R.I.P Kelly Catlin

By now, you've probably heard that Kelly Catlin died.

The USCF confirmed her death on Sunday.  I waited to write about her because, like many people, I reacted with disbelief when I learned how she died:  suicide.  

Of course, it's terrible when anyone kills him or her self.  I know:  Five people in my life, including two close friends, did it.  But people were all the more shocked about Kelly because, really, she seemed to have everything going for her:  She was young (23 years old) and had a range of talents most of us can only dream about.

I mean, how many people pursue a graduate degree in computational and mathematical engineering--after getting an undergraduate degree in mathematics and Chinese--from Stanford, no less?  Oh, and as her brother Colin recalls, she could go from listening to German industrial heavy metal to playing Paganini on her violin.  In fact, when she was training for the 2016 Olympics, she spent her spare time memorizing Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major, all 35 pages of it.

Such talents, and her pursuit of them, could have made her hermetic.  People who knew her, however, described her as warm, funny and generous.

But the reason why her suicide made the news is that she was part of the US Women's Pursuit Team that won the silver medal in the 2016 Olympics--and won three consecutive World Championships from that year through 2018.

Kelly Catlin (second from left) on the podium with her teammates at the Rio Olympics, 2016

According to reports, she was advised not to participate in this year's championships.  That alone probably wouldn't have sent her "over the edge."  But the reason that advice was given to her may have been the cause.

She had experienced a series of crashes that left her with injuries, including a concussion.  We've heard a lot about those among NFL players--some of whom, not coincidentally, have taken their own lives.

It's known that concussions can alter the structure of a person's brain.  A cheerful, optimistic person who suffers such an injury can therefore become angry and depressed, and people who pride themselves on their physical and mental dexterity find themselves fumbling through things that had been routine.

The problem is that no one seems able to determine the extent of the damage or other change to the brain of someone who's been concussed--until an autopsy is performed.  And if the person's mind is benighted with thoughts of ending his or her life, the usual entreaties to seek help are of no use.  

Kelly's family is donating her brain to be used for research.  I am sure their gesture, or even the knowledge that doctors and scientists will learn much from it, will not comfort them.  But we can only hope that we won't have to hear more stories about lives full of promise--or, for that matter, any life--ended too soon.

Can Silicon Valley Become Amsterdam--In India?

Efforts to get people out of cars and onto bicycles are most commonly associated with European (and, to a lesser extent, North American) cities with relatively young and affluent populations.  Most of them are places that have long been established as regional, national or worldwide centers of commerce, culture and technological innovation.  

Those cities, with a few exceptions like Portland, are relatively compact:  San Francisco, Montreal and New York are hemmed in by water, while European capitals are ringed by long-established, if smaller, municipalities.  In other words, they can't expand, so if people move in, their population densities increase--and housing becomes scarcer and therefore more expensive.  That, as much as anything, puts a damper on the growth in such cities' populations.


Most people don't immediately associate car-to-bike campaigns with rapidly-growing cities in developing, low- to middle-income countries.  If anything, people want to parlay their newfound prosperity, or even flaunt it, with their new automobiles.  That their shiny new machines may spend more time idling in traffic than moving to any particular destination seems not to deter them from getting behind the wheel rather than astride two wheels.

So it is in Bangaluru, known in the English-speaking world as Bangalore.  It's often called "The Silicon Valley of India" for its concentration of high-tech firms, which have drawn migrants from the rest of India. As a result, it's been one of the world's fastest-growing cities and metropolitan areas in the world: The 2011 Census counted 8.4 million residents (about the same number as my hometown of New York) but current estimates say that there are between 10.5 and 12.3 million people living in the city where fewer than 3 million lived in 1981 and only 400,000 took up residence in 1941.

But Bangaluru, like other rapidly-growing cities in developing countries, has even more knotted and chaotic traffic than what one encounters in First World cities.  As I've mentioned before, millions newly middle-class Bangalureans have taken to driving.  The real problem, though, seems to be that the city's roads simply can't handle so much traffic.  They are narrow, and many people won't cycle because they don't want to compete with motorized vehicles for space.  Worse, they are jostling with cars and trucks on the roadway while dodging huge potholes:  Before the boom, there wasn't money for maintenance, but now it's difficult, if not impossible, to keep up with needed repairs.  

The possible model for Bengaluru

So, the city and its regional administration are working on a several-pronged plan that both takes its cues, and learns from the mistakes of, other schemes in the area's cities.  In those places, bike lanes were built but people didn't use them because they weren't useful for getting to wherever they had to go or were simply seen as not much safer than riding on the streets.  Also, Bangaluru planners have learned that city-owned bike share programs have had a number of problems and, as one report put it, while municipalities are good for providing the needed infrastructure, private companies are better at providing share bikes.  A problem with those services, though, has surfaced in cities all over the world, especially in China:  the bikes are left anywhere and everywhere when people are finished with them.  So, a possible solution is to have a company like Yulu or Ofo provide the service, and for the city to build dedicated parking facilities--like lots for cars, only smaller--where people can leave, or pick up, bikes.

Could India's Silicon Valley also become its next Amsterdam?

When The Trees Are Barest

It is always darkest just before the day dawneth.

We've all heard some version of that aphorism.  It's often attributed to the 17th Century historian and theologian Thomas Fuller, though he never claimed to be the source.  I've heard that it actually comes from Irish or Scottish folk wisdom--depending, of course, on whether you talk to an Irish or Scottish person!

In any event, there is, I believe, a parallel:  The trees are barest just before spring.

And, perhaps, the snow seems iciest when it's about to melt away.

Whatever the reality, a memorial to those who died in war is always bleak, and any attempts to soften the reality that the commemorated folks are dead, and usually for no good reason, only makes it more so.

But it was still a lovely day, and ride the other day.  The roads were clear, but, seemingly on cue, snow banked the sides of the roads as soon as I crossed the state line.