Cyclists are (mostly) highly evolved

pedaller‘s entry today about a cycling gent in Newcastle catching a 60km/h tow from a car made me wonder how prominently bicycles feature in the Darwin Awards. Interestingly, there’s only one real nominee, from 1997:

(26 December 1997, Brazil) A bicyclist crossing an airport runway in Sorocaba, a city 87 kilometers from Sao Paulo, was killed when he was hit by a landing airplane. Marcelo, 25, could not hear the twin-engine plane because he was listening to his Walkman on headphones, investigators said. The propellor and right wing of the plane were damaged.

An object lesson for anyone who rides with iPod inserted!

There are also a couple of other “personal accounts” (i.e. anecdotes where the perpetrator did not necessarily remove himself from the gene pool). From 2000, a story about using a foot in the spokes as means of braking and another from 2004 about treating sqeaky ‘V’ brakes with a generous amount of 3-in-1 oil. Both resulted in nasty crashes and impressive scarring, apparently.

Of course, there are relatively few Darwin Awards incidents involving bikes—it’s common knowledge that cyclists represent the peak of evolution…

More on related topics

• That infernal, internal iPod
• A “pre-flight” check is worth the effort
• Water, waste and white elephants
• Look-out pedestrians! Speeding cyclists are out to get you!
• The hazards of “dooring” cyclists