How A Bobby On A Bike Wrote The World's First Speeding Ticket

I've been pulled over for speeding--on my bicycle.  

I don't know how fast I was riding, but the speed limit was 25 or 30 mph, if I recall correctly:  It was a long time ago and, I confess, I was under the influence of something that was illegal everywhere in the US at the time.

(One good thing about getting older is that the statute of limitations runs out.)

Anyway, it was late at night and I think the cop who pulled me over didn't have anything else to do.  I said something like, "Sorry, officer, I didn't realize there was a speed limit for bicycles."  I don't know whether he didn't catch my sarcasm or realized that if I actually committed an offense, it wasn't worth his, or the department's, time to pursue.  He lectured me for a couple of minutes and asked where I was going. "Home," and I told him where in the town--Highland Park, New Jersey--it was without giving an exact address.  "Just be careful, and slow down," he admonished.  "OK.  Have a good evening, sir."

If he didn't ticket me because he thought it wasn't worth the effort, he may well have realized he couldn't charge me.  In some places, bicycles are classified as "vehicles" and are subject to the same traffic regulations; in other places, they aren't.  I'm not sure of what the laws were, or how they were interpreted, in that town or state 40-some-odd years ago.  

A constable in the Kent village of Paddock Wood faced a similar dilemma on 28 January 1896.  Huffing and puffing, he caught up to a speeding scofflaw named Walter Arnold.

His response to the bobby:  "Have you thought about asking your superiors for an upgrade, sir?"  The cop was on his department-issue bicycle, but Arnold wasn't talking about a lighter or even motorized bike. "I could provide him with a very good deal on a Benz motor, finest German engineering..."

Turns out, Arnold was one of the first car dealers in England, and the local supplier of Benz vehicles.  The terms "automobile" weren't yet in use; the conveyances were more commonly referred to as "horseless carriages."   That would be important in Arnold's case.

The officer, whose name is lost to history, was not amused.  He wrote Arnold a citation for four "informations" (counts): using a "locomotive without a horse," having fewer than three persons "in charge of the same," speeding and not having his name and address on the vehicle.

Walter Arnold's "hot rod."

Those offences were against regulations written for horse-drawn carriages.  Arnold's barrister made exactly that point in his client's defense and told the judge that if the carriage were to be considered a "locomotive" (a term for any sort of vehicle powered by an outside source) and if Arnold were to be so charged, he should be levied only a nominal fines for "using a carriage without a locomotive horse" and even smaller fines for the other charges.  Arnold paid them without protest; the publicity the case generated paid for his penalties many times over.

Ironically, one of the constable's pretexts for stopping Arnold--not having a man with a red flag in front of the carriage--was not mentioned during the hearing.  That regulation, however, was subsequently dropped.  As Miriam Bibby wryly notes, it "presumably left the labour exchange staff scratching their heads over what to do with a skill that clearly wan't that transferrable."  

Now to the question some of you may have been asking:  How fast was Walter Arnold driving?  Are you ready for this: 8 mph.  And what was the speed limit for horse-drawn carriages:  2 mph.

Reading all of that, I don't feel so bad about how much I've slowed down in my transition from that young male bike rider whom a Highland Park cop pulled over for speeding to a female midlife cyclist.  Of course, I'm defining "midlife" as elastically (Is that a word?") as Walter Arnold's vehicle could be defined as a "carriage."

 

What Do We Know? We Just Ride Bikes!

I am going to rant.  You have been forewarned.

Nothing angers me more than someone in a position of authority who schedules a meeting or gives you a few minutes to "state your case" when they've already made up their mind. Someone who is deemed an "experts," has a fancy title and is given unilateral decision-making power seems to be particularly prone to such behavior.  

What bothers me about such a person is not that they make the wrong decisions or simply ones that I disagree with.  Rather, it's their pretense of considering what  you have to say, when, deep down, they have no interest in learning anything more than they already know and are convinced that they can't learn it from you--a mere prole or rube, in their eyes.

I've seen many such people in the academic world. Because they have advanced degrees to go with their fancy titles, they know more or better than you, or so they think.  They're even worse after they've taken a workshop or seminar on something like race or gender identity or discrimination:  They are absolutely convinced that they already know what they need to know and would never consider hearing from somene who has actually experienced what those workshops and seminars supposedly taught them.

There is, of course, a parallel in the world of urban and transportation planning, especially when it comes to bicycling.  The planners may not have ridden bikes since they were kids--or, possibly worse, they ride on a path in a park while on vacation and think of themselves as "bike riders."  They plan and develop bike lanes that go from nowhere to nowhere and have turns, stops and signals that actually endanger cyclists more than riding in a traffic lane ever would.  And they hold hearings in which they invite representatives of bike advocacy groups to "get input" about the "bicycle infrastructure" they want to build.

I thought about my experiences in the academic world and bicycle and transportation advocacy when I came across an article about the Reno's pilot program that seeks to make "infrastructure improvements"  for bicycles, scooters and other "micromobility solutions." In a typically clueless statement, the Nevada city's assistant director of public works, Kerri Koski, said "We'll take and collect the data that we get, we'll analyze that and take a look at what makes the most sense."

Truckee Meadows Bicycle Alliance President Ky Plakson said that while area cyclists may welcome whatever the city ultimately does, they were not apprised of the study or the pilot program.  "We're told at the last minute that something's happened; we're brought into the conversation after the decision has been made," he said.  That sounds unfortunately familiar.  And he echoed something I said before, and after, any number of "bicycle infrastructure" projects were initiated--including the bike lane that lines the street where I live:  "If you're going to build a bike path, talk to people who ride bikes."

Do they teach that in graduate programs for urban planning?

I Hope Good Things Grow In This Garden

A thing might be good.  Another thing might also be good.  Putting them together, though, is not always a good thing.

An example is chocolate chips in bagels.  It seemed to be everywhere about twenty years ago.  Thankfully, they seem to have disappeared, at least in this part of the world. Unfortunately, ridiculous pizza toppings like peanut butter, bologna, honey, barbecued chicken, pineapple and--yikes!--chocolate chips have not.  Now, I love fresh pineapple and barbecued chicken as much as anybody does, but they don't belong on pizza.  Roast chicken is OK, but I guess I'm an old-school New York pizza purist:  I prefer to eat my pizza uncluttered.  

(I will admit, though, that in Toulouse, France, I enjoyed a pizza made with locally-produced goat cheese and ham.  It is, to this day, the best pizza I've eaten outside of Italy or New York.)

So, when I heard the term "bicycle garden," I was skeptical.  Bicycles are wonderful. (Why else do I write the blog?)  So are gardens.  The only way, however,  I've ever conncected the two was to ride one to the other.  

Of course, "garden" in this context doesn't mean a park full of flowers and trees where people picnic or a plot for growing corn and tomatoes.  Rather, it refers to any sort of place where someone or something is grown or developed:  Think of the "garten" in "kindergarten."

The "garden" proposed in Antioch, a San Francisco Bay-area community, would look something like this:

or this:

The city council voted in favor of building it in Prewett Family Park.  If that location doesn't work out, they also voted in favor Gerrytown Park as an alternative.  Prewett, however, is favored for its proximity to schools:  the "garden" will be a place where young people will develop bike-riding skills and learn the rules of the road. 

The idea sounds like a good one, as long as kids are being trained for "real world" riding, i.e., on streets and roads, and not just on bike lanes that go from nowhere to nowhere and may not be any safer than the streets.

After Work, Under A Cherry Blossom Canopy

Yesterday’s commute from work was a bit different from the usual.  For one thing, instead of my “beater,” I took Tosca, my fixed-gear Mercian, as I had little to carry and had left a change of clothes (a skirt, blouse and pair of low-heel pumps) in the office last week.

I left them yesterday.  So I rode home in a pair of bike knickers and a long-sleeved top, on Tosca.  Although the wind was a bit nippy, the spring afternoon called me to ride. My reward:

A canopy of cherry blossoms along the river, late in the afternoon, early in the Spring.  What more can I ask for an after-work ride?

The Only Good Thing Is The Kickstand

When I worked in bike shops, I'd tell prospective customers that the price of bicycles, like the price of many other things, is subject to the law of diminishing returns.  In other words, spending $250 instead of $200 would bring more significant improvement than than spending $800 instead of $700.

But, I would emphasize, it was necessary to spend a minimum baseline amount of money to get a bike that is reliable and pleasant to ride.  Customers would, of course, ask the inevitable question:  What's the minimum amount I have to spend in order to get a good bike?

British former pro racing cyclist James Lowsley Williams tried to answer the qustion.  He decided to tackle a 200 km (about 125 miles)  along England's southwestern coast from Barnstable to Bath.  I cycled in the area many years ago and, even as young as I was, I was surprised at how arduous some of the climbs were.  Williams called them "horrific," so I don't feel so bad about whatever difficulty I had.

When embarking upon that ride, he wanted "to say that you can have fun on a cheap bike" and that "you can still have epic rides."  

Perhaps such a thing is possible.  If it is, it's fair to ask, "How cheap?"

Well, Williams embarked on the trip on a Eurobike that sells for 30 GBP (about 38 USD) on Amazon.  His first impressions were "not good."  He missed his own "superbike," but he tried to keep an open mind.

There are some deficiencies, however, that no amount of mental flexibility can overcome.  "As soon as this bike goes uphill, it wants to go backwards."  When he stood, he "kept hitting the gears" and 'it chucks me into a high gear and I have to start again."    The only good thing about the bike, he says, is "the kickstand."

What's On A Rider's Mind?

 I am posting today's image for the benefit for any non-cyclist who might be riding.

If you are such a reader, you might have wondered what's on a cyclist's mind near the end of a long, hot, arduous ride.

I am here to tell, or rather, show you:

After Tom...

So you have that bike someone in your family brought bike from an overseas tour of duty. Or you have a Bike Boom era ten-speed you still ride--or want to pass on or simply don't want to give up.  Maybe you're holding on (and still riding) that beatiful machine from your racing days or the one that took you across a state or continent, and you want to keep it going for everyday riding or eroica-type events.

Sometimes you can replace old parts with modern ones.  They may not have the style of the stuff the bike came with, but they--especially derailleurs--might work better.  Other times, though, new parts simply won't fit or just won't look right on the old bike.

So what do you do?

These days, you can peruse eBay and other sites.  The Internet is also useful for learning about swap meets and the like.  But one often-overlooked source is the old "family" bike shops that have been in the same location for decades.  Folks in bike costumes with four-digit price tags astride bikes with five-figure tabs might turn up their noses (which, I admit, are often better turned-out than mine!) at such places.  But they often have freewheels, for example, or chainrings in bolt-circle diameters no longer made--or small parts for Mafac or Weinmann caliper--or Bendix or New Departure coaster--brakes.  

And, of course, such shops are called "family" shops because families are not only their owners, but their customer base.  The world-champion racer, globe-spanning tourer and the lifelong everyday cyclist almost invariably started riding as children, whether alone to school, with friends at a local dirt track or family at the park.  Those mom-and-pop proprietors and their employees don't get nearly enough recognition for the role they play in initiating the young into cycling and nurturing a cycling culture.

Tom Anderson, the retiring owner of The Bicycle Rack in Muskegon, Michgian.  (Photo by Cory Morse for MLive.

Tom Anderson of Muskegon, Michigan is such a proprietor.  For 46 years, he's catered to "the mom and pop, the bread and butter of bicycling"  in the western Michigan community.  At one time, the showroom of his shop, The Bicycle Rack, brimmed with 150 or more bikes of all kinds, from kids' trikes to high-end racers.  But like too many other small shops, he hasn't been able to re-stock bikes--or even parts--as the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted production and supply chains.  

So now the lifelong Muskegon resident--who helped to spearhead the 12-mile Lakeshore Bike Trail on Lake Muskegon--is closing his shop and retiring. He considered selling his business, he said, but the next owner would have faced the same struggles that have confronted him.  Truth is, nobody knows when the bike business--or anything else--will "go back to normal," whatever that will mean.

When folks like Tom close up their shops, it doesn't mean only that there's one less place to buy or fix a bike.  Shop owners like him build relationships with people in their communities.  Even if they don't grow up to be dedicated cyclists, they fondly remember folks like him and his willingness to help. Oh, and where else--besides eBay--are you going to find that original lever for your 1950's English three-speed or French-threaded freewheel--without paying eBay prices?

And how can you not miss someone who says of his life's work, "I loved every minute of it"?

A Ride Before Earth Day

 Today is Earth Day.

This day was first designated in 1970, a year after the Santa Barbara oil spill.  I remember growing up with a great awareness of the environmental movement.  Because of that and the Jacques Cousteau television series that aired at the time, for a time I wanted to become a marine ecologist. They also watered, if you'll pardon the metaphor, the seed that had already been planted for my cycling enthusiasm.

I remembered that yesterday, during a late-afternoon ride.  I had no particular destination:  I zigzagged along Queens and Brooklyn streets, past bridges and brownstones, parks and pre-schools, international neighborhoods and industrial colonies. And this:

It's hard to believe, but this was once the most fertile oyster bed in the world.  Lenape natives literally picked them up from the banks and roasted them with the corn, beans and squash they grew nearby.  Now a sign admonishes visitors not to eat anything from that water, or even to enter it.  Every year for as long as I've been paying attention, the Environmental Agency has rated Newtown Creek, which separates the metal fabricators, cement plants and truck depots of Maspeth, Queens from East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, as one of the most polluted bodies of water in the United States.  Sometimes it takes the "top" spot. 

Cycling has helped me to appreciate the beauty of landscapes, natural and manmade.  It also reminds me of. not only the need to preserve such places, but to use what we've built wisely and resposibly.

Death At An Intersection Of Choices

A few years ago, I taught a "capstone" course, required of graduating students, about the Bronx.  It seemed to make sense, as the college is located in the borough--in the heart of the poorest U.S. Congressional District, in the South Bronx--and most students live there.  As much as I tried to make it interesting and relevant, students were less than unenthusiastic:  They saw the course as one more thing standing between them and graduation.

If they've forgotten me, the projects they did (or didn't do), the class itself and the college, I hope they remember one lesson that, I believe, the course reinforced: Everything they lived with, good and bad, in the Bronx was the result of decisions made by human beings.  Sometimes their motives were nefarious, but at other times they were simply misguided.

Fahrad Manjoo makes that point today in a New York Times editorial, "Bike Riding In America Should Not Be This Dangerous."  In his essay, he briefly recounts how urban and transportation has prioritized the "speedy movement of vehicles over the safety of everyone else on our streets.  He doesn't get much into specifics--whole books have been written about that--but that governing principle took hold well before the high priest of auto-centricity, Robert Moses, started his work.

Manjoo's editorial was motivated by the death of 13-year-old Andre Retana at a Mountain View, California intersection that is an "asphalt-and-concrete love letter to cars."  On two corners stand gas stations; America's Tire occupies a third and the fourth is taken up with a BMW dealership.  "To keep traffic humming along," he writes, "motorists on all of its corners are allowed to turn right on red lights."

The intersectio of El Camino Real and Grant Road, Montain View, CA. The "ghost" bike commemorates Andre Retana, who died here.  Photo by Mark Da

As I have pointed out in other posts, such an arrangement endangers cyclists--when they follow the traffic signals as motorists are required to do.  A cyclist at the corner of an intersection is vulnerable to a right-turning vehicle, especially a truck--or an SUV (which I call "trucks for people who don't know how to drive them")--makes a turn. 

To be fair, most truck drivers, especially the long-distance variety, courteous and conscientious.  On the other hand, their vehicles are particurly hazardous for two reasons.  One is that because their vehicles are so large, they sometimes veer into pedestrian and cyclists' paths, or even onto sidewalks, especially on narrow streets in dense urban areas. The other is sight lines, or lack thereof: Drivers sit so far away from everything else on the street that they simply can't see someone crossing a street.

Those factors, and the right to turn right on red, contributed to Andre Retana's death.  The truck driver came to a complete stop at the instruction.  Andre pulled up alongside him.  In an unfortunate twist, he fell off his bike in the crosswalk near the front of the truck--at the very moment the driver, who didn't see him, decided it was safe turn.

The driver didn't realize he'd struck the boy until bystanders flagged him down. Andre suffered severe injuries and died a short time later in the hospital.

Manjoo points out that the intersection, not surprisingly, doesn't have a "box" or safe area where cyclists and pedestrians can wait, and neither of the streets leading to it--El Camino Real and Grant Road--has a protected bike lanes.  But, as much as I respect him for pointing out the dangers-by-design, he seems to share the same misguided thinking behind too many schemes to make cycling safer:  That more bike lanes and other "infrastructure" will do the job and that planning future roads with built-in bike lanes will help.

As I've pointed out in other posts, too many bike lanes are poorly conceived, planned and constructed:  They go from nowhere to nowhere and actually put cyclists in more danger.  Staggered signals, which Manjoo also recommends, could also help.   Moreover, he says that while transitioning from gasoline- to renewable energy-powered vehicles will help for health and environmental reasons, we really need to find ways to get people out of SUVs and into smaller cars.  And, while he doesn't say as much, it could also help to re-design trucks with better sight lines.

But, as I've pointed out in other posts, other changes, like legalizing some form of the "Idaho Stop," are also needed.  Most of all, though, I believe--as Manjoo seems to--that the way transportation is conceived has to change.   Not only are new street and vehicle designs and regulations needed, things like the tax structure, have to change.  Most people don't realize just how much driving is subsidized--yes, in the US to the point that the worst car choices and driving habits are rewarded.

None of the needed changes will bring back Andre Retana.  But they might prevent future tragedies like his--and make cities and societies more livable.  Such changes can only come about by choice--just as all of the mistakes that led to a 13-year-old boy's death were.

  

 

  

To Their Own Hues, And Others

Earlier today, I wrote a post about something people might not associate with Spring:  a survivor pedaling among the wreckage of Mariupol.

To me, this season is about the living beings who make it through winter--whether it's a season of cold, snow and darkness or the death and destruction of war (another kind of darkness) as well as the new life that rises, whether from the ashes or a well-tended garden.

Because I've encountered the latter on afternoon rides, I am more fortunate than the cyclist in my earlier post.  It's funny, though, how Dee-Lilah (my custom Mercian Vincitore Special), Vera (my Miss Mercian), La-Vande (my custom King of Mercia) and Tosca (my Mercian fixie) always seem to find reflections of themselves.

Or, at least they, in their differing shades of purple, are drawn like moths to the flame of color.

Even if it isn't their own.