Pumping His Pedals Into Plowshares

Do you love to ride your bike but hate to shovel snow?

If you answered "yes", meet Rob Wotzak of Milford, Connecticut.  He shares your passions and came up with a way to indulge one while making the other less onerous.




Although his pedaled tractor plow is new, the idea had been simmering in his mind for years.  "I had a rusty old tractor plow sitting behind my barn," he said.  Finally, two years ago, he "grabbed the plow and a pile of bike parts" and "started cutting and welding" his first prototype. 

As the saying goes, the third time is the charm:  The model he's using came after that first attempt and another.  One of his motivations to create such a machine, he said, is that "legs are stronger than arms" but that using it is still a "workout."

Still, it looks like a good example of Yankee ingenuity to me!

When We Have A Female President....

Three years ago, I wrote about how, late in the 19th Century, Presidents' Day was bicycle day.

Back then, it wasn't called Presidents' Day:  On 22 February, George Washington's birthday was commemorated.  (Abraham Lincoln's birthday was remembered on the 12th; in some states, such as New York, it's still a holiday.)  In the early 1970s, the US government decided to move certain holidays to Mondays.  Thus was Presidents' Day, observed on the third Monday of February, created. 

Today's the day.  A few shops and online retailers are running sales, as they do on other holidays.  But in the Bike Boom of the 1890s, new models were unveiled and bike shows, along with sales, were held on that day.

On this blog, I've also mentioned that during that first Bike Boom, Susan B. Anthony said that the bicycle has done more than anything to liberate women.  

We haven't had a female President yet in the US. However, in Denmark, Helle Thorning-Schmidt was the Prime Minister from 2011 to 2015.  Here she is, doing what many of her countrywomen do every day:

Follow The Money?

I suppose we should be grateful any time a town installs a bicycle parking rack.  And we should thank whoever donated the funds for it.

Still, this one left me wondering, "What were they thinking?"



A special bike parking rack was unveiled the other day, for Valentine's Day.  It's red, which is appropriate enough.  And I can understand the wish to use the unveiling to celebrate some aspect of the town's history.

But I think there's something a bit incongruous, to say the least, about putting an image of an oil rig on the bike.  

Maybe I shouldn't complain too loudly. After all, cycling, like the arts, have been used to glorify or sell all sorts of things that haven't been good for the planet, or the spirit.  The Charge of the Light Brigade, anyone?

What We Can See Because of Ken Bukowski

During a conversation with an acquaintance of mine, I mentioned that I served as a "captain" on tandem rides for the blind and visually impaired.

This acquaintance, who makes workplaces ADA-compliant, wasn't surprised.  "Really, the only thing a visually-impaired, or even a blind, person can do that you or I can't is to drive a car," she declared.

Still, I must admit that of the ways one can become disabled, losing my sight is the one I fear most.  Even after hearing my acquaintance's words, and similar claims from others who are, or who work with people who are, visually impaired, I have a difficult time imagining how I would do almost anything I do now without my sight.

Certainly, I don't know how I'd ride (except, of course, on the back of a tandem) or how I might have worked as a bike mechanic. There are, however, people who have assembled and fixed bikes without the ability to see.

From The Buffalo News

One of them was Ken Bukowski.  Until September, he'd worked at Shickluna Bikes and Darts in Buffalo, New York.  For more than three decades, he assembled and repaired bikes, and gave customers lessons on how to shift gears and ride safely.  He was so good at all of these things that some customers were unaware, at first, that he was blind.  According to shop owner Tom Pallas, "many times he steered us to a missing tool because he heard where we had set it down."

Left sightless from a gunshot wound to the head at age 24, Bukowski went to the Blind Association of Western New York (now the Olmsted Center for Sight) to learn how to type.  Soon, he was enrolled in the Association's pilot program for bike repair.  When he completed that training, the Association convinced Pallas to hire him.

They worked--and-- rode together.  In fact, they pedaled the Five Borough Bike Tour on a tandem in 1987.  The thing that made him a good rider is probably the same thing that made him a good mechanic:  "concentration", according to Pallas. 

In addition to fixing bikes, riding and organizing rides, Bukowski did other things people don't normally associate with the blind:  bowling, skydiving and cooking. About the latter, his wife, Elaine Filer, said that because he didn't work much during the winter, by the time she got home from work "he'd have almost the whole dinner prepared."  

She was not the only one to benefit from his culinary skills:  For many years, he also volunteered as a cook at the Little Portion Friary, a homeless shelter in Buffalo.

He finally stopped working at the shop because of his bout with cancer, which claimed his life on 11 November.  He was 65.  Whether or not you think he lived a long life, you can't deny this:  He left an example. That, certainly, is something any of us, regardless of our abilities or disabilities, can do. 

Motorist Who Mowed Down Cyclist Arrested

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.

Randy Menendez  

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.