Handlebar rotation

On 2017-07-08 23:26, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 8 Jul 2017 19:31:58 -0700 (PDT), Sir Ridesalot
wrote:

On Saturday, July 8, 2017 at 5:41:25 PM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski
wrote:
On 7/8/2017 3:20 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-07 20:03, John B. wrote:

Yes Sir! Bicycling is a dangerious pastime.


As I wrote many times it is not only deaths that count. It is
also the accidents with serious consequences. Also the close
calls and I had my share of those including bailing off the
road.

Doesn't matter, I and the vast majority of riders out here
prefer to ride where there isn't motorized traffic close by, or
hardly any. My personal preference is singletrack.

Wimp.


-- - Frank Krygowski

But, but but, to ride that single-track he needs a super bright
headlight so thatthe illegal MOTORIZED dirt bikers can see him
coming and get out of his way. remember that Joerg's MTB is so
noisy that he can NOT hearthe high revinng engines ...


What revving? You've never even heard a 400 or 650 out in the field,
have you? They are only loud if they go up a steep hill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KquibrfzSM


... of those dirt
bikes. Seems to me thatthe paved roads where you can see what else
isthere are safer than those singl-tracks with their illegal
motorized dirt bikers and mountain lions.


Not so for those who master the techniques of riding a MTB properly.
Actually, dirt bike riders are almost a natural when it comes to riding
MTB. My buddy can go down a gnarly descent with loose rocks almost as if
he was holding a coffee in one had.


Cheers

You are correct. I also read that a large percentage of "off the
road" bicycle accidents were the result of excess speed on
unimproved trails. i.e., the driver done it. -- Cheers,


For some reason many montain bikers behave like downhill bombers. They
are usually pretty good but once in a while something goes horribly
wrong. For regular XC trail riders like me things are very safe though.
As long as we carry beaucoup water because we can get way out there.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On 7/9/2017 10:51 AM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-09 07:13, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/8/2017 6:07 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-08 14:39, Frank Krygowski wrote:


We've discussed that Danish study before. Perhaps you've forgotten.
One
gem was that the participants who applied to be in the study so they
would be given the lights (um... no bias there, right?) also reported
far fewer single bike crashes than those who were not given the free
lights. In other words, they toppled off their bikes less.

Understand, those lights given away were not "see the road" headlights
that might show up road obstacles. Their spoke-driven blinkies
intended
as "be seen" lights. Now why would free "be seen" 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.

First, your statement is a deflection. The point is, the Danish study
was not a proper, unbiased study. It was more of an advertising
campaign designed to sell the lights that were given away to volunteers.

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.

What data do you have?

... Yes, cars are
implicated in most bike deaths; ...

Aha, now you begin to understand. So are serious injuries.

And obviously, cars are also implicated in 100% of motorist deaths and
nearly 100% of pedestrian deaths. Why do you restrict your "Danger!!"
nonsense to bicycling?

... but bike deaths are about as rare as
falling-out-of-bed deaths. American bicyclists do over 10 million miles
per fatality.


Per mile, fatalities _and_ serious injuries of cyclists are higher than
those of car drivers.

Per mile, bicycle fatalities are much, much lower than pedestrian
fatalities. Why do you restrict your "Danger!!" nonsense to bicycling?

BTW, about the PCH, you need to read this:
https://patch.com/california/malibu/...-a-deep-breath

Nothing new here.

What will be new is when (or if) you ever understand it.

It's not me who doesn't understand here :-)

Ignorance goes so well with hubris, Joerg! Dunning-Kruger reigns!

Again: the "control a narrow lane" principle is taught by the Cycling
Savvy classes of the American Bicycle Education Association, and by the
League of American Bicyclists' education program, the CAN-BIKE program
of Canada, the Bikeability program of Great Britain.

Do you have _any_ source for your curb-hugging advice that's more
authoritative than your own brain?

--
- Frank Krygowski

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.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Sun, 09 Jul 2017 07:39:39 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-07-08 19:01, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 08 Jul 2017 13:46:46 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-07-07 18:48, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 07 Jul 2017 07:33:58 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-07-06 20:11, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 06 Jul 2017 13:02:57 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-07-06 12:40, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/6/2017 3:14 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-06 12:05, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/6/2017 10:54 AM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-05 17:49, John B. wrote:

Yet people have been riding long distances on bicycles for years and
years. The first Paris - Brest - Paris randonnée was held in 1891. An
essentially non-stop bicycle ride of 1,200 km. The British, of course,
do it better with the 1433 km London Edinburgh London 2017 and the
'mericans have the Boston-Montreal-Boston, again a 1,200 km ride but
no longer an official randonnée and now strictly a permanent that
anyone could ride on their own in a self-supported manner while still
receiving recognition (validation) from Randonneurs USA.

Think of it, 126 years of successful long distance bicycle riding
without Joerg built lights.


It's simple. Most humans have a habit of accepting current
state-of-the-art as "that's as good as it gets". I don't, and I derive
most of my income from not thinking that way. And yes, I already had
bicycles with real electrical systems when I was a teenager.

The detail you're missing is that people have always ridden
_successfully_ without the systems you deem necessary.


As I said, people got used to that this is all they are going to get.
Just like people get used to walking in worn shoes if they can't
afford new ones.


There are always people who are into overkill. Some of those will claim
or pretend that their favorite overkill item is actually a necessity.
But that's disproven by every person who does well without the overkill
item.


A vehicle where the light does not go out or dim way down is IMO not
overkill. The lighting "system" bicyles have would never pass muster
at type certification for motor vehicles. There are good reasons why not.


For just one example: I'm just back from another club ride. About 15
people were on the ride. Two of them had the newly fashionable daytime
rear blinkies. This particular ride has occurred once per week every
week except in winter for, oh, perhaps ten years. Nobody has ever been
hit by a car, despite the thousands of person-miles ridden (GASP!)
without blinkies.


I have never been hit from behind either but the number of close calls
has noticeably decreased since I have bright rear lights. Mission
accomplished. The best is, this was never very expensive to accomplish.

Now you can stick the head in the sand again and pretend it ain't so :-)

We've been over this multiple times, but:

If your number of close calls for hits-from-behind has gone way down, it
must have been pretty high to begin with. By contrast, I almost never
experience such a close call; therefore I'd never be able to see a big
reduction.

Why don't those close calls happen to me? Because those close calls are
almost always due in part to rider error - specifically, inviting close
passes by riding too far to the right.


Yeah, right. The woman who rode in the lane on Blue Ravine died because
of that. The other woman in the pickup truck who was drunk tried to
evade but the lane was now too narrow and *BAM*

[...]

You mean to say that you were run into on Blue Ravine and died? Or
this is just something that you saw on the TV?


I didn't have an operation to turn me into a woman :-)

It was shortly after we moved here about 20 years ago. That and several
other serious accidents combined with (or rather, caused by) the lack of
cycling infrastructure resulted in me and lots of others to mothball the
bikes for many years. While those accidents were not always fatal many
were what the medical folks call "life-changing" where riders became
crippled for the rest of their lives.


So what you are actually saying is that bicycles are dangerious.


No, motor vehicles are. Or to be more precise, their operators.


... and
as the U.S. notion seems to be that one must do everything possible to
protect the poor consumer then logically these dangerious bicycles
should be banned to protect society.


If there is no willingness to enforce traffic rules regarding the fair
treatment of cyclists, and in the US largely there isn't, then
separating their traffic paths from those of motor vehicles is best.
Some communities such as Folsom understand this while others like ours
don't.


But even so, www.statista.com reported to be something in the
neighborhood of 66.52 million bicycle riders in Spring 2016.... and
one woman died?


That was one example of many. We have about one death a month in the
area, on average. Many are hit from behind.


Actually 726 died in the U.S. in 2014 ( the latest year I could find
without looking very hard) and in 2014 the above site tells me that
there were 67.33 million cyclists. So one cyclist was killed for every
10,096.4 that rode a bike. Obviously, statistically, bicycle riding is
a very dangerious pastime!

Perhaps the government should be encouraged to ban these dangerious
devices. Save Lives! Ban a Bike!


I read about them in our local paper and those are real stories, real
people, real grieving families and all that. People like Justin Vega:

http://fox40.com/2017/05/26/sacramen...d-25-year-old/


Certainly. But do you read in your local papers about the thousands,
millions?, of bicycle riders who quite happily ride around with never
an accident?


Sure. However, the number of severe and fatal accidents per traveled
mile is much higher for a cyclists than for a car driver. That's what
matters. If I ride to Rancho Cordova in my car that is safer than
cycling. Or used to be. Now much of the ride is possible via abandoned
roads, dirt paths and bike paths. So now I use the road bike or MTB.


Of course not as a happy, contented rider isn't newsworthy, it is the
blood and guts strewn all over the road that makes the headlines. So,
essentially, you are reading a media what dotes on death. And so, of
course, you read about deaths.


I know the statistics and those are facts.

The facts are that bicycle injuries are relatively few and usually
minor. In California only about 4% of all traffic deaths are cyclists


Per mile they are larger than for car drivers. Much larger. Therefore,
cycling in regular traffic is more dangerous than doing the same trip in
a car. I ride anyhow but that's my personal choice. Most of my neighbors
do not share that choice.

What in the world has "per mile" got to do with the fact that only
approximately 4% of all traffic deaths are bicyclists.

If you want to run around in circles to find a qualification that
justifies your psychotic fear of bicycle riding why not use altitude.
Just think, only one airplane crash in California in 2014 versus, what
was it a hundred and something bicyclists killed.

Proof positive that them two wheel killers should be banned.

--
Cheers,

John B.

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:
On 7/8/2017 10:46 AM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-07 13:14, Frank Krygowski wrote:

I'm arguing against the currently fashionable superstition that a
blinky
taillight makes a practical difference in ordinary daylight. I've
seen
no decent evidence that it does. ...


I have, big time. Therefore, mine is lit anytime you see my bike on
roads. On bike paths I turn it off during the day.



... I've observed many dozens, perhaps
hundreds, of riders with daytime blinkies. In no case did I
spot the
cyclist only because he had a blinky. In almost every case, I
noticed
the cyclist first and only later saw "Oh, he's running his magic
blinky."

Just like in this advertising photo:
https://www.outsideonline.com/sites/...?itok=QBL2UTKO



I meant at a much greater distance and also not some li'l Walmart
blinky but a real light.

Joerg, that taillight in the link is advertised as specifically
designed
to be used in daytime. They claim it's visible in daylight a mile
away,
but it's still not as visible as the rider himself.


There I disagree. From experience, as a rider as well as a motorist.
In our paper they mentioned a Danish study of many thousand cyclists
where daytime light reduced accidents by 16%. I believe that. You have
the right not to believe it.

We've discussed that Danish study before. Perhaps you've forgotten.
One
gem was that the participants who applied to be in the study so they
would be given the lights (um... no bias there, right?) also reported
far fewer single bike crashes than those who were not given the free
lights. In other words, they toppled off their bikes less.

Understand, those lights given away were not "see the road" headlights
that might show up road obstacles. Their spoke-driven blinkies
intended
as "be seen" lights. Now why would free "be seen



" 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?

Amazing!
--
Cheers,

John B.

On Sun, 09 Jul 2017 07:54:01 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-07-08 18:45, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 08 Jul 2017 07:46:25 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-07-07 13:14, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/7/2017 1:59 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-07 09:26, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/7/2017 10:26 AM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-06 19:34, wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2017 at 1:02:53 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-06 12:40, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/6/2017 3:14 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-06 12:05, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/6/2017 10:54 AM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-05 17:49, John B. wrote:

Yet people have been riding long distances on bicycles
for years and years. The first Paris - Brest - Paris
randonnée was held in 1891. An essentially non-stop
bicycle ride of 1,200 km. The British, of course, do it
better with the 1433 km London Edinburgh London 2017 and
the 'mericans have the Boston-Montreal-Boston, again a
1,200 km ride but no longer an official randonnée and now
strictly a permanent that anyone could ride on their own
in a self-supported manner while still receiving
recognition (validation) from Randonneurs USA.

Think of it, 126 years of successful long distance
bicycle riding without Joerg built lights.


It's simple. Most humans have a habit of accepting current
state-of-the-art as "that's as good as it gets". I don't,
and I derive most of my income from not thinking that way.
And yes, I already had bicycles with real electrical
systems when I was a teenager.

The detail you're missing is that people have always ridden
_successfully_ without the systems you deem necessary.


As I said, people got used to that this is all they are going
to get. Just like people get used to walking in worn shoes if
they can't afford new ones.


There are always people who are into overkill. Some of those
will claim or pretend that their favorite overkill item is
actually a necessity. But that's disproven by every person
who does well without the overkill item.


A vehicle where the light does not go out or dim way down is
IMO not overkill. The lighting "system" bicyles have would
never pass muster at type certification for motor vehicles.
There are good reasons why not.


For just one example: I'm just back from another club ride.
About 15 people were on the ride. Two of them had the newly
fashionable daytime rear blinkies. This particular ride has
occurred once per week every week except in winter for, oh,
perhaps ten years. Nobody has ever been hit by a car,
despite the thousands of person-miles ridden (GASP!) without
blinkies.


I have never been hit from behind either but the number of
close calls has noticeably decreased since I have bright rear
lights. Mission accomplished. The best is, this was never very
expensive to accomplish.

Now you can stick the head in the sand again and pretend it
ain't so :-)

We've been over this multiple times, but:

If your number of close calls for hits-from-behind has gone way
down, it must have been pretty high to begin with. By contrast,
I almost never experience such a close call; therefore I'd never
be able to see a big reduction.

Why don't those close calls happen to me? Because those close
calls are almost always due in part to rider error -
specifically, inviting close passes by riding too far to the
right.


Yeah, right. The woman who rode in the lane on Blue Ravine died
because of that. The other woman in the pickup truck who was drunk
tried to evade but the lane was now too narrow and *BAM*

Well, Frank is right. Bicycles offer a far smaller target and if you
wear bright clothing so that you don't catch drivers unaware you're
pretty safe.


AFAIR she had a bright jersey on.


Unless you ride in an area and at times drunk drivers are on the
road.


Not just those, also texting ones and more recently stoned drivers.

I found that lights are far better than any neon-colored jersey.
Someone with 1/2 watt LEDs that do a police cruiser spiel like mine
can be seen from half a mile away and gets the attention. End of this
video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI3iZ-Ch7pY

The end of that video shows the bike light indoors in a dark room.
Nobody here is saying that taillights are not valuable in the dark. In
fact, I think they should be a legal requirement after dark. (Currently,
only about three states require them instead of reflectors.)

I'm arguing against the currently fashionable superstition that a blinky
taillight makes a practical difference in ordinary daylight. I've seen
no decent evidence that it does. ...


I have, big time. Therefore, mine is lit anytime you see my bike on
roads. On bike paths I turn it off during the day.



... I've observed many dozens, perhaps
hundreds, of riders with daytime blinkies. In no case did I spot the
cyclist only because he had a blinky. In almost every case, I noticed
the cyclist first and only later saw "Oh, he's running his magic
blinky."

Just like in this advertising photo:
https://www.outsideonline.com/sites/...?itok=QBL2UTKO

I meant at a much greater distance and also not some li'l Walmart
blinky but a real light.

Joerg, that taillight in the link is advertised as specifically designed
to be used in daytime. They claim it's visible in daylight a mile away,
but it's still not as visible as the rider himself.


There I disagree. From experience, as a rider as well as a motorist. In
our paper they mentioned a Danish study of many thousand cyclists where
daytime light reduced accidents by 16%. I believe that. You have the
right not to believe it.


Did you read the entire survey study? Actually read the study
findings?

The test was designed, and did, influence the Danish government to
change the law and allow always on lighting systems.


Ah, now come the conspiracy theories. What makes you believe daytime
running lights were ever not allowed? Especially in Scandinavia where
that started out very early.

As I asked. "Did you actually read the entire survey report?"

The results of study was specifically stated to be: "The experiment
resulted in a change in the law in Denmark, flashing lights are now
legal."

Apparently you didn't bother to read the study before quoting from it.

--
Cheers,

John B.

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:
On 7/8/2017 6:07 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-08 14:39, Frank Krygowski wrote:


We've discussed that Danish study before. Perhaps you've
forgotten. One
gem was that the participants who applied to be in the study so they
would be given the lights (um... no bias there, right?) also reported
far fewer single bike crashes than those who were not given the free
lights. In other words, they toppled off their bikes less.

Understand, those lights given away were not "see the road" headlights
that might show up road obstacles. Their spoke-driven blinkies
intended
as "be seen" lights. Now why would free "be seen" 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.

First, your statement is a deflection. The point is, the Danish study
was not a proper, unbiased study. It was more of an advertising
campaign designed to sell the lights that were given away to volunteers.

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).


What data do you have?


Lost. For example this:

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

Ever heard of "fall to void collision". I guess not. When a car comes at
a cyclist anybody in their right mind will take evasive action. That
often goes wrong but a crash into the vegetation is usually much better
than being run over by truck tires.


... Yes, cars are
implicated in most bike deaths; ...

Aha, now you begin to understand. So are serious injuries.

And obviously, cars are also implicated in 100% of motorist deaths and
nearly 100% of pedestrian deaths. Why do you restrict your "Danger!!"
nonsense to bicycling?


Bikes do not have safety belts, crumple zones, styrofoam-filled bumpers,
protected occupant compartments, airbags, and so on. Now that was simple.

I saw a rear-end collision on a road from a safe spot on the bike path
yesterday ... screeeeech ... KAPOW. If the guy had hit a bike the
cyclist would now be in the hospital or morgue. The driver of the car in
front got out unharmed.


... but bike deaths are about as rare as
falling-out-of-bed deaths. American bicyclists do over 10 million miles
per fatality.


Per mile, fatalities _and_ serious injuries of cyclists are higher
than those of car drivers.

Per mile, bicycle fatalities are much, much lower than pedestrian
fatalities. Why do you restrict your "Danger!!" nonsense to bicycling?


Don't veer off. We are talking about motor vehicle versus bicycle use.

Yes, being a pedestrian can be dangerous and that is the core reason why
nobody in their right mind walks to the shopping center out here. There
is no sidewalk and the posted speed limit is 45mph. In Germany we always
walked. There was a nice segregated foot path through a residential
neighborhood, that's why.


BTW, about the PCH, you need to read this:
https://patch.com/california/malibu/...-a-deep-breath

Nothing new here.

What will be new is when (or if) you ever understand it.

It's not me who doesn't understand here :-)

Ignorance goes so well with hubris, Joerg! Dunning-Kruger reigns!

Again: the "control a narrow lane" principle is taught by the Cycling
Savvy classes of the American Bicycle Education Association, and by the
League of American Bicyclists' education program, the CAN-BIKE program
of Canada, the Bikeability program of Great Britain.

Do you have _any_ source for your curb-hugging advice that's more
authoritative than your own brain?


Common sense. As I said, AFRAP is the law here. You wrote that the
cyclist here should be in the lane:

https://www.outsideonline.com/sites/...?itok=QBL2UTKO

That statement is wrong. If I'd hear someone teach such dangerous
nonsense to a class of kids I would report that guy to the Department of
Education.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On 2017-07-09 18:35, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 09 Jul 2017 07:54:01 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-07-08 18:45, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 08 Jul 2017 07:46:25 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-07-07 13:14, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/7/2017 1:59 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-07 09:26, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/7/2017 10:26 AM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-06 19:34, wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2017 at 1:02:53 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-06 12:40, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/6/2017 3:14 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-06 12:05, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/6/2017 10:54 AM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-07-05 17:49, John B. wrote:

Yet people have been riding long distances on bicycles
for years and years. The first Paris - Brest - Paris
randonnée was held in 1891. An essentially non-stop
bicycle ride of 1,200 km. The British, of course, do it
better with the 1433 km London Edinburgh London 2017 and
the 'mericans have the Boston-Montreal-Boston, again a
1,200 km ride but no longer an official randonnée and now
strictly a permanent that anyone could ride on their own
in a self-supported manner while still receiving
recognition (validation) from Randonneurs USA.

Think of it, 126 years of successful long distance
bicycle riding without Joerg built lights.


It's simple. Most humans have a habit of accepting current
state-of-the-art as "that's as good as it gets". I don't,
and I derive most of my income from not thinking that way.
And yes, I already had bicycles with real electrical
systems when I was a teenager.

The detail you're missing is that people have always ridden
_successfully_ without the systems you deem necessary.


As I said, people got used to that this is all they are going
to get. Just like people get used to walking in worn shoes if
they can't afford new ones.


There are always people who are into overkill. Some of those
will claim or pretend that their favorite overkill item is
actually a necessity. But that's disproven by every person
who does well without the overkill item.


A vehicle where the light does not go out or dim way down is
IMO not overkill. The lighting "system" bicyles have would
never pass muster at type certification for motor vehicles.
There are good reasons why not.


For just one example: I'm just back from another club ride.
About 15 people were on the ride. Two of them had the newly
fashionable daytime rear blinkies. This particular ride has
occurred once per week every week except in winter for, oh,
perhaps ten years. Nobody has ever been hit by a car,
despite the thousands of person-miles ridden (GASP!) without
blinkies.


I have never been hit from behind either but the number of
close calls has noticeably decreased since I have bright rear
lights. Mission accomplished. The best is, this was never very
expensive to accomplish.

Now you can stick the head in the sand again and pretend it
ain't so :-)

We've been over this multiple times, but:

If your number of close calls for hits-from-behind has gone way
down, it must have been pretty high to begin with. By contrast,
I almost never experience such a close call; therefore I'd never
be able to see a big reduction.

Why don't those close calls happen to me? Because those close
calls are almost always due in part to rider error -
specifically, inviting close passes by riding too far to the
right.


Yeah, right. The woman who rode in the lane on Blue Ravine died
because of that. The other woman in the pickup truck who was drunk
tried to evade but the lane was now too narrow and *BAM*

Well, Frank is right. Bicycles offer a far smaller target and if you
wear bright clothing so that you don't catch drivers unaware you're
pretty safe.


AFAIR she had a bright jersey on.


Unless you ride in an area and at times drunk drivers are on the
road.


Not just those, also texting ones and more recently stoned drivers.

I found that lights are far better than any neon-colored jersey.
Someone with 1/2 watt LEDs that do a police cruiser spiel like mine
can be seen from half a mile away and gets the attention. End of this
video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI3iZ-Ch7pY

The end of that video shows the bike light indoors in a dark room.
Nobody here is saying that taillights are not valuable in the dark. In
fact, I think they should be a legal requirement after dark. (Currently,
only about three states require them instead of reflectors.)

I'm arguing against the currently fashionable superstition that a blinky
taillight makes a practical difference in ordinary daylight. I've seen
no decent evidence that it does. ...


I have, big time. Therefore, mine is lit anytime you see my bike on
roads. On bike paths I turn it off during the day.



... I've observed many dozens, perhaps
hundreds, of riders with daytime blinkies. In no case did I spot the
cyclist only because he had a blinky. In almost every case, I noticed
the cyclist first and only later saw "Oh, he's running his magic
blinky."

Just like in this advertising photo:
https://www.outsideonline.com/sites/...?itok=QBL2UTKO

I meant at a much greater distance and also not some li'l Walmart
blinky but a real light.

Joerg, that taillight in the link is advertised as specifically designed
to be used in daytime. They claim it's visible in daylight a mile away,
but it's still not as visible as the rider himself.


There I disagree. From experience, as a rider as well as a motorist. In
our paper they mentioned a Danish study of many thousand cyclists where
daytime light reduced accidents by 16%. I believe that. You have the
right not to believe it.


Did you read the entire survey study? Actually read the study
findings?

The test was designed, and did, influence the Danish government to
change the law and allow always on lighting systems.


Ah, now come the conspiracy theories. What makes you believe daytime
running lights were ever not allowed? Especially in Scandinavia where
that started out very early.

As I asked. "Did you actually read the entire survey report?"

The results of study was specifically stated to be: "The experiment
resulted in a change in the law in Denmark, flashing lights are now
legal."


And what exactly is wroing with that? I applaud the Danish authorities
for allowing something that has proven to work.


Apparently you didn't bother to read the study before quoting from it.

--
Cheers,

John B.



--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/