Gettin' Lucky

My buddy Ryan is a lucky man.   He got hit by a car this summer.  Not once, but twice.   That makes it three times he’s been hit in
his bicycle commuting “career”—four if you count the time he almost killed an
overly friendly bull mastiff.  The first two
incidents involving cars were hit-and-runs, so he didn’t get to cash in.   The third time he got hit, last month, the
driver actually stopped to make sure Ryan wasn’t dead, but he was uninsured so
Ryan once again didn’t hit the jackpot. 

I suppose that doesn’t sound very lucky, really, but I will
say it again:  Ryan is a lucky man, and
not in the sense that “if it wasn’t for bad luck he’d have no luck at all”
either.   Every time Ryan got hit he was able
to walk away relatively unscathed. 
Although he looks pretty scathed in the picture above if you ask
me.   The thing that makes him so lucky is that his
wife still lets him commute on his bicycle.  

See, Ryan is a father, breadwinner (that’s an old fashioned
way of saying he brings home the bacon) and NPR donor.  There are people who depend on him, public
radio freeloaders like myself included, and he can’t really win bread if he’s
laid up in traction after a careless driver fails to see him—and fails to hear
him crash into her car two thirds of the time. 

On a recent ride Ryan and I were talking about ways to avoid
the kind of luck he’s been having.  In
general, we decided are two approaches to lowering the probability of getting
hit:  1) Make yourself easy to see, and
2) reduce your exposure to traffic.  

I know Ryan is pretty good about making himself easy to
see.  He’s uses lots of flashing lights
and wears a dork jacket (Dork Jacket pictured here), and he says he’s planning to look like a rolling
Christmas tree when he commutes this winter.   
Reducing your exposure to traffic can be a little more difficult.   Part of that is living close enough to your
place of employment that you’re not out on the roads as long every day.    Another part is choosing a commuting route
that avoids the arterial roads and winds through residential streets instead.   Not only is this safer but the people
watching in some of these neighborhoods is much better.  

Ryan thought of another way of reducing exposure that I have
been doing, somewhat subconsciously, for some time.  He said he is going to avoid commuting at
rush hour.   It’s so simple that most
people never think about it, but I’ve noticed it myself.  If I arrive at my office at 8:00 in the
morning the traffic is much thicker and the drivers are far dumber than if I arrive
at 7:45 or 8:15.   I like the idea so
much that last week I told my boss I was going to shift my work schedule to
where I would start my day 20 minutes after the hour and end it 10 minutes after
the hour—not the same hour dummy, I’ve got to put in a full day like everybody
else—and the difference is very real. 
Less traffic and more courteous drivers. 
  

So what other ways do you use to avoid getting lucky like
Ryan when you’re bicycle commuting?  I
read recently that cyclists should be just a little erratic when riding in traffic.  Throw in a little swerve here and there,
etc.  to keep drivers on their toes and
make them aware we’re out there.   I don’t
know how I feel about that technique, since I think rider unpredictability is
one of the leading causes of motorist/cyclist disharmony, but if it makes
cyclists safer it might not be a bad idea.  
But what else have I missed?  How
can we make Ryan’s wife more comfortable with his bicycle commuting? 

Manhood Restored

I like to thumb through old newspapers—doesn’t everybody? –and
recently came across this ad in the June 29, 1900 edition of the Salt Lake
Herald. 

I marveled at the thought that Salt Lake City once was the
nexus of bicycle racing in America, and at how the Salt Palace, now just a
dingy old convention center, was home to the best velodrome in the
country.   For only 10 cents I could see a
five mile professional race, the terrific Australian Pursuit and other grand amateur events.  Then to top off an
already perfect evening, they’ll throw in two Vaudeville performances after the
racing.   That’s what I call a dependable
show. 

Then I noticed the ad immediately below the Salt Palace ad and
can’t help but wonder if the Terrible Swede and the Red Devil weren’t the
target market. 

MANHOOD RESTORED  "CUPIDENE" 
This great Vegetable Vitalizer, the prescription of a famous French
physician, will quickly cure you of all Pains in the Back, Seminal Emissions,
Nervous Debility, Pimples, Unfitness to Marry, Exhausting Drains, Varicocele
and Constipation.  It stops all losses by
day or night.  Prevents quickness of
discharge, which if not checked leads to Spermatorrhoea and all the horrors of
impotency.  CUPIDENE cleanses the liver,
the kidneys and the urinary organs of all impurities.  CUPIDENE strengthens and restores small weak
organs. 

I had to look up spermatorrhoea and varicocele.  They sound worse than "all the horrors of impotency". 

But even more horrifying is the juxtaposition of these two ads.  Is it just an unfortunate coincidence
or is the myth that cycling causes impotence over a century old?   If it’s the latter, why is there always a
French Doctor involved when cyclists turn to drugs to enhance their performance?  Either way, after a race
season like the one I just finished my manhood needs restoring.  I wanna try some of that CUPIDENE!

No Luck of the Irish For Me

I raced in the Mountain Bike Challenge Lough Derg Stage Race in Killaloe, Ireland last week.   I had a real shot at making the podium but some bad luck in the form of a dropped chain (made worse by my comical attempts of untangling it under hypoxic conditions) in Stage 1 and a flat 'tyre' in Stage 3 pushed me down to 13th overall.   I wrote a story about it over at MTBracenews.com, which you can read here. 

Below is my favorite photo from the race, according to the guy in the hi-vis vest I was the only racer to ride this climb.

90k to Go

Last spring I wrote about how my cyclocross bike was approaching 10,000 miles.   I didn't ride it much over the summer so I didn't hit that milestone until I mounted my fenders on it for wintertime commuting.   Since turning an odometer over to all zeros is kind of a noteworthy occasion, I figured I would video the moment.   Imagine my surprise when that fifth digit showed up on the left side of the screen.  Now I have to ride 90,000 more miles to turn it over.

 

Even though I didn't turn it over to all zeros, 10,000 miles on one bike is quite a milestone.   I think I'll celebrate with another pilgrimage, this time with a Gaelic twist. Check back soon.  

 

 

 

Touring the Newfies

Mark and I were sitting on the railroad tracks when the first man on a four wheeler rolled up.  The road west along the tracks was closed in six miles, a Union Pacific sign courteously but sternly warned us.  The road south to the Newfoundland Mountains, our desired destination, was too wet and goopy for our bikes.  We had just pedaled over 80 miles across the Great Salt Lake with the intention of climbing Desert Peak and seemed now to be thwarted just ten miles from where we could start hiking.  In those moments of indecision we had hidden our bikes behind an embankment and were considering starting our hike from there when instead we decided it was a good time for lunch.  We had not seen a train for over an hour.  When the first ATV rider arrived I was sitting on the rails munching on a cheese and mustard sandwich so I let Mark do most of the talking.  After exchanging a few pleasantries Mark asked the man about the roads in the Newfies.  We were learning about a ride he’d done down the east side, over a low pass and back north on the west side when his partner rolled up on a second ATV.

This time there were no pleasantries.   “How the hell did you get out here?” the second man asked as soon as there was a lull in the conversation.  We told them about our bikes and secretly wished we hadn’t as they could steal them and leave us out there to die in the desert.  Then Mark turned back to the first man and asked more about his ride around the Newfies.   We were particularly interested in the road around the southern end of the range, though the Air Force’s bombing range.  If that road was passable then a circumnavigation of the Newfies by bicycle was a distinct possibility.   After a minute or so there was another pause in the conversation.   The silence of the desert hung in the air.  I started to peel a tangerine.  Mark looked at the railroad ties, then at me, then at the first man.  I might have heard a coyote howl.  The second man couldn’t take it anymore.  He had to be sure, he asked, “You mean you rode your pedal bikes all the way out here?”  

Indeed we had.   We camped two nights on the mudflats near the Hogup Mountains, far enough from the railroad tracks not to be awakened by passing trains but not so far that we couldn’t walk over after dinner one evening to put railroad spikes on the rails to watch them get squashed by freight trains bound for the ports in California.  We raced our bikes across the mudflats, marveled at the enormity of Governor Bangerter’s pumps on the Lake’s western shore while debating the futility of that attempt by man to control his environment, and watched with curiosity as backhoes and bulldozers built miles of dikes to parcel out more of the Lake into evaporation ponds so Great Salt Lake Minerals Co. can produce and sell us more salt to sprinkle on our roads, salinate our rivers and farmlands and be pulverized into dust we can breathe in our winter air.   The west shore of the Lake is changing.  

Indeed, even the desolation that draws us out there is at risk.  On the morning of our return we met a Union Pacific employee who was out inspecting the track.   We hoped he wouldn’t notice our collection of squashed railroad spikes but he seemed more interested in telling us about the other cyclists he’s seen out there.   He’d noticed our tracks on the causeway on his way across the Lake that morning and figured he’d run into us sooner or later.   “Most of them are out lookin’ for Jesus, I guess.” he says of the cyclists he sees out there all the time.  “Are you heading back today?  Well, watch out for trains.”

“Yes sir,” I say with a smile because he has implicitly given us permission to ride across the privately owned causeway, which we were going to do anyway, “we’ve found our Jesus and are ready to go home.”  As we turn away and pedal for home my smile turns to a frown because he has also implicitly stated that Mark and I are not the only nut jobs who ride out there.  As much as I’d love to see more people out enjoying the Lake, I want to keep that most desolate part of the Lake just for us.  I decide not to believe him.   As far as I am concerned, we are still the only cyclists who ride out there.   

How My Cyclocross Season Is Going

Utah Thief Picks Wrong Bike to Steal

If you're going to steal something to pawn, pick something with a wide market appeal.  More here.