NYC and Bicycles - and the what happened next.

I went to Lincoln Center last night. For the first time I noticed all
the people on bikes riding through the traffic. They were riding with
the traffic...right in the middle of the traffic. Heavy, heavy
traffic filled with taxi's, limos, big buses, etc. I could not believe
it. I just could not believe it. Plus it was cold last night. And the
traffic was extremely heavy. The city seemed to be particulary jumping
last night with us out of towners. Ya know, I go into the city alot to
see shows on Broadway or to Lincoln Center or the Garden and I spend
weekends in Manhattan and YET... I never noticed these humans who bike
their way through the maze of congestion and confusion we call NYC
traffic. Only last night, and because of this newsgroup did I notice
the cyclists. I really could not believe how they were riding through
that horrendous traffic. Taxi's were everywhere as it was a Saturday
night and close to the time everything starts happening in the city.
In all the years I have been going into the city on Saturday night,
NOT ONCE, Not even ONCE.. did I notice that there are people on bikes
actually riding through all that mess. I was in awe. The traffic, the
cold, the dark, the city.....and they are on a bike. I wondered how
they could feel at all safe. I kept thinking how vulnerable they are.
I am such a wuss that A car service brings me into the city. I think I
was starting to re-think my life. I've been such a wuss all my life
that I would never dare put myself in a situation like that. I guess I
can't wear the t-shirt "NO FEAR". But the irony of the whole this
is....When I arrived home around midnight...I sat down in a chair and
heard a loud crash...right in front of my house someone driving a car
crashed into a telephone pole. Knocked down the pole, the electric
wires, the telephone wires and he was inside the car and it was
smoking. Thank God he got out alive. During the night I started
thinking about how worried I was about the cyclists in the city and I
come home to see a young man spin out of control and crash into a pole
right in my little safe suburban town. I wonder if life was telling
me something. Ya think.

http://www.geocities.com/lindaannbuset/mypage.html

http://hometown.aol.com/lbuset/

Maggie wrote:

I went to Lincoln Center last night. For the first time I noticed all
the people on bikes riding through the traffic. They were riding with
the traffic...right in the middle of the traffic. Heavy, heavy
traffic filled with taxi's, limos, big buses, etc. I could not believe
it. I just could not believe it.

Heh! Welcome to the world of the vehicular cyclist :-)

Have you read Effective Cycling?

The truth is, cycling is not actually especially dangerous - even
cycling in traffic, provided you know how to do it. A lot of the secret
lies in remembering that you are a vehicle, and riding as all the other
vehicles do. It makes your actions predictable to the cagers, which
makes it easier for them to avoid you.

Plus in traffic you're often moving faster than the cagers anyway :-)

--
Guy

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 07:09:49 -0800, Maggie wrote:

I went to Lincoln Center last night. For the first time I noticed all
the people on bikes riding through the traffic. They were riding with
the traffic...right in the middle of the traffic. Heavy, heavy
traffic filled with taxi's, limos, big buses, etc. I could not believe
it. I just could not believe it. Plus it was cold last night. And the
traffic was extremely heavy.

Actually, heavy traffic sometimes makes it easier, since at least the cars
are all going slowly.

It is possible to ride safely in city traffic. As a first step, you
should consider taking an Effective Cycling course, or getting John
Forester's book by the same name.

Though I haven't ridden much in New York City, I have ridden extensively
in Boston and Philadelphia in the 35 years I've been riding (well, 25,
since in the middle I did take 10 years off the bike). In all that time I
have had two run-ins with cars. One was totally my fault, in that I was
riding up between a line of parked cars and a line of stopped traffic,
when the passenger in one of the stopped cars decided to get out... I now
know to avoid the "door zone" on both sides. The other was a "right
hook", a driver who passed me on the left and then immediately turned
right, into my path. Both of these are very common car-bike accidents, and
neither is likely to cause serious injuries.

Most of the types of accidents that are likely to cause serious injury
come from cycling in a way that would appear to be avoiding traffic
problems (either sidewalk riding or wrong-way riding, or riding too far to
the right, which encourages cars to pass too closely in situations that
are not safe). Aside from that, you have to learn a specific type of
"defensive riding", learning when to take the lane so that drivers will
not be tempted to pass unsafely, and keeping in mind that no matter how
bright your clothes or lights, you will be invisible to some drivers.




--

David L. Johnson

__o | To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or
_`\(,_ | that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only
(_)/ (_) | unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the
American public. --Theodore Roosevelt

=v= NYC has many advantages for the bicyclist. This is due
mostly to the fact that the streets are ruled by pedestrians, at
least in Manhattan. This changes the pace, the folkways, etc.
Primarily because of all the pedestrians, there's no right turn
on red, which changes *everything*!

=v= Bike culture has been on the rise since at least 1998, too,
which has meant a steady growth of bicyclists. This, too, has
led to some improvements for bicyclists. Unfortunately the city
and especially the police haven't adjusted well to this.

=v= Oh, and as far as Effective[TM] Cycling(R) is concerned,
just be aware that it has a zealous ideological aspect to it.
I found it useful ninety-something percent of the time when I
lived elsewhere (amongst Effective(C) acolytes who insist, NO!
IT'S 100% OR NOTHING!), but New York City traffic dynamics
bear little relationship to those in suburban California where
Forester lives, or in the Merry Olde England where he grew up.
_Jym_

Maggie wrote:
I went to Lincoln Center last night. For the first time I noticed all
the people on bikes riding through the traffic. They were riding with
the traffic...right in the middle of the traffic. Heavy, heavy
traffic filled with taxi's, limos, big buses, etc. I could not believe
it. I just could not believe it. Plus it was cold last night. And the
traffic was extremely heavy. The city seemed to be particulary jumping
last night with us out of towners. Ya know, I go into the city alot to
see shows on Broadway or to Lincoln Center or the Garden and I spend
weekends in Manhattan and YET... I never noticed these humans who bike
their way through the maze of congestion and confusion we call NYC
traffic. Only last night, and because of this newsgroup did I notice
the cyclists. I really could not believe how they were riding through
that horrendous traffic. Taxi's were everywhere as it was a Saturday
night and close to the time everything starts happening in the city.
In all the years I have been going into the city on Saturday night,
NOT ONCE, Not even ONCE.. did I notice that there are people on bikes
actually riding through all that mess. I was in awe. The traffic, the
cold, the dark, the city.....and they are on a bike. I wondered how
they could feel at all safe. I kept thinking how vulnerable they are.
I am such a wuss that A car service brings me into the city. I think I
was starting to re-think my life. I've been such a wuss all my life
that I would never dare put myself in a situation like that. I guess I
can't wear the t-shirt "NO FEAR". But the irony of the whole this
is....When I arrived home around midnight...I sat down in a chair and
heard a loud crash...right in front of my house someone driving a car
crashed into a telephone pole. Knocked down the pole, the electric
wires, the telephone wires and he was inside the car and it was
smoking. Thank God he got out alive. During the night I started
thinking about how worried I was about the cyclists in the city and I
come home to see a young man spin out of control and crash into a pole
right in my little safe suburban town. I wonder if life was telling
me something. Ya think.

http://www.geocities.com/lindaannbuset/mypage.html

http://hometown.aol.com/lbuset/

Anyone remember the video of the "race" through NYC that was recently
posted? Called "red-web.mpeg" if I recall. I googled for it and it came up
as a link on the drunkcyclist.com page (caution, not a site for the meek) ,
but the link appears to be dead. That was just plain crazy stuff. If
anyone has it, I'm sure Maggie would be interested and amazed.

Tom

Anyone remember the video of the "race" through NYC that was
recently posted? Called "red-web.mpeg" if I recall.

=v= Oh, was that a clip from _Red_Light_Go_ perhaps?

http://www.redlightgo.ws/

More of the same he

http://www.digave.com/videos/

=v= To be fair, alleycat races aren't normal everyday NYC
traffic.
_Jym_

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 08:20:18 -0800, Jym Dyer wrote:

=v= Oh, and as far as Effective[TM] Cycling(R) is concerned,
just be aware that it has a zealous ideological aspect to it.
I found it useful ninety-something percent of the time when I
lived elsewhere (amongst Effective(C) acolytes who insist, NO!
IT'S 100% OR NOTHING!), but New York City traffic dynamics
bear little relationship to those in suburban California where
Forester lives, or in the Merry Olde England where he grew up.

Well, yeah, there is that of the zealot in Forester. Especially weird are
his maintenance tips. But, still, there is something to be gotten out of
his book.

--

David L. Johnson

__o | As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not
_`\(,_ | certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to
(_)/ (_) | reality. -- Albert Einstein

"Maggie" wrote in message
om...
I went to Lincoln Center last night. For the first time I noticed
all
the people on bikes riding through the traffic.

Actually bikes are a good way to see a city, they are much easier
than driving a car, I think. Traffic isn't really confused, there
is a rhythm, once you learn to understand it, and go with the flow.
There is congestion, but that's the motorists' problem, not yours

With a bike you are tall enough to see over the top of most of the
traffic, and get a better idea of what is going on than a driver. If
all else fails, you can stop on the sidewalk, take a drink from your
waterbottle, look at your map, or ask someone the way, while you take
time to recover.

New York is fairly simple, as cities go. The grid is easy to
undertand, and the streets are mostly one way, which simplifies
traffic movements. There is nothing like Boston's Common, which,
because it has five right angled corners, joined with straight sides,
means that everyone is permanently confused, because they can't
believe such a thing exists.

Effective Cycling is a good book, although some people don't like
Forester's tone. It's a general purpose bike book, and so has stuff
about fixing bikes, and going on bike tours, and things like that,
including a lot of stuff that other bike books don't have. There are
other books that tell you how to ride in traffic, but Forester's is
good

Jeremy Parker

Jym Dyer wrote:
Anyone remember the video of the "race" through NYC that was
recently posted? Called "red-web.mpeg" if I recall.

=v= Oh, was that a clip from _Red_Light_Go_ perhaps?

http://www.redlightgo.ws/

More of the same he

http://www.digave.com/videos/

=v= To be fair, alleycat races aren't normal everyday NYC
traffic.
_Jym_

You found it! It's the video entited "drag race NYC" on the second link.
Wacky stuff. My most scary, technical offroad nightmares wouldn't prepare
me for that kind of riding. That takes a certain level of mental illness
just not found in the average cycling population. Cool to watch though.

Tom

In article ,
(Maggie) writes:

I think I
was starting to re-think my life.

Cool & congrats! Ya see, it's never too late, and we're
never too old. I think it's as good to be mentally
flexible, as physically --- to be open to new, fresh ideas,
and not get stuck in a rut of a "way of thinking".

I've been such a wuss all my life
that I would never dare put myself in a situation like that. I guess I
can't wear the t-shirt "NO FEAR".

The trick is not to lose your fear, but to use it appropriately
and temper it with education and experience. Anyhow, I certainly
don't think you're a wuss. You're willingness and openness to
learn and experience new things & ideas indicates to me a respectable
gutsy-ness on your part. Yer doin' good!


cheers,
Tom

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