Bike "facilities", you gotta love them, at least for the giggle

Per Joe Riel:
Don't know how he treated it, but he
did get a nasty flesh-eating bacterial infection.

Since a cyclist around here lost a leg to flesh-eating bacteria in road
rash, I've been carrying a squeeze bottle of Betadyne. Dunno if it
will make the diff, but slucing a would out with clean water and the
dumping some Betadyne into it has got to at least lower the odds.
--
Pete Cresswell

On Friday, August 1, 2014 2:16:19 AM UTC-7, Lou Holtman wrote:
Op donderdag 31 juli 2014 23:31:11 UTC+2 schreef JoeRiel:

Andre Jute writes:







What I will now describe lies between two major campuses of tertiary



education and on several school routes too, and is surrounded by dense



residential areas, and flanked by the most important hospital in the



region and a major mall, all places to which one would ideally like to



encourage bicycle traffic.







Bike traffic to a hospital is neither expected nor encouraged around



here. I've ridden to the local hospital a few times, mainly for



scheduled lab work or scans. No bike racks anywhere, I just lock it to



a handrail. Once, at the end of a ride, to clean up some road rash on



my forearm. I would have been fine rinsing it off and putting on a



bandage, but my riding partner, an orthopedic surgeon, insisted on



stopping and doing it right. He doesn't fool around---the cleaning was



way more painful than the crashing.







--



Joe Riel



Just the the other way round here (The Neterlands). When I'm going to the hospital for donating blood going by bike is much easier. With a car you are first in sort of a traffic jam, then you have to park your car way back and have to pay for that (it's is refunded by the blood organisation). After you are finished you have to walk back to your car and wait in line for the ticket machine. With your bike you can park within 50 m from the entrance:







It is all about choices.



Lou

The bike rack at my eye doctor's office is in the shape of a pair of glasses. Artsy bike racks are big around here. http://www.portlandmercury.com/Blogt...ks-in-portland

The hospital nearest my house has bike racks, but you have to be ready to do a 800 foot climb -- unless you take the tram. http://tinyurl.com/kv3j35p
-- Jay Beattie.

On Fri, 01 Aug 2014 21:44:07 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

It's very rare that I can't find _something_ to
lock my bike to.

Ditto -- and, sadly, *extremely* rare that I find another bike in my
preferred spot.


--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://joybeeson.home.comcast.net/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.

On 8/1/2014 9:03 PM, jbeattie wrote:


The bike rack at my eye doctor's office is in the shape of a pair of glasses.
Artsy bike racks are big around here.
http://www.portlandmercury.com/Blogt...ks-in-portland

I remember when the artsy bike racks in our city center were first
proposed. A young hipster came to our bike club meeting and introduced
himself by saying "Some of my friends thought our area needs a bike
advocacy group, so we got together and..." etc. Of course, he was
ignoring the fact that he was speaking to the club that's been doing
bike advocacy in our area since about 1973.

Anyway, the hipsters got the bike racks in. They're fine. But I've
never thought of bike racks as being an important issue, even though I
have friends who do. It's very rare that I can't find _something_ to
lock my bike to.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Saturday, August 2, 2014 1:25:28 AM UTC+1, (PeteCresswell) wrote:

Since a cyclist around here lost a leg to flesh-eating bacteria in road
rash, I've been carrying a squeeze bottle of Betadyne.

Jesus save me. When I nearly cashed in my chips on the cardiologist's operating table a couple of years ago, the cause was an allergy to the iodine in the "contrast" (the liquid they pump into your arteries so they can see inside your heart by fibre-optic), which I'd had in previous surgery without the slightest reaction (I was back on my bike on the third day after that heart surgery). All through an active sporting life I've been liberally painted with iodine, had the stuff poured, probably in gallons by now, into open wounds, and now I discover that you can develop a *delayed* allergy to it.. Maybe the flesh-eating bacteria are friendlier...

Andre Jute
Lucky all my life

PS Betadine is a branded iodine.

On Saturday, August 2, 2014 2:14:12 AM UTC+1, Joy Beeson wrote:

...sadly, *extremely* rare that I find another bike in my
preferred spot.

Huh? When you find a good place to live and ride, you don't want to encourage too many strangers to come crowd you out. I thank the Lord at least once a week that we've made god's acre one of the most expensive places on earth to live. It serves well to stop hordes of unwanted cyclists from ruining my lanes by their presence. Especially unwanted are pelotons of roadies who think you should give way to them, commuters racing to be at the office, surly clowns so grimly determined on saving the world that they don't greet anyone, accident-prone "vehicular cyclists" who soon need a cross littering the view beside the road where they've been run over, "lifestylers" with bikes never unbolted from the back of their Ranger Rovers, and suchlike clowns.

Andre Jute
All the lampposts and trees in town are mine

On Saturday, August 2, 2014 1:22:37 AM UTC+1, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Andre Jute:

..the bike racks in my town... in which I've never seen a single bike parked because they're in entirely the wrong place, beaten hollow for stupidity.


They need to learn from the employers I have worked for here in the USA:

the proper placement for bike racks is out behind the building -

waaaaaay behind the building where the dumpsters are and as far away

from the entrance as possible.

Too many bikes can make a firm look like it operates out of Povertyville. Especially the sort of bike that's deliberately painted grunge to prevent theft.

Andre Jute

On Saturday, August 2, 2014 4:34:27 AM UTC-7, Andre Jute wrote:
On Saturday, August 2, 2014 2:14:12 AM UTC+1, Joy Beeson wrote:



...sadly, *extremely* rare that I find another bike in my

preferred spot.



Huh? When you find a good place to live and ride, you don't want to encourage too many strangers to come crowd you out. I thank the Lord at least once a week that we've made god's acre one of the most expensive places on earth to live. It serves well to stop hordes of unwanted cyclists from ruining my lanes by their presence. Especially unwanted are pelotons of roadies who think you should give way to them, commuters racing to be at the office, surly clowns so grimly determined on saving the world that they don't greet anyone, accident-prone "vehicular cyclists" who soon need a cross littering the view beside the road where they've been run over, "lifestylers" with bikes never unbolted from the back of their Ranger Rovers, and suchlike clowns.

Expensive areas are usually an attraction for cyclists, at least in the SF Bay Area. My home town in California is a tremendously expensive zip code, and it is crawling with cyclists, some serious and many "lifestylers." I haven't worked there for decades, so I don't know about commuters. I leave that up to SMS. It's the perfect place to commute -- gorgeous weather and flat down the middle (mountains on either side with great climbing -- Jobst's stomping ground).

Perfect towns in picturesque areas with wonderful riding probably number in the dozens in the U.S. Perfect meaning that the town has more than a bar and post office; it is not over-crowded or ungodly expensive, and it isn't three or four hours from the nearest airport. I think these sorts of towns exist in larger numbers in U.K./Europe. The U.S. is just too spread out, and towns that otherwise meet the bill are just too far from major transportation service.

-- Jay Beattie.

Per Frank Krygowski:
But I've
never thought of bike racks as being an important issue, even though I
have friends who do. It's very rare that I can't find _something_ to
lock my bike to.

Same here - and those things are usually more convenient/safer than the
bike racks.

Place where I do most of my work, second story offices are served by
metal staircases on the outside of the building with a landing halfway
up. Chain a bike to one of the pillars and you've even got protection
from rain by the landing.... and there are at least a couple of those
for each building. As far as I can see, they threw away the money they
spent of bike racks.
--
Pete Cresswell

On Saturday, August 2, 2014 8:06:06 AM UTC-7, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Frank Krygowski:

But I've

never thought of bike racks as being an important issue, even though I

have friends who do. It's very rare that I can't find _something_ to

lock my bike to.



Same here - and those things are usually more convenient/safer than the

bike racks.



Place where I do most of my work, second story offices are served by

metal staircases on the outside of the building with a landing halfway

up. Chain a bike to one of the pillars and you've even got protection

from rain by the landing.... and there are at least a couple of those

for each building. As far as I can see, they threw away the money they

spent of bike racks.

That's only true in low use areas. Not around he

http://s3-media2.fl.yelpcdn.com/bpho...0p9zjnbA/l.jpg

Another shot: http://tinyurl.com/m9krran

This is valet bicycle parking for the University hospital up on the hill. You park and take the tram. There is a little mobile bike shop on premises.

You can also park elsewhere in the same area. This is just one of the "bike corrals": http://tinyurl.com/kcj49ll

There are also racks up and down the street car tracks: http://tinyurl.com/lqd84v3

This is all parking for the University Hospital, so yes, you can ride your bike to the hospital around here, so long as you ride the tram or go to one of the clinics down on the flats.

I park in the basement of a business tower. If I'm late for work on a sunny day, I have to fight for a spot in a 25 foot long rack or a couple over-flow racks. The guys/gals with the expensive bikes put them in company storage rooms. In really bad weather, I can be one of only ten or twenty bikes. In any event, there's not enough stair railing to go around.

-- Jay Beattie.

-- Jay Beattie.