Telling Bike Stories In Portland

I have been called a storyteller--sometimes as a compliment, other times as a derogatory epithet, and on a few occasions as a statement of fact.  

Indeed I am one, for better or worse.  Students in one of my classes are reading Plato's Trial and Death of Socrates; I can only imagine what either philosopher would make of me,or this blog.  All I could tell them is that everything I tell is  true.  Really!

Still, I admit I have a weakness for a good story.  Whether it's fact or fiction, poetry or polemics, I like any story that stimulates, inspires or simply entertains me.  I'll also admit that I can be as taken with the person telling the story as with the story itself.

So, if I could get to Portland on Friday night, I'd go to Alberta Abbey.  It's hosting a bicycle-themed storytelling event called Live The Revolution.  Admission is $17 at the door; tickets still can be bought for $15 in advance. Proceeds will benefit The Street Trust's efforts to support cycling, walking and public transit. 

Oh, and there's a raffle.  Prizes include two Public C1 bicycles, a messenger bag, REI gear, a set of wheels from Sugar Wheels, a Thule trailer and gift certificates.

(The Street Trust was formerly known as the Bicycle Transportation Alliance.)

Drug Dealers, Rapists, Murderers...And Cyclists!

Donald Trump has labelled Mexican immigrants as drug dealers, rapists and murderers.

In my grandparents' generation, Italian immigrants were almost automatically seen as criminals and the Irish who came a generation earlier were viewed as drunken brawlers.  And Asians, particularly Japanese-Americans during World War II, were depicted as shifty and untrustworthy.

These days, when someone uses the word "thug", it's assumed that person is referring to a black male.  Likewise, "Arab" and "Muslim" are uttered interchangeably; both are used as synonyms for "terrorist."   

Now it seems that, at least in the meida, "cyclist" has become the new stereotype.  Whenever some drunk or distracted driver runs one of us down, we made the misguided choice of riding a bicycle--never mind that we were riding in a "protected" lane and the driver veered into it. But we are not, in those situations, labeled as "cyclists."

Instead, the c-word seems to refer only to those who are breaking the law--or, in one recent case, windows.

Now, I'll be the first to say that the pack who rode the wrong way on a Chelsea street--especially the member(s) who smashed the rear window of someone's new car and who smacked into a police officer--should be prosecuted.  The news reports I've seen and heard about it, however, seem designed to whip up as much hysteria as possible against anyone who pedals two wheels on this city's streets.  You can hear it in the way "reporters" (Where have journalistic standards gone?) elicit reactions from bystanders.  To hear them, cyclists are as much a menace to this city as MS-13 is to some immigrant communities.

To make a bad "report" even worse, the accompanying video, which purports to be a record of the rampage, actually has nothing to do with it.

Will Robots Replace Riders?

Maybe I hang out with all the wrong people:  I have yet to meet anybody who likes the idea of a driverless car.  They may not enjoy driving, but they are skeptical that a computer program, or whatever would guide the vehicle, can make the same kinds of judgments a driver could make.

Then there are those people who enjoy driving.  I don't imagine many of them would be crazy about losing one of their pleasures.

So why, then, would anyone want to teach a computer how to ride a bicycle?

Computer scientist Matthew Cook, from what I can see, isn't trying to make a machine that can usurp the role of a cyclist.  Rather, he says, "we do not have great insight into how we ride a bicycle" no matter how well we may ride.

 

In 2004, when he was at the California Institute of Technology, he created a simulator and made 800 unsteered runs with it to see how far it could go when there is no one to steer it.   The image above shows the tracks of those runs, initiated when the "bicycle" was pushed to left to right, and how far they went before falling down.  Oscillations from side to side, visible in the chart, occurred because the bicycle was moving too slowly to keep itself stable.

As a result of this work, he found that it took a simple network of only two neurons to keep the bike stable:  one to calculate the required lean of the bicycle to execute a given judgment in direction, and another to translate that change into an amount of torque to apply to the handlebars.

Cook says his work could have "many applications", but doesn't specify what they are.  My guess is that it might be helpful for people to regain skills and faculties lost or impaired in crashes and other traumatic events:  Simulators like Cook's might, for example, provide insights into how our minds and bodies allow us to do some of the things--like balancing a bicycle or walking--we do instinctively. Also, I could see how "test dummies" for bikes could be developed to better test helmets and other products.

I just hope no one develops robots that can push us aside and take our bikes!  

Watermelon Cooler?

In my youth, one of my riding partners was a bartender.  This got me to thinking about him:

I imagine that something like this would make him very popular with some cyclists!

For those of us who don't imbibe and ride, this might be for us:

"Watermelon wheels" sounds like an unflattering nickname for a slow or unskilled cyclist--or one you just don't like!

New Trial For Driver Who Mowed Down Five Cyclists

A year and a half ago, I reported one of the most horrific auto-on-bike crashes I've ever heard about.   Melissa Fevig-Hughes, Tony Nelson, Debbie Bradley, Larry Paulik and Suzanne Sippel, all experienced cyclists who'd ridden together for more than a decade, were run down by a blue Chevrolet pickup truck.  They died almost immediately; the crash seriously injured four fellow club members who were riding with them.

In the minutes before that tragedy, police were looking for that truck after three different callers said it was being driven erratically.  When he was apprehended, he was intoxicated and therefore charged with DUI.

Charles Pickett Jr would be charged with five counts of second-degree murder.  He appealed his conviction all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court, which last week said it wouldn't hear his argument that he shouldn't be tried for murder in the case.  

Now he is set to stand trial again in the Kalamazoo County Circuit Court.  A settlement conference is set for Friday, 13 April (!) and jury selection for the trial is to start on Monday the 23rd.

Nothing will bring those cyclists back.  But it's good to know that someone, at least, is taking the needless deaths of cyclists seriously.