Handlebar rotation

On 2017-07-10 19:08, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 10 Jul 2017 14:10:20 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-07-10 13:48, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/10/2017 3:41 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-10 10:51, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/10/2017 1:20 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-09 11:16, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/9/2017 10:51 AM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-09 07:13, Frank Krygowski wrote:

But second, your statement wasn't even a good deflection. By
FAR, the
main cause of bicycling injury is simply falling off.


Proof, please.

Well, one respected source is _Effective Cycling_ by John Forester,
MIT
Press. Page 260 of the 6th edition says 50% of bike injuries are
due to
falls, vs. 17% due to car-bike crashes. (17% are also due to
bike-bike
crashes.) For "serious" injuries, it's 36% due to falls, 26% car-bike
crashes and 13% bike-bike crashes.


Forester is most certain not a respected source for people like myself
(or any other cyclist I personally know).

Of course you don't respect him. I already know you disagree with
anything he says, simply because it disagrees with your own
preconceptions.


With my experience, and that of most others I know.


What data do you have?


Lost. For example this:

https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentra...1-2458-14-1205



And from that link: "The study population consisted of adult (?19
years) residents of Toronto and Vancouver who were injured while riding
a bicycle in the city and treated within 24 hours in the emergency
departments of the hospitals listed above..."

So you're not looking at all injuries. You're looking at only those
injuries whom someone chose to take to the ER. It excludes the vast
majority of bike injuries precisely because the vast majority of bike
injuries are minor. (And Teschke is notorious for carefully selecting
data that can be used to promote segregated facilities for cyclists.)


The data is similar for other studies.

Which?


I am not going to repeat all that. Plus you won't even get it if listed
a dozen.


List your last few bike injuries, Joerg. Tell us what they were and how
they happened, as I did upthread. Don't omit the minor ones.


I do not keep a log of any minor ones. I have listed the serious
accidents in this thread. Mine usually involved mistakes or reckless
action by car drivers.

But that's exactly the point! You claimed that most bike injuries are
caused by car-bike crashes. I said that was patently false.


Read the study in the link again.


... By far,
most bike injuries are very minor and caused by essentially falling off
the bike. (To give more detail: most are due to problems with the
surface, like slipping on gravel, hitting a terrible pothole, hitting a
slot in the road, etc.)

The most common bike injury is listed in hospital data as "minor injury
to lower extremity." The bulk of those are, literally, skinned knees. I
person might get that from a car-bike crash, but almost all of them come
from falling off.

Have I heard of a "fall to avoid collision?" Not from the experience of
anybody I know.

Sorry to say, then you don't seem to know much about bicycling.

:-) The cycling organizations that recruited me for various instructor,
board member or other officer positions disagreed with you.



I am glad I am not a member of those.


What you really mean is, your beliefs and my beliefs differ.

Now, I know that I've gone through four separate training or
certification programs regarding cycling education. I've contributed,
through pre-production editing, to two well-respected books on cycling
education. I've written many articles for cycling publications, some of
which have been reprinted in multiple states and countries. I've
corresponded with and talked in person with people who are nationally
recognized as cycling experts. As recently as ten days ago, one of them
asked permission to use some of my writing (a review of a bike-related
academic paper). I bike commuted for many decades until I retired. I've
done countless bike trips and tours from overnight to summer-long. I've
ridden in something like a dozen countries. I've held multiple offices
in my bike club, and for seven or eight years ran our century ride when
it won a national award. I've done many century-plus rides, including
one double century.


Are you done with boasting now?


Instead of going further with that, let me stop and ask your
qualifications.


Over 100k miles of experience. I don't give a hoot about some fancy
"certification".

100 thousand miles of experience? Can you document that, or is this
merely an imaginary number.


I used to have mechanical speedometers for many years. Some years not
but back in the 70's, 80's and early 90's I rode about 10000km or a
little over 6000mi per year. Even without a speedometer experienced
cyclists can tell just by the number of rear tires they go through.

Just getting to my job at the university was 10mi round trip and I never
did that by car. Then in the evenings we routinely met at a pub or
restaurant in Masstricht which was 20mi in the other direction, so
another 40mi round trip. On the weekend extensive rides through eastern
Belgium which is not all flat and easy terrain. Including offroad on the
road bike which is why I am surprised that the frame still lives after
35 years. Lots of PM. I am the same way with cars which last me almost
forever.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On 2017-07-11 07:16, wrote:
On Monday, July 10, 2017 at 12:41:36 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:

No, but they can elect not to cross roadways outside of traffic
lights and then walking is very safe. Unless a terrorist or a drunk
plows into you which is rare.

Where are you getting this from? More pedestrians trip over cracks in
the pavement and are hauled away in ambulances ON THE SIDEWALK than
cyclists that are killed in traffic.


Sure, drunks and such. That to me isn't really a pedestrian accident,
it's an inebriation consequence.


We cyclists can often elect to use segregated bike paths which I
always do. Same effect. On most of my paths it would take a car
becoming airborne and then flying a long stretch to crash into me.
Thing is, they do not have wings.

You are afraid of cars. Fine. But don't invent scenarios in which you
would be killed on the roads by road raged drivers because these
sorts of people are few and far between.


It takes only one.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On Tuesday, July 4, 2017 at 4:05:32 AM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
I was looking at photos and you tube films of bicycle racing during
the 70's and 80's and it seems that the handle bars were at a very
different position then in more recent times.

Example: Eddie Marckx time trial 1974, note the downward twist of the
handle bars. with the brake levers mounted at almost the center of the
"U" bend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvJSB4gAq3o

During a race in 1977
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEAlxGC4Kzg

In 1987, still turned down
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwU7GXvbjlM

In 1990
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eojc3AKSWGE

in 1994
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtBetiDPPfg

In 2001 what may be an intermediate position
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAqIVanqbuw

In 2007 note how much flatter the bars are with the brake levers fixed
almost as an extension of the top flat section of the bars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbB2O0SmwJw

I am wondering. From the revival of bicycle racing in 1946 until the
very late 1990's or early 2000's, some 50 years, handle bar position
amongst the top riders was very similar with the top of the bars
turned down and the bottom "drops" nearly level and then it all
changed with the top section of the bars level, or nearly so and the
drops angled downward.

What happened? Did bicycle geometry suddenly change. Did bicycles get
better? Were handlebars suddenly a different shape?
--


I think handlebar clamps didn't used to work so good. Clamps finally started working halfway decent, and bars started staying up.

On Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 10:06:18 AM UTC-4, jbeattie wrote:

Well, there are some ****ty places to ride that make it feel like you're in Death Race 2000 -- particularly around here where shoulderless rural farm roads have turned into clogged arterials between suburban McMansion developments. If not scary, they are exhausting. But I couldn't imagine not riding, and if I were stuck in a city where riding was truly impossible, I'd move. If I were Joerg, I'd move to Folsom, the alleged bicycle paradise.

-- Jay Beattie.

I agree there are ****ty places for riding. Among the worst are the roads Jay
describes, especially at rush hour. I tend to avoid those if possible. If
I can't avoid them, I ride them lane center, and pull off once in a while to
let the next platoon of cars by.

For utility riding, I find old cities best. They usually feature grid layouts
with several choices of parallel streets. Often, motorists default to the
historic main arterials, which also have almost all the shops, bars, restaurants
etc. A few blocks away you can often find a secondary street with few stop
signs and much less traffic.

Those are natural approximations of bike boulevards. When members of my bike
club worked with the city, etc. to produce bike maps, part of our motivation
was to let other cyclists know about those routes that we found.

- Frank Krygowski

On Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 10:51:18 AM UTC-4, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-11 07:16, wrote:
On Monday, July 10, 2017 at 12:41:36 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:

No, but they can elect not to cross roadways outside of traffic
lights and then walking is very safe. Unless a terrorist or a drunk
plows into you which is rare.

Where are you getting this from? More pedestrians trip over cracks in
the pavement and are hauled away in ambulances ON THE SIDEWALK than
cyclists that are killed in traffic.


Sure, drunks and such. That to me isn't really a pedestrian accident,
it's an inebriation consequence.

Two friends of mine were "seriously" injured while walking, perfectly sober,
in the middle of the day. The first was on her regular lunchtime walk with
colleagues at work. She tripped, fell on her face (literally) and was hurt
badly enough that they called her husband to come from work and take her to
the ER. He related that the ER staff was obviously suspicious that he may
have beaten her.

The second was walking in our local forest preserve. Tripped on a hidden stick
and fell forward as well. IIRC she broke a rib and had some facial injury.

Two days ago I visited another friend of mine. We discussed the time my wife
and I saw him walk along, trip over nothing and fall to the ground; then he
related a similar incident when walking across our college campus. He's a
former gymnast, which is probably what allowed him in both cases to tuck and
roll and come up uninjured.

The Joerg-style lesson would be, I suppose, that walking is dangerous unless
you're a gymnast.



We cyclists can often elect to use segregated bike paths which I
always do. Same effect. On most of my paths it would take a car
becoming airborne and then flying a long stretch to crash into me.
Thing is, they do not have wings.

You are afraid of cars. Fine. But don't invent scenarios in which you
would be killed on the roads by road raged drivers because these
sorts of people are few and far between.


It takes only one.

Likewise, it takes only one rough spot in the sidewalk. Danger!

- Frank Krygowski

On 2017-07-11 11:41, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 10:06:18 AM UTC-4, jbeattie wrote:

Well, there are some ****ty places to ride that make it feel like you're in Death Race 2000 -- particularly around here where shoulderless rural farm roads have turned into clogged arterials between suburban McMansion developments. If not scary, they are exhausting. But I couldn't imagine not riding, and if I were stuck in a city where riding was truly impossible, I'd move. If I were Joerg, I'd move to Folsom, the alleged bicycle paradise.

-- Jay Beattie.

I agree there are ****ty places for riding. Among the worst are the roads Jay
describes, especially at rush hour. I tend to avoid those if possible. If
I can't avoid them, I ride them lane center, and pull off once in a while to
let the next platoon of cars by.

For utility riding, I find old cities best. They usually feature grid layouts
with several choices of parallel streets. Often, motorists default to the
historic main arterials, which also have almost all the shops, bars, restaurants
etc. A few blocks away you can often find a secondary street with few stop
signs and much less traffic.

Those are natural approximations of bike boulevards. When members of my bike
club worked with the city, etc. to produce bike maps, part of our motivation
was to let other cyclists know about those routes that we found.


That is indeed an issue. While doing yard work near the street an older
cyclist rode up our hill which is a cul-de-sac. Hmm, weird. He had a
steel frame trekking bike with panniers and all so I just had to stop
him. Turned out he does all those little hills for muscle training.

Long story short, the next day we rode a 36-miler together. Like most
cyclists he does not like to ride on roads with a lot of car traffic so
one purpose of this ride was to show him how to get to Folsom on
backroads that are sometimes not even mapped properly or not at all.
Also where numerous water fountains and cool features such as rain
sprinkler playgrounds are. Despite riding here for years (he even does
his shopping by bike with a large trailer) he did not know those routes.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 2:52:19 PM UTC-4, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-11 11:41, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 10:06:18 AM UTC-4, jbeattie wrote:

Well, there are some ****ty places to ride that make it feel like you're in Death Race 2000 -- particularly around here where shoulderless rural farm roads have turned into clogged arterials between suburban McMansion developments. If not scary, they are exhausting. But I couldn't imagine not riding, and if I were stuck in a city where riding was truly impossible, I'd move. If I were Joerg, I'd move to Folsom, the alleged bicycle paradise.

-- Jay Beattie.

I agree there are ****ty places for riding. Among the worst are the roads Jay
describes, especially at rush hour. I tend to avoid those if possible. If
I can't avoid them, I ride them lane center, and pull off once in a while to
let the next platoon of cars by.

For utility riding, I find old cities best. They usually feature grid layouts
with several choices of parallel streets. Often, motorists default to the
historic main arterials, which also have almost all the shops, bars, restaurants
etc. A few blocks away you can often find a secondary street with few stop
signs and much less traffic.

Those are natural approximations of bike boulevards. When members of my bike
club worked with the city, etc. to produce bike maps, part of our motivation
was to let other cyclists know about those routes that we found.


That is indeed an issue. While doing yard work near the street an older
cyclist rode up our hill which is a cul-de-sac. Hmm, weird. He had a
steel frame trekking bike with panniers and all so I just had to stop
him. Turned out he does all those little hills for muscle training.

Long story short, the next day we rode a 36-miler together. Like most
cyclists he does not like to ride on roads with a lot of car traffic so
one purpose of this ride was to show him how to get to Folsom on
backroads that are sometimes not even mapped properly or not at all.
Also where numerous water fountains and cool features such as rain
sprinkler playgrounds are. Despite riding here for years (he even does
his shopping by bike with a large trailer) he did not know those routes.

I'm aware that there are map people and there are non-map people.

Every time I've moved to a new house (which, admittedly, has been much less
frequent than the American average) I've posted a detailed map on the wall
to use when choosing bike rides. In our current house I bought four USGS
1:24000 quads and mounted them edge to edge. They're great for choosing
short rides. Other smaller scale series are good for touring.

If you check _Bicycling_ magazine in the late 1970s, you can find an article
I wrote on using USGS maps for cycling.

- Frank Krygowski

On 2017-07-11 12:00, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 2:52:19 PM UTC-4, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-11 11:41, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 10:06:18 AM UTC-4, jbeattie wrote:

Well, there are some ****ty places to ride that make it feel like you're in Death Race 2000 -- particularly around here where shoulderless rural farm roads have turned into clogged arterials between suburban McMansion developments. If not scary, they are exhausting. But I couldn't imagine not riding, and if I were stuck in a city where riding was truly impossible, I'd move. If I were Joerg, I'd move to Folsom, the alleged bicycle paradise.

-- Jay Beattie.

I agree there are ****ty places for riding. Among the worst are the roads Jay
describes, especially at rush hour. I tend to avoid those if possible. If
I can't avoid them, I ride them lane center, and pull off once in a while to
let the next platoon of cars by.

For utility riding, I find old cities best. They usually feature grid layouts
with several choices of parallel streets. Often, motorists default to the
historic main arterials, which also have almost all the shops, bars, restaurants
etc. A few blocks away you can often find a secondary street with few stop
signs and much less traffic.

Those are natural approximations of bike boulevards. When members of my bike
club worked with the city, etc. to produce bike maps, part of our motivation
was to let other cyclists know about those routes that we found.


That is indeed an issue. While doing yard work near the street an older
cyclist rode up our hill which is a cul-de-sac. Hmm, weird. He had a
steel frame trekking bike with panniers and all so I just had to stop
him. Turned out he does all those little hills for muscle training.

Long story short, the next day we rode a 36-miler together. Like most
cyclists he does not like to ride on roads with a lot of car traffic so
one purpose of this ride was to show him how to get to Folsom on
backroads that are sometimes not even mapped properly or not at all.
Also where numerous water fountains and cool features such as rain
sprinkler playgrounds are. Despite riding here for years (he even does
his shopping by bike with a large trailer) he did not know those routes.

I'm aware that there are map people and there are non-map people.

Every time I've moved to a new house (which, admittedly, has been much less
frequent than the American average) I've posted a detailed map on the wall
to use when choosing bike rides. In our current house I bought four USGS
1:24000 quads and mounted them edge to edge. They're great for choosing
short rides. Other smaller scale series are good for touring.

If you check _Bicycling_ magazine in the late 1970s, you can find an article
I wrote on using USGS maps for cycling.


I just use Internet maps. Some routes are not on maps and there I use
satellite views. Like these routes:

http://analogconsultants.com/ng/bike/CoachLane1.JPG
http://analogconsultants.com/ng/bike/estavista4.JPG

That would be about the only reason for me to buy a smart phone some
day. However, considering that the cheapest plans are still $35 and up
that's not yet justifiable to me.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On 2017-07-11 11:52, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 10:51:18 AM UTC-4, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-11 07:16, wrote:
On Monday, July 10, 2017 at 12:41:36 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:

No, but they can elect not to cross roadways outside of traffic
lights and then walking is very safe. Unless a terrorist or a drunk
plows into you which is rare.

Where are you getting this from? More pedestrians trip over cracks in
the pavement and are hauled away in ambulances ON THE SIDEWALK than
cyclists that are killed in traffic.


Sure, drunks and such. That to me isn't really a pedestrian accident,
it's an inebriation consequence.

Two friends of mine were "seriously" injured while walking, perfectly sober,
in the middle of the day. The first was on her regular lunchtime walk with
colleagues at work. She tripped, fell on her face (literally) and was hurt
badly enough that they called her husband to come from work and take her to
the ER. He related that the ER staff was obviously suspicious that he may
have beaten her.


High heels?


The second was walking in our local forest preserve. Tripped on a hidden stick
and fell forward as well. IIRC she broke a rib and had some facial injury.


That's like my Manzanita stick in the sand which caused me to go OTB.
It's an accident I'd never hold against bicycling safety because I
should have not bombed through sand trusting nothing was buried in there.


Two days ago I visited another friend of mine. We discussed the time my wife
and I saw him walk along, trip over nothing and fall to the ground; then he
related a similar incident when walking across our college campus. ...


That likely has nothing to do with walking as a propulsion method
either. He should get thoroughly checked out by a clinic as there may be
more serious underlying issues at hand.


... He's a
former gymnast, which is probably what allowed him in both cases to tuck and
roll and come up uninjured.


Same here, I still benefit from what I learned for parachuting landing
rolls. But your friend needs to be checked out to find what caused two
out-of-the-blue falling incidents. Could be something cardiac,
inner-ear, whatever.


The Joerg-style lesson would be, I suppose, that walking is dangerous unless
you're a gymnast.


That stuff doesn't count. With such arguments we might as well say that
the most dangerous activity is taking a shower because many falls with
serious consequences happen there. Especially in tiled showers.

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 7:51:18 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-11 07:16, wrote:
On Monday, July 10, 2017 at 12:41:36 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:

No, but they can elect not to cross roadways outside of traffic
lights and then walking is very safe. Unless a terrorist or a drunk
plows into you which is rare.

Where are you getting this from? More pedestrians trip over cracks in
the pavement and are hauled away in ambulances ON THE SIDEWALK than
cyclists that are killed in traffic.


Sure, drunks and such. That to me isn't really a pedestrian accident,
it's an inebriation consequence.


We cyclists can often elect to use segregated bike paths which I
always do. Same effect. On most of my paths it would take a car
becoming airborne and then flying a long stretch to crash into me.
Thing is, they do not have wings.

You are afraid of cars. Fine. But don't invent scenarios in which you
would be killed on the roads by road raged drivers because these
sorts of people are few and far between.


It takes only one.

That's right but you're far more likely to fall from some road hazard and have drivers leaping out to help you. That happened to me several times.