Happy Mother's Day!

Here in the US, it's Mother's Day.

I've had a good relationship with my mother, so I am happy to send her flowers and a card.  Even so, I can't get over how sappy and sentimental some cards are.  I think only Valentine's Day brings out more of the music-box mindset than this day.

I found this card just a moment ago.  I like it, not only because it has a bicycle, butterflies and my favorite colors on it.  It might be a tad sentimental, but it's pretty and rather tasteful.  Had I found it sooner, I would have sent .  Sending an image of a card via e-mail just isn't the same; my mother doesn't do e-mail, anyway.  (In fact, she's never used a computer.)  But, maybe next year.

In any event, I wish all of you who are or have been mothers--whether biologically or in spirit--a Happy Mother's Day.  And to you too, Mom, just in case you happen to see this!

A New Weave?

Carbon fiber bikes first appeared about four decades ago.  For two decades, they were mainly curiosities or status symbols; they were ridden (if they were ridden) mainly for record attempts or by those who simply had to have the latest equipment.

When Trek and other companies started to make carbon fiber bikes priced within range of the best steel and aluminum bikes, parts and accessories with the "carbon weave" pattern became as fashionable as snakeskin or leopard often are among the haute couture crowd. I remember seeing handlebar tape, saddles and even tires with the "carbon basket", as some of us called it.

Well, it turns out that carbon fiber isn't the only material that's woven when used in bicycle frames.  Interestingly, this material has many of the same qualities that doomed the early carbon fiber frames but make them attractive (not just in visual ways) to many cyclists today:  It is strong but still flexible, which allows it to be shaped in a variety of ways.  But it is also brittle, and--like early carbon fiber materials--needs to be supported by other materials.

The material in question is bamboo.  Industrial designer Lance Rake (You've gotta love that name!) realized that to make bamboo stiff enough, he had to cut it into thin strips, weave it and  laminate it to another material.  This is more or less how early carbon fiber frames were made:  They fibers were wrapped around, and bonded to another material, usually aluminum. 

Now, you're never going to believe what Rake is laminating his bamboo fiber to.  Wait for it:  carbon fiber.  In another interesting parallel with early carbon fiber-frames, Rake's bamboo-laminate tubes are joined into carbon fiber lugs.  Most of the early carbon-fiber frames were bonded into aluminum lugs.  

The bike Rake is holding in his hands is fitted with mid-level components and weighs about 19 pounds--more or less what a similarly-equipped carbon fiber bike would weigh.

Will the new "must have" bike accessories have a bamboo-weave pattern?  Depending on the accessory, it might actually look good.  

No Idaho Stop In California--For Now, Anyway

Which is worse:

• a stupid, misguided, useless or pointless law that is passed by a legislative body

or

• a well-informed and well-conceived law that a legislative body votes against?

Yesterday's post concerned a mandate that may fit into the former category.  Today, unfortunately, I'm going to write about the latter.

As I've mentioned in an earlier post, way back in 1982, Idaho passed a law allowing cyclists to roll through an intersection at a red light if there is no cross-traffic.  Since then, no other US state has enacted similar legislation , though in 2011 a few Colorado municipalities adopted policies that allow cyclists to, in effect, treat "Stop" signs as "Yield" signs.  And the city of Paris, France has a statute allowing cyclists to do the same as long as they're making right turns, or going straight, through "T" junctions.

From the Portland Mercury

The so-called Idaho stop makes perfect sense because it allows cyclists to get out ahead of traffic and therefore be better seen by motorists, particularly those who are making right turns.  Even the policies of Paris and those Colorado communities are better than most others.

Recently, a bill that, if passed, would have given California cylists the same right that their peers in Idaho have enjoyed for more than three decades came up for a vote in the Golden State's Assembly.  After some intense lobbying (by, I think it's fair to assume, people who don't ride bikes), the bill was tabled.  Assembly member Jay Obernolte said the bill was being held up until the next legislative session so that "concerns" can be "worked out."

The one legitimate "concern" he mentioned came from groups representing the visually impaired, who say that people with vision problems could have difficulty hearing cyclists "whizzing by", as Sacrament Bee reporter Alexei Koseff put it.

That, in spite of researchers in the US and UK, working independently of each other and several years apart, coming to the conclusion that cyclists as well as motorists are safer when the "Idaho stop" is allowed.  Part of their research, of course, included a survey of Idaho's experience with its law.