And here’s part 2. [via Research Trailer Park]

Who needs a reason?

Ten things I’ve learned in six months of commuting by bicycle. [via RocBike.com]

Not wasting my time

Aerobic exercise ‘a waste of time’:

Millions of people who try to keep fit by jogging, cycling or going to the gym could be wasting their time, a study revealed today.

Well, I guess that depends what they want to get out of it.

“If a patient is not likely to benefit much from aerobic exercise, the physician could turn to other types of exercise or alternative therapies…Alternative types of exercise include anaerobic pursuits such as weightlifting, push-ups and pull-ups.

Yeah-no. I think I’ll stick to cycling, thanks all the same.

I would put it first

Apparently ‘The Rumour’ is the third most beautiful Dutch nude painting. The first two must have been amazing.

Gob-smacked

Gob-smacked is what I am at this:

Tyler Strandberg of Rocky Mount has a hard time getting her mind off her BlackBerry when she drives.

She has crashed three cars in the past three years.

Each time, she was distracted from her driving because she was typing text messages or talking on the phone.

“Sometimes I will zone out and forget I’m driving,” said Tyler, 23. “If I’m on the phone talking about something that takes up all my focus, I’m looking straight ahead – but not even seeing what’s there.”

[via How We Drive, twitterer]

Now if that doesn’t frighten the hell out of you, consider the possible outcomes.

Astounded

Likewise, I’m astounded at this one in the Lancashire Telegraph:

A road rage teenage driver repeatedly targeted a cyclist and left him fearing for his life.

Burnley Crown Court heard how unbeknown to Benjamin Harrison, 18, his victim was police inspector Martin Melvin.

Nine times he almost mowed down DI Melvin, aiming for him on the pavement, striking his handle-bars, forcing him off his bike into trees, threatening to kill him and hurling stones and coins at him.

When arrested, he asked “Can I not just apologise?” Yes, you should apologise and then they should ban you from driving for life—you have no business being in control of a motor vehicle. Check out the sentence:

…nine months in jail, suspended for two years, with 12 months supervision and 100 hours unpaid work. He was banned from driving for two years and must pay £750 costs.

[via road.cc]

Prescience

While touring New Zealand, a German cyclist blogged about trucking “beasts” days before she was killed by a truck.

Fritz goes over the hood

I just picked up the report that Yokota Fritz was recently hit by a car—another SMIDSY. Nice face gash, looks like all his teeth are still there—and glad to hear he’s otherwise OK.

Roads to justice

Traffic Injustice, Part II, a commentary on bicycling.com. Recommended read of the week.

Saddle saw

NancyBoy advises don’t confuse your chamois with your chainsaw.

Long load

Andy’s longbike is a tandem turned into a single-seater with a mega pannier rack: “The idea behind this bicycle was to afford myself trailer-like capacities, sans-trailer.” [via BikeHacks]

Engage!

Engage with the traffic—good advice, although it just seems like common human courtesy to me (true that’s something which is altogether uncommon). [twitterer]

Skid lid

Apparently cheap bike helmets offer the same protection as expensive ones. [via Research Trailer Park]

Hardly a surprising finding, as in most jurisdictions helmets need to comply with minimum standards. But it is interesting that, provided it’s properly fitted (and that’s the crucial point), an expensive helmet doesn’t provide more protection in proportion with its higher price. Expensive helmets do offer better ventilation, lighter weight, and better fitting options. But all else being equal, they probably aren’t any “safer”.

What energy food?

Mens Health has a Food Face-Off:

Powders, pills, bars, and bottles are convenient, but real food can be as good (or better) for pre-, post-, and mid-workout fuel and hydration.

[twitterer]

Meanwhile, in Utopia…

Cyclists call for ‘friendly’ roads:

Research findings out today have found most bicycle owners who do not to ride to work have nominated dangerous traffic conditions as the big deterrent.

[twitterer]

And likewise in Vancouver, “if riders don’t feel safe, they’ll leave bikes at home”.

Lanes

While I retain my bike lane agnosticism, it’s interesting to have a look at what bike lanes are like in other places.

But then, bike lanes are really just extra parking lanes aren’t they?

Analysis

Bicycle Analyzer:

Enter your bicycle’s gear values, pedaling cadence and wheel diameter and this program will calculate all your gear ratios and speeds, and analyze the design of your transmission.

Sucker

All you ever wanted to know (and possibly more than you wanted to know) about Chain-Suck.

Ride here (or perhaps not)

The 19 most complex and dangerous roads in the world.

Get out of the car, butterball!

Research has found that the fittest children are those who cycle to school:

In all cases, children who were driven to school had the lowest levels of physical fitness, being less fit than walkers, cyclists and even children who took the bus. Cyclists were also found to be more physically active at other times of day when compared to children using other transport modes.

Sad but true:

Although cyclists and car users were most different in terms of physical fitness, the distances they travelled to school were very similar. Cyclists rode for about 1.5 miles to school, and average car rides were about two miles. Half of these car journeys were less than two miles and 15 percent were less than a mile – both easily walkable or bikeable distances.

To speculate, parents of the the car-riding kids probably argue “but riding is dangerous!” Yeah, right. And type 2 diabetes is a picnic…

What was I thinking?

Back in January 2006:

• Wish I’d thought of this: photos of cycling commuters from an apartment window.
• Fatal Friday Syndrome: Figures highlighted by the Scottish Safety Camera Partnership suggested car accidents increased by nearly one-fifth on Friday afternoons.
• The “cycling is the new golf” thing (remember that?) appeared in the mainstream.
• Why cyclists prefer black knicks.

Clueless concept

When I read the phrase “concept bike”, I always get a strange uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. Except in the case of this new fixie concept bike which made me throw up a little in my mouth. [Thanks (for nothing) tom]

On the rack

Cyclehoop turns every street-sign into a bike rack. Trying to think of a downside for this idea…can’t come up with one.

Shine on

• PUYL is a bicycle pump and portable light combined in one device. [Thanks tom]
• Commuter light comparison. Wow, those rear Smart lights are really worth having.
• The PHOTON BELL for bicycles: “If there is a group up ahead with their backs to me, I dab the switch and an intense brightness, for a quarter of a second, causes a spinal arc reflex in the group and they gently part to the sides of the path, looking around for the cause.”
• Awesome Twin Spotlamps: Take two matching torches, “the sort that take the big 6V batteries with the springs”…whoa, this is not going to be a lightweight setup!

Road rage? My arse!

• Cyclists and motorists on collision course
• Justice Served?

Rights

Bike Writers Collective’s Mission Statement claims to be the Cyclists’ Bill of Rights.

Share the road?

• 9 Driving Habits that Most Annoy Cyclists
• Top 6 things we cyclists love to do to annoy drivers
• Annoying things people do on the roads (includes “Special Cycling Section”)

Carrying more stuff

Transporting (more) luggage with a Brompton [twitterer]

Worth the ASL?

“Bike boxes”: do they work? Behaviour at cycle advanced stop lines. [PDF]

Campus cycling

Verlyn Klinkenborg waxes lyrical in The New York Times on the right kind of cyclist (i.e. those who don’t wear “sleek and gaudy costumes”):

There is a deeply pleasing randomness about the campus cyclists, as though one morning university officials had assigned a bicycle to every member of the Stanford community, come as you are, without considering for a moment matters of fit – or fitness.

Too ugly for the beauty contest

Yet again I fail to make the cut in the online beauty contest: A list of top 50 Cycling blogs by Blog Rank.

Cars, teens and phones

Teens and Distracted Driving:

One in four (26%) of American teens of driving age say they have texted while driving, and half (48%) of all teens ages 12 to 17 say they’ve been a passenger while a driver has texted behind the wheel.

Unsurprising, yet still chilling.

It’s good for you. No, it’s bad for you.

The ABC reports that:

A study obtained by the ABC shows cycling injuries are being grossly under-estimated…

Official bike injury statistics are based on police records. But not all bike injuries are reported to police, and the report shows that 98 per cent of cycling injuries are not showing up in official statistics.

The data are used to support this argument by Prof Drew Richardson of Canberra Hospital for more segregation on the roads:

“I am very wary about cyclists and larger or faster vehicles sharing the same space. When human beings share the same space they do tend to bump into each other, whether it’s in supermarket aisles or lifts. And it’s certainly true on the roads.

There’s also a similar study in the UK mentioned in The Guardian.

Bike doily

tom suggests that a little reflective lace might go well with my Aldi cycling shoes. Uh-uh, I’m not going to make that sort of mistake again!

It’s supposed to be cheap!

10 Most Expensive Bicycles On Earth [Thanks tom]

I ♥ local bike shop

Your local bike shop: a source of good advice, good deals and good fun.

Bloggage

• The Hungry Cyclist: “one man’s inter-continental pursuit of the perfect meal – on a bicycle.”
• Vélo Vogue—”where the bike lane meets the runway” (Ooh, look—I’m fleetingly fashionable!)

Highlighted for attention was

one woman driving along Toorak Road eating with a fork in one hand and a container in the other and presumably steering with her knees.

If caught, police say she would have been booked for failing to have proper control of her vehicle — or even careless driving, which would have seen her in court on summons.

And quite bloody right—that’s an appalling way to behave.

But it gets worse:

Victoria’s top traffic cop, Assistant Commissioner Noel Ashby, wasn’t surprised to hear of this…

“We’ve found people watching DVD movies while at the wheel,” said Mr Ashby. “People do strange things in their cars. They feel invincible and invisible. They don’t believe they’ll be caught and they don’t believe they’ll be in an accident.”

Watching a movie? What-the-hell? That shows a peculiar level of disconnection from the responsibilities of controlling a motor vehicle, an action that should render the offender ineligible to hold a license. Come on, we need to get serious here: that’s not just incidental distraction, that’s deliberate negligence with potentially fatal consequences. And so is having lunch at the wheel.

Mr Ashby said driver distraction was becoming as much an issue for traffic police as speeding and drink-driving. “We now run operations in the city and around Melbourne targeting this sort of behaviour, particularly related to the use of mobile phones.”…

Police figures revealed to The Sunday Age show that 35,536 Victorians were last year booked for the offence, receiving three demerit points on their driver’s licence and a $141 fine. This compares to 17,994 offenders pulled over in 2001…

“People are tending to flout the laws in increasing numbers. Every police region (across the state) has experienced an increase in detecting offenders,” said Acting Inspector Steve Perry, of the Victoria Police traffic support division. “Legislators have seen fit to apply relatively high penalties for the offence, but driver’s aren’t getting the message.”

OK, let’s start taking licenses away: I’m damn sure that will get the message across.

He said an argument could be made that the distracting effects of talking on a phone produced an impairment on driver ability similar to low-level drink-driving. He pointed to research from the Monash University Research Accident Centre that suggests that drivers engaged on the phone are “significantly impaired” in their ability to judge gaps in traffic, make decisions, maintain speed and throttle control, and maintain lateral control of their vehicle (reliably stay in their lanes).

As Harry Barber says: The mobile phone user is the new drink driver. (See? I said I’d borrow that.)

The editorial in the same paper continues the theme:

When will we start taking this seriously? We hear constantly about the trauma of road crashes, not only on those immediately involved, but on those around them.

Still many of us seem to kid ourselves that crashes won’t happen to us, that we’re excellent drivers, that we can cope with any sudden change in the traffic. Sadly, we have constant, terrible evidence that this is not true, and lives are ruined as a result. It is hard to believe people need to be contactable on the mobile while they’re driving — or that the call can’t wait until they pull over safely and talk while the car is stationary.

Well I, for one, don’t find it particularly hard to believe that some people can be so arrogant, selfish and stupid.

Says Peter:

This project is open source, which means that I am supplying everyone with the means to make their own magnets. Feel free to upload this pdf to any magnet-maker of your choice and self-produce as many magnets as you would like.

You can collect the PDF file from Peter’s page.

Not a bad idea at all. But will it make a difference? Probably not.

Then again, as Tuco says, it’s So much more civilized than my pet daydream of riding around with a baseball bat attached to my backpack. And more sensible in the light of what Spinopsys says this morning.

[via Tuco and Martino]