On this blog, I have often decried the lackadaisical or even hostile response from law enforcement officials when a cyclist is maimed or killed by a motorist who was speeding, driving while impaired or operating the vehicle in some other illegal manner.
I also try to bring attention to law enforcement officials who are diligent in pursuing those who endanger or destroy lives by hurtling down the road inside two tons of steel. In Michigan's Macomb County, just outside of Detroit, such work by the constables has led to the arrest of a man who blew through an intersection at 70 MPH, mowed down a cyclist who happened to be crossing the road, and didn't stop or even slow down.
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Randy Menendez, a 60-year-old father, was riding his bike home from a friend's house at 6:27 pm on 3 February. He'd planned to watch the Super Bowl with his family, according to his sister Roseanne Menendez. He was crossing Groesbeck Highway in Warren when a gray Dodge Charger with a temporary tag in the rear window, and tinted side windows, struck him.
He didn't make it. His clothes and mangled bike were scattered across the road.
Some time after the crash, the driver had the Charger towed to a house in Detroit, where police found it under a tarp.
The car, it turned out, had been leased. That no doubt helped police in finding the driver, a 24-year-old man whose name hasn't yet been released. He faces a charge of leaving the scene of a fatal crash, a felony that carries a 15-year sentence.
Although I commend the police officers' work, I have to wonder whether other charges will be brought against him. At the risk of seeming vengeful, I'd like to be sure that someone who took a cyclist's--and father's--life with such seeming disregard won't get out for "good behavior" after, say, five years.
To my readers:
I love you!
The Velo-tine's Day bike tour will take place on Saturday the 16th in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and has been organized by Routes, a local bicycle tour and rental company. If I were in the neighborhood, I just might join them!
When I first became a dedicated cyclist, as a teenager, I discovered the mail-order catalogues. They had all sorts of exotic bikes and parts, most of which I couldn't afford and weren't found in the local bike shops. I pored over those catalogues the way other kids devoured comic books or teen magazines--or the way some young person in a remote village might indulge him or her self in magazines filled with images of the latest fashions from New York or Paris.
Before the '70's Bike Boom, there was Gene Porteusi's Cyclopedia, that printed cornucopia of, seemingly, all things bike-related. He was one of the old-timers who kept the flame flickering during the Dark Ages of cycling in the US.
Somehow I don't think much of anything changed in his catalogues during their history. For most of his career, he was dealing with a small audience--few American adults were cycling during the quarter-century or so after World War II--and a limited selection of goods. Actually, in the later years of Cyclopedia's run, he limited his selection: He didn't offer any Japanese parts, not even a SunTour derailleur, even after people started to choose them for custom-built frames.
For making those wonderful V-series and Cyclone derailleurs, and other great stuff from the Land of the Rising Sun, widely available, much of the credit goes to the mail-order companies that launched in the wake of the Bike Boom. I am thinking now of Bike Warehouse, which later became Bike Nashbar; Bikecology, renamed Supergo; and, possibly the 800-pound gorilla among them: Performance Bike.
Well, it looks like Nashbar is the last catalogue standing. Well, not exactly: Nashbar still exists, but I reckon that hardly anybody shops from its catalogue anymore. For all I know, they might not even have a printed catalogue these days: I'd guess that, save for their outlet store, all of their sales are on the web.
And the web, ironically, is one of the things that destroyed the other two. Actually, Performance took over Supergo. But now it looks like Performance is nigh: Its parent company filed for bankruptcy protection last fall, and all of its retail stores will close next month. In addition, over 100 staff members have been laid off at Performance's Chapel Hill, North Carolina headquarters.
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Although you could buy stuff from Performance's website, it never seemed to generate business in the same way that other retailers' websites did for them. Plus, the web made it easier to order from overseas retailers when they offered better prices or the exchange rate was favorable. As an example, during the past few years, it's often been cheaper to buy Shimano components--Performance's bread-and-butter, if you will--from UK retailers like Ribble or Chain Reaction because, in addition to the favorable exchange rates, US customers benefited from not having to pay the value-added tax (VAT) levied on purchases made by native or European Union customers.
The coup de grace for Performance, though, might have been tariffs the Trump administration imposed last year on bikes, e-bikes and products related to them. An already-reeling Performance was hit with higher overhead costs and, from what I've read, had no choice but to raise prices. That, of course, would drive away an already-dwindling customer base that was attracted mainly by the company's low prices.
So, for better or worse, we may be witnessing the end of an era: the one of the mail-order catalogue, in the bicycle industry as well as in other businesses.
In almost any capital city, there are people—mostly young, and mostly male—who pedal to work.Some, especially in European cities, ride in the suits, dresses or whatever they wear to work. Others make their commutes in bke in bike team kit or other athletic garb. Then there are the hipsters or wannabes on fixed-gear bikes.
Which would Abe Lincoln be?
Yesterday I was riding up and down Hipster Hook. As far as I know , it’s not an official designation. Roughly,it extends along the waterfront from the Brooklyn Navy Yard to the Socrates Sculpture Park, about a kilometer from my apartment.
Along its length, an interesting combination of bikes are parked on its streets. Some were inherited from parents or other family members. Others were bought in yard sales, retrieved from basements or have more mysterious or unspeakable provenances, if you know what I mean. Then there are the Dutch city bike- shaped objects and objects shaped like imitations or mockeries of vintage bikes.
In the latter category, I saw this on Franklin Avenue in Greenpoint, near the dead center of the Hook:
It looks like a Motobecane mixte from the ‘70’s, sort of. Emphasis on the “sort of”:
Fortunately, a really nice vintage bike was parked just a few sign posts away:
Miyata has long been one of the mass manufacturers I respect most. This particular bike is interesting because it alsobears the Koga name on its head tube. To my knowledge, only in Europe were Miyatas sold as “Koga-Miyata.”
Some kids are burdened with the weight of parents' unfulfilled (and perhaps unfulfillable) dreams. You see them on Little League fields, in Pop Warner classes and ballet classes.
A few of those kids may actually want to become ballplayers, dancers or whatever, and will do whatever it takes.
What about this kid?
He starts every morning with a ride. He's retired, and the rides are for his health and fitness.
Back in 1965, however, he pedaled to get around. He was 19 then and looking for a job. So he pedaled 2 1/2 miles (4 kilometers), resume in hand, to someone who might be able to help him.
Now, I should mention that the fact he was doing so in 1965 was significant. For one thing, relatively few Americans rode bicycles if they were old enough to drive. For another, Reginald "Reggie" Brown was applying for a job for which his mother was rejected two decades earlier.
She had done military service during World War II. Still, she didn't get the job in her local post office because it didn't have segregated bathrooms.
Now, as a transgender woman, I know a thing or two about being denied the use of a bathroom--and about not getting a job because of an identity you've always had! I can understand whatever anger, grief or resignation she might have felt. And I imagine that those things were on Reggie's mind when he tried to get a job as a mail carrier.
Governor John McKeithen and his staff were so impressed with young Reggie that they passed on his information, and added their own recommendation. Two months later, he was working as a substitute mail carrier.
As satisfying as the job was, Brown did not see it as an end unto itself. His goal, he said, was public service, and his real passion and dream was to work in law enforcement.
Eventually, he joined the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office, where he became the first African American to become a Chief Administrative Assistant and attain the rank of Major. After 25 years in the office, he was elected to the Constable's Office, where he served another 18 years. There, he worked on raising standards for the deputies as he started community programs to do everything from raising public awareness of their rights and responsibilities to helping the needy.
He has written My Bicycle Journey. Proceeds from the sales of that book will go to St. Vincent de Paul charities. He hopes, however, that its message will benefit everyone.
Who wouldn't be inspired by someone who rode his bike into public service, and through history?
A guy has a court hearing. He rides a bike to it.
This could mean he doesn't have a car or can't drive. Or, perhaps, it's the easiest and most convenient way to get there. Another possibility is that he's trying to turn his life around by getting sober and exercising.
That last possibility seems plausible given that one of the charges against him is drug possession.
But he arrives late. All right, maybe he got lost or got a flat along the way. Or there might be some other reason. Perhaps it might have to do with the stolen property he's was charged with receiving.
Turns out, that stolen property included a chainsaw, an iPhone and groceries--in addition to an adult tricycle and two bicycles.
Oh, and those two bikes aren't the only stolen wheels he's had in his possession. When he arrived at the courthouse in Laconia, New Hampshire, police detained upon the request of police in nearby Gilford.
Two nights previous, there'd been a break-in at Piche's Ski & Sport Shop on Gilford Avenue. Guess what was taken during that burglary.
Jeffrey T. Wyatt, a local transient, admitted knowing that the bike he rode to the courthouse--valued at $1800--was stolen. He denied, however, any involvement in the burglary.
In addition to the thefts, receiving stolen property and drug possession, he also has charges of threatening with a deadly weapon, criminal trespass and willful concealment pending against him before he was arrested at the court house--for arriving on a stolen bicycle.
Mumbai has two and a half times as many people as my hometown of New York. Its population is also about half that of Canada, and a third of the UK or France.
It's been said that there are 8 million stories--the same as the number of people--in the Five Boroughs. Well, one might say that there are 20 million ways of using a bicycle--one for every resident--in the City of Seven Islands.
At least, that was the impression I got from yesterday's post on Hackaday. In the Gateway to India, it seems that bicycles are used, not only for transporting one's self, but also for moving other people, cargo that seems better suited for ship containers, hay, livestock and even gas cylinders--12 to 16 at a time!-- that weigh 15 kilos empty and 30 when full.
I don't know which would scare me more: the potentially-explosive cargo, or that those bikes, with 300-kilo loads, have the same brakes found on typical roadsters. Come to think of it, I shudder thinking about maneuvering such rigs through winding, narrow, crowded streets that make Broadway in lower Manhattan seem like a Dutch bike lane.
In each of the past five years, more Americans have died from opioid drug overdoses than from car crashes or gun violence.
One reason for this, of course, is improvements in automotive safety. Another is the campaigns to reduce gun violence, which have succeeded in a number of cities.
But no one would suggest that we should celebrate those developments when people are dying because they were prescribed drugs that they, and possibly their doctors, didn't realize were so addictive. If anything, people from medical experts to the loved ones of those who've died will say that everything from the pharmaceutical and insurance companies' roles in creating and fueling the epidemic of addiction, to the ways in which the drugs act in the body, needs to be investigated.
And one rarely, if ever, hears anyone blaming the overdose victims themselves for dying in greater numbers than people involved in car crashes or shootings. Thankfully, most Americans now understand that addiction is a health problem, not a moral failing, and that addicts need help in overcoming the ways in which the drugs overtook their bodies and minds rather than condemnation for "letting themselves" become addicted.
Would that such understanding were extended to cyclists and pedestrians.
In 2017, 27 cyclists and pedestrians were killed in San Jose, California. An equal number of people were homicide victims.
As in other large urban areas, the homicide rate in the San Francisco Bay Area, which includes San Jose, has been falling for a number of years. I don't think anyone is unhappy about that, and don't believe they should be. It shouldn't, however, be used to trivialize the number of cyclists and pedestrians who are killed. While not many people are doing that, they are engaging in a kind of victim-blaming they would never direct at someone who dies from an overdose. Such people believe that cyclists and pedestrians are "over-entitled" for having the right of way, or for having lanes dedicated to them.
I won't deny that there are careless pedestrians and cyclists. I would submit, however, that there are far more motorists who are reading or sending text messages, talking on their cell phones, or doing any number of other things that distract them from their surroundings. But it's odd that they are seldom blamed when they crash into other vehicles, let alone pedestrians or cyclists.
So, yes, we should be happy that fewer people are being shot, stabbed or beaten to death. But we mustn't lose sight of the fact that increasing numbers of people are meeting premature demises while walking or pedaling to school or work, or for exercise. In other words, a cyclist or pedestrian who is run down by a motorist is as likely as not to be an experienced, responsible cyclist or pedestrian who follows the rules of the road and takes all of the necessary precautions.
Opioid addicts, homicide victims and other people who die from causes not of their making are not blamed for their own deaths. Why should it be any different for cyclists and pedestrians?
