In my youth, one of the few midlife (!) cyclists I knew gave me this bit of advice: "The three most important things to do while riding are to hydrate, hydrate and hydrate, in that order."
My memory might be a bit fuzzy, but I believe his cupboard looked something like this:
Most people associate doctors' prescriptions with pharmaceutical concoctions. But now physicians in a Houston clinic are prescribing, in addition to medications, something else for patients with prehypertension, hypertension, diabetes and prediabetes.
What is the new "wonder drug?" A one-year membership in Houston BCycle, the city's bike-share program. Thanks to a collaboration between Houston Bicycle, the American Heart Association and Legacy Community Health in the city's Fifth Ward, patients can take a traditional or electric bicycle for 90 minutes at any BCycle location.
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| Photo by Lucio Vasquez |
Those organizations began to work on the collaboration more than two years ago. Then the pandemic struck. The director of Legacy continued to talk with the AHA and Houston Bicycle and the collaboration, called Bike Rx, finally started in February.
The collaboration also helps to fulfill a goal articulated by Houston BCycle communications manager Mary De Bauche: improving transportation options as well as the health and well-being of people in underserved communities. Most residents of Legacy's Fifth Ward locale are Black or Hispanic, many of whom live below the official poverty level. In such communities, hypertension and diabetes are more common than in more affluent areas, in part because of the limited transportation and recreation options, which compound the stresses of being poor and experiencing racial and ethnic bigotry.
While the "bike prescription" program is, for the moment, available only at Legacy, De Bauche and officials of the other participating organizations hope that it will expand to other sites in the city.
They park their work--and personal--vehicles in bike lanes while munching on Big Macs. They tail you at intersections, just as the light is changing, and force you to choose between going through the intersection or stopping and getting rammed from behind. Or they jump out from behind bushes in a park and make cyclists speed up--above the speed limit--to avoid them.
Oh, and sometimes they don't bother with those tactics and cut to the chase: They assault, in some cases sexually, cyclists.
By now, you've probably guessed that I'm talking about police officers. I have witnessed or experienced everything I've experienced from "men in blue" here in New York. But, perhaps not surprisingly, none of those things are unique to my hometown.
According to Molly Hurford, Toronto police have turned that city's High Park into a "battleground" in which cyclists have been spuriously ticketed for "speeding" and "trespassing."
Oh, but it gets worse. Last Tuesday, an officer--one who has been ticketing cyclists, no less--drove his SUV into the park. Just outside the park, a cyclist who was riding in the bike lane stopped at a four-way stop, with the officer to his left. The officer turned his vehicle directly into him. The cyclist wasn't injured, but his bike sustained over $2000 in damage.
The officer claimed that the sun was in his eyes. Lawyer and cycling advocate David Shelnutt, who has taken up the cyclist's case pro bono, said, "In no other incident would 'the sun being in his eyes' be an acceptable excuse for any traffic violation." At the very least, he says, that officer ran a red light; the sun shouldn't have made a cyclist invisible only four feet from the officer. The city's Traffic Services says it's continuing its investigation.
The Roman poet Juvenal could have had the incident in mind when he wrote, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"--Who will guard the guardians? Who protect cyclists (or anyone else) from those who are supposed to protect them?
