Her Way?

 Is she trying to coast on a fixed-gear bike?

A Tragedy Leads To Action, But More Needs To Be Done

 Nine years ago today, the Kalamazoo, Michigan area bore one of the most horrific incidents of a motorist running down cyclists I’ve ever heard about.

Nine members of a local riding group who called themselves “The Chain Gang”—all experienced cyclists over the age of 40–were out for a late-day ride on Westnedge Avenue in nearby Cooper Township. Police received a call about a blue Chevy pickup truck being driven erratically. About five minutes later, that truck plowed into the cyclists. Four would survive, albeit with significant or serious injuries. Debbie Bradley, Melissa Fevig Hughes, Tony Nelson, Larry Paulik and Suzanne Sippel did not.

The driver, Charles Pickett Jr., was—perhaps not surprisingly—intoxicated. In 2018, he was found guilty of 14 felony charges, including second degree murder. He, at the age of 50, was sentenced to 40 to 75 years in prison and won’t be eligible for parole until he’s 90.

Since then, Kalamazoo has taken steps to become more “bike friendly” and safer. While I laud their efforts, I think more needs to be done, there and elsewhere, to educate drivers and create deterrents against, and stiffer penalties for, endangering or killing cyclists and pedestrians.

Donuts and D-Day

 Today is National Donut Day here in the US.

I wonder whether it was someone’s idea of a marketing gimmick or sick joke—which are more or less the same thing—to merge a day devoted to sugar consumption with one the anniversary of a pivotal campaign in a war that consumed so many lives.

I’ll admit that I am not so ideologically or dietetically pure that I didn’t partake of a promotion:  I bought a cup of coffee—enough to entitle me to a freebie—and picked one of the most decadent-looking sugarbombs in the display case at the Fordham Plaza Dunkin’ Donuts: a chocolate cake ring with chocolate icing and pink stripes.

Now, did those (mostly) young American, Australian,  British, Canadian, Czech, Dutch, French, Greek, Norwegian, Polish, South African, Southern Rhodesian and New Zealand fighters risk—and in some cases lose—their lives so we can enjoy sweet baked goods? Of course not. But I did think about them because I think about them, and other like them, whenever war is commemorated. 

And I think about them precisely because I am (mostly) a pacifist. I believe, as Kurt Vonnegut (himself a WW II veteran) said, that Hitler was “pure evil” and had to be stopped.  But the conditions that fueled his rise to power—the devestation wrought by “the war to end wars” could have been avoided had the “haves” not wanted more from the “have nots.”

Am I the only one who thinks about stuff like this while riding? Or was it the sugar rush I got from that free donut which may have been responsible for the sprint I pedaled along the Bronx River Greenway.