What If She'd Gotten A Gravel Bike?

A few years ago, it seemed that the "buzz" in the bike world was about "gravel bikes".  

I can't say I've ever owned anything specifically designed as a "gravel bike".  I have, however, ridden all sorts of bikes--some my own, others not--on gravel.  Perhaps the bikes I pedaled most over pebbly surfaces were my mountain bikes and the one cyclo-cross bike (a VooDoo Wazoo) I ever owned.  I've also ridden road and touring bikes on such surfaces, usually as part of some other ride I was doing:  When you go on a loaded tour outside urban and suburban areas, you're bound to ride on gravel or dirt some time or another.  I even rode my racing bikes, with sew-up tires, on gravel--if not for long distances.

I suspect that most, if not all, of you have ridden on gravel with a bike that wasn't designed for the purpose.  And most of you were no worse for the experience than Gaynor Yancey was after running her brand-new "English Racer" into the rough stuff.

(I suspect Ms. Yancey isn't much older than I am:  I referred to the three-speed bike my grandfather gave me as an "English Racer", as most people did in those days!)

Just remember that you don't have a gravel bike!

She, like me, did not plan her plunge into the pebbles:  She encountered the crunchy stuff in the course of her ride.  But her foray didn't end so well because she wasn't as prepared as I was.  As she relates, she'd never before ridden a bike with "hand brakes".  So, when the paved street on which she'd ridden ended, she wasn't able to follow her mother's instructions to stop and walk her bike over the gravel path to her friend's house.  She was so distracted by her vision of showing off her new bike to her friend, she says, that she "forgot about the handbrakes."

She ended up with a knee full of gravel.  "And, on top of that, my beautiful new bike was hurt," she recalls.

Would things have been different if she'd gotten a "gravel bike" instead of an "English Racer" for her birthday?

More Bike Lanes, Fewer Commuters

In yesterday's post, I mentioned a Seattle train station where bike parking "sucks".

It may be one of the reasons why the number of Emerald City commuters who get to work by bike fell by 20 percent from 2016 to 2017.

Still, Seattle remains one of the top US cities for bicycle commuting, at least in terms of the percentage of people who say they go by bike.  Its decline was, however, more precipitous than that of the US as a whole, where bicycle commuting fell by 3.2 percent during the same period.

The USA Today article in which I came across these statistics said the declines came in spite of the increasing number of bike lanes and other efforts made by cities to become more "bike friendly".  To be fair, the article also points out that the price of gasoline has dropped during the past several years, which enticed more people to drive.  It also points out, as I pointed out in yesterday's post, that some passengers of Uber, Lyft and other "ride shares" are using those services in lieu of cycling.

One thing the article hinted at is something I've long suspected:  that, in the years before "ride sharing" services became popular, bicycle commuting might have been increasing in dense urban areas, but not in suburban and rural areas.  In the suburbs, as I pointed out in yesterday's post, there isn't bicycle parking at rail and bus stations commuters use to get to their jobs in the city.  And, in rural areas (and outer-ring suburbs), some commutes are simply too long to do by bicycle.  

Here is something else I've noticed:  People who move to the city to be near their jobs are mostly young and making relatively good salaries.  Some of them commute by bicycle, though most take mass transit or "ride shares."  But once they get married and have children, they want to buy houses.  Unless they are making very high salaries, that means moving some distance from the city.

So, my analysis, for what it's worth, goes like this:  Whether bicycle commuting increases or decreases from year to year, it will mainly be a practice of young, affluent and single people in central areas of cities--unless society, the economy and policies change.  Until housing in cities becomes more affordable, and tax policies don't encourage fossil fuel consumption, the typical bike commuter will be putting his or her laptop in the front basket of a bike-share bike he or she will ride to the office.

Bike Parking Sucks Because...

Writing headlines is a skill unto itself.  Some would even argue that it's an artform.  It does, after all, take a certain kind of creativity to come up with something like "Headless Body In Topless Bar."

It might actually be more difficult to come up with a title for an individual article, which is why those who write articles almost never write the titles for them.  (When I wrote for local newspapers, I don't think any of my articles bore titles I created.)  The goal is to create something that encapsulates the article without giving too much away--and fits into whatever space on the page is allotted to it.

So, when I saw the following title, I knew I didn't have to read the article: "Bicycle Parking Sucks at UW Station But Sound Transit Says They're Making It Better."  But I read the article, which appeared on The Stranger, anyway.  One reason, I guess, is that I was looking to confirm a bit of my cynicism: when everyone knows a situation isn't good, some official says they're doing what they can to improve it.  We hear a variation of that theme just about every day here in New York, whether it's in reference to bike lanes, subway service or any number of other aspects of daily life in the Big Bagel.

Still, I'm glad I read the article.  For one thing, it showed me that in Seattle--which was probably the most "bike-friendly" major US city before Portland took that title--people don't ride their bikes for all or even part of their commutes for at least one of the same reasons people in other parts of the US leave their bikes home when they go to work:  There's no secure place to park at the workplace or transit station.  

Now, I know that Seattle is more spread-out than New York or Boston or San Francisco.  But even in those cities, there are areas remote from public transportation.  And, of course, there are people who commute from nearby suburbs.  Many of those commuters drive into the city, but others drive to the station where they take a bus or train into the city.  Some, I am sure, might be enticed to ride their bikes (or to get bikes in the first place) if, on their way home, they knew they could find their bikes intact.

I can see why bicycle parking "sucks" at this station!

In that article, though, there was a twist.  Really, it shouldn't have surprised me, because one of the goals of American urban planning still is (or seems to be) to keep as many motor vehicles as possible moving through a city's streets.  A "creative" solution for "reducing congestion", according to the city's Department of Transportation, is to offer a discount to people who use Uber, Lyft or other "ride share" companies to reach their trains or buses.

Data compiled from New York, Boston, San Francisco, Washington and other large US cities shows that these "ride share" companies have actually increased the number of motor vehicles on the streets.  In New York, as an example, vehicular traffic had actually declined for several years until 2015.  It was around that year that "ride share" services became popular in Gotham.  Since then, traffic has increased.

One reason is that, for the most part, "ride shares" don't replace private automobile trips.  To the contrary, they are used by more affluent customers who don't want the inconvenience of taking the bus or train, or of hailing a taxi.  Also, research indicates that people aren't using Uber or Lyft only to get to work or go to the airport:  They are using these services to go to a movie, the theatre, a restaurant or shop.  Moreover, they might not have made such outings if they'd had to take the subway or bus.

Moreover, surveys indicate that some people are using these services instead of cycling to work, school or shop.  Ironically, some of them decide against cycling because of the traffic to which their Uber or Lyft rides contribute!

Another reason why "ride share" companies don't reduce congestion is the reason why I have been enclosing "ride share" in quotation marks.  Research has confirmed something I've noticed anecdotally:  Most rides are taken by individual customers or couples, most of whom wouldn't dream of sharing a ride with a total stranger.  Moreover, "ride share" drivers spend as much as 60 percent of their time in their cars driving nobody but themselves.  In other words, they drive more to and between "lifts" than to actually transport their passengers.

As long as planners and officials can trot out "ride share" services as a solution to traffic congestion, bike parking--and much else for cyclists--will "suck" in many places.

Rolling By The Racists

In previous posts, I've mentioned that for years Florida has had, by far, the highest death rate for cyclists of any US state.

I have mentioned some of the possible reasons for it, based on professional research as well as my own experiences of riding in the Sunshine State.  Those reasons include the "car culture" of the state as well as the frequent indifference or even hostility law enforcement officials envisage when cyclists are injured or killed by drivers.

Now, it seems, there may be other factors: guns, for one, and old-fashioned racism for another.

The incident I'm about to mention didn't end with the death, or even serious injury, of a cyclist.  But it could have become the Emmett Till case of cycling because something that might or might not have happened brought racial hostility to the surface, and a gun from its holster.

All right, I was using "holster" metaphorically. What I mean, of course, is that a man pulled out his gun.

That the ugly incident happened the other day, when Martin Luther King Jr's life and work were commemorated, should not surprise anyone.  A "Wheels Up, Guns Down" ride, which included ATVs as well as bicycles, spun through the Brickell area of Miami.

A white woman accused a black teenager of riding his bicycle over her foot.  (I wonder whether that woman will recant on her deathbed.) A white man--who may have believed he was defending the woman's honor or some such thing--pulled out his gun and yelled a racial slur at the cyclist.

A young black person on a bicycle:  What could be more of a challenge to that man's or woman's reality?  And, of course, he gets backlash for it.  That alone gives him more in common with MLK than someone whom Mike Pence likened to the slain civil rights icon.

Blame The (Phantom) Bike Lanes!

Every one of us, I suspect, has had a moment when we realized that someone we looked up to was just plain wrong about something.  

Most of us, I guess, have such a moment in childhood.  That person who suddenly became, as it were, mortal might be a parent, older sibling, teacher, coach or other adult who nurtured us in some way.  Such a moment might have seemed like "the end of the world," at least for a moment, and left us feeling angry, hurt, abandoned or empty.  Fortunately, though, most of us move on from such an experience and learn the lesson that "nobody's perfect."

Good thing, too, because as we go through life, people we respect or admire have moments of stupidity, arrogance, greed, meanness or thoughtlessness.  We learn that our heroes--if we still create such figures in our lives--are, after all, human.

For many years, I've been a major fan of Whoopi Goldberg.  In fact, when I was still watching TV and had a schedule that allowed it, I watched The View mainly because she was one of the panelists.  She is a funny, irreverent woman who always seemed to resist pressures from society and the entertainment industry (where, perhaps, such pressures are the most intense) to conform to prevailing notions about attractiveness or femininity--which, of course, are Caucaso-centric. (Is that a word?)  Also, she has been an outspoken advocate for causes, like LGBT equality, that matter to me.

Of course, one can be outspoken about things one doesn't know much about. I've probably done it any number of times on this blog! If I have, I hope I haven't caused harm, or at least not much of it.  I'd like to think that I expounded on things I know little or nothing about only because I didn't know as much about them as I thought I knew--or because I was acting on information I didn't realize was inaccurate.

I hope that such is the case for Whoopi Goldberg.  I am willing to believe that it is because, well, I've always liked her.  Also, I think she probably doesn't ride a bike much in Manhattan, if she rides at all.

You see, anyone who regularly cycles in Manhattan knows where the bike lanes are.  Mainly, they're in midtown, and parallel major uptown-downtown and crosstown thoroughfares.

While Tenth Avenue runs the length of midtown, on its west side, it's not one of the streets with a bike lane.  She could be forgiven for not knowing that.  On the other hand, she blamed the non-existent bike lane for "ruining" the avenue and traffic flow in the city.  



 

  Oh, but it didn't end there.  She went as far as to say that the bike lanes are part of a conspiracy to bring Manhattan traffic to a standstill so that the Mayor can implement "congestion pricing"--which, of course, would take a bite out of her bank account as well as her "right" to drive--or, more precisely, be driven--in Manhattan.

What's really crazy about her rant is that it was a non sequitir. She was interviewing Mayor Bill de Blasio about something else entirely.  I guess she figured that since she had him in her crosshairs, she could unleash her pet peeve--however unfounded it is--on him.

Here's something I find really ironic:  She, among celebrities, has been one of the most outspoken critics of El Cheeto Grande.  Yet she behaved no differently than he has in any number of public appearances:  She told a lie or repeated misinformation (depending on what you believe) and doubled down on it.  Her tirade, like most of what we hear from T-rump, is devoid of facts and fueled by a sentiment of "If I feel it, it must be true."

Then again, she does have a few things in common with him:  They are, or have been, television stars.  They live in mansions and are driven in limousines or armored SUVs everywhere they go.  And they haven't ridden bicycles since they were kids.