked more like, well, a rocket.  What if he'd had a mountain bike--with rockets--instead?  And what if Gissy had Evel's motorcycle?

A French Evel Knievel?  What an idea!