Making America into Amsterdam

On Sunday, July 29, 2018 at 6:33:43 AM UTC-4, Duane wrote:
sms wrote:
On 7/28/2018 12:08 PM, Duane wrote:
sms wrote:
On 7/27/2018 6:05 AM, Duane wrote:

snip

Maybe they aren't LED but these Zenon HID lights:
https://www.powerbulbs.com/ca/blog/2...car-headlights

Xenon are not HID, they are incandescent.

A long time ago, in the U.S., high beams were called "brights" or
"bright lights." There used to be a little round metal foot switch on
the floor by the driver's left foot, i.e.
https://www.waalfm.com/img/waalfm/car-highbeamswitch-800-x-600.jpg.

This is what Frank was talking about when he stated "sometimes when I'm
riding at night an oncoming motorist will actually turn on his brights."
He wasn't referring to HID or LED headlights. Not many people still call
high-beams "brights."

Many high end vehicles have HID headlights, and the DOT hasn't (or
hadn't) caught up with the problem of rating headlights by wattage. A
35W HID is much brighter than a 35W incandescent. A 35W HID will produce
about 3200 lumens. The brightest 35W low beam incandescent is about 900
lumens. Some LED low beams claim 6000 or more lumens, and you can see
the elaborate thermal solutions they use, including some with cooling
fans, and some with huge heat sinks, heat pipes, or copper braid, but
the actual LED output is about 3000 lumens.

In any case, for a cyclist to intentionally use sub-standard lighting,
and then complain a vehicle driver uses their high-beams, or "brights"
as they used to be called, is ludicrous. You will not change ingrainde
driver behavior by insisting that if you use minimally legal lighting
that they should be able to see you easily at night. If a driver thinks
that they glimpse an animal, pedestrian, cyclist, etc., at night, they
will turn on their high beams, and it's not to be obnoxious. The way to
stop this, as a cyclist anyway, is to use good lighting so the vehicle
driver easily sees you with their low beams. It's not a costly endeavor.
Being stubborn is unwise.


Not according to the link I cited:
Xenon HID (High Intensity Discharge) bulbs are filled with Xenon gas and
contain two electrodes - one on each end of the tube-like bulb. When the
bulb is switched on, an electric current passes between the two electrodes
and the Xenon gas lights up. The Xenon gas is actually only used during the
start-up of the bulb. Once the desir


No, the presence of Xenon does not imply HID. See
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KDO9KE


These HID lights use Xenon. No one said Xenon = HID.

Whatever. The blue tinted super bright light that we were talking about
seems to be what these lights supply.
It isn’t a case of cyclists causing people to use their high beams or
“brights� because they aren’t using bright enough lights on their bikes.

--
duane

Correct. What I was talking about are those super bright low-beam blueish tinted (I don't care what type of bulb it has when it blinds me) car lights that are so bright at night even on a WELL LIGHTED CITY STREET that a bicyclist approaching that car and the bicyclist riding in the traffic lane is blinded to the point that they have to stop in case there's a stopped car in front of them. I've had that happen many times here in town. Seems that lumen wars are raging in motor cars as well as on bicycles.

Cheers

John B. Slocomb writes:

Or just don't ride at night :-)

Riding at night thru a neon lit city is one of the
best feelings in the world. To make it even better,
one can take an ice-cold shower - with the lights off
- before one does it, to heighten the senses even
more. It is like riding a space ship in a
science fiction movie

--
underground experts exiled
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

On 7/29/2018 7:46 AM, Emanuel Berg wrote:
John B. Slocomb writes:

Or just don't ride at night :-)

Riding at night thru a neon lit city is one of the
best feelings in the world. To make it even better,
one can take an ice-cold shower - with the lights off
- before one does it, to heighten the senses even
more. It is like riding a space ship in a
science fiction movie

While I skipped the cold shower, I used to lead "All-Night-Bike-Rides"
in San Francisco and in Silicon Valley. Well attended by bicycle club
members and Sierra Club Bicycling Section members.

"Don't ride at night" is bad advice, IMVAIO, though John wasn't serious.
If you use good lighting you're actually more conspicuous at night than
unlit in the daytime, though now a large percentage of cyclists use
daytime lighting as well.

Yesterday at about 10 a.m. I was going to a meeting and had to cross a
very busy bicycle route, Foothill Boulevard. A stream of road bikes was
coming down the hill, at high speed, with about 70% of them with daytime
running lights either steady or flashing. It's in situations like that,
where motorists may not realize just how fast a bicycle is capable of
going, that the daytime lights are especially important.

Sadly, the meeting I was going to was regarding a developer's plans to
demolish a very old strip shopping center
,200m/data=!3m1!1e3
to build housing and ground floor retail. It's where the famous
Cupertino Bike Shop, started by Spence Wolf
http://sporttoday.org/31_45d76c6fd03802c6_1.htm, is currently located.
I don't what the owner will do, hopefully he can find another place with
sufficiently cheap rent. It's the only high-end road bike shop in the
area now that Chain Reaction closed their Los Altos store, though we
just got a high-end mountain bike store
https://trailheadcyclery.com/we-are-moving-to-cupertino/ in a former
gun store--the perfect transition.

On Sun, 29 Jul 2018 06:33:28 -0700 (PDT), Sir Ridesalot
wrote:

Correct. What I was talking about are those super bright low-beam blueish tinted (I don't care what type of bulb it has when it blinds me) car lights that are so bright at night even on a WELL LIGHTED CITY STREET that a bicyclist approaching that car and the bicyclist riding in the traffic lane is blinded to the point that they have to stop in case there's a stopped car in front of them.

Those blue lights are painful even when one is a passenger in a car.
By great good fortune, they are getting less common.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net

---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com

On 7/28/2018 9:29 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Sat, 28 Jul 2018 17:18:17 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 7/28/2018 3:41 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2018-07-27 16:24, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/27/2018 3:42 PM, Joerg wrote:

[...]


Yesterday I rode through a long narrow bike path tunnel underneath Hwy
50. All others generally blow through there at their full 15-25mph, in
almost total darkness. Yet this is a place where rattlesnakes often
curl up to cool off.

I always go through there at 5mph with my headlight at full power.
Because of rattlers and because there is the occasional homeless
person sleeping off yesterday's hangover.

Ah, rattlesnakes in tunnels! Another deadly hazard in Joergland!

So, how many tunnel rattlesnake bike fatalities in your very special
area?


Rattlesnake bites are rarely fatal. They are, however, nasty, will
thoroughly ruin you day and then some, plus the antivenom is very
expensive and will set podeple back fiancially via a four-digit copay.

Running into a soused guy in a sleeping bag isn't so cool either.

Such extra caution costs next to nothing in equipment and "lost" time.
$30-40 for a good lighting system and throttling to 5mph for less than a
minute isn't excessive in my book.

I have met a guy how had a nasty crash in such a tunnel. He hit a beer
bottle that he didn't see. I would have seen it. It's as simple as that.

I have a friend who tripped over at tree root while walking. Cracked rib
and black and blue face. It's a dangerous world, all right!


You can even die from falling out of bed.... and 3 times the numbers
of people die from falling out of bed as die from bicycle crashes in
California.

Are "Bed Helmets" next on the agenda?

https://www.brainjet.com/random/2352...uldnt-believe/
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-falli...icans-annually

https://www.quora.com/Why-does-falli...icans-annually

Would safety belts for snoozers make them safer?

Well, if only ONE life can be saved... !


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Sun, 29 Jul 2018 14:07:06 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 7/28/2018 9:29 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Sat, 28 Jul 2018 17:18:17 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 7/28/2018 3:41 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2018-07-27 16:24, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/27/2018 3:42 PM, Joerg wrote:

[...]


Yesterday I rode through a long narrow bike path tunnel underneath Hwy
50. All others generally blow through there at their full 15-25mph, in
almost total darkness. Yet this is a place where rattlesnakes often
curl up to cool off.

I always go through there at 5mph with my headlight at full power.
Because of rattlers and because there is the occasional homeless
person sleeping off yesterday's hangover.

Ah, rattlesnakes in tunnels! Another deadly hazard in Joergland!

So, how many tunnel rattlesnake bike fatalities in your very special
area?


Rattlesnake bites are rarely fatal. They are, however, nasty, will
thoroughly ruin you day and then some, plus the antivenom is very
expensive and will set podeple back fiancially via a four-digit copay.

Running into a soused guy in a sleeping bag isn't so cool either.

Such extra caution costs next to nothing in equipment and "lost" time.
$30-40 for a good lighting system and throttling to 5mph for less than a
minute isn't excessive in my book.

I have met a guy how had a nasty crash in such a tunnel. He hit a beer
bottle that he didn't see. I would have seen it. It's as simple as that.

I have a friend who tripped over at tree root while walking. Cracked rib
and black and blue face. It's a dangerous world, all right!


You can even die from falling out of bed.... and 3 times the numbers
of people die from falling out of bed as die from bicycle crashes in
California.

Are "Bed Helmets" next on the agenda?

https://www.brainjet.com/random/2352...uldnt-believe/
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-falli...icans-annually

https://www.quora.com/Why-does-falli...icans-annually

Would safety belts for snoozers make them safer?

Well, if only ONE life can be saved... !

I just read that "More than 95% of the world\u2019s population breathe
unsafe air" and "Total air pollution was responsible for 6.1 million
deaths in 2016".

It sounds as though just being born is tantamount to a death's
sentence.

On 7/27/2018 3:32 AM, Duane wrote:

snip

No one was talking about high beams. They were talking about the LED or
whatever headlights that give off a bright bluish tinted light. Bright
enough to seem like they’re high beams.

Frank was talking about high beams, or "brights." HID is less of an
issue because they are aimed as low-beams. But they should adapt to
ambient conditions and they don't, at least in the U.S..

On 7/29/2018 3:11 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote:

It sounds as though just being born is tantamount to a death's
sentence.

Yep. At my age, that's starting to worry me.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Friday, July 27, 2018 at 11:34:00 PM UTC-7, John B. Slocomb wrote:

A guy in the welding shop breathed too many zinc fumes and was all
curled up and groaning so we took him to the Emergency Clinic (USAF)
where we were trying to explain to the doctor on duty that "It isn't
an appendix, the guy's got galvanized poisoning".

Had the doctor's mate not come in and looked up zinc in the poison
handbook they would have started cutting.

They do not operate without X-rays.

On Friday, July 27, 2018 at 11:52:43 PM UTC-7, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Fri, 27 Jul 2018 19:26:31 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 7/27/2018 6:23 PM, wrote:
On Friday, July 27, 2018 at 4:06:33 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/27/2018 2:09 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, July 27, 2018 at 9:44:15 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Has anyone besides me had the experience of riding their bike home from
work with acute appendicitis?

No, but I've ridden my bike with acute pulmonary embolism, broken hand, separated shoulder, broken ribs, broken legs (although with internal fixation and ortho boots), internal bleeding, concussion, facial, leg, arm lacerations, flu, head-cold, allergies, hang-over, sunburn, acne and indigestion. Not all at the same time. My hair is also thinning, and my joints hurt..

Impressive! I can check off only a few of those: flu, head cold,
hangover, sunburn.

My greying brothers falsely accuse me of dying my hair, and one woman
once tried to tug off what she thought must be a toupee. And my knees
hurt only if I _haven't_ been cycling enough.

I could do a century with acute appendicitis.

Not me. It was tough making it up the hills on that seven mile ride!

--
- Frank Krygowski

Having hair on your head is for sissies.


Hey watch it, pal.


Haven't I read something equating lack of hair and intelligence. Or
was that lack of hair and sexual activity?

Dr. Aikarakudy Alias told the Eighth Congress of the Association of European Psychiatrists that higher intelligence — gauged by academic rankings — is correlated with higher amounts of body hair on men.

I'll warrant that I have more body hair than anyone else on this group. I have to shave my arms and legs to not be thought a sasquatch.