Will e-bikes expand cycling?

On 07/11/2019 6:53 a.m., Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Thursday, 7 November 2019 06:18:18 UTC-5, Duane wrote:
Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Thursday, 7 November 2019 01:34:16 UTC-5, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 6 Nov 2019 20:09:37 -0800 (PST), Sir Ridesalot
wrote:

On Wednesday, 6 November 2019 20:01:53 UTC-5, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 6 Nov 2019 12:28:23 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 11/6/2019 2:47 AM, John B. wrote:
Now take your kitchen bread toaster to
a repairman... 2 hours at $30, plus tax.... You can buy a shiny new
one cheaper. A LOT cheaper :-)

That's true. Yet I have almost a compulsion about fixing things. There's
something built into me that hates the waste of throwing away something
repairable.

I'm retired, I have the time and I often learn a little something by
fixing things. If I save myself even $10 by an hour's work, I'm happy.

I'm much the same but so much "stuff" is now built with no thought of
it being repairable. A toaster with bent over tabs holding it
together. Straight the tabs and they break off :-( And where can you
get the heating coils?

I had a car air conditioner compressor start to leak and the shop says
change the compressor. I say, but it is only the seals leaking, and
the shop says can't get the seals.

I suppose from the shop's point of view it is a 30 minute project and
they get the profit for the new compressor and perhaps they are right.
What would it cost to remove the compressor, disassemble it, replace
the seals, test it for leakage in some manner and reinstall it?

As you say, now retired, like to mess with things. But the frustration
of breaking the tabs off the toaster and not being able to reassemble
it sort of takes all the fun out of things.
--
cheers,

John B.

I see this happening around here where are charging $40.00 for labour.
With a lot of bicycle things it's cheaper to replace them than to get a
shop to try and fix them.

Well, a guy got a $4,000 bicycle, as someone here bragged, shouldn't
mind paying a paltry $40 to have his bike fixed :-)


I'm really glad that all my components are user serviceable.

Cheers
--
cheers,

John B.

Perhaps the guy who bought the $4,000.00 bicycle doesn't have anything
left over to pay for anything else? Maybe he's still making payments on the bicycle. LOL


Don’t remember anyone here bragging about a $4000 bike.

Or perhaps the guy is just telling us things he wishes were true?


Cheers


Tom mentioned his.

Cheers


Yeah, mentioned it but I don't think he was bragging about it.

On 11/6/2019 3:29 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 11/6/2019 5:16 PM, Bertrand wrote:
But despite decades of gains in percentage of helmet use,
bicyclist concussions have risen, not fallen, over 60% in
fifteen years or so. That increase completely outstrips
any purported rise in riding levels.

Maybe the number of REPORTED concussions has gone up, but
that doesn't say much about the actual number of
concussions.Â* In the U.S., at least, there's much more
awareness now of concussions, and they're diagnosed much
more frequently than in the past (we used to just say
someone "got his bell rung" or "got the wind knocked out of
him").Â* Look at how many more high school and pro athletes
are now diagnosed with concussions.Â* So I don't think an
increase in reported bicycle concussions leads to any valid
conclusion about helmet effectiveness. You'd need, for a
start, to compare cycling to other sports.

+1

Correct. Taking one piece of data, totally out of context, is unhelpful
but unfortunately it's a common occurrence--sometimes done
intentionally, sometimes done due to ignorance.

The number of actual concussions overall could have gone down as well,
since with better protective equipment you don't see reports of things
that never happened. Counting ER visits is a particularly poor way of
judging the effect of ER visits.

Asking ER doctors and nurses about the comparative severity of injuries
of the patients they attend to, based on whether or not they were using
protective equipment, has at least some validity though there's a large
subset that they never see because the protective equipment has made it
unnecessary.

Unsurprisingly, medical professionals are big proponents of bicycle
helmets, and they probably aren't being paid by the helmet industry for
their views. They aren't out there saying dumb things to discourage
helmet use either, i.e. calling them "foam hats." Our resident AHZs
could learn something if they were willing to look at the facts.

On 11/7/2019 12:31 AM, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 6 Nov 2019 19:14:31 -0800 (PST), Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On Wednesday, November 6, 2019 at 8:01:53 PM UTC-5, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 6 Nov 2019 12:28:23 -0500, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On 11/6/2019 2:47 AM, John B. wrote:
Now take your kitchen bread toaster to
a repairman... 2 hours at $30, plus tax.... You can buy a shiny new
one cheaper. A LOT cheaper :-)

That's true. Yet I have almost a compulsion about fixing things. There's
something built into me that hates the waste of throwing away something
repairable.

I'm retired, I have the time and I often learn a little something by
fixing things. If I save myself even $10 by an hour's work, I'm happy.

I'm much the same but so much "stuff" is now built with no thought of
it being repairable. A toaster with bent over tabs holding it
together. Straight the tabs and they break off :-( And where can you
get the heating coils?

FWIW, I was once (in my low-income days) given a nice old toaster that had a
broken heating coil. I was able to get the wire to fuse together again. I opened
the device, unwound a coil, twisted the ends together and coated it with (IIRC)
borax powder to use as a flux; then turned on the toaster. It heated and welded
back together. We used that toaster for years.

Unfortunately, I tried the same trick more recently on another toaster and it
failed. I don't know what made the difference.


I read that today's toasters heating coils are nichrome wire which is
an alloy of nickel and chromium and one article recommended using
silver solder, and flux, to join nichrome wire.
--
cheers,

John B.


We use stainless spoke sections, no braze.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On 11/6/2019 7:01 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 11/6/2019 6:16 PM, Bertrand wrote:
But despite decades of gains in percentage of helmet use, bicyclist
concussions have risen, not fallen, over 60% in fifteen years or so. That
increase completely outstrips any purported rise in riding levels.

Maybe the number of REPORTED concussions has gone up, but that doesn't say
much about the actual number of concussions.Â* In the U.S., at least, there's
much more awareness now of concussions, and they're diagnosed much more
frequently than in the past (we used to just say someone "got his bell rung"
or "got the wind knocked out of him").Â* Look at how many more high school and
pro athletes are now diagnosed with concussions. So I don't think an increase
in reported bicycle concussions leads to any valid conclusion about helmet
effectiveness. You'd need, for a start, to compare cycling to other sports.

Yes, that's a valid possibility. But a 60% increase is huge. If helmets are
really as effective as claimed, would you really expect the needle to move that
strongly in the wrong direction?

I'm not going to try to do a rigorous analysis, but a quick Google search found:

The Rise of Concussions in the Adolescent Population
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989377/
"Overall, there was a 60% increase in concussion incidence from 2007 to 2014"

Concussion Statistics
https://mmcconcussiontests.com/statistics/
"From 1990 to 2014, the annual rate of soccer-related concussions per 10,000
children increased by 1,596%"
"Between 2010 and 2015, there was a 71% increase in concussion diagnoses for
ages 10 through 19"

On Thursday, November 7, 2019 at 4:40:30 PM UTC, Bertrand wrote:
On 11/6/2019 7:01 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 11/6/2019 6:16 PM, Bertrand wrote:
But despite decades of gains in percentage of helmet use, bicyclist
concussions have risen, not fallen, over 60% in fifteen years or so. That
increase completely outstrips any purported rise in riding levels.

Maybe the number of REPORTED concussions has gone up, but that doesn't say
much about the actual number of concussions.Â* In the U.S., at least, there's
much more awareness now of concussions, and they're diagnosed much more
frequently than in the past (we used to just say someone "got his bell rung"
or "got the wind knocked out of him").Â* Look at how many more high school and
pro athletes are now diagnosed with concussions. So I don't think an increase
in reported bicycle concussions leads to any valid conclusion about helmet
effectiveness. You'd need, for a start, to compare cycling to other sports.

Yes, that's a valid possibility. But a 60% increase is huge. If helmets are
really as effective as claimed, would you really expect the needle to move that
strongly in the wrong direction?

I'm not going to try to do a rigorous analysis, but a quick Google search found:

The Rise of Concussions in the Adolescent Population
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989377/
"Overall, there was a 60% increase in concussion incidence from 2007 to 2014"

Concussion Statistics
https://mmcconcussiontests.com/statistics/
"From 1990 to 2014, the annual rate of soccer-related concussions per 10,000
children increased by 1,596%"
"Between 2010 and 2015, there was a 71% increase in concussion diagnoses for
ages 10 through 19"

This looks to me like the sort of "awareness bias" already canvassed higher up the thread. This careless sentence from the report you link:
""From 1990 to 2014, the annual rate of soccer-related concussions per 10,000 children increased by 1,596%"
can mean that concussions from playing soccer increased 16 times per 10000 soccer players, which could be a genuinely worrying number, or that concussions increased 16 times among soccer players alone per 10000 children regardless of whether all 10000 played soccer or not, which would a truly alarming event, or it could mean only that there was some kind of awareness drive about concussions with perhaps underreporting in earlier times, in which case the bare multiple of 16 may not be alarming at all. It could even mean that the level of soccer played by schoolboys simply became more competitive, with more injuries (though 16x concussions would have to be symptomatic of another reason -- the accession of a large group of blind referees who couldn't be kept out under discrimination laws?)

Not arguing for or against any of these; just remarking on the openings to error consequent upon the lack of precision in what one presumes is a "scientific" document.

Ande Jute
Imprecision too is a message

On 11/7/2019 11:40 AM, Bertrand wrote:
On 11/6/2019 7:01 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 11/6/2019 6:16 PM, Bertrand wrote:
But despite decades of gains in percentage of helmet use, bicyclist
concussions have risen, not fallen, over 60% in fifteen years or so.
That increase completely outstrips any purported rise in riding levels.

Maybe the number of REPORTED concussions has gone up, but that
doesn't say much about the actual number of concussions.Â* In the
U.S., at least, there's much more awareness now of concussions, and
they're diagnosed much more frequently than in the past (we used to
just say someone "got his bell rung" or "got the wind knocked out of
him").Â* Look at how many more high school and pro athletes are now
diagnosed with concussions. So I don't think an increase in reported
bicycle concussions leads to any valid conclusion about helmet
effectiveness. You'd need, for a start, to compare cycling to other
sports.

Yes, that's a valid possibility. But a 60% increase is huge. If
helmets are really as effective as claimed, would you really expect
the needle to move that strongly in the wrong direction?

I'm not going to try to do a rigorous analysis, but a quick Google
search found:

The Rise of Concussions in the Adolescent Population
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989377/
"Overall, there was a 60% increase in concussion incidence from 2007 to
2014"

Concussion Statistics
https://mmcconcussiontests.com/statistics/
"From 1990 to 2014, the annual rate of soccer-related concussions per
10,000 children increased by 1,596%"
"Between 2010 and 2015, there was a 71% increase in concussion diagnoses
for ages 10 through 19"

Regarding soccer: While I don't know for sure, ISTM that school-age
soccer exploded in popularity over those years. More exposure would be
expected to yield more risk. Instead of "per 10,000 children," it would
be good to know "per 10,000 soccer players."

About the other two: 60% increase or 71% increase for all kids? If the
increase was just 30% for kids on bicycles, you'd have evidence that the
rise in bike helmets was doing something. But since the rise in bike
concussions matches those (it's actually more than 60%), it seems to be
evidence the helmets are not reducing concussions.

And again, fatality data is more robust in several ways. But bike
fatalities have paralleled pedestrian fatalities for a long, long time,
with no evidence of a drop caused by the uptake of helmets.

(Ped fatalities are always much higher than bike fatalities, and they
are higher per mile traveled as well.)


--
- Frank Krygowski

On 11/7/2019 8:47 AM, sms wrote:
On 11/6/2019 3:29 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 11/6/2019 5:16 PM, Bertrand wrote:
But despite decades of gains in percentage of helmet use,
bicyclist concussions have risen, not fallen, over 60% in
fifteen years or so. That increase completely outstrips
any purported rise in riding levels.

Maybe the number of REPORTED concussions has gone up, but
that doesn't say much about the actual number of
concussions.Â* In the U.S., at least, there's much more
awareness now of concussions, and they're diagnosed much
more frequently than in the past (we used to just say
someone "got his bell rung" or "got the wind knocked out of
him").Â* Look at how many more high school and pro athletes
are now diagnosed with concussions.Â* So I don't think an
increase in reported bicycle concussions leads to any valid
conclusion about helmet effectiveness. You'd need, for a
start, to compare cycling to other sports.

+1

Correct. Taking one piece of data, totally out of context, is unhelpful
but unfortunately it's a common occurrence--sometimes done
intentionally, sometimes done due to ignorance.

The number of actual concussions overall could have gone down as well,
since with better protective equipment you don't see reports of things
that never happened. Counting ER visits is a particularly poor way of
judging the effect of ER visits.

Asking ER doctors and nurses about the comparative severity of injuries
of the patients they attend to, based on whether or not they were using
protective equipment, has at least some validity though there's a large
subset that they never see because the protective equipment has made it
unnecessary.

We have in our family a recently retired emergency room physician. He
practiced for many years in a state that imposed a mandatory helmet law
for kids. He says rather emphatically that the law made no difference.

Unsurprisingly, medical professionals are big proponents of bicycle
helmets, and they probably aren't being paid by the helmet industry for
their views. They aren't out there saying dumb things to discourage
helmet use either, i.e. calling them "foam hats." Our resident AHZs
could learn something if they were willing to look at the facts.

I believe I've posted more facts and data than anyone here on this issue.

But yes, it's true that there are medicos who have jumped on the MHL
bandwagon, to one degree or another. I've asked several, and every one
has admitted that bicyclists comprise a tiny, tiny percentage of the TBI
cases they've seen. None has ever given a cogent response as to why so
much nagging should be directed at bicyclists, when many other
activities cause so much more TBI.

And to be clear, I've known and still know doctors who are helmet skeptics.

--
- Frank Krygowski

Frank Krygowski writes:

On 11/7/2019 8:47 AM, sms wrote:
On 11/6/2019 3:29 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 11/6/2019 5:16 PM, Bertrand wrote:
But despite decades of gains in percentage of helmet use,
bicyclist concussions have risen, not fallen, over 60% in
fifteen years or so. That increase completely outstrips
any purported rise in riding levels.

Maybe the number of REPORTED concussions has gone up, but
that doesn't say much about the actual number of
concussions.Â* In the U.S., at least, there's much more
awareness now of concussions, and they're diagnosed much
more frequently than in the past (we used to just say
someone "got his bell rung" or "got the wind knocked out of
him").Â* Look at how many more high school and pro athletes
are now diagnosed with concussions.Â* So I don't think an
increase in reported bicycle concussions leads to any valid
conclusion about helmet effectiveness. You'd need, for a
start, to compare cycling to other sports.

+1

Correct. Taking one piece of data, totally out of context, is
unhelpful but unfortunately it's a common occurrence--sometimes done
intentionally, sometimes done due to ignorance.

The number of actual concussions overall could have gone down as
well, since with better protective equipment you don't see reports
of things that never happened. Counting ER visits is a particularly
poor way of judging the effect of ER visits.

Asking ER doctors and nurses about the comparative severity of
injuries of the patients they attend to, based on whether or not
they were using protective equipment, has at least some validity
though there's a large subset that they never see because the
protective equipment has made it unnecessary.

We have in our family a recently retired emergency room physician. He
practiced for many years in a state that imposed a mandatory helmet
law for kids. He says rather emphatically that the law made no
difference.

Unsurprisingly, medical professionals are big proponents of bicycle
helmets, and they probably aren't being paid by the helmet industry
for their views. They aren't out there saying dumb things to
discourage helmet use either, i.e. calling them "foam hats." Our
resident AHZs could learn something if they were willing to look at
the facts.

I believe I've posted more facts and data than anyone here on this issue.

But yes, it's true that there are medicos who have jumped on the MHL
bandwagon, to one degree or another. I've asked several, and every one
has admitted that bicyclists comprise a tiny, tiny percentage of the
TBI cases they've seen. None has ever given a cogent response as to
why so much nagging should be directed at bicyclists, when many other
activities cause so much more TBI.

And to be clear, I've known and still know doctors who are helmet skeptics.

Are they openly skeptical when talking to patients, during a consultation?

On Thursday, November 7, 2019 at 5:04:16 PM UTC-5, Radey Shouman wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:

On 11/7/2019 8:47 AM, sms wrote:
On 11/6/2019 3:29 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 11/6/2019 5:16 PM, Bertrand wrote:
But despite decades of gains in percentage of helmet use,
bicyclist concussions have risen, not fallen, over 60% in
fifteen years or so. That increase completely outstrips
any purported rise in riding levels.

Maybe the number of REPORTED concussions has gone up, but
that doesn't say much about the actual number of
concussions.Â* In the U.S., at least, there's much more
awareness now of concussions, and they're diagnosed much
more frequently than in the past (we used to just say
someone "got his bell rung" or "got the wind knocked out of
him").Â* Look at how many more high school and pro athletes
are now diagnosed with concussions.Â* So I don't think an
increase in reported bicycle concussions leads to any valid
conclusion about helmet effectiveness. You'd need, for a
start, to compare cycling to other sports.

+1

Correct. Taking one piece of data, totally out of context, is
unhelpful but unfortunately it's a common occurrence--sometimes done
intentionally, sometimes done due to ignorance.

The number of actual concussions overall could have gone down as
well, since with better protective equipment you don't see reports
of things that never happened. Counting ER visits is a particularly
poor way of judging the effect of ER visits.

Asking ER doctors and nurses about the comparative severity of
injuries of the patients they attend to, based on whether or not
they were using protective equipment, has at least some validity
though there's a large subset that they never see because the
protective equipment has made it unnecessary.

We have in our family a recently retired emergency room physician. He
practiced for many years in a state that imposed a mandatory helmet
law for kids. He says rather emphatically that the law made no
difference.

Unsurprisingly, medical professionals are big proponents of bicycle
helmets, and they probably aren't being paid by the helmet industry
for their views. They aren't out there saying dumb things to
discourage helmet use either, i.e. calling them "foam hats." Our
resident AHZs could learn something if they were willing to look at
the facts.

I believe I've posted more facts and data than anyone here on this issue.

But yes, it's true that there are medicos who have jumped on the MHL
bandwagon, to one degree or another. I've asked several, and every one
has admitted that bicyclists comprise a tiny, tiny percentage of the
TBI cases they've seen. None has ever given a cogent response as to
why so much nagging should be directed at bicyclists, when many other
activities cause so much more TBI.

And to be clear, I've known and still know doctors who are helmet skeptics.

Are they openly skeptical when talking to patients, during a consultation?

Oddly enough, I've never been in the examination room when a doctor has been
talking with a patient - except my kids and my wife.

But our doctors have all known we were cyclists. None ever mentioned helmets,
IIRC.

Yours?

- Frank Krygowski

On Thu, 7 Nov 2019 15:45:57 -0800 (PST), Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On Thursday, November 7, 2019 at 5:04:16 PM UTC-5, Radey Shouman wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:

On 11/7/2019 8:47 AM, sms wrote:
On 11/6/2019 3:29 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 11/6/2019 5:16 PM, Bertrand wrote:
But despite decades of gains in percentage of helmet use,
bicyclist concussions have risen, not fallen, over 60% in
fifteen years or so. That increase completely outstrips
any purported rise in riding levels.

Maybe the number of REPORTED concussions has gone up, but
that doesn't say much about the actual number of
concussions.* In the U.S., at least, there's much more
awareness now of concussions, and they're diagnosed much
more frequently than in the past (we used to just say
someone "got his bell rung" or "got the wind knocked out of
him").* Look at how many more high school and pro athletes
are now diagnosed with concussions.* So I don't think an
increase in reported bicycle concussions leads to any valid
conclusion about helmet effectiveness. You'd need, for a
start, to compare cycling to other sports.

+1

Correct. Taking one piece of data, totally out of context, is
unhelpful but unfortunately it's a common occurrence--sometimes done
intentionally, sometimes done due to ignorance.

The number of actual concussions overall could have gone down as
well, since with better protective equipment you don't see reports
of things that never happened. Counting ER visits is a particularly
poor way of judging the effect of ER visits.

Asking ER doctors and nurses about the comparative severity of
injuries of the patients they attend to, based on whether or not
they were using protective equipment, has at least some validity
though there's a large subset that they never see because the
protective equipment has made it unnecessary.

We have in our family a recently retired emergency room physician. He
practiced for many years in a state that imposed a mandatory helmet
law for kids. He says rather emphatically that the law made no
difference.

Unsurprisingly, medical professionals are big proponents of bicycle
helmets, and they probably aren't being paid by the helmet industry
for their views. They aren't out there saying dumb things to
discourage helmet use either, i.e. calling them "foam hats." Our
resident AHZs could learn something if they were willing to look at
the facts.

I believe I've posted more facts and data than anyone here on this issue.

But yes, it's true that there are medicos who have jumped on the MHL
bandwagon, to one degree or another. I've asked several, and every one
has admitted that bicyclists comprise a tiny, tiny percentage of the
TBI cases they've seen. None has ever given a cogent response as to
why so much nagging should be directed at bicyclists, when many other
activities cause so much more TBI.

And to be clear, I've known and still know doctors who are helmet skeptics.

Are they openly skeptical when talking to patients, during a consultation?

Oddly enough, I've never been in the examination room when a doctor has been
talking with a patient - except my kids and my wife.

But our doctors have all known we were cyclists. None ever mentioned helmets,
IIRC.

Yours?

- Frank Krygowski

I suggest that doctors tend to be rather polite and seldom tell a
patient that chicken brains rubbed on a sore spot will not cure it.
When Fabio Casartelli crashed during the TDF he was traveling at an
estimated 55 mph and went head first into a concrete pylon. Someone
asked the doctor whether wearing a helmet might have saved him and the
doctor replied, "it might have". And if he'd been wearing his St.
Christopher medallion it might have saved him too.
--
cheers,

John B.