Law'n'Order: Ethical Principles and Practicality

Questions to consider:

• While motoring*, have you ever tried to scrupulously observe the speed limit, anywhere in the US, any time in, say, the past 8 years? What happened? (Bonus question: Was there bloodshed?)
• When's the last time you saw a motorist make a complete stop at a stop sign when it wasn't mandated by cross traffic?
• If you live in an area where cellphone use is illegal while driving, do you see people doing it anyway?
  
• Are there stretches along your cycle commute where litter is really bad? (Bonus question: How many times in the past, say, month have you noticed complete fast food bags discarded?)

By now you're asking, "What's your point, Robert?" Fair enough. I've been thinking about how personal ethics are affected by being in a car. I'm wondering if the isolation that an automobile imposes, the sense of being "cut off", somehow enables the motorist to compromise his principles. Is a cyclist different because he's "out there" in the environment with little or no protection? Admittedly, I see plenty of cyclists (in the US at least) do lots of scofflaw behavior. And it's this behavior that I always consider "stupid", meaning dangerous, or ultimately impractical.

Ethics seems to be about finding the balance between the principle and the practicality of the situation. Consider the well-known "four-way test" of the Rotary Club International:

1. Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?
3. Will it build GOODWILL & BETTER FRIENDSHIP?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

Notice that items 1 and 2 are about adherence to principle (truth and fairness) and 3 and 4 are about practicality (goodwill, friendship, benefits). Certainly, if an action can be said to meet all 4 questions in the affirmative, it can be said to be ethical. (See this post for more ruminations on the Rotary "4WT", including examples of situations where the principled and the practical collide.)

Traffic laws (and for that matter, littering laws) are thankfully areas where the principled and the practical coincide, or at least overlap greatly. A commenter on a previous post noted that cyclists (and pedestrians) in Denmark were scrupulously observant of traffic laws, and I've noted the same on my travels to Europe, in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and Sweden. (France is, well, another story.)

I'm always flummoxed when I see a bicyclist, say, commenting on a blog, defending his right to break the traffic laws. Neither principled nor practical.

*I recognize this blog is not about motoring, and it may be that many readers of this blog in fact never act as motorists. To you, I doff my helmet and bow.

Across the chasm

The renowned cult author, Robert Pirsig, wrote an article for Esquire magazine in 1977 about cruise sailing wherein he observed that people who had spent years and lots of money preparing for once-in-a-lifetime cruise sailing voyages often cut them short, disappointed and disillusioned, eager to get "back to reality" from their dream cruises that had turned into nightmares.

Here are a couple of excerpts that apply, directly or indirectly, to bicycle commuting, I think:

The house-car-job complex with its nine-to-five office routine is common only to a very small percentage of the earth's population and has only been common to this percentage for the last hundred years or so. If this is reality, have the millions of years that preceded our current century all been unreal?

An alternative - and better - definition of reality can be found by naming some of its components ...air...sunlight...wind...water...the motion of waves...the patterns of clouds before a coming storm. These elements, unlike twentieth-century office routines, have been here since before life appeared on this planet and they will continue long after office routines are gone. They are understood by everyone, not just a small segment of a highly advanced society. When considered on purely logical grounds, they are more real than the extremely transitory life-styles of the modern civilization the depressed ones want to return to.
...
Now, however, with a boat of my own and some time at sea, I begin to see the learning of virtue another way. It has something to do with the way the sea and sun and wind and sky go on and on day after day, week after week, and the boat and you have to go on with it. You must take the helm and change the sails and take sights of the stars and work out their reductions and sleep and cook and eat and repair things as they break and do most of these things in stormy weather as well as fair, depressed as well as elated, because there's no choice. You get used to it; it becomes habit-forming and produces a certain change in values.

Taking responsiblity for my own transportation is such a liberating thing, and I think it's exactly what Pirsig is talking about. What the weather's going to do, how I have to dress for that, how long it's going to take to get to the office, how my legs feel and how steep the rises are, all these things are part of my "daily chores". Every hill is an opportunity to find the perfect gear to carry me. Headwinds are an opportunity to orient my direction to the cardinal points and get a better sense of my space on the map as I go home. That squeak in the chain means that I'm going to have drop it and lube it soon. My right knee is twinging a bit, better gear down. The way those clouds are moving means that the rain will be over in no more than 5 minutes.

Those cars going by me are big and hot. And heavy, really massive. They are big metal-and-glass parlors on wheels carrying large amounts of flammable liquid. Sometimes the drivers are aware of me, sometimes not. Most of the drivers don't seem too happy; a lot of them are distracted, talking on their cellphones.

As I sit here typing this post, two (count 'em) car ads have come on late night TV touting new cars with "driver-assist" technology. You know, computer-aided steering that moves you back into the land if you wanter, or senses when you're nodding off and alerts you. All this stuff is going to put just more stuff between the drivers who buy these (very expensive) cars and reality.

Pirsig is right. Dealing with reality, if made into a habit (and taken in manageable doses) is value-forming and -enhancing. Motorists have their "reality". In their world, what I do is crazy, dangerous, and even childish. (They wonder when I'll "grow up and get a car"!) In my world, what I do is entirely safe, fun, life-enhancing and (especially) real.

I do drive sometimes, when the situation demands it. (I will have to tomorrow.) So it's easier for me to understand the perspective of a motorist. But 99% of all motorists will not have my cycling experience. It's like we are on the opposite rims of a canyon.

Juking the Cars

I was going to call this post "Vehicular Jiu-Jitsu", but technically Jiu-Jitsu implies using the weight (and momentum) of your opponent against him, and in terms of weight and momentum, the cars have all the advantage. So I realized I was really thinking about another "J" word, from American sports (it's used both in American football and basketball): Juking.

The online slang dictionary defines the word thus:

juke |joōk| informal

verb [ intrans. ]
1 to cheat.
2 to not meet someone as planned; to "stand up."
3 to fake out or to feign [sports].
4 to dance provocatively.

The applicable definition here is #3. In basketball, to "juke the defender" means to fake a shot (to get the defender to leave his feet) and, while the defender is in the air, drive by him. In football, the "juke" is a weaving or swerving pattern used by receivers to lose their defenders. In both cases, the offensive person make a move to get the defender to hesitate, and then takes advantage.

It happened in traffic the other evening, coming home. I was trying to move into the left lane in traffic to get into a left-turn-only lane. I had my arm out, and two cars had passed me by (the second one made me a little angry -- he had plenty of time to see me and give me room.) The guy in the third car was going to try and sneak by (I was "just a cyclist", after all) but I crowded him, swerved ever so slightly into his lane and he backed off. He didn't want to -- he gave me quite the dirty look as he passed me by on the right. When I saw what he was driving, (a Mercedes S-class) I gave myself a couple of bonus points, as I suspect he wasn't used to getting backed down by drivers in lesser cars, much less a cyclist.

Welcome to the juke, fella. Don't be angry with me just because I maneuvered you into doing the right thing.

This ability to make a split-second judgement about what a driver is doing (or likely to do) is one of, if not the most challenging aspect of vehicular cycling.

Particularly in this situation -- drivers wouldn't dream of overtaking a car slowing down with its left turn-signal on, but many, many drivers think they can sneak by a cyclist doing exactly the same thing. Although it helps to be taking the lane pretty aggressively, I've still had drivers zoom by me when I'm full in the lane with my arm out. I can't explain this level of motorist negligence.

I don't know how this is taught in the LAB classes (as I've not been able to attend one yet, but that's another story). I think it is one of the most "athletic" aspects of VC, so the athletic analogy is well-suited here.

NB: The image above is from a very cool web page illustrating "Self-Defence with a Walking-Stick," originally from a 1901 edition of Pearson's magazine.

Proof of God's Love and Sense of Humor

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
—Benjamin Franklin

"Bacon is proof that God loves us... well, a whole lot more than He loves pigs."
—Robert Anderson

This past Tuesday morning I also got proof that God has a great sense of ironic humor. I was approaching what is consistently the most dangerous intersection on my morning commute, and it was approached by the most dangerous kind of driver, in the most dangerous kind of vehicle, doing the most dangerous activity, and...

The distracted housewife in the SUV with a cellphone clamped to the side of her head at the four-yield traffic circle stopped, made eye contact, and (just for good measure) waved me through.

It took me a half a block to grasp the kind of joke God was playing on me, upending all my stereotypes in one fell swoop. I appreciated it so that I laughed out loud. As a religious person, I would generally consider myself more of a Diest than a Theist, even though I am pretty faithful Lutheran (but that's mainly because I love to sing in the choir). The rest of religion—all the stories, all the doctrine—are just stuff that people have made up in a vain attempt to explain the unexplainable. (Not that there aren't some good stories.) And there are some things (like the "resurrection of the body" that wraps up the Christian Credo) that, I'm sorry, just haven't been thought through. (I mean, will I have to have dental floss and toilet paper in Heaven? Gimme a break.)

Cosmological physicists tell us that we can perceive only about four percent of the universe. Everything we can perceive of the universe, all the Earth, the Solar System, the galaxies, everything.. is just four percent of all that is. We as humans just don't have the senses to perceive the rest. Scientists have made up something called "dark matter" (I like to think of it as "the fudge factor of the universe") so that their equations will match what is observed. How is it, then, that some scientists have such faith in their miserable perceptions to loudly disavow the existence of God?

Another scientist (well, mathematician) of (ahem) note, Blaise Pascal, put it this way, (about "betting" on whether God exists) in his work Penseés:

But you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.

Difficult to put it better than that.

Later on in that morning ride, just for good measure, I got to bike on the rarest thing: a freshly-swept road. I mean so fresh that the little water dribble-marks from the street-sweeper were still visible on the asphalt. It was awesome. So clean and smooth.

Every once in a while, Theism tempts me away from my cooler Deistic beliefs.

Is Cycle-commuting Blue-Collar?

Turn away from your animal kind
Try to leave your body just to live in your mind
—James Taylor, "Gaia"

This is one of those posts that I could probably take days to carefully write, but I won't. I've been thinking about people's relationships with their bodies. It is such an uneasy thing in the modern world. A massive proportion of Americans (and those in other countries) are obese, overweight, or otherwise obsessed with their bodies.

Datapoint 1. In a recent interview on the PBS NewsHour with Gwen Ifill, Eric Finkelstein, the director of health economics of RTI International, when asked about the cause of the obesity epidemic, said:

Well, we argue it's because of economics. Essentially, the calculus has changed so it's just easier and cheaper to engage in behaviors that promote obesity and more difficult to engage in those behaviors that are associated with fitness.

Datapoint 2. A recent article in the New York Times discusses in some depth the phenomenon of formerly white-collar Americans indulging in a romance with blue-collar trades and questioning the "hollowness of white-collar work." They romanticize not only the physical challenge but also the skills involved in blue-collar work.

Datapoint 3. I've been observing the number of bike racks on the back of/ on top of cars. It strikes me as intensely ironic that many Americans view bicycles as something that it's OK to use for exercise or recreation, but its somehow weird to ride practically, to commute.

I know, I know, people are frightened of cars. I know, I know, people can't sweat at the office, they might end up smelling bad. But I'm not buying it. I don't think the reason(s) that people don't cycle-commute are practical, because fundamentally, if viewed rationally, the reasons to bike are much stronger than the practical reasons not to bike.

I think at the root, that Finkelstein had it right, it's a deep thing that is rooted in economics and the status associated with that. People don't ride bikes to work because it's practical and frugal to use your body in this way, and therefore somehow low-class. It's high-class (go figure) to demonstrate that you control enough resources to be able to fritter them away.

I'm telling you, people's relationship with their bodies is complex.

De Pigerne Promenade...

..which is Danish for "The Girls Promenade". Which is kind of how I think of the blog Copenhagen Cycle Chic. I have to admit, it's kind of an envy thing. Let me explain.

Firstly, here's the brief on CCC:

Copenhagen Cycle Chic began its bloglife back in June 2007 when journalist, film director and photographer Mikael Colville-Andersen decided to put a growing number of photos about Copenhagen's bicycle culture into one place on the internet.

A series of social documentary photos about Copenhagen started to include a number of shots of life in the World's Cycling Capital, including fashionable Copenhageners on their bicycles. The feedback about these photos was positive and there was clearly a growing interest abroad in seeing how the bicycle was an integral part of life in the Danish capital. Specifically about how Copenhageners have demystified the bicycle and use it without any form of bicycle 'gear'. Just as the bicycle was meant to be ridden when invented.

I love that statement about "how Copenhagers have demystified the bicycle and use it without any form of bicycle 'gear'". Really? Do the good bicycling citizens of Copenhagen not have to carry locks, has bicycle theft become passé in Copenhagen? Hm. I don't think so, although supposedly "convenience theft" has decreased since Copenhagen introduced their City Bike system. Do the Danes not have to use lights after dark? I can't imagine so. And I know for a fact (by looking at some of nice photography on the site) that bike baskets and panniers are widely used. So I suspect the "bicycle gear" that Mikael Colville-Andersen is referring to is bicycle clothes. Which raises the question:

Why are functional bicycling clothes so reviled, especially in Copenhagen?

I mean, look at the Copenhagen Cycling Chic Manifesto. (Here's the desktop version and here is the blog post.) While certainly delivered with tongue firmly planted in cheek, I mean, come on.

I wear:

• bike shorts (simple black ones, not team-livery) because they don't chafe when I'm cycling at 15-20 mph;
• a bright fluorescent jersey to be visible in all weather conditions;
• cycling shoes for more efficient power;
• gloves to keep my hands from getting lacerated in a spill; and
• a helmet for safety.

I admit this may be "geeky" (however that's defined) but this is practical cycling, and it is, after all, the name of this blog. The Copenhageners (Copenhagenites?) sniff at this, because they know they have it good, and they want to flaunt it.

Why do I say they "have it good"? I've been giving this some thought, and I've come to the conclusion that this is a "hierarchy of needs" issue. Most readers will be familiar with Abraham Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs" often expressed as a graphic pyramid from his 1943 paper, "A Theory of Human Motivation". The original hierarchy was expressed as the following levels of need:

• Physiological (meeting biological needs);
• Safety (security of body, resources, property);
• Love/Belonging (friendship, family, intimacy);
• Esteem (self-esteem, confidence, respect);
• Self-Actualization (morality, creativity, etc.);

Now, let's think about the environment of practical cycling. There's a hierarchy of needs here, also, if you think about it:

• Law (I must have the legal right to be on the road!);
• Safety (Can I make it to my destination without mishap?);
• Living Density (How far do I have to ride to work?);
• Physical Ability (How much strength do I need to do it?);
• Style (Can I look good or be cool doing it?);

The beauty of Copenhagen is that the first three levels of the pyramid are taken care of. Cyclists are legally supported in Denmark, and are numerous enough that they are well respected on the road. Copenhagen, like most European capitals, is very densely settled (and flat to boot) so that rides are short and it doesn't require significant physical stamina to handle the ride. Which gives the Danes the luxury of being able to focus on Style. Good for them, I say. But, as reported earlier, I'm jealous.

Keep up the promenade, girls. And, by all means, keep looking good. But please, try to not rub our noses in it quite so hard!

What about Free Speech?

Here's a "news of the week"-type story that hits me. Dr. Jason Newsom, an Iraq-veteran MD serving as head of Bay County Health Department in Pensacola, Florida, put up an electronic sign outside his offices with message such as:

• Hamburger = Spare Tire
• Sweet Tea = Liquid Sugar
• French Fries = Thunder Thighs

Everything was going fine until he took on Dunkin Donuts. When he programmed the sign to read:

• America Dies on Dunkin'

Well, that cut it for a county commissioner who owns a doughnut shop and two lawyers who own a new Dunkin' Donuts on Panama City Beach. They got him fired; his bosses at the state Health Department told him that his leadership wasn't wanted and that he could be fired or resign. He chose to resign May 8 but has reapplied for the job.

This is outrageous. The man's job description not only included but revolved around educating the public about health issues. What could possibly be more on-point for this job than telling people that the crap that they eat is killing them?

Newsom said,

I picked on doughnuts because those things are ubiquitous in this county. Everywhere I went, there were two dozen doughnuts on the back table. At church, there were always doughnuts on the back table at Sunday school. It is social expectation thing.

I am so with this guy. How can people put garbage in their mouths and not be aware of its effect on them? And WHOSE JOB IS IT to educate the public? Obesity, diabetes, hypertension, I'm told these are all epidemic in our society, and the cost is enormous. I hope Newsom wins his job back and if he doesn't, I hope he sues. This is injustice of the most heinous kind.

Before and After: My Diet

So, here's a little bit about my personal history. I can identify pretty much with "before"/"after" stories, as I'm one of those guys who has a "before" and "after" myself. My story is this: in February of 2006, I weighed about 250 lbs, large but not crazy-overweight for a guy who is 6'6" tall, and I was getting regular exercise, a lot of it on my bike. On my annual checkup that month, my family physician told me I was borderline diabetic. This came as a rather nasty shock, as my dad was diabetic, and his diabetes (and associated heart disease) drastically shortened his life (he died at the age of 56, after his third heart attack.) It's hard to overestimate the dread with which I beheld diabetes, so to say I was motivated to change is putting it mildly.

My doctor told me I had to find (as she put it) "a new baseline" in my dietary habits. She directed me to the Whole Foods Diet developed by the Health Sciences Center of the School of Medicine at Texas Tech University. What I really like about this diet is one of its organizing principles: it's not how much you eat, it's what you eat. This is a controlled-carbohydrate diet that (other than refined carbos) lets you eat all the whole foods you want. I found myself eating a lot of fresh fruit, because of the convenience. No preparation, immediate hunger abatement. The important and fundamental thing is, I was never, ever hungry on this diet.

The results were, I guess you'd say, pretty dramatic. I began losing two to three pounds a week, which is a pretty fast loss on a sustained basis. I basically went from 245 to 195 in about four months. By mid-2006, I reached 195 lbs and stopped losing weight. My BMI went from 28.3 to 22.5. Since that time, my weight has stayed in the 195 to 200 range. These days, I'm on the diet for breakfast and lunch (I almost always pack my lunch to work) and eat pretty much whatever for dinner. I really like being in shape, my marginal diabetes went away (hopefully never to return) and I lost 20mm of mercury off the top and bottom of my blood pressure.

I think motivation is a matter of focus. I was focused on getting and feeling healthy and avoiding the history of my dad. Many people, when they change their habits, focus on what they're missing. I say, don't look back.

A review that makes me want to buy the book

David Byrne, who has received coverage in this blog before, has become the de facto spokesman for cyclists in New York City and beyond. Normally, I'm the type who resents (to no small degree) being spoken for, but Byrne's eloquence in his review (in today's New York Times Book Review) of Jeff Mapes' PEDALING REVOLUTION: How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities is so compelling that I'm inclined to settle and say, "I'm happy with Byrne being the voice of my generation."

According to the NYT-Book Review editors, Byrne is himself writing a book on bicycling and cities and their intersection called Bicycle Diaries in September. This will be worth reading, as city (and suburban) planning and the impact of cycling on it (and vice versa) is a topic I'm finding more and more interesting.

There is one egregious flaw in Byrne's review. He says therein,

I can ride till my legs are sore and it won’t make riding any cooler, but when attractive women are seen sitting upright going about their city business on bikes day and night, the crowds will surely follow.

I must insist here that it can be only false modesty that allows Byrne to assert that his personal involvment "won't make riding any cooler".

Cycling and Meditation

As I've gotten older, I've mellowed a lot about spirituality. Spirituality of all flavors. I've gotten more into church, especially through singing. (I also pray a lot more these days.) On an irregular basis, I attend meditation sessions with my wife, where we do sitting and walking meditation. Meditation is about being totally present in your life, where you focus on breathing and try and quiet the internal monologue that goes on in your brain. I really enjoy meditating.

When you're cycling in traffic, and really paying attention, it's a form of meditation, too. Think about it -- to be safe, you'd better be 100% in the present. You better know what the traffic around you is doing, you'd better know what the road conditions are likely to be in the next quarter mile, you better know how the traffic signals are sequenced, and you better be watching for pedestrians to boot. (Hey, "pedestrians to boot" -- get it? Never mind.) There is really no room for having your mind wander, not if you want to be safe.

There's really no room to indulge in anger or reverse road rage, either. The only time all last year when I came close to having an accident was when I was agitated when I was signaling for a lane change and a rude driver came right around me, ignoring my signal. I got all bent out of shape, and yelled at the jerk. Within a minute, and while I was still agitated, I came within a hairs-breadth of turning left into oncoming traffic. I must have had a guardian angel give me a dope-slap to pull me out of my agitation and save me. I was really shaken by this incident and by my inattentiveness caused by my not letting go of the anger.

Seeing the danger in "reverse road rage", I resolved to mend my ways. When drivers act stupid, aggressive, or (as is usually the case) heedless, I still shout at them, but then I let it drop, and be over. It's the only way to be really safe. Hanging on to your anger and agitation is just purely dangerous.

Peace, sisters and brothers.

Age, Treachery, Gravity

This morning (it was chilly, low 30s) I was 5-1/2 miles into the commute, at the end of a quarter-mile gentle downslope, and a young cyclist on a nice street bike just blew by me. He was in his late 20s, I reckon, and had generally good handling skills (he could set up and take a corner at speed quite well.) I'd been just moseying along, so I picked up the cadence a bit to see if I could keep up with him. He'd put half a block on me, but I noticed two things as I tried to keep up that suggested he hadn't been out much this season: first, he was rocking his head and shoulders quite a bit; and second, he was slowing down on even gentle rises in the road.

My favorite climb of the morning, an 0.6 mile 3% grade, was a half mile ahead, so I just kept pace and bided my time to see what would happen when we hit it. Sure enough, as soon as the upgrade began, he began having trouble finding the right gear. He shifted into too low a gear and began struggling. He must have had a mirror of some kind, because I never saw him look around, but he pulled over as I went around, about an eighth-mile into the climb. I never looked back, but had a great climb, cresting at about 13 mph.

Let me tell you, there's nothing that stokes your self-esteem like smoking a guy half your age on an uphill, early season or no. (I know, I know, I had the "unfair" advantage of having been riding all winter.)

This made me wonder, though, about what kind of advice was out there so I went to Google over the lunch hour and typed in "how to climb hills". The first page of links was all about cycling -- no surprise there. Right up top, I found:

• Dr. Dick Rafoth's excellent Cycling Performance Tips website that has a host of scientific fact-based information;
• A very good entry in the late, great Ken Kifer's Bicycle Pages website about the strategy of climbing;
• A typically-un-informative entry from the eHow website. (I always find eHow unenlightening. It used to be a wiki-type cooperative editing environment, maybe still is, but the entries all seem so darned obvious. Tip number one: use cleats. Tip number two: use the proper gear. Duh.)
• A quite good article on the REI web site on climbing. Funny, all the times I've ordered stuff from REI, I never looked at that little "expert advice" tab. They have a host of articles on cycling. Many of them are about the kind of stuff to buy (what did you expect, after all?) but this one was pure technique.

So there's a smattering of what's out there. Google it yourself if you want to really pursue this topic. It's funny, I was filling out a questionnaire the other day and one of the questions was, "What do you like about your daily commute?" I answered, "The hills." It seem like a strange answer, but I've really come to an understanding with the gravity part of my ride. I used to really dislike the hills, but now I really like the variety that hills provide, not only variety in the terrain, but also variety from day to day. They serve as a great gauge of how I'm feeling physically and help me to know more about myself. When you hit the hill just right, at just the right cadence, and load your legs just so, so they're "glowing" when you get to the top, but you've still got something left, man, that is a great feeling.

P.U.M.A.

This is too ironic. Here's a verbatim quote from the GM introduction of the "P.U.M.A." auto-balancing two person vehicle made in joint venture with Segway:

"Imagine moving about cities in a vehicle fashioned to your taste, that's fun to drive and ride in, that safely takes you where you want to go, and "connects" you to friends and family, while using clean, renewable energy, producing zero vehicle tailpipe emissions, and without the stress of traffic jams," said Burns. "And imagine doing this for one-fourth to one-third the cost of what you pay to own and operate today's automobile. This is what Project P.U.M.A. (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility) is capable of delivering."

Yes. Imagine that. Let's imagine this as a series of bullet points, shall we?
A vehicle:
• tailored to your tastes
• fun to drive and ride
• safely takes you where you want to go
• "connects" you to friends and family
• using clean, renewable energy
• producing zero vehicle tailpipe emissions
• without the stress of traffic jams

I say that my commute (which is to say, my bike) can robustly answer "check!" to all of these with the possible exception of the "connects you to friends and family" item which seems to me to be more like a cell phone than a vehicle. But my bike, maybe kinda sorta, can be said to do even this.

This whole thing beggars the imagination. I've accused GM of incompetence before (before this abomination, even well before the first bailout).

But the point is, really: What does the fact that PUMA can be taken seriously say about us as a society, anyway? Are we so culturally averse to physical activity (and to sweat) that we'll do anything to avoid it, as beneath us? The Roman poet Juvenal described the ideal of the "healthy mind in the healthy body"; the apostle Paul referred to the "body as a temple". It does seem that there is something particularly American about this; you don't see this aversion to activity in Europe. Can this be laid at the feet of Madison Avenue, who basically elevated BO (and therefore sweat) to the level of a mortal sin?

And, does that guy in the photo above have any notion of just how truly dorky he looks? I mean, didn't everyone see Wall-E?

Have we really, truly become South Park? (Thanks to Geeks are Sexy for the reference.) Man, I would feel so much better if I knew this were GM perpetrating an elaborate joke. But I don't think so; they're a week late.

Sharrows

Let's continue on the topic of street marking.

Wanting to know more about sharrows, I went to Wikipedia and read about shared lane marking. (I had to read about a district in Sheffield, England first.) I was a little unclear on the topic, I suppose, as I had thought that sharrows were rather vague in their application. Nothing could be further from the truth, as there appears to be a small if well defined body of traffic standards that apply to shared lane markings.

If you've (like me) not been paying close attention to the sharrows issue, here's a brief definition: Sharrows are "bicycle use" road markings that are installed where complete bike lanes cannot be installed for various reasons including:

• Not enough cyclists to justify bike lanes;
• Too expensive to install bike lanes;
• Use of bike lanes would require loss of parking; and/or
• Use of bike lanes would require road widening;

The city of San Francisco did a study on sharrows in 2004 that they have published in PDF form. The study's stated goals for sharrows is the following:

• Improve positioning of both cyclists and motorists on streets without bike lanes;
• Reduce aggressive motorist behavior;
• Prevent wrong-way bicycling;
• Prevent bicycling on sidewalks;

San Francisco additionally studied two different forms of sharrow marking, the "bike in house" design and the "chevron" design. Their study logged 140 hours of videotaping of before-and-after activity on six different streets in SF, three of which were two-lane and three of which were four-lane. Even though this study is not exactly "new news", I must say that I'm impressed with the size, thoroughness and rigor of this study. San Francisco has got a bunch of wonks that know what they're doing, statistically.

So, what happened? Well, the city of San Francisco (CSF) videotaped and analyzed a lot of traffic behavior. In 6 street locations, and before painting the streets, they taped cyclists' positions on the street, motorists' locations, and clearances afforded cyclists by motorists. (They did this for 1100 cyclists.) Then they painted the sharrows with the center of the figure 11'-0" out from the curb. And they ran the video study again. The results of the study are as summarized in the graphic at right.

I don't know about you, but I think these are pretty significant results. Cyclists are clearly less crowded towards parked cars, and motorists are clearly making better affordances for them.

One of the interesting things that the CSF found was that while the "chevron" design eliminated wrong-way cycling where it was used, the "bike-in-house" design appeared to have no effect in this area. For this reason (and the slightly better affordances noted above), the CSF approved the "chevron" design for use on CSF streets.

Because the markings were applied to the streets with no preceding public education program (the CSF evidently felt this might have skewed the results,) cyclists and motorists were then surveyed as to their perception and understanding of the markings. I won't go into the results of this survey in detail, (you can peruse the PDF if you like, as it's all there,) but will hit on some highlights:

• Most cyclists felt that the markings indicated a bike route;
• 60% of the cyclists felt an increased sense of safety;
• 33% of the cyclists felt that the markings caused them to "take the lane" more;
• 35% of the cyclists felt that the markings improved motorists' behavior;

After reading and reflecting on this excellent study, I feel that I have a much more positive feeling about sharrows than I had before. First and foremost, they are effective; they work to improve cyclist/ motorist interactions. Secondly, they have a "skills improvement" component, that of helping the cyclist attain proper position on the road. Finally, their ambiguity (which had put me off a little before I read the study) may prove to be one of their strong points: while a cyclist may feel he is "unprotected" if he ventures outside a fully-marked bike lane, no such boundary exists or is even implied with a sharrow, and this is probably a good thing.

Progress / Condescension

So, first a progress report: I logged 180+ miles in February, which isn't so bad since I "lost" more than a week visiting Germany and Switzerland. (Not really lost, of course, although I came to dread hitting the hotel gym to ride a stationary bike -- bleah.) The good side was of course seeing how the "other half lives".

The hastily-snapped cellphone picture at right is a bike shelter we saw from the

train between Munich and Basel. Interesting bike racks. But also consider this is the first week in February. Many citizens, even in the elevated parts of semi-Alpine Western Europe, have integrated their bikes in their daily lifestyle. Bike, train, no car. At least not on a daily basis. It's definitely true that distances are smaller compared to the sprawling US, but I have to say, it is so refreshing to see this (and not just because of the brisk air.)

While we were in Basel, we had anything but nice weather (lots of rain and wind) but the practical cyclists were out, getting around, everywhere, at all hours of the day. On the coldest, windiest day, I saw a woman riding a bakfiets with her two little kids bundled up like two stuffed toys. Even I, a daily cyclist, saluted her unconsciously, but frankly, she didn't seem fazed.

Which brings me back to my experience since returning. On a couple of occasions, I've sort of 'snapped' at people who have commented on my cycling. Just after returning, when attending a yoga class, I was locking up my bike at the yoga center when an older woman (who was going to the same class as I) turned to me and said, "Ah, it's a sure sign of spring when the cyclists come out." I responded with as much abruptness as I could muster, "Oh, I cycle year 'round." (It just came out, really.) And just last week, I was biking to meet my wife at a doctor's office so I could put my bike in the back of the car and drive her home, a nurse at the office said, "that's so cute that you ride your bike everywhere," and I snapped back, "I'm the future."

I felt condescended to by these people. My dictionary defines "condescend" as "to show feelings of superiority". Certainly people driving cars have physical superiority. A very small car is still very large, heavy, and hot up against a bike. But to be treated in the diminutive makes me feel like these people are also claiming moral superiority, and I can't accept that. These people are ignorant. They don't understand the horrifying waste that they produce with their lifestyle, they haven't the imagination to see it. Since I've comprehended it, I can't just make it go away. So I do what I can. And I think that is worthy of respect, not condescension, not impatience.

I won't be holding my breath waiting for it, though.

David Lega: Motivation, Invention, Inspiration

My posts have been a little off this week, as I've been in Europe (Munich / Basel) at a series of management meetings for my job with Nemetschek North America, makers of the CAD product Vectorworks. (This product placement is done for the benefit of the GoogleSearch gurus in our marketing department. You know who you are :)

I attended, late last week, a remarkable motivation-type keynote talk by a world champion Paralympic athlete from Sweden named David Lega. David was born with massive physical disabilities as a result of a virus his mother contracted while pregnant. I won't go into detail on either his disabilities nor his many notable accomplishments, but rather direct you to his website so you can learn more. I will say that if you represent a company in need of a motivational speaker, David will provide an unforgettable talk. David is an athlete, an inventor, a writer, an entrepreneur, a force of nature.

What I want to focus on here is the vehicle that you see David using in the picture. It's a tricycle of unusual design. It is of David's invention (he said it was either the fourth or fifth generation, I don't remember exactly) and it's unique in the world. It's unique because of the unusual nature of David's disabilities. He has virtually no arm or hand function, so a conventional wheelchair (even an electric one with a hand control) is not useful. He's an active and accomplished athlete, so an electric chair with say a mouth control is not interesting nor attractive, because he wants to use the muscles he has (his legs have a limited range of motion).

Take a close look at it and you'll see it's a tricycle of (somewhat) standard layout, but lacking any sort of handlebar. This means that steering and propulsion are both accomplished with foot action. You push a little more with the right foot at just the right moment in the cycle to turn left, and vice versa to turn right. David has developed spectacular and perhaps unique capabilities with his feet, and watching him smoothly navigate this wheelchair around a room is quite remarkable. I wonder if all the people in the room appreciated the skills involved.

Vehicular Cycling in Beijing

Sometimes, I wish people who weren't vehicular cyclists would get trained before they try to write about it.

Katie Thomas, a sportswriter for the (wait for it) New York Times, writes in an article today that urban cycling is nerve-wracking. Nerve-wracking, that is, for an inexperienced cyclist. For an experienced one, such as Jason McCartney, a member of the US Olympic cycling team, it's "giddy" fun.

I'll give Thomas some credit. She admits her inexperience by calling her own idea "archair arrogance". And, she offers a good one-sentence description of vehicular cycling: "It required looking over one’s shoulder, moving into an open space in traffic, and trying to avoid pedestrians — all at once." But by describing the experience as "not for the faint of heart" and as implying that left turns across traffic were tantamount to taking one's life in one's hands, she in effect portrays vehicular cycling as not for ordinary people. And that's just wrong.

See "A Relaxing Ride, but Not for the Faint of Heart".

Lost in the Fog

I greatly admire George Vecsey, the sportswriter for the New York Times. Here's a link to his coverage of the Olympic men's bicycle road race (152 miles).

An excerpt is a quote from Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, (IOC):

“The fog you see is based on the basis of humidity and heat. It does not mean to say that this fog is the same as pollution. It can be pollution, but the fog doesn’t mean necessarily that it is pollution.”

It's tempting to say that Rogge doesn't have a superb command of English, and that would explain the ambiguity of this statement. Me, I think it's rubbish. Rogge is trying to say something that is less than a bald-faced lie, and not succeeding at it.

The cyclists call it pollution, and I tend to believe them. "Grandpa" George Hincapie said these were the worst conditions under which he had ever raced.

This is a scandal, and the IOC's and the US Olympic Committee's (USOC) transparent responses to pressure from their Chinese hosts is disgraceful. Consider this story: The USOC issued the specially designed masks to protect athletes from the potentially harmful air in Beijing. Randy Wilber, the USOC's main exercise physiologist, advised the athletes to wear the masks on the plane and as soon as they stepped foot here. Which is precisely what the US Track-cycling team did (see photo). Then, after being scolded by USOC officials who told them "the Chinese were mad," they apologized to the press. For doing what is (1) prudent and (2) what they were advised to do. This sucks big time. I'm probably going to boycott TV coverage of these Olympics because it angers me so. (Update: I didn't. It was good to see the American swimmers and roundball players rock.)

Vecsey describes the air as "Hot and furry and persistent". Ugh. I'll leave it at that. Put on your masks, people.

Update: Here's a followup in the NYT from a pulmonologist.

Photo Copyright© 2008 The New York Times Company

Overcoming Obstacles: Sweat

I've had a couple of conversations this week with different people about one of the commuting cyclist's challenges, sweat. Which is to say, body odor. Particularly for cyclists with an athletic tendency, who like to ride fast and sweat in the process, body smell in the workplace is an issue. No matter how you feel about how inoffensive your smell may be, believe me, your co-workers will sense it. You've gotta deal with it!

The question is how. Most people feel like they have to have a shower room at the office, and if you've got one, with janitorial service to keep it clean and towel service and lockers, I have this to say to you: "What company was it you said you worked for? Because I want to apply for a job!"

Then there are the rest of us. I for example have a company that provides an employee-policed shower room. Ugh. Better than nothing, but not something to get excited about.

And there's the unwritten observation about showers: they do take significant time. Figure getting in at least 40 minutes early to work, 15 minutes to cool down and 25 minutes to shower, towel off, change clothes, and hang up your cycling stuff. It works, but 40 minutes is a lot of time...

Then there's my solution: I use baby wipes.

Before you recoil in horror, let me walk you through my process. I cycle in to the office, and arrange the contents of my panniers. I cool down (I allow 10-15 minutes, depending on the heat of the day). I strip off my cycling jersey and hang it up on the back of my office door. Then I use two baby wipes, one for my pits, and one for my head and shoulders (hey, isn't that a trademark?) I use aloe wipes with a baby powder scent. (This may sound effeminate if you're a guy, but it's actually a quite refreshing smell.) Then, on with my working clothes, and I'm good.

The whole thing (including cool-down) takes 20 minutes max.

For a long time, I thought this was my own personal brilliant great idea, but one time I ran into a fellow cyclist at a hotel exercise room in Chicago, and found that he'd hit upon the exact same solution. So once again, I was humbled, as I am so often by this wonderful activity.

For an interesting perspective on sweat from the third world, go here.

Good Cop / Bad Cop

Here's the good cop, pictured at right. Tom Casady, Chief of Police, Lincoln, NE. This guy makes me think that living in Lincoln, Nebraska might not be such a bad thing. (And I have to admit, this is the absolute first thing to make me think this.) Read his post on bicycles and cars sharing the road here. The rest of his blog is an interesting insight into medium-sized-town policing. Update: Tom has a good sense of humor. When discussing how to avoid the "door prize", he says, "A row of parallel-parked cars is risky, and cyclists generally need to move out to the left by the approximate length of a 1972 Monte Carlo's door." (The link to the car image is by him.)

Here's the bad cop, also pictured at right. Patrick Pogan, rookie policeman in New York City. This guy brutally tackled a cyclist at a Critical Mass demonstration in NYC. The video is of course on YouTube here. I have (like about so many other things) mixed emotions about Critical Mass, because I feel like their manifestations are unnecessarily confrontational. (I mean, I holler at rude or oblivious drivers, but it's always for a reason.) The NYPD police union is defending him, more here. Good luck. If the video is admissible, it sure looks like an assault to me. I mean, this &*%^! cop didn't even flag the cyclist down!

Be your own judge.

Cycling tragedy

This is a tragic event that did not need to happen. I am so very sorry this happened, and my sincere condolences go out to those immediately affected, but one way of looking at this is that it was a poorly-prepared-for stunt. Before you can even apply the rules of effective cycling in moving from place to place, you must choose your route carefully.

If these cyclists were aware that (as the article states) "the road was built in the sixties so it is unchanged ... narrow and very scary- dead straight and flat so everyone speeds, and when the trucks pass by you are either almost blown off the road or sucked into its draft", then why did they not cycle with a follow-car with emergency blinkers on? If they were not aware of this, then why didn't they do their homework?

A long cross-country cycle ride, even one with sympathetic roads, requires planning. This may sound harsh, but I think these people are candidates for the Darwin Awards.

I find it hard to see how this event, even had it come off as planned, relates to the reality of everyday practical cycling. Practical cycling is cycling to and from work and errands. This is where bicycles can displace cars. But even doing that in areas where you are familiar with the roads, you must plan your route.

Luckily, this is much, much easier to do than it used to be. Google Maps has an "avoid highways" option when getting directions, and the drag-t0-alter feature makes tuning a trip for cycling very easy. Google Maps is one of those things that can improve the safety and practicality of cycing. It makes modern-day cycling much easier.

Updated: Here's an article on Internet mapping for bicyclists.