Daring It All To Fall

Now you are going to see one reason to have a "beater" bike:

Some would argue it's not fair to treat a bike that way.  Perhaps.  Certainly, I would never leave a cat or dog in the cold, snow, sleet, slush and rain.

Yes, that's a description of the weather we've had since just a few minutes after midnight.  How can I pinpoint the start of the storm so accurately?, you ask.  

You see, after doing things I had to do yesterday and hearing dire predictions for today's weather, I figured I'd take a ride, however late the hour.  Actually, I got on Tosca at about 10:30 and got home just as light flakes were eddying to the ground. 
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Almost as soon as I walked in the door, the flakes turned to needles of frozen precipitation and thus were more affected by the force of gravity.  Now that's one kind of weather condition in which I won't ride if I need not.

In other posts, I've written about "playing chicken with the rain".  This time, I rode as if I were daring every kind of precipitation Nature could have thrown at (or, more precisely, dropped on) me. I still have enough childish mischieviousness to revel in last night's little victory.

Get An Education--But Don't Lose Your Bike!

If you get all of your news from the mainstream media, you might think that the most common crimes on university campuses are date rape and other kinds of sexual assault.  I am glad that such incidents are now taken seriously; when I was an undergraduate, victims usually suffered in silence.  

However, such crimes are not the most common on higher education sites.  Nor are other assaults or driving under the influence.  None of those crimes comes close, in frequency, to the most common offense of all.

And what might that offense be?  Well, because you're reading this blog, you might have guessed:  bicycle theft.  According to one study, one out of every thirteen bikes students bring with them to school will be stolen.  What's equally disturbing, I think, is that only one out of every 315 stolen bikes is recovered.

From Visual.ly

What's most surprising, though, is the campuses that experience the most theft:  those of elite (or, at any rate, expensive) private universities and suburban campuses.  In other words, bikes are most often stolen from those campuses that are perceived to be "safe".

Why is that the case?  Perhaps students are more likely to let their guard down on such campuses.  Or, perhaps, those students come from environments that didn't inculcate them with the wariness of someone from a lower-income, higher-crime area.  

My guess, though, is that thieves, being the opportunists they are, go to the campuses where rich kids study and congregate.  On such campuses, thieves are more likely to find bikes worth stealing and, most important of all, one that is unlocked.  Also, it's not unusual to find bikes that, while locked, have been on the same spot for weeks, or even months, such as when students go on field trips or internships.  Sometimes a person who has never before stolen anything in his or her life will assume that such a bike was abandoned and therefore there for the taking.

While some might not think bike theft is a serious problem--and I'm not about to suggest that it's on the same level as sexual assault--for many students, and even faculty and staff members, bicycles are the main (or only) means of transportation.  Also, a bike is many a student's most valuable possession.  Those, I believe, are reasons to take bike theft on campuses more seriously.

Why Do Women Ride?

Why do we--women--ride?

I came across this infographic that shows some of the most common reasons.  What I found most interesting are that 78 percent of female riders in the Seattle area ride their bikes to run errands, and that 49 percent of all bike trips in the US are less than three miles.  

From Velojoy.com

As the infographic says about that last statistic,  "Women ride because it's smart."

I find that comment perceptive and very funny.  Just today, I remarked to a friend, "I did a lot of stupid things when I was living as a man."  She said, "Well, I'm sure you did some smart things, too."

Yes, I did at least one.  And it's something I still do.

Aren't you glad I didn't ask, "What do women want?"