Riveted To The Race

 What's the worst thing about not being able to ride my bike on a beautiful fall day?

Well, if it were any given beautiful fall day, I'd have a long list of choices:  the glow of the early November sun on fallen leaves, the crisp air, the energy of this city.  But because I'm sidelined during the Presidential election, the choice is simple.  It's simply excruciating to be surrounded by talk about vote counts and who wants them to continue--or end.

It's been about 40 hours since all of the polls closed.  Trump wins South Carolina--no surprise, really--but I, and millions of other people--wait with bated breath when Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are mentioned.  Biden won the first two, but count in the Keystone State could go on for days, according to pundits.

From the Wall Street Journal

Electoral campaigns are called "races" and elections are described with analogies to sports.  Such language and imagery are apt, but there is a major difference:  I may want a particular rider to win the Tour or Giro or the local crit, or one team or another to win a game, but if someone else emerges victorious, I may be disappointed but my life will go on.  In contrast, one candidate or another winning an election can make a real difference in my life, and the lives of many other people!

I just hope my guy, and team, win!

A Free Ride Ahead of Vanilla ISIS

 Today is Election Day here in the US.

In case you're wondering:  Yes, I voted--a month ago.  On the first of October--the same day I got my flu shot--I rode my bike to the Queens County Board of Elections and delivered my absentee ballot.  I didn't want to take any chances with mail delays or any of the potential hazards (COVID-19, voter intimidation) of waiting in line at the poll site.

Speaking of riding to vote:  Roam NRV, the bike share company of New River Valley, Virginia (home of, among other things, Virginia Tech University), is offering free rides today.  According to Roam NRV operations manager Cat Woodson, the Roam NRV the goal of the offer, dubbed "Rolls to the Polls, is to "minimize friction points" in getting to the voting place.  "Maybe instead of taking two bus trips, it takes one bus trip and a bike ride or maybe it is a little bit of a walk and a bike trip," she explains.  The bike ride, for many, would cut down on the amount of time--and, perhaps more important, hassles--associated with getting to the polling spot.

I wholly endorse Roam NRV's action.  I don't, however, openly endorse candidates (Yeah, right!).  So please don't try to infer my polling  choices from this video:  

Because He Would Not Stop

Today is Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead.

Emily Dickinson, was a great a poet, but I doubt she had any contact with Latinx culture. Most likely, she never rode a bicycle, either. So, when she penned

           Because I could not stop for Death-- 

          He kindly stopped for me

I don't think she had this in mind:

Enjoy the day!

No Superstitions Here!

A black cat crossing my path?

At least it's not a car door.

Happy Halloween! 

Worse Than Getting "Doored"

I know I could've been hurt even worse than I was when I was "doored" last week.  That should make me grateful, or at least feel better, I suppose. 

So should the knowledge that she had no intention of hurting me:  Had she not opened the door of her 2015 Toyota into my side, we probably wouldn't have interacted in any way at all.  If she'd noticed me at all, I would have been just another cyclist.

I guess that knowledge should make me feel a little better, but it doesn't.  If anything, it's just as disturbing, to me, as the knowledge of what happened to Michelle Marie Weissman in Las Vegas on Sunday.

The 56-year-old was pedaling down south on the Hollywood Boulevard bike lane around 7:30 that morning.  As she passed a couple strolling on the adjacent sidewalk, she greeted them: "Good morning."

At that moment, a 22-year-old,  identified as Rodrigo Cruz, drove a 2015 Toyota Sienna van"50 to 60 miles an hour, according to his own admission. He was racing other drivers, he said.  

For reasons he hasn't explained, he swerved into the bike lane.  His passenger, identified only as "Gio", leaned from the windowsill in an attempt to strike the couple.

He missed. But a little further down, he shoved Weissman to the ground.  She wore a helmet, but it wasn't enough--probably, nothing would have been--to save her from the impact of being pushed to the pavement by a guy in a speeding van.  Witnesses tried to give her CPR, but that wasn't enough, either, to save her life.

Michelle Marie Weissman (l) and Rodrigo Cruz

In school, we all learn Newton's Third Law of Motion:  For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  One thing "Gio" probably thought about was that he wasn't exempt from that law:  The momentum of his hitting her pushed him backward, out of the Sienna's windowsill, and onto the pavement.  He met the same fate as Ms. Weissman.

Cruz fled the scene but, based on information from witnesses---including three women who'd been following the van in a gold Ford Focus before the incident--tracked him and the Sienna down.  He initially denied he'd been driving the van but finally admitted that he didn't go back to check on "Gio" because he was "scared."

He had good reason to be.  He's being held without bail, not only for murder and leaving the scene of an accident, but for a parole violation.

Of course, none of this does Michelle Marie Weissman any good.  But at least if he is charged with murder, it will be good to know that the authorities, somewhere, have taken serious action against someone who turned his vehicle into a deadly weapon against a cyclist.