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.

After A Snowstorm

From Friday night through Saturday, we in New York experienced one of the biggest snowstorms we've had in a while.

Now, if you live in a place like Vermont or Montana or the Alps, you might think it's funny that we'd make such a big deal about 30 centimeters (12 inches) of snow.  But city officials and media are expressing gratitude that the storm--which brought winds of up to 110 kph (70 mph) and a low temperature of -12C (10F)-came our way at the start of the weekend.

Because the temperature has remained well below freezing, the snow hasn't melted.  I have to wonder, then, how snow accumulates in the ways and places it does:

I also can't help but to wonder about vehicles parked on the street.  Are they parked with the knowledge of the approaching storm?  Or do people leave them, go and do wherever and whatever, and the weather just happens to turn:

Does anybody make knobby or studded tires for scooters?

A Scooter In Any Other Bill

When is an e-scooter a bike?

For the moment, it isn't.  But if a few US statehouses have their way, the two could be, for all intents and purposes, equal.

Most cycling advocates and bicycle industry insiders don't have a problem with e-scooters per se.  Like e-bikes, they are seen as quiet and less-polluting alternatives to automobiles, especially in urban areas.  In fact, some electric scooter-sharing companies also run bike-sharing systems and are members of the People for Bikes Coalition.

Here's the rub:  Bills on the table in 27 states seek to provide a legal footing for e-scooter rental and use, which is still illegal in many areas.  The problem, according to Morgan Lommele, is that those basically seek to provide legal parity between bicycles, e-bikes and e-scooters.  That leads to situations like the one called for in California's bill:  Scooter- and bike-share systems would be required to maintain general-liability insurance.  

That requirement would be especially onerous for non-profit bike-share systems or small bike-rental companies, which usually require riders to sign a waiver when they hop on a bike. The California bill, Lommele says, "implicates bikes and lumps bike share with scooter share."  In other words, bicyclists would bear the blame for the high cost of sharing or renting a scooter.

Spin e-scooter share system, Jefferson City, Missouri.  Photo by Tony Webster

As bad as California's bill is, one in Florida is even worse:  it would lump "motorized bicycles" into the same category as "micromobility devices" for the purpose of regulating electric scooter-share systems.  Lommele wants "motorized bicycles removed from that definition" to "avoid any negative consequences for bike-share operators in the state.

Of course, it's hard not to imagine that the consequences of Florida's bill, if passed, could be as bad for bike-share programs as the potential outcomes of California's bill--and similar legislative proposals in other states.  One reason why they are even being discussed is something I didn't realize until yesterday:  The scooter-share companies are "massive multi-billion dollar operations, heavily backed by venture capital," according to Lommele.  They are "aggressively seeking market share" from bicycles and e-bikes.