Handlebar rotation

On 2017-07-11 14:57, wrote:
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:

[...]

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.


With me it was usually the other way around, so far. One older guy was
almost stunned when I pulled out a tool kit and helped him get his car
going again. He said he thought cyclists were hostile to motorists and
in that city (Aachen, Germany) many were. He even wanted to pay me but I
declined.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 12:17:44 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
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:

I just make my own from raw data using C:
www.tinyurl.com/dougsrace
www.tinyurl.com/dougscommute

On Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 10:51:18 AM UTC-4, Joerg wrote:
Snipped
Sure, drunks and such. That to me isn't really a pedestrian accident,
it's an inebriation consequence.

Snipped Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Then by the same measure if a car or other vehicle driven by someone under the ifluence of any drug including alcohol runs into and injures or kills bicycliststhen it;'s not a motor vehicle related accident but an inebriation consequence. That's just a plain stupid strawman argument.

Cheers

On Tue, 11 Jul 2017 07:35:27 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-07-10 18:48, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 10 Jul 2017 10:31:17 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-07-09 18:22, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 09 Jul 2017 09:18:12 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-07-09 07:44, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-08 15:59, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, July 8, 2017 at 3:06:59 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-08 14:39, Frank Krygowski wrote:

[...]

" lights cause a
reduction in simply toppling off a bike? Unless, that is, the people
who applied to get the lights and vouch for... oops, "study" their
effectiveness were simply being a lot more careful than normal riders?


Falling off a bike is not the main cause of injury or death. Colliding
with motor vehicles is.

Car collisions account for about a third of all bicycle related injury
accidents nationally -- meaning two-thirds are not car-related.
http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/data/factsheet_crash.cfm

When was the last time you were hurt on a bike? Were you hit by a car?


No but that is because I am primarily using a mountain bike, the way it
was meant to be used. The reason I got hurt a lot as a kid was that I
used a regular bicycle on motocross tracks without wearing any
protective gear.

Other people's accidents did not always involved a direct collision but
many were caused by evasive action because of car drivers (often truck
drivers).


In case by "hurt" you meant any sort of injury and not just very serious
ones, I had several vehicle collisions with a manageable degree of
injury. For example:

Driver pulled out into main road, said he grossly underestimated my
speed ... *BAM* ... my body dented the side of his Volkswagen Polo (used
to be called Fox in the US) so badly that I had to help the old guy
getting out. The driver side door would no longer open from the inside.
Lots of bruises, a pretzeled bike, and I vowed never to buy such a car.

Another: I had a green light, stepped on it, the obviously impatient
driver of a Mercedes 280S decided he can still do a left turn before I
get there, floored it, didn't work ... *BAM* ... I hit the right rear
fender. He fled the scene.

Plus a few other incidents.

Two of my university buddies were not so lucky. Both hit from behind, in
the lane, in the city (Aachen, Germany). Serious with a hospital trip
each. One had a ruptured spleen, the other lost a kidney. In one of the
cases the offending motorist helped my half conscious friend to a phone
booth close by to call an ambulance and then he quietly high-tailed it.

You mean that you ran into two cars and it was their fault?


Yes. The driver's fault.


Amazing!


What is amazing about it? One driver made a mistake. It happens. The
other driver was reckless and probably in some hurry.

There were numerous other such events but I was able to avoid a crash.
One of them only because I was on my MTB which has powerful hydraulic
disc brakes that work the same regardless of weather. Else I'd have
scraped up the side of a nice Porsche.

I had one accident with a motor vehicle not caused by the driver. Me in
the lane, light turned yellow, driver before me slammed on the brakes. I
had sufficient safety distance but at that moment the cable for my front
brake snapped. I dinged the rear bumper of the guy's BMW. No damage
though because the rear slowed me down enough.

I can only assume that either you have a vivid imagination or that you
are some sort of idiot that rides much faster then the conditions
allow.


Huh? I am one of the few cyclists in the area (and probably on this NG)
who does not draft or tailgate. If you read again you see that it was
simply equipment failure. Happens. It even happened to me in cars,
twice. Stepped on the pedal, no brakes.


I am reasonably sure that my two wheel experience exceeds your by
quite a number of years and I have never, with any two wheel vehicle,
hit another vehicle hard enough to cause any visible damage to the
other vehicle. Never.


No brake failures? Then you were lucky. I also had a few other events
such as side wall blow-outs which can make for an interesting few
seconds before you get the ride stopped.


(I would also add that I have never had a brake cable snap which
probably says something about comparative levels of maintenance)


It was a fairly new cable. The bike shop owner said it happens, and if
it does usually early on.


But this is not to say that I have never seen a two wheeler hit a car.
A bloke that was in my class in collage hit a car. He was riding a
Harley down a sidewalk at what he said was "about 35 mph" and a car
"pulled out in front of him". Actually the car was on a side street
and stopped at an intersection. He hit the rear door. The results was
a dented door and a broken collar bone.

I suppose that today this would be described as "an accident" although
when it happened the fellow on the motorcycle described it as "a
damned fool stunt, that I'd not have done if I hadn't had all that
beer".


That's stupid behavior.

True, and as I wrote the guy said as much. But the point was that in
the very rare cases where a bicycle hit a car it was always been
stupid behavior on the part of the cyclist.

Another case of bicycle hits a vehicle was another classmate who's
face was a mass of scars. He said that he hit the rear of a parked
truck at "about 50 mph" and was driven head first into a crated load
of lettuce.

But again, no claim to sensible behavior.

--
Cheers,

John B.

On Tue, 11 Jul 2017 07:40:23 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-07-10 19:09, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, July 10, 2017 at 12:26:05 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-10 10:54, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/10/2017 1:24 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-09 11:32, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/9/2017 10:44 AM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-08 15:59, jbeattie wrote:


When was the last time you were hurt on a bike? Were you
hit by a car?


No but that is because I am primarily using a mountain
bike, the way it was meant to be used. The reason I got
hurt a lot as a kid was that I used a regular bicycle on
motocross tracks without wearing any protective gear.

Other people's accidents did not always involved a direct
collision but many were caused by evasive action because of
car drivers (often truck drivers).

Maybe we should do a little survey of posters to this
discussion group. What was your last on-road bike-related
injury? Was it because you were hit by a car? Was it
because you were taking evasive action to avoid being hit by
a car? Or what was the cause?

I suppose if people prefer, they could give counts of all
their bike injury incidents instead of just the last one.

I don't have much to contribute. Since 1972: I slid out on
gravel at about 5 mph creeping down a very steep, short hill
on a city street. I scraped my knee. And the front forks of
our custom tandem snapped off on a bumpy road at about 10 mph
or less. I banged up my shoulder. So that's one crash with
the most common cause, which is the road surface; and one
crash by a relatively rare cause, component failure.

My wife's on road crashes are also two. She was on the back
of the tandem when it crashed, but she wasn't injured, just
shaken up. And many years ago, on a club ride, someone
slammed on their brakes unnecessarily in front of her. She
avoided that person as she stopped, but another rider ran
into her from behind and knocked her down. Again, no injury,
just a fall. We were about 20 miles into an 80 mile ride,
which we all finished.

More detail on the final crash above: The person who caused
the chain reaction crash had slammed on the brakes because
they were afraid of a passing truck. But none of the others
(including me, leading the ride) braked because of the truck.
It just wasn't necessary at all. So that crash was actually
caused not by the truck, but by timidity.


No, it was caused by reckless cyclist behavior. Every
respectable teacher in driver's ed teaches their students to
keep an adequate distance from the vehicle up front. One
Mississippi, two Mississippi. Simple. Failing to do so will one
day result in a crash like you described. It doesn't have to be
timidity. It could be as simple as an animal running into the
road.

You're deflecting again.

Tell us about your recent injuries, Joerg. Tell us about their
causes. Restrict it to on-road if you like. I'm saying most bike
injuries are minor and do not involve cars. You're claiming
something else. What's your experience?


Depends on what you call "recent". I had a 15+ year cycling hiatus
on account of lacking cycle path infrastructure. When that got
better I started riding again in 2013. No road injuries since then
but several evasive actions required because of motorists.

No f****** way! You were off your bike for 15 years because of lack
of "cycle path infrastructure"? Incroyable. I rode to work or school
most every day for decades without so much as a whiff of cycle path
infrastructure.


We had a few nasty accidents and cyclist fatalities in our neighborhood.
That was enough. Except for hardcore training riders you rarely saw
cyclists. Then they started putting in bike paths and bike lanes and,
predictably, that substantially changed things. Also for me. It's that
simple.

The same way I never walk to the store (well, now I ride) even though in
Europe we did that all the time. Hardly anyone else does either. Because
it is a 45mph thoroughfare, no sidewalk and often not even a shoulder.


Joerg, if riding a bicycle is as dangerious, as you certainly seem to
be arguing it is, then all I've can say is that you are a fool to be
doing it.
--
Cheers,

John B.

On Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 9:00:38 PM UTC-4, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 11 Jul 2017 07:40:23 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-07-10 19:09, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, July 10, 2017 at 12:26:05 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-10 10:54, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/10/2017 1:24 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-09 11:32, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/9/2017 10:44 AM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-08 15:59, jbeattie wrote:


When was the last time you were hurt on a bike? Were you
hit by a car?


No but that is because I am primarily using a mountain
bike, the way it was meant to be used. The reason I got
hurt a lot as a kid was that I used a regular bicycle on
motocross tracks without wearing any protective gear.

Other people's accidents did not always involved a direct
collision but many were caused by evasive action because of
car drivers (often truck drivers).

Maybe we should do a little survey of posters to this
discussion group. What was your last on-road bike-related
injury? Was it because you were hit by a car? Was it
because you were taking evasive action to avoid being hit by
a car? Or what was the cause?

I suppose if people prefer, they could give counts of all
their bike injury incidents instead of just the last one.

I don't have much to contribute. Since 1972: I slid out on
gravel at about 5 mph creeping down a very steep, short hill
on a city street. I scraped my knee. And the front forks of
our custom tandem snapped off on a bumpy road at about 10 mph
or less. I banged up my shoulder. So that's one crash with
the most common cause, which is the road surface; and one
crash by a relatively rare cause, component failure.

My wife's on road crashes are also two. She was on the back
of the tandem when it crashed, but she wasn't injured, just
shaken up. And many years ago, on a club ride, someone
slammed on their brakes unnecessarily in front of her. She
avoided that person as she stopped, but another rider ran
into her from behind and knocked her down. Again, no injury,
just a fall. We were about 20 miles into an 80 mile ride,
which we all finished.

More detail on the final crash above: The person who caused
the chain reaction crash had slammed on the brakes because
they were afraid of a passing truck. But none of the others
(including me, leading the ride) braked because of the truck.
It just wasn't necessary at all. So that crash was actually
caused not by the truck, but by timidity.


No, it was caused by reckless cyclist behavior. Every
respectable teacher in driver's ed teaches their students to
keep an adequate distance from the vehicle up front. One
Mississippi, two Mississippi. Simple. Failing to do so will one
day result in a crash like you described. It doesn't have to be
timidity. It could be as simple as an animal running into the
road.

You're deflecting again.

Tell us about your recent injuries, Joerg. Tell us about their
causes. Restrict it to on-road if you like. I'm saying most bike
injuries are minor and do not involve cars. You're claiming
something else. What's your experience?


Depends on what you call "recent". I had a 15+ year cycling hiatus
on account of lacking cycle path infrastructure. When that got
better I started riding again in 2013. No road injuries since then
but several evasive actions required because of motorists.

No f****** way! You were off your bike for 15 years because of lack
of "cycle path infrastructure"? Incroyable. I rode to work or school
most every day for decades without so much as a whiff of cycle path
infrastructure.


We had a few nasty accidents and cyclist fatalities in our neighborhood.
That was enough. Except for hardcore training riders you rarely saw
cyclists. Then they started putting in bike paths and bike lanes and,
predictably, that substantially changed things. Also for me. It's that
simple.

The same way I never walk to the store (well, now I ride) even though in
Europe we did that all the time. Hardly anyone else does either. Because
it is a 45mph thoroughfare, no sidewalk and often not even a shoulder.


Joerg, if riding a bicycle is as dangerious, as you certainly seem to
be arguing it is, then all I've can say is that you are a fool to be
doing it.
--
Cheers,

John B.

+1000!

Cheers

On 2017-07-11 16:59, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 10:51:18 AM UTC-4, Joerg wrote: Snipped
Sure, drunks and such. That to me isn't really a pedestrian
accident, it's an inebriation consequence.

Snipped Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Then by the same measure if a car or other vehicle driven by someone
under the ifluence of any drug including alcohol runs into and
injures or kills bicycliststhen it;'s not a motor vehicle related
accident but an inebriation consequence. That's just a plain stupid
strawman argument.


What's next? When a saloon patron who had seven beers and five Whiskeys
steps off a bar stool and falls it's a pedestrian accident because he
use a foot?

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On 2017-07-11 18:00, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 11 Jul 2017 07:40:23 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-07-10 19:09, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, July 10, 2017 at 12:26:05 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-10 10:54, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/10/2017 1:24 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-09 11:32, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/9/2017 10:44 AM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-08 15:59, jbeattie wrote:


When was the last time you were hurt on a bike? Were you
hit by a car?


No but that is because I am primarily using a mountain
bike, the way it was meant to be used. The reason I got
hurt a lot as a kid was that I used a regular bicycle on
motocross tracks without wearing any protective gear.

Other people's accidents did not always involved a direct
collision but many were caused by evasive action because of
car drivers (often truck drivers).

Maybe we should do a little survey of posters to this
discussion group. What was your last on-road bike-related
injury? Was it because you were hit by a car? Was it
because you were taking evasive action to avoid being hit by
a car? Or what was the cause?

I suppose if people prefer, they could give counts of all
their bike injury incidents instead of just the last one.

I don't have much to contribute. Since 1972: I slid out on
gravel at about 5 mph creeping down a very steep, short hill
on a city street. I scraped my knee. And the front forks of
our custom tandem snapped off on a bumpy road at about 10 mph
or less. I banged up my shoulder. So that's one crash with
the most common cause, which is the road surface; and one
crash by a relatively rare cause, component failure.

My wife's on road crashes are also two. She was on the back
of the tandem when it crashed, but she wasn't injured, just
shaken up. And many years ago, on a club ride, someone
slammed on their brakes unnecessarily in front of her. She
avoided that person as she stopped, but another rider ran
into her from behind and knocked her down. Again, no injury,
just a fall. We were about 20 miles into an 80 mile ride,
which we all finished.

More detail on the final crash above: The person who caused
the chain reaction crash had slammed on the brakes because
they were afraid of a passing truck. But none of the others
(including me, leading the ride) braked because of the truck.
It just wasn't necessary at all. So that crash was actually
caused not by the truck, but by timidity.


No, it was caused by reckless cyclist behavior. Every
respectable teacher in driver's ed teaches their students to
keep an adequate distance from the vehicle up front. One
Mississippi, two Mississippi. Simple. Failing to do so will one
day result in a crash like you described. It doesn't have to be
timidity. It could be as simple as an animal running into the
road.

You're deflecting again.

Tell us about your recent injuries, Joerg. Tell us about their
causes. Restrict it to on-road if you like. I'm saying most bike
injuries are minor and do not involve cars. You're claiming
something else. What's your experience?


Depends on what you call "recent". I had a 15+ year cycling hiatus
on account of lacking cycle path infrastructure. When that got
better I started riding again in 2013. No road injuries since then
but several evasive actions required because of motorists.

No f****** way! You were off your bike for 15 years because of lack
of "cycle path infrastructure"? Incroyable. I rode to work or school
most every day for decades without so much as a whiff of cycle path
infrastructure.


We had a few nasty accidents and cyclist fatalities in our neighborhood.
That was enough. Except for hardcore training riders you rarely saw
cyclists. Then they started putting in bike paths and bike lanes and,
predictably, that substantially changed things. Also for me. It's that
simple.

The same way I never walk to the store (well, now I ride) even though in
Europe we did that all the time. Hardly anyone else does either. Because
it is a 45mph thoroughfare, no sidewalk and often not even a shoulder.


Joerg, if riding a bicycle is as dangerious, as you certainly seem to
be arguing it is, then all I've can say is that you are a fool to be
doing it.


Where did I ever say that? Riding a bicycle on trails, bike paths, bike
lanes and in low traffic streets is a ratehr safe affair.

Try to distinguish a little more what was said in detail.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On 2017-07-11 17:56, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 11 Jul 2017 07:35:27 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-07-10 18:48, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 10 Jul 2017 10:31:17 -0700, Joerg
wrote:


[...]

But this is not to say that I have never seen a two wheeler hit a car.
A bloke that was in my class in collage hit a car. He was riding a
Harley down a sidewalk at what he said was "about 35 mph" and a car
"pulled out in front of him". Actually the car was on a side street
and stopped at an intersection. He hit the rear door. The results was
a dented door and a broken collar bone.

I suppose that today this would be described as "an accident" although
when it happened the fellow on the motorcycle described it as "a
damned fool stunt, that I'd not have done if I hadn't had all that
beer".


That's stupid behavior.

True, and as I wrote the guy said as much. But the point was that in
the very rare cases where a bicycle hit a car it was always been
stupid behavior on the part of the cyclist.


Always? Now explain what exactly was stupid in my behavior when I came
down a street in a city and a guy in a Volkswagen Polo who had a stop
sign pulls into that street right in front of my bicycle (resulting in a
crash).

Next, explain what was stupid in my behavior when the driver of a
Mercedes decided he could floor it and do the left turn in front of my
fast approaching bicycle (resulting in an accident).

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On Wednesday, July 12, 2017 at 7:07:54 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-11 17:56, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 11 Jul 2017 07:35:27 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-07-10 18:48, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 10 Jul 2017 10:31:17 -0700, Joerg
wrote:


[...]

But this is not to say that I have never seen a two wheeler hit a car..
A bloke that was in my class in collage hit a car. He was riding a
Harley down a sidewalk at what he said was "about 35 mph" and a car
"pulled out in front of him". Actually the car was on a side street
and stopped at an intersection. He hit the rear door. The results was
a dented door and a broken collar bone.

I suppose that today this would be described as "an accident" although
when it happened the fellow on the motorcycle described it as "a
damned fool stunt, that I'd not have done if I hadn't had all that
beer".


That's stupid behavior.

True, and as I wrote the guy said as much. But the point was that in
the very rare cases where a bicycle hit a car it was always been
stupid behavior on the part of the cyclist.


Always? Now explain what exactly was stupid in my behavior when I came
down a street in a city and a guy in a Volkswagen Polo who had a stop
sign pulls into that street right in front of my bicycle (resulting in a
crash).

Next, explain what was stupid in my behavior when the driver of a
Mercedes decided he could floor it and do the left turn in front of my
fast approaching bicycle (resulting in an accident).

I'm getting more run-ins with cars after the installation of the bike facility on SE 17th than before. It's a two-way nightmare. https://bikeportland.org/2017/02/14/...lwaukie-217696 You used to just ride on the road, and now you have to stop every 50 yards at intersecting streets on the separate bike path, and when you are crossing (even after you stop) cars turn into the street from 17th. Being on the road with the cars was superior in every way.

The special facilities you are waiting for may be a curse and not a blessing.

-- Jay Beattie.