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#161
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Safety inflation
On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 09:27:45 -0700, sms
wrote: On 4/5/2021 10:04 PM, James wrote: snip So safety inflation, targeted policing and fewer people cycling regularly has resulted in more deaths and injuries. You're using "F-Logic" of correlation not causation. Do you claim that the reason that cycling rates are down (assuming the survey is accurate) is because of helmet requirements and the availability of high-lumen lights? Are there Australians that say, "screw the helmet requirement, we'll own the libs by giving up cycling and eating junk food and drinking Fosters?" In terms of children cycling, Section 3.2 of the study states "A great deal of cycling participation occurs among children, for whom much of this riding occurs off public roads in parks and backyards. Such trips are unlikely to be measured by any automatic or manual counting program. A change in childhood cycling participation will have significant effects on overall cycling participation but may not be detected as part of counting programs." You also can't really conclude that increases in injuries and fatalities are due to changes in cycling rates. In the U.S. cycling participation increased from 39.69 million in 2006 to 48.88 million in 2019 (2020 will show an enormous increase but it's an outlier and it remains to be seen if the increases will hold). Death rates for each year vary but don't correlate with the increase in cycling rates. Some age groups had increases while some age groups had decreases. The statistics don't specify the number of cyclists in each age group. The fatality rates for younger riders fell while the rates for older riders went up. Speculation is that more helmet laws for those under 18 helped reduce fatality rates in those groups, but this study doesn't prove that one way or another. Transportational cycling rates vary greatly based on factors unrelated to safety equipment. I first visited China in 1987 and cycling rates were extremely high. But that was because the only affordable alternative to cycling was generally a public bus. Cycling rates are way down now because all the large cities have extensive subway systems and because the increase in wealth means more people have cars (generally not used for commuting, but used for things like trips to Costco). Climate change has also affected cycling rates in some locations. In urban areas of the U.S. where cycling rates have increased by substantial amounts it's because of the large increase in cycling infrastructure. A big push in my area is "Safe Routes to School." We have terrible traffic jams around schools and a Catch-22 of parents driving crazily, which makes parents reluctant to allow their children to walk or bike to school. When one 8th grader e-mailed me about a problem near his middle school (cars driving on the shoulder where cyclists want to ride) I called the sheriff and asked for some enforcement in that area and they came out and wrote a slew of tickets but we can't hire enough deputies to patrol all the schools at peak times you need to put in traffic calming that physically prevents the bad behavior. But if the kids actually walked to school there wouldn't be all the traffic congestion around the schools. And, obesity among children would likely be much lower. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/obesity/index.htm "In the United States, the percentage of children and adolescents affected by obesity has more than tripled since the 1970s." https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html "Childhood obesity is a serious problem in the United States, putting children and adolescents at risk for poor health." https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity...s-in-children/ "Childhood obesity has been called “one of the most serious public health challenges of the 21st century,” and with good reason." -- Cheers, John B. |
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#162
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Eyc headlight problem
On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 10:03:02 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote: On 4/5/2021 10:32 PM, John B. wrote: On Mon, 5 Apr 2021 08:03:52 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie wrote: On Monday, April 5, 2021 at 1:53:37 AM UTC-7, Sepp Ruf wrote: jbeattie wrote: On Saturday, April 3, 2021 at 4:32:13 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/3/2021 12:57 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote: I think it was Jay Beattie who suggested the 800 lumen number. I merely stole it from him. I agree that 800 lumens probably too much. However, if such a high power dynamo product ever arrives on the market, there will surely be a lumens war among vendors to see who can advertise the largest number. At that time, 800 lumens will be reserved for purists and regulatory agencies. This is how a low and high beams, 400 dynamo, optional 400 extra battery lumens, conversion looks like: https://www.velomobilforum.de/forum/index.php?attachments/pxl_20210121_153046943-jpg.231317/ The beams look better in reality than they appear on youtube, but I cannot recommend the upgrade to Jay because he seems mortally afraid of further increasing his dynamo system's sunk cost (and because a Luxos not considered watertight). Mortally afraid is more like "it would be stupid." I have enough lights. Yep, safety inflation is real. Since when is being able to see "safety inflation"? Let's go for a night ride sometime, you and your bottle dyno and light, and me and my whatever light I chose. I'll wait for you at the bottom. On flat roads and the bike path through South Waterfront I can get by with a little flea-watt flasher or a clip on flashlight from 1968 -- or my old Wonder Light. But that is not where I do (or did pre DST) most of my riding. Frank is not acquainted with Portland's exotic rain-forest, mountain-bunny routes. If you are interested in a regular contest, ask a local, like your son, to take the dyno lamp. Make sure you use Specialized's prototype Zn-C matrix battery fork for extra power! Everything involves a descent, often on old broken concrete roads. I've done those on dyno only, and its inadequate except at a creeping pace. When will you finally invite a few fixie-riding antifa for a blissful summer of subbotnik road repairs?! Oh, wait, repairing and recreating historic concrete plates is horrendously "CO2 emissions intensive." If you aren't Al Gore, you simply won't get a permit. They don't re-do concrete, at least not often in town -- it gets asphalt. One of my routes was repaved in the last year or so, but I think some of neighborhoods don't want repaving because the broken concrete roads act as natural speed bumps. Two, essentially parallel streets: https://tinyurl.com/4n2dfzp8 and next door: https://tinyurl.com/kdrfm2t8 Look out for the manhole down the street: https://tinyurl.com/8a8w383f I have no idea why they paved one and not the other. I rarely go down those roads -- they're part of the return route from anywhere east, and my pre-plague commute home. I creep up them, LUXOS B blazing the way. This is where I see people's feet before the people -- or their dogs with lighted dog vests. -- Jay Beattie. I would comment that those are appallingly poorly built roads. It appears that they simply laid concrete over an existing, probably, dirt road. I would guess that the residents bitched about a dirt road and so the highway department slapped some concrete down and said "There! A paved road". Apparently that happened here. Our County Engineering office always has a booth at the annual county fair. One year I asked about that - about the process by which farm roads that were once gravel on dirt got paved. The young engineers staffing the booth looked at each other, then explained that long ago (maybe the 1950s or 1960s?) the guy who was county engineer got re-elected by suddenly paving a huge number of roads. But the "paving" was just dropping asphalt on top of existing gravel, with no preparation at all. I know our county is notorious for potholes. It's not unusual to follow an ex farm road across our county line and see a huge difference in pavement smoothness and quality. I'm not any sort of Civil Engineer but I worked for a while with a guy that built roads for a living and according to him the underlying foundation is the most important part of a road, particularly allowing for water drainage. He also said that these design criteria have been know since the days when the Romans were building roads :-) -- Cheers, John B. |
#163
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Safety inflation
On 4/6/2021 2:48 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 9:48:01 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/6/2021 10:50 AM, jbeattie wrote: On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 7:14:15 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/6/2021 1:04 AM, James wrote: On 5/4/21 2:16 am, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/4/2021 10:34 AM, jbeattie wrote: I'm not yelling at you although I do get tired of the incessant "safety inflation" rant when people buy something that makes it easier for them to ride... I think "safety inflation" is real. It applies not only to bicycles, it's pervasive in modern American society; I can probably give dozens of examples. I own books on related topics. But it certainly does apply to bicycles and bicycling, in many ways that have nothing to do with making it easier to ride. Again, I can give examples, although you can certainly think of them yourself. I don't know why this observation is so distasteful to you. In spite of the safety inflation of chilumen bike lights, the rampant policing of bicycle helmet wearing (in Melbourne/Australia) and shaming of people for not wearing hi vis clothing, wearing earbuds, or riding a little too fast in a shared pedestrian/cycling zone; Fatalities in the state of Victoria/Australia show an increasing trend (which is difficult to see where the annual fatality rate was approximately 8 a decade ago, but is now closer to 10), and the reported injury count has changed from about 300 annually to 500 over the same period, _and_ according to the National Cycling Participation Survey, regular cycling has lost about 200,000 people over a similar period. So safety inflation, targeted policing and fewer people cycling regularly has resulted in more deaths and injuries. Yay! You need to take the long view. The trend is good, in that when bicycling drops to ever lower numbers and bike injuries climb ever higher, people will finally accept that riding is incurably dangerous. It will become much easier to outlaw it entirely, thereby preventing those ten deaths per year. (And people must not be allowed to bring up comparative numbers of deaths or injuries due to motoring, pedestrian travel, cardio-vascular problems, etc. Those are off-topic!) Yes, soon you'll be driven underground and will have to ride a Peloton bike! Did you ever wonder why indoor bicycling is as popular as it is? No -- but if you're saying its because people are cowering in fear because of safety inflation, then you're out of touch with the gym scene. Let me interject that you seem a bit confused about what "safety inflation" is intended to mean. It's more complicated than simply labeling something as dangerous. It's a demand for ever more safety precautions, with the implication that what was recently considered adequately safe is now considered dangerous. If you want to discuss this, you might keep that in mind. There have always been people who feel riding a bike on a road is dangerous. Most of them are demonstrably wrong (although most probably wouldn't understand the demonstration). I'm sure that a large number of indoor cyclists (a group comprising much more than the "gym scene") are part of that fearful group. But that in itself is not necessarily evidence of safety _inflation_. Perhaps the charitable way to describe it is timidity caused by lack of knowledge. And a lot of what you call safety inflation is people just not wanting to deal with traffic. You're definitely missing the concept. Let's try a non-cycling example. I just borrowed a friend's new car to get takeout food for a shared dinner. Some of its features, compared to cars deemed safe enough 15 years ago: Instead of two airbags (once considered plenty) it has a constellation of airbags. Pretty much the entire interior inflates in case of a crash. It's safer than before. Instead of simple side view mirrors (once considered sufficient) it has mirrors with internal turn signal lights and a sensor system to tell if there's a car in a blind spot. It also has lights in the mirrors that come on any time a door is cracked. They're safer than before. Of course it has anti-lock brakes. Those were on some cars 15 years ago, but now they're on all cars. Because it's safer. It has "lane departure assist" or something like that. It nudges the car back in the lane if it "sees" you getting too close to a lane line. Somehow, we used to be safe enough without that. It has all wheel drive, even though it's not an off-road vehicle and never will be. I've always felt safe enough being driven by just two of the four wheels. But all wheel is now promoted, for "safety" reasons, on regular roads. It has a backup camera. Once upon a time, we used mirrors to back up. The camera is easier, of course - but it's also safer. I could probably go on, but here's my major point: There was a time when nobody thought a car was dangerous because it had only belts instead of air bags, simple mirrors without cameras, ordinary brakes, two wheel drive and steering that you had to operate yourself to stay in a highway lane. But now, at least for many people, that's just not safe enough. It's possible to give a myriad of other examples, not just cars or bicycles. Safety inflation is a fact. Again, I don't know why pointing this out offends you. -- - Frank Krygowski |
#164
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Safety inflation
On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 09:54:58 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote: On 4/5/2021 10:19 PM, John B. wrote: On Mon, 5 Apr 2021 11:13:52 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/4/2021 9:07 PM, Ralph Barone wrote: Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/4/2021 6:32 PM, John B. wrote: On Sun, 4 Apr 2021 12:16:46 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/4/2021 10:34 AM, jbeattie wrote: I'm not yelling at you although I do get tired of the incessant "safety inflation" rant when people buy something that makes it easier for them to ride... I think "safety inflation" is real. It applies not only to bicycles, it's pervasive in modern American society; I can probably give dozens of examples. I own books on related topics. But it certainly does apply to bicycles and bicycling, in many ways that have nothing to do with making it easier to ride. Again, I can give examples, although you can certainly think of them yourself. I don't know why this observation is so distasteful to you. A question comes to mind here. If special paths/roads/call 'em what you like, are necessary for the safety of cyclists isn't it proof that the public highways are dangerious for cyclists? That's what a certain cohort would have you believe. And it's generally false. Yes, there are dangerous roads; but most roads are quite safe for cycling. The question viewed from the opposite direction is "if public roads/etc., are safe for cyclists are special bike paths necessary?" Most such facilities are not necessary. Many are worse than normal roads. While not strictly “necessary”, car free facilities can certainly be more enjoyable to ride, in much the same way that active logging roads aren’t always the most enjoyable automobile experience. This “linear park” is near my house and I ride it often. Many other people also enjoy riding it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall...Regional_Trail Linear parks (AKA MUPs) can be very pleasant. One of my favorite 40 mile rides makes use of a seven mile trail along a river. That trail is especially nice because it's little known, goes from pretty much nowhere to nowhere, is usually very empty, and is scenic. It was built by a very charitable local family. There are a few others in our area. But regarding "safety inflation": I'm sure many of the people who haul their bikes on their cars to ride the MUPs back and forth do so because of "safety." However, our bike club members have FAR more crashes per mile traveled on those MUPs than on roads. I wish I'd kept formal notes over the years, but I remember hearing about concussion with unconsciousness (yes, despite helmet), dislocated shoulder, broken collar bone, broken shoulder, broken rib and many abrasions, bruises etc. all happening to competent road riders. Those were due to bollards, bad edges (i.e. riding off the pavement and being unable to steer back on), a slippery wood bridge, slippery mud across the pavement, pedestrians' random motion, a kid on a bike failing to stop, and so on. But the biggest underlying cause may be total relaxation - as in "I'm on a nice safe path, so I don't have to take care." I find it a bit strange that here, in a country where a bicycle is not only a sports device but also a basic transportation device, - visit any market in the morning - to the best of my knowledge there are no specifically bicycle lanes/paths/whatever. Two that are sort of bicycle lanes are (1) the maintenance road around a large park in the center of Bangkok which is used by runners, Tai Chi, bicycles and I don't know what else has a painted line marked bikes on one side, and (2) the maintenance road around the "New Airport" which is painted blue and marked bicycles. Of course being "maintenance" roads they are primarily for trucks :-) And yet, cyclists ride on public highways and, from reading the news, bike deaths are not really common. I think the difference is largely what a given society is used to. IOW, what's normal fashion. The U.S. (like Australia, I've been told) is a place where adult bicycling basically didn't exist for many decades. Then the first 1970s bike boom hit, suddenly there were millions of newbies trying something for the first time. I think the newbies were nervous about riding a bike where they had never seen a bike being ridden. And I think the "safety!" mavens were nervous for them, and nervous about actually having to slow down or change lanes when passing the never-before-seen adult bicyclists. And indeed, there were more deaths, topping out around 1000, IIRC. (Not that its a large number in a country with 700,000 heart deaths annually.) So the cries began for bike lanes, i.e. stripes painted on the roads. When bike deaths didn't drop to zero, we started hearing about special foam hats to save lives. (Those were recently demoted to "just to prevent skull fractures" to mask their failure). Then came garish clothing. And fancy lights, never turned off. Now we're hearing that the bike lanes have to be "protected," for example by hiding them behind parked cars where the cyclists can't be seen. And we're just getting the first calls for super-fancy, super-expensive intersections to fix the "Surprise!" problem when a bicyclist suddenly leaves the "protection" to cross an intersection. Oh, it gets safer every day! The fashionable cyclist now wears day-glo, a big foam hat, rides with blinding lights and never lets his tires touch asphalt that car tires also touch. As usual, I'm not very much into fashion. I'm not sure where Statista gets their numbers https://www.statista.com/statistics/...us-since-2006/ but the death rate for cyclists seem to be in the 0.001% range for most years. -- Cheers, John B. |
#165
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Safety inflation
On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 22:47:17 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote: On 4/6/2021 2:48 PM, jbeattie wrote: On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 9:48:01 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/6/2021 10:50 AM, jbeattie wrote: On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 7:14:15 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/6/2021 1:04 AM, James wrote: On 5/4/21 2:16 am, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/4/2021 10:34 AM, jbeattie wrote: I'm not yelling at you although I do get tired of the incessant "safety inflation" rant when people buy something that makes it easier for them to ride... I think "safety inflation" is real. It applies not only to bicycles, it's pervasive in modern American society; I can probably give dozens of examples. I own books on related topics. But it certainly does apply to bicycles and bicycling, in many ways that have nothing to do with making it easier to ride. Again, I can give examples, although you can certainly think of them yourself. I don't know why this observation is so distasteful to you. In spite of the safety inflation of chilumen bike lights, the rampant policing of bicycle helmet wearing (in Melbourne/Australia) and shaming of people for not wearing hi vis clothing, wearing earbuds, or riding a little too fast in a shared pedestrian/cycling zone; Fatalities in the state of Victoria/Australia show an increasing trend (which is difficult to see where the annual fatality rate was approximately 8 a decade ago, but is now closer to 10), and the reported injury count has changed from about 300 annually to 500 over the same period, _and_ according to the National Cycling Participation Survey, regular cycling has lost about 200,000 people over a similar period. So safety inflation, targeted policing and fewer people cycling regularly has resulted in more deaths and injuries. Yay! You need to take the long view. The trend is good, in that when bicycling drops to ever lower numbers and bike injuries climb ever higher, people will finally accept that riding is incurably dangerous. It will become much easier to outlaw it entirely, thereby preventing those ten deaths per year. (And people must not be allowed to bring up comparative numbers of deaths or injuries due to motoring, pedestrian travel, cardio-vascular problems, etc. Those are off-topic!) Yes, soon you'll be driven underground and will have to ride a Peloton bike! Did you ever wonder why indoor bicycling is as popular as it is? No -- but if you're saying its because people are cowering in fear because of safety inflation, then you're out of touch with the gym scene. Let me interject that you seem a bit confused about what "safety inflation" is intended to mean. It's more complicated than simply labeling something as dangerous. It's a demand for ever more safety precautions, with the implication that what was recently considered adequately safe is now considered dangerous. If you want to discuss this, you might keep that in mind. There have always been people who feel riding a bike on a road is dangerous. Most of them are demonstrably wrong (although most probably wouldn't understand the demonstration). I'm sure that a large number of indoor cyclists (a group comprising much more than the "gym scene") are part of that fearful group. But that in itself is not necessarily evidence of safety _inflation_. Perhaps the charitable way to describe it is timidity caused by lack of knowledge. And a lot of what you call safety inflation is people just not wanting to deal with traffic. You're definitely missing the concept. Let's try a non-cycling example. I just borrowed a friend's new car to get takeout food for a shared dinner. Some of its features, compared to cars deemed safe enough 15 years ago: Instead of two airbags (once considered plenty) it has a constellation of airbags. Pretty much the entire interior inflates in case of a crash. It's safer than before. Instead of simple side view mirrors (once considered sufficient) it has mirrors with internal turn signal lights and a sensor system to tell if there's a car in a blind spot. It also has lights in the mirrors that come on any time a door is cracked. They're safer than before. Of course it has anti-lock brakes. Those were on some cars 15 years ago, but now they're on all cars. Because it's safer. It has "lane departure assist" or something like that. It nudges the car back in the lane if it "sees" you getting too close to a lane line. Somehow, we used to be safe enough without that. It has all wheel drive, even though it's not an off-road vehicle and never will be. I've always felt safe enough being driven by just two of the four wheels. But all wheel is now promoted, for "safety" reasons, on regular roads. It has a backup camera. Once upon a time, we used mirrors to back up. The camera is easier, of course - but it's also safer. I could probably go on, but here's my major point: There was a time when nobody thought a car was dangerous because it had only belts instead of air bags, simple mirrors without cameras, ordinary brakes, two wheel drive and steering that you had to operate yourself to stay in a highway lane. But now, at least for many people, that's just not safe enough. It's possible to give a myriad of other examples, not just cars or bicycles. Safety inflation is a fact. Again, I don't know why pointing this out offends you. But Frank, safety sells :-) -- Cheers, John B. |
#166
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Safety inflation
On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 7:47:20 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 4/6/2021 2:48 PM, jbeattie wrote: On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 9:48:01 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/6/2021 10:50 AM, jbeattie wrote: On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 7:14:15 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/6/2021 1:04 AM, James wrote: On 5/4/21 2:16 am, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/4/2021 10:34 AM, jbeattie wrote: I'm not yelling at you although I do get tired of the incessant "safety inflation" rant when people buy something that makes it easier for them to ride... I think "safety inflation" is real. It applies not only to bicycles, it's pervasive in modern American society; I can probably give dozens of examples. I own books on related topics. But it certainly does apply to bicycles and bicycling, in many ways that have nothing to do with making it easier to ride. Again, I can give examples, although you can certainly think of them yourself. I don't know why this observation is so distasteful to you. In spite of the safety inflation of chilumen bike lights, the rampant policing of bicycle helmet wearing (in Melbourne/Australia) and shaming of people for not wearing hi vis clothing, wearing earbuds, or riding a little too fast in a shared pedestrian/cycling zone; Fatalities in the state of Victoria/Australia show an increasing trend (which is difficult to see where the annual fatality rate was approximately 8 a decade ago, but is now closer to 10), and the reported injury count has changed from about 300 annually to 500 over the same period, _and_ according to the National Cycling Participation Survey, regular cycling has lost about 200,000 people over a similar period.. So safety inflation, targeted policing and fewer people cycling regularly has resulted in more deaths and injuries. Yay! You need to take the long view. The trend is good, in that when bicycling drops to ever lower numbers and bike injuries climb ever higher, people will finally accept that riding is incurably dangerous. It will become much easier to outlaw it entirely, thereby preventing those ten deaths per year. (And people must not be allowed to bring up comparative numbers of deaths or injuries due to motoring, pedestrian travel, cardio-vascular problems, etc. Those are off-topic!) Yes, soon you'll be driven underground and will have to ride a Peloton bike! Did you ever wonder why indoor bicycling is as popular as it is? No -- but if you're saying its because people are cowering in fear because of safety inflation, then you're out of touch with the gym scene. Let me interject that you seem a bit confused about what "safety inflation" is intended to mean. It's more complicated than simply labeling something as dangerous. It's a demand for ever more safety precautions, with the implication that what was recently considered adequately safe is now considered dangerous. If you want to discuss this, you might keep that in mind. There have always been people who feel riding a bike on a road is dangerous. Most of them are demonstrably wrong (although most probably wouldn't understand the demonstration). I'm sure that a large number of indoor cyclists (a group comprising much more than the "gym scene") are part of that fearful group. But that in itself is not necessarily evidence of safety _inflation_. Perhaps the charitable way to describe it is timidity caused by lack of knowledge. And a lot of what you call safety inflation is people just not wanting to deal with traffic. You're definitely missing the concept. Let's try a non-cycling example. I just borrowed a friend's new car to get takeout food for a shared dinner. Some of its features, compared to cars deemed safe enough 15 years ago: Instead of two airbags (once considered plenty) it has a constellation of airbags. Pretty much the entire interior inflates in case of a crash. It's safer than before. Instead of simple side view mirrors (once considered sufficient) it has mirrors with internal turn signal lights and a sensor system to tell if there's a car in a blind spot. It also has lights in the mirrors that come on any time a door is cracked. They're safer than before. Of course it has anti-lock brakes. Those were on some cars 15 years ago, but now they're on all cars. Because it's safer. It has "lane departure assist" or something like that. It nudges the car back in the lane if it "sees" you getting too close to a lane line. Somehow, we used to be safe enough without that. It has all wheel drive, even though it's not an off-road vehicle and never will be. I've always felt safe enough being driven by just two of the four wheels. But all wheel is now promoted, for "safety" reasons, on regular roads. It has a backup camera. Once upon a time, we used mirrors to back up. The camera is easier, of course - but it's also safer. I could probably go on, but here's my major point: There was a time when nobody thought a car was dangerous because it had only belts instead of air bags, simple mirrors without cameras, ordinary brakes, two wheel drive and steering that you had to operate yourself to stay in a highway lane. But now, at least for many people, that's just not safe enough. It's possible to give a myriad of other examples, not just cars or bicycles. Safety inflation is a fact. Again, I don't know why pointing this out offends you. It doesn't offend me, except its tedious. You claim that bicycle facilities are "safety inflation." Basically any convenience from STI to discs is safety inflation. I'm sure padded bar-tape is safety inflation. And as someone who peeled people out of the insides of '50s and '60s cars, they were dangerous, and all that car safety inflation stuff you mention -- who cares. Be safe. I don't have a backup camera because one didn't come with my car, nor do I have a Garmin or any navigation -- or even BlueTooth for my phone. But people like and use those things, and that's fine. -- Jay Beattie. |
#167
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Safety inflation
On 7/4/21 4:48 am, jbeattie wrote:
No -- but if you're saying its because people are cowering in fear because of safety inflation, then you're out of touch with the gym scene. My brother went to spin classes with his wife, and he was a fearless three state old-guy DH champion and went to worlds. I've ridden many miles with him on the road. In fact, I rode with their spin instructor who placed in LoToJa. Strong guy -- one of the hardest centuries I've done in recent history. People have lots of social reasons for living the gym life . . . although some may be afraid of riding on the road. That has to be true statistically because some people were afraid of riding on the road even before flashers and helmets were even a thing. And a lot of what you call safety inflation is people just not wanting to deal with traffic. It sucks dealing with traffic, dangerous or not. When it comes to picking routes, I take the one with the least traffic. Who wants to breathe exhaust and deal with the homicidal PU maniacs in the 'burbs. No amount of lane-taking makes that pleasant. "Position one!" [cough, cough, gag . . . as diesel PU number four passes within an inch, leaving a cloud of smoke]. People may prefer Plan B, i.e., not riding on the road. https://cloudfront.traillink.com/pho..._148788_sc.jpg Or Plan C. https://i1.wp.com/buckyrides.com/wp-...00%2C900&ssl=1 That also includes Plan D, which is usually low traffic. https://farm1.staticflickr.com/280/2...85fc52d273.jpg That's a great ride. Which reminds me, I was riding on that road in the last picture (Marmot Rd.) with a friend of mine with whom I've been riding for 30 years. He now refuses to ride on Skyline because it is dangerous and refuses to ride the foot of SW Terwilliger -- preferring the adjacent path through the woods. https://tinyurl.com/85c27nx6 Totally reasonable fear. I now take the side path because climbing in the middle of a road with a blind turn and posted 45mph limit (actually 50) and twice the traffic of 20 years ago is objectively scary. Why bother. And to be honest, I usually skip the side path and go up a whole different road -- past the trestle house. https://tinyurl.com/vt3z3x3w Anyway, its not just a bunch of scared Nancies who want a facility or some option other than riding in traffic. Nope. Safety inflation is that single pivot rim brake calipers are not as powerful as dual pivot rim brake calipers, so to be safe you need dual pivot rim brake calipers - at least on the front. On the back the dual pivots are far too powerful. Next minute the rim brakes are crap and the only way to be safe is with the latest disc brake. Soon after, cable operated discs are no good and only hydraulic disc brakes will do. The next big thing supposed to save umpteen lives is anti lock brakes for bicycle disc brakes. If you don't upgrade to those, you'll fly over the bars and collide head first into a solid object and die - regardless of whether you've got the latest helmet with MIPS technology that is so much safer than last years EPS. Same seems to go for lights. Sure it was a pain to have big battery laden monstrosities that produced a candlepower for a short while, or a dynamo that blows globes when you ride down a hill at night. Lights are made with LEDs now that consume hardly any power to produce much more light with far better reliability than the old filament globes. But last year the be seen tail light that runs for 50 hours on a couple of AA batteries got replaced by the uber bright epileptic fit inducing rechargeable flasher that is the must have for safety - though there's no proof that a lack of brightness was the cause of anyone getting hit from behind last year. Headlights are similar. In many urban landscapes it is possible to ride most places without a light and still be able to see the road well enough at night (excluding being seen by drivers) just from street lights, but we have to have the latest 5000 chilumen headlight now - to be safe. Last year's 4000 chilumen light is just not safe enough. Of course you can only be truly safe in a hi vis reflective jacket, MIPS equipped helmet, helmet lights and cameras even in the daytime, and strobe lights under the saddle and on the handlebars, plus a 120dB bell, studded tyres and ABS disc brakes, etc. You get the picture. -- JS |
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Safety inflation
On 4/6/2021 8:40 PM, James wrote:
snip Nope.Â* Safety inflation is that single pivot rim brake calipers are not as powerful as dual pivot rim brake calipers, so to be safe you need dual pivot rim brake calipers - at least on the front.Â* On the back the dual pivots are far too powerful.Â* Next minute the rim brakes are crap and the only way to be safe is with the latest disc brake.Â* Soon after, cable operated discs are no good and only hydraulic disc brakes will do. The next big thing supposed to save umpteen lives is anti lock brakes for bicycle disc brakes.Â* If you don't upgrade to those, you'll fly over the bars and collide head first into a solid object and die - regardless of whether you've got the latest helmet with MIPS technology that is so much safer than last years EPS. Well the changes to brake technology were not just for safety, they were to increase reliability, reduce weight, make adjustments easier, and reduce cost. If you've ever ridden a bicycle with rod brakes that contacted the inner part of the rim you'd know what a pain they were and how much of an improvement brakes that contacted the sides of the rim were. The problem with those was that you really wanted your rim to be very true. Disk brakes don't require a wheel that's perfectly true. You left off drum brakes which were once popular on the rear wheels of tandems because of their large heat sinks. |
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Safety inflation
Op woensdag 7 april 2021 om 05:38:40 UTC+2 schreef jbeattie:
On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 7:47:20 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/6/2021 2:48 PM, jbeattie wrote: On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 9:48:01 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/6/2021 10:50 AM, jbeattie wrote: On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 7:14:15 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/6/2021 1:04 AM, James wrote: On 5/4/21 2:16 am, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/4/2021 10:34 AM, jbeattie wrote: I'm not yelling at you although I do get tired of the incessant "safety inflation" rant when people buy something that makes it easier for them to ride... I think "safety inflation" is real. It applies not only to bicycles, it's pervasive in modern American society; I can probably give dozens of examples. I own books on related topics. But it certainly does apply to bicycles and bicycling, in many ways that have nothing to do with making it easier to ride. Again, I can give examples, although you can certainly think of them yourself.. I don't know why this observation is so distasteful to you. In spite of the safety inflation of chilumen bike lights, the rampant policing of bicycle helmet wearing (in Melbourne/Australia) and shaming of people for not wearing hi vis clothing, wearing earbuds, or riding a little too fast in a shared pedestrian/cycling zone; Fatalities in the state of Victoria/Australia show an increasing trend (which is difficult to see where the annual fatality rate was approximately 8 a decade ago, but is now closer to 10), and the reported injury count has changed from about 300 annually to 500 over the same period, _and_ according to the National Cycling Participation Survey, regular cycling has lost about 200,000 people over a similar period. So safety inflation, targeted policing and fewer people cycling regularly has resulted in more deaths and injuries. Yay! You need to take the long view. The trend is good, in that when bicycling drops to ever lower numbers and bike injuries climb ever higher, people will finally accept that riding is incurably dangerous. It will become much easier to outlaw it entirely, thereby preventing those ten deaths per year. (And people must not be allowed to bring up comparative numbers of deaths or injuries due to motoring, pedestrian travel, cardio-vascular problems, etc. Those are off-topic!) Yes, soon you'll be driven underground and will have to ride a Peloton bike! Did you ever wonder why indoor bicycling is as popular as it is? No -- but if you're saying its because people are cowering in fear because of safety inflation, then you're out of touch with the gym scene. Let me interject that you seem a bit confused about what "safety inflation" is intended to mean. It's more complicated than simply labeling something as dangerous. It's a demand for ever more safety precautions, with the implication that what was recently considered adequately safe is now considered dangerous. If you want to discuss this, you might keep that in mind. There have always been people who feel riding a bike on a road is dangerous. Most of them are demonstrably wrong (although most probably wouldn't understand the demonstration). I'm sure that a large number of indoor cyclists (a group comprising much more than the "gym scene") are part of that fearful group. But that in itself is not necessarily evidence of safety _inflation_. Perhaps the charitable way to describe it is timidity caused by lack of knowledge. And a lot of what you call safety inflation is people just not wanting to deal with traffic. You're definitely missing the concept. Let's try a non-cycling example. I just borrowed a friend's new car to get takeout food for a shared dinner. Some of its features, compared to cars deemed safe enough 15 years ago: Instead of two airbags (once considered plenty) it has a constellation of airbags. Pretty much the entire interior inflates in case of a crash.. It's safer than before. Instead of simple side view mirrors (once considered sufficient) it has mirrors with internal turn signal lights and a sensor system to tell if there's a car in a blind spot. It also has lights in the mirrors that come on any time a door is cracked. They're safer than before. Of course it has anti-lock brakes. Those were on some cars 15 years ago, but now they're on all cars. Because it's safer. It has "lane departure assist" or something like that. It nudges the car back in the lane if it "sees" you getting too close to a lane line. Somehow, we used to be safe enough without that. It has all wheel drive, even though it's not an off-road vehicle and never will be. I've always felt safe enough being driven by just two of the four wheels. But all wheel is now promoted, for "safety" reasons, on regular roads. It has a backup camera. Once upon a time, we used mirrors to back up. The camera is easier, of course - but it's also safer. I could probably go on, but here's my major point: There was a time when nobody thought a car was dangerous because it had only belts instead of air bags, simple mirrors without cameras, ordinary brakes, two wheel drive and steering that you had to operate yourself to stay in a highway lane. But now, at least for many people, that's just not safe enough. It's possible to give a myriad of other examples, not just cars or bicycles. Safety inflation is a fact. Again, I don't know why pointing this out offends you. It doesn't offend me, except its tedious. You claim that bicycle facilities are "safety inflation." Basically any convenience from STI to discs is safety inflation. I'm sure padded bar-tape is safety inflation. And as someone who peeled people out of the insides of '50s and '60s cars, they were dangerous, and all that car safety inflation stuff you mention -- who cares. Be safe. I don't have a backup camera because one didn't come with my car, nor do I have a Garmin or any navigation -- or even BlueTooth for my phone. But people like and use those things, and that's fine. -- Jay Beattie. I like my backup camera. Is it safer? I don't know but it prevents unnecessary damage and you can see more than looking over your shoulder and the use of only mirrors. Navagation is in practice definiately safer compared to looking at a paper map or cue card when driving alone. Phone use should be banned in a car. All the assist aids can make people lazy but they make it safer for some people. I turned of most of them in my care. Lou |
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Eyc headlight problem
On 4/6/2021 9:43 PM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 10:03:02 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/5/2021 10:32 PM, John B. wrote: On Mon, 5 Apr 2021 08:03:52 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie wrote: On Monday, April 5, 2021 at 1:53:37 AM UTC-7, Sepp Ruf wrote: jbeattie wrote: On Saturday, April 3, 2021 at 4:32:13 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/3/2021 12:57 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote: I think it was Jay Beattie who suggested the 800 lumen number. I merely stole it from him. I agree that 800 lumens probably too much. However, if such a high power dynamo product ever arrives on the market, there will surely be a lumens war among vendors to see who can advertise the largest number. At that time, 800 lumens will be reserved for purists and regulatory agencies. This is how a low and high beams, 400 dynamo, optional 400 extra battery lumens, conversion looks like: https://www.velomobilforum.de/forum/index.php?attachments/pxl_20210121_153046943-jpg.231317/ The beams look better in reality than they appear on youtube, but I cannot recommend the upgrade to Jay because he seems mortally afraid of further increasing his dynamo system's sunk cost (and because a Luxos not considered watertight). Mortally afraid is more like "it would be stupid." I have enough lights. Yep, safety inflation is real. Since when is being able to see "safety inflation"? Let's go for a night ride sometime, you and your bottle dyno and light, and me and my whatever light I chose. I'll wait for you at the bottom. On flat roads and the bike path through South Waterfront I can get by with a little flea-watt flasher or a clip on flashlight from 1968 -- or my old Wonder Light. But that is not where I do (or did pre DST) most of my riding. Frank is not acquainted with Portland's exotic rain-forest, mountain-bunny routes. If you are interested in a regular contest, ask a local, like your son, to take the dyno lamp. Make sure you use Specialized's prototype Zn-C matrix battery fork for extra power! Everything involves a descent, often on old broken concrete roads. I've done those on dyno only, and its inadequate except at a creeping pace. When will you finally invite a few fixie-riding antifa for a blissful summer of subbotnik road repairs?! Oh, wait, repairing and recreating historic concrete plates is horrendously "CO2 emissions intensive." If you aren't Al Gore, you simply won't get a permit. They don't re-do concrete, at least not often in town -- it gets asphalt. One of my routes was repaved in the last year or so, but I think some of neighborhoods don't want repaving because the broken concrete roads act as natural speed bumps. Two, essentially parallel streets: https://tinyurl.com/4n2dfzp8 and next door: https://tinyurl.com/kdrfm2t8 Look out for the manhole down the street: https://tinyurl.com/8a8w383f I have no idea why they paved one and not the other. I rarely go down those roads -- they're part of the return route from anywhere east, and my pre-plague commute home. I creep up them, LUXOS B blazing the way. This is where I see people's feet before the people -- or their dogs with lighted dog vests. -- Jay Beattie. I would comment that those are appallingly poorly built roads. It appears that they simply laid concrete over an existing, probably, dirt road. I would guess that the residents bitched about a dirt road and so the highway department slapped some concrete down and said "There! A paved road". Apparently that happened here. Our County Engineering office always has a booth at the annual county fair. One year I asked about that - about the process by which farm roads that were once gravel on dirt got paved. The young engineers staffing the booth looked at each other, then explained that long ago (maybe the 1950s or 1960s?) the guy who was county engineer got re-elected by suddenly paving a huge number of roads. But the "paving" was just dropping asphalt on top of existing gravel, with no preparation at all. I know our county is notorious for potholes. It's not unusual to follow an ex farm road across our county line and see a huge difference in pavement smoothness and quality. I'm not any sort of Civil Engineer but I worked for a while with a guy that built roads for a living and according to him the underlying foundation is the most important part of a road, particularly allowing for water drainage. He also said that these design criteria have been know since the days when the Romans were building roads :-) Many of which are still in use. Roman engineering is not fully appreciated; roads, yes but especially their concrete: https://www.history.com/news/the-sec...roman-concrete -- Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org/ Open every day since 1 April, 1971 |
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