Latest on Australian Mandatory Helmet Law propaganda

On Thursday, February 21, 2019 at 9:03:50 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/20/2019 11:48 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, February 20, 2019 at 6:47:19 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:

And perhaps you shouldn't credit my lack of crashing to magic? I think
there's something to be said for riding within the limits of one's
abilities.

That and not riding in ice or at night on rain soaked roads with hidden pot holes or on broken wet cement...

Except that I've done all those things!

on tires with clay-based pigments or Umma Gummas that were pulled from the market.

OK, I haven't done that one.

It also helps not to have you son crash in front of you on a slippery descent.

I've ridden with people who have crashed. I pay attention to the
behavior of riders, and I don't draft any but the best.

But if I were in a slippery descent, I think I'd take it a lot slower
than you. I don't see any sense in pushing for speed in risky situations.

I doubt you often encounter hills where you keep going even when your wheels are stopped. https://tinyurl.com/y53jrl9d I about slid through the stop sign. That was on 32mm semi-slicks. Do you ever ride on moss? I ride in rain the equivalent of four solid months a year, in traffic with lots of other cyclists, walkers, dogs -- often in the dark. There are a lot of reasons for crashing that do not suggest incompetence.

Our philosophies differ. I think that most times a cyclist crashes, it's
for reasons that could have and should have been foreseen. So potholes?
In my commuting days, I was rarely surprised by them. I knew the
stretches of road where they first appeared - often where the pavement
was partly shaded by trees, for example. Corners? I watch for gravel.
Dogs? High alert every time, leashed or not.

There were many years I tried to be fast, usually time trialing home
from work. I might do some slightly tricky moves as part of that,
notably jumping a set of angled railroad tracks. But it was within my
level of skill (since I always did it successfully). And where things
were more uncertain, like corners that sometimes had gravel, I was more
conservative.

I may have told this story before, but on one ride with my daughter, we
approached a set of railroad tracks just after a rain. I said "Be
careful, the tracks are going to be slippery." The kid said "Oh, Dad!!"
in the way kids are programmed to do. Then she dumped onto the ground.

We were almost side by side, going the same speed. But I think I was
more careful than she was, to ride perfectly straight and not jerk the
bike. Sometimes that's all it takes.

I think it was last week that I rode to the library on icy streets. To
tell the truth, I didn't realize they were as icy as they were; if I
had, I might not have taken the bike. But I did keep going - very, very
slowly and carefully. There were times I was riding at 3 mph on icy
turns, keeping the bike as upright as possible and ready to put my foot
down instantly.

You probably would have beat me to the library. But I was happy to keep
my crash risk to a minimum.

I doubt you could teach me anything about technique, particularly when it comes to train tracks. Downtown is solid Max and streetcar tracks. A small segment of my commute through south waterfront: https://bikeportland.org/wp-content/...moody-high.jpg The best part of downtown are the MAX tracks combined with the cobbles or the slippery death-brick pavers. We get 140-150 days of rain. Have you ever ridden for 140-150 days on wet pavement in a year? I've done that for the last 35 years. It's a jungle out there. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3046/...223dd5bed8.jpg If you had raced for 20 years, I could also guaranty that you would have crashed. Anybody who rides daily will at some time crash. https://bikeportland.org/2010/11/11/...released-42622 https://www.portlandmercury.com/Blog...ured-in-a-year

-- Jay Beattie.




It was icy this morning, and I was particularly careful on the sled hill which is a quarter mile or so of 16-20% of badly broken concrete.

Look at it this way -- there are a lot of crashes I did and do avoid. I stayed upright yesterday, sliding along with my wheels locked.

On Wednesday, February 20, 2019 at 11:52:38 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/20/2019 1:55 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, February 20, 2019 at 9:07:18 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/20/2019 8:11 AM, Duane wrote:

We often hear people hear asking why
pedestrians don't have helmets.Â* Especially when gardening...

Duane, you have never rebutted the data related to your pedestrian and
gardening wisecracks.

1) Bicyclists are routinely told they MUST wear helmets to save their
lives. Yet pedestrians suffer far more annual fatalities than
bicyclists. Pedestrians suffer far more fatalities per mile traveled
than bicyclists, a fact that has been documented for every nation whose
data I could find. Yet pedestrians get no helmet propaganda.

(Pedestrians also suffer far more TBI fatalities per mile traveled than
bicyclists, but that data is harder to tease out, because almost nobody
bothers to even examine the TBI count for pedestrians.)

2) Bicycling is routinely treated as the source of countless injuries.
Yet the paper Powell, et. al., "Injury Rates from Walking, Gardening,
Weightlifting, Outdoor Bicycling and Aerobics", _Medicine & Science in
Sports & Exercise_, 1998, Vol.30 pp. 1246-9 surveyed over 5000 people
and found those who chose bicycling from among those exercise modes had
the fewest injuries per month.

Duane, wisecracks may sound satisfying to you, but you're refusing to
deal with real data. Try learning a bit before posting, and try posting
facts.

Well, the gardening helmet argument is worthy of a wisecrack.

Please be honest. The point of citing that paper [Powell, et. al., 1998]
was not to say gardeners should wear helmets. The point was to show that
compared to other normal activities, bicycling is not terribly
dangerous, despite propaganda that claims it is.

If you disagree, put some data up and let's discuss it.

And why does it matter that people don't use helmets in other activities? Who cares.

Most bicyclists who say "I never ride without a helmet" probably don't
care! To one degree or another, they've bought into the propaganda
claiming 1) bicycling is really dangerous and 2) helmets make it so much
safer that they are really worth wearing and promoting. Since those
riders don't question those points, they don't examine the relevant data.

But both of those points are demonstrably wrong. Accepting them without
question does contribute to discrimination against cycling.

Do helmets prevent certain bicycling-related head injuries. Yes. That fact is certain.

So why should it NOT be the first safety tip taught to kids walking home
from school, or to other pedestrians? Why is it not publicized to
motorists as often as seatbelt use?

Will a particular individual benefit from wearing a helmet. The answer is "it depends." For you, the answer is "no" because you don't ride in inclement weather and magically remain upright at all times.

I do ride in rain, Jay. I avoid it when I can, but there are times I
can't avoid it, so I put up with it. And I ride in snow and ice
conditions. I don't ride far, but I've done it within the last couple of
weeks.

You're correct, though, that I do remain upright. I haven't crashed on
the bike for over ten years now (when our tandem forks broke), and
before that, for over 15 years, when I skinned my knee a little bit in
my first ever moving on-road fall. So what's better - to put on a
helmet, feel protected and ride so you crash frequently? Or to not use a
helmet and never have a serious crash?

For me, the answer is "yes." I've got the scars and broken helmets to prove it. Why should I make my choices based on your experience or the "average" experience -- average being comprised mostly of potatoes who ride their bikes once a year at eight MPH. I don't care about the faceless data points in some ****ty case study from Toadsuck hospital in outer nowhere.

Yeah, as if the "elite" riders are the ones with scars and broken
helmets! How macho!

But if a case study doesn't agree with your preconceptions, that doesn't
mean it's a "****ty case study." It could be that your preconceptions
are wrong. The serious way of examining the validity of the study is to
read it, discuss it, point out the errors you find, etc. I've done that
with some "Danger! Danger!" studies like Hoffman 2010. Why don't you do
it with Powell et.al.?

Moreover, bicyclists are road users. Motorcyclists have to wear helmets.. Even the electric scooter riders have to wear helmets.

First, as mentioned several times: Motorcycling's fatality per hour risk
is over 30 times greater than that of bicycling. And if you carefully
examine a motorcycle helmet, you _may_ find that it's significantly
different than a bicycle helmet. Despite the simplistic claim of
similarity from those who can count all the way to two ("Look! Two
wheels!") the situations and the risks are far from equivalent.

Besides, in my state adult motorcyclists do not have to wear helmets.
The same is true in four of the five adjacent states.

But please be clear: Are you now lobbying for a mandatory helmet law for
bicyclists? We used to get that on this forum, but most of those busy
bodies have stopped trying to take on a nanny role.

Personally, I'm for letting each rider decide. But I'm also for
rebutting the fear mongering and false claims. And I think it's weird
that some otherwise knowledgeable people are in favor of helmet
promotion (or even mandates) while being in favor of promoting cycling.

--
- Frank Krygowski

You could NOT ride in normal city traffic and ask anyone to "put up some data". That riding in traffic is irrefutably more dangerous that driving in a car is unquestionable.

The subject was whether or not someone should feel safer wearing a helmet. That is THEIR decision to make and not yours or mine.

On Wednesday, February 20, 2019 at 2:59:10 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
On Wednesday, February 20, 2019 at 7:52:38 PM UTC, Frank Krygowski wrote:

If you disagree, put some data up and let's discuss it.

Hmm. See, Franki-boy, not only have I put up data, which you refused to discuss because even you know you have no answers to such conclusive data, my data proved:
1. That cycling is safer than you claimed before you started using my figures, which coincidentally also proved you don't know how to handle statistics, and through your clumsiness were making cycling seem more dangerous than it is.
2.That a substantial number of cyclists' lives, up to perhaps 400, can be saved in America every year if helmets were mandatory, which could come to more than half of the cyclists killed on American roads every year, a conclusion you inhumanely dismissed as irrelevant because so few cyclists die every year that it isn't worth saving half of them... For future reference, Franki-boy, the correct answer is that even one life saved is worth the effort: it could be your life.
3. That it is therefore counterproductive dimwits like you who put people off cycling, by contributing to the belief that cycling is dangerous, and that the self-appointed "spokesmen for cycling" do not care about the lives of cyclists.

You want to be the friend of cycling, Franki-boy, you should shut the **** up, for good.

You won't, of course. You're too full of yourself, which is the same as saying you're too full of ****.

Andre Jute
Professional publicist

I do not in the least believe that a single life could be saved by helmets other than very far outliers on the curve. That pedestrian and bicyclists deaths track each other so closely shows that to be a truism.

Like you appear to be saying, I do not believe cycling to be dangerous in general but that is only in comparison to driving which is not safe at all. I have been told that driving in Germany was so dangerous that Americans often would not do so.

On Thursday, February 21, 2019 at 10:10:40 AM UTC-8, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, February 21, 2019 at 9:03:50 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/20/2019 11:48 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, February 20, 2019 at 6:47:19 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:

And perhaps you shouldn't credit my lack of crashing to magic? I think
there's something to be said for riding within the limits of one's
abilities.

That and not riding in ice or at night on rain soaked roads with hidden pot holes or on broken wet cement...

Except that I've done all those things!

on tires with clay-based pigments or Umma Gummas that were pulled from the market.

OK, I haven't done that one.

It also helps not to have you son crash in front of you on a slippery descent.

I've ridden with people who have crashed. I pay attention to the
behavior of riders, and I don't draft any but the best.

But if I were in a slippery descent, I think I'd take it a lot slower
than you. I don't see any sense in pushing for speed in risky situations.

I doubt you often encounter hills where you keep going even when your wheels are stopped. https://tinyurl.com/y53jrl9d I about slid through the stop sign. That was on 32mm semi-slicks. Do you ever ride on moss? I ride in rain the equivalent of four solid months a year, in traffic with lots of other cyclists, walkers, dogs -- often in the dark. There are a lot of reasons for crashing that do not suggest incompetence.

Our philosophies differ. I think that most times a cyclist crashes, it's
for reasons that could have and should have been foreseen. So potholes?
In my commuting days, I was rarely surprised by them. I knew the
stretches of road where they first appeared - often where the pavement
was partly shaded by trees, for example. Corners? I watch for gravel.
Dogs? High alert every time, leashed or not.

There were many years I tried to be fast, usually time trialing home
from work. I might do some slightly tricky moves as part of that,
notably jumping a set of angled railroad tracks. But it was within my
level of skill (since I always did it successfully). And where things
were more uncertain, like corners that sometimes had gravel, I was more
conservative.

I may have told this story before, but on one ride with my daughter, we
approached a set of railroad tracks just after a rain. I said "Be
careful, the tracks are going to be slippery." The kid said "Oh, Dad!!"
in the way kids are programmed to do. Then she dumped onto the ground.

We were almost side by side, going the same speed. But I think I was
more careful than she was, to ride perfectly straight and not jerk the
bike. Sometimes that's all it takes.

I think it was last week that I rode to the library on icy streets. To
tell the truth, I didn't realize they were as icy as they were; if I
had, I might not have taken the bike. But I did keep going - very, very
slowly and carefully. There were times I was riding at 3 mph on icy
turns, keeping the bike as upright as possible and ready to put my foot
down instantly.

You probably would have beat me to the library. But I was happy to keep
my crash risk to a minimum.

I doubt you could teach me anything about technique, particularly when it comes to train tracks. Downtown is solid Max and streetcar tracks. A small segment of my commute through south waterfront: https://bikeportland.org/wp-content/...moody-high.jpg The best part of downtown are the MAX tracks combined with the cobbles or the slippery death-brick pavers. We get 140-150 days of rain. Have you ever ridden for 140-150 days on wet pavement in a year? I've done that for the last 35 years. It's a jungle out there. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3046/...223dd5bed8.jpg If you had raced for 20 years, I could also guaranty that you would have crashed. Anybody who rides daily will at some time crash. https://bikeportland.org/2010/11/11/...released-42622 https://www.portlandmercury.com/Blog...ured-in-a-year

-- Jay Beattie.




It was icy this morning, and I was particularly careful on the sled hill which is a quarter mile or so of 16-20% of badly broken concrete.

Look at it this way -- there are a lot of crashes I did and do avoid. I stayed upright yesterday, sliding along with my wheels locked.

Of all of the places I've fallen I've never had problems with train tracks and there are trolleys and bus tracks all over San Francisco. When getting back from a long ride through San Francisco those are the very least of my worries.

writes:

On Wednesday, February 20, 2019 at 2:59:10 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
On Wednesday, February 20, 2019 at 7:52:38 PM UTC, Frank Krygowski wrote:

If you disagree, put some data up and let's discuss it.

Hmm. See, Franki-boy, not only have I put up data, which you refused
to discuss because even you know you have no answers to such
conclusive data, my data proved:
1. That cycling is safer than you claimed before you started using
my figures, which coincidentally also proved you don't know how to
handle statistics, and through your clumsiness were making cycling
seem more dangerous than it is.
2.That a substantial number of cyclists' lives, up to perhaps 400,
can be saved in America every year if helmets were mandatory, which
could come to more than half of the cyclists killed on American
roads every year, a conclusion you inhumanely dismissed as
irrelevant because so few cyclists die every year that it isn't
worth saving half of them... For future reference, Franki-boy, the
correct answer is that even one life saved is worth the effort: it
could be your life.
3. That it is therefore counterproductive dimwits like you who put
people off cycling, by contributing to the belief that cycling is
dangerous, and that the self-appointed "spokesmen for cycling" do
not care about the lives of cyclists.

You want to be the friend of cycling, Franki-boy, you should shut
the **** up, for good.

You won't, of course. You're too full of yourself, which is the same
as saying you're too full of ****.

Andre Jute
Professional publicist

I do not in the least believe that a single life could be saved by
helmets other than very far outliers on the curve. That pedestrian and
bicyclists deaths track each other so closely shows that to be a
truism.

I could easily believe that at least one person a year might avoid a
scalp avulsion, followed by death from some hospital-dwelling disease,
if helmets were made mandatory. The problem with this line of thought
is that some unknown number of people would very likely stop cycling,
and some of them would suffer a decline in health leading to earlier
death. The net benefit/detriment is the best question.

Like you appear to be saying, I do not believe cycling to be dangerous
in general but that is only in comparison to driving which is not safe
at all. I have been told that driving in Germany was so dangerous that
Americans often would not do so.

--

On Thursday, February 21, 2019 at 11:03:55 AM UTC-8, Radey Shouman wrote:
writes:

On Wednesday, February 20, 2019 at 2:59:10 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
On Wednesday, February 20, 2019 at 7:52:38 PM UTC, Frank Krygowski wrote:

If you disagree, put some data up and let's discuss it.

Hmm. See, Franki-boy, not only have I put up data, which you refused
to discuss because even you know you have no answers to such
conclusive data, my data proved:
1. That cycling is safer than you claimed before you started using
my figures, which coincidentally also proved you don't know how to
handle statistics, and through your clumsiness were making cycling
seem more dangerous than it is.
2.That a substantial number of cyclists' lives, up to perhaps 400,
can be saved in America every year if helmets were mandatory, which
could come to more than half of the cyclists killed on American
roads every year, a conclusion you inhumanely dismissed as
irrelevant because so few cyclists die every year that it isn't
worth saving half of them... For future reference, Franki-boy, the
correct answer is that even one life saved is worth the effort: it
could be your life.
3. That it is therefore counterproductive dimwits like you who put
people off cycling, by contributing to the belief that cycling is
dangerous, and that the self-appointed "spokesmen for cycling" do
not care about the lives of cyclists.

You want to be the friend of cycling, Franki-boy, you should shut
the **** up, for good.

You won't, of course. You're too full of yourself, which is the same
as saying you're too full of ****.

Andre Jute
Professional publicist

I do not in the least believe that a single life could be saved by
helmets other than very far outliers on the curve. That pedestrian and
bicyclists deaths track each other so closely shows that to be a
truism.

I could easily believe that at least one person a year might avoid a
scalp avulsion, followed by death from some hospital-dwelling disease,
if helmets were made mandatory. The problem with this line of thought
is that some unknown number of people would very likely stop cycling,
and some of them would suffer a decline in health leading to earlier
death. The net benefit/detriment is the best question.

Like you appear to be saying, I do not believe cycling to be dangerous
in general but that is only in comparison to driving which is not safe
at all. I have been told that driving in Germany was so dangerous that
Americans often would not do so.

--

As ridiculous as you sound I'm pretty sure you're correct.

On 2/21/2019 12:17 PM, wrote:
On Wednesday, February 20, 2019 at 2:59:10 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
On Wednesday, February 20, 2019 at 7:52:38 PM UTC, Frank Krygowski wrote:

If you disagree, put some data up and let's discuss it.

Hmm. See, Franki-boy, not only have I put up data, which you refused to discuss because even you know you have no answers to such conclusive data, my data proved:
1. That cycling is safer than you claimed before you started using my figures, which coincidentally also proved you don't know how to handle statistics, and through your clumsiness were making cycling seem more dangerous than it is.
2.That a substantial number of cyclists' lives, up to perhaps 400, can be saved in America every year if helmets were mandatory, which could come to more than half of the cyclists killed on American roads every year, a conclusion you inhumanely dismissed as irrelevant because so few cyclists die every year that it isn't worth saving half of them... For future reference, Franki-boy, the correct answer is that even one life saved is worth the effort: it could be your life.
3. That it is therefore counterproductive dimwits like you who put people off cycling, by contributing to the belief that cycling is dangerous, and that the self-appointed "spokesmen for cycling" do not care about the lives of cyclists.

You want to be the friend of cycling, Franki-boy, you should shut the **** up, for good.

You won't, of course. You're too full of yourself, which is the same as saying you're too full of ****.

Andre Jute
Professional publicist

I do not in the least believe that a single life could be saved by helmets other than very far outliers on the curve. That pedestrian and bicyclists deaths track each other so closely shows that to be a truism.

Like you appear to be saying, I do not believe cycling to be dangerous in general but that is only in comparison to driving which is not safe at all. I have been told that driving in Germany was so dangerous that Americans often would not do so.


Perception and reality may, and often do, vary greatly.

That said, many USAians may well be unfamiliar with Autobahn
protocols and technique and wan to drive at speed there. As
with suddenly driving on the other side with jet lag on
vacation, rightfully so!

I can't find data on traffic crashes/injuries/deaths per
passenger mile/km for various countries. Incidents per
population may be misleading given our high mileage.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

Frank Krygowski writes:

On 2/20/2019 11:48 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, February 20, 2019 at 6:47:19 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:

And perhaps you shouldn't credit my lack of crashing to magic? I think
there's something to be said for riding within the limits of one's
abilities.

That and not riding in ice or at night on rain soaked roads with
hidden pot holes or on broken wet cement...

Except that I've done all those things!

on tires with clay-based pigments or Umma Gummas that were pulled
from the market.

OK, I haven't done that one.

It also helps not to have you son crash in front of you on a
slippery descent.

I've ridden with people who have crashed. I pay attention to the
behavior of riders, and I don't draft any but the best.

But if I were in a slippery descent, I think I'd take it a lot slower
than you. I don't see any sense in pushing for speed in risky
situations.

I doubt you often encounter hills where you keep going even when
your wheels are stopped. https://tinyurl.com/y53jrl9d I about slid
through the stop sign. That was on 32mm semi-slicks. Do you ever
ride on moss? I ride in rain the equivalent of four solid months a
year, in traffic with lots of other cyclists, walkers, dogs -- often
in the dark. There are a lot of reasons for crashing that do not
suggest incompetence.

Our philosophies differ. I think that most times a cyclist crashes,
it's for reasons that could have and should have been foreseen. So
potholes? In my commuting days, I was rarely surprised by them. I knew
the stretches of road where they first appeared - often where the
pavement was partly shaded by trees, for example. Corners? I watch for
gravel. Dogs? High alert every time, leashed or not.

There were many years I tried to be fast, usually time trialing home
from work. I might do some slightly tricky moves as part of that,
notably jumping a set of angled railroad tracks. But it was within my
level of skill (since I always did it successfully). And where things
were more uncertain, like corners that sometimes had gravel, I was
more conservative.

I may have told this story before, but on one ride with my daughter,
we approached a set of railroad tracks just after a rain. I said "Be
careful, the tracks are going to be slippery." The kid said "Oh,
Dad!!" in the way kids are programmed to do. Then she dumped onto the
ground.

We were almost side by side, going the same speed. But I think I was
more careful than she was, to ride perfectly straight and not jerk the
bike. Sometimes that's all it takes.

I think it was last week that I rode to the library on icy streets. To
tell the truth, I didn't realize they were as icy as they were; if I
had, I might not have taken the bike. But I did keep going - very,
very slowly and carefully. There were times I was riding at 3 mph on
icy turns, keeping the bike as upright as possible and ready to put my
foot down instantly.

I am not convinced that going extra slow on patchy ice is really
helpful. For one thing, if the ice isn't continuous, then the slower
you go the more time you spend on any one patch. For another, at 3 mph
my steering corrections are of much greater magnitude than they would be
at, say 8 mph, leading to more slipping.

Slower speed does mean less damage if you do fall.

I don't ride on continuous sheets of ice. One of these days I'll try
some studded tires, but for now if I'm tempted to go 3 mph I just walk.

You probably would have beat me to the library. But I was happy to
keep my crash risk to a minimum.

--

On 2/21/2019 1:10 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, February 21, 2019 at 9:03:50 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/20/2019 11:48 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, February 20, 2019 at 6:47:19 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:

And perhaps you shouldn't credit my lack of crashing to magic? I think
there's something to be said for riding within the limits of one's
abilities.

That and not riding in ice or at night on rain soaked roads with hidden pot holes or on broken wet cement...

Except that I've done all those things!

on tires with clay-based pigments or Umma Gummas that were pulled from the market.

OK, I haven't done that one.

It also helps not to have you son crash in front of you on a slippery descent.

I've ridden with people who have crashed. I pay attention to the
behavior of riders, and I don't draft any but the best.

But if I were in a slippery descent, I think I'd take it a lot slower
than you. I don't see any sense in pushing for speed in risky situations.

I doubt you often encounter hills where you keep going even when your wheels are stopped. https://tinyurl.com/y53jrl9d I about slid through the stop sign. That was on 32mm semi-slicks. Do you ever ride on moss? I ride in rain the equivalent of four solid months a year, in traffic with lots of other cyclists, walkers, dogs -- often in the dark. There are a lot of reasons for crashing that do not suggest incompetence.

Our philosophies differ. I think that most times a cyclist crashes, it's
for reasons that could have and should have been foreseen. So potholes?
In my commuting days, I was rarely surprised by them. I knew the
stretches of road where they first appeared - often where the pavement
was partly shaded by trees, for example. Corners? I watch for gravel.
Dogs? High alert every time, leashed or not.

There were many years I tried to be fast, usually time trialing home
from work. I might do some slightly tricky moves as part of that,
notably jumping a set of angled railroad tracks. But it was within my
level of skill (since I always did it successfully). And where things
were more uncertain, like corners that sometimes had gravel, I was more
conservative.

I may have told this story before, but on one ride with my daughter, we
approached a set of railroad tracks just after a rain. I said "Be
careful, the tracks are going to be slippery." The kid said "Oh, Dad!!"
in the way kids are programmed to do. Then she dumped onto the ground.

We were almost side by side, going the same speed. But I think I was
more careful than she was, to ride perfectly straight and not jerk the
bike. Sometimes that's all it takes.

I think it was last week that I rode to the library on icy streets. To
tell the truth, I didn't realize they were as icy as they were; if I
had, I might not have taken the bike. But I did keep going - very, very
slowly and carefully. There were times I was riding at 3 mph on icy
turns, keeping the bike as upright as possible and ready to put my foot
down instantly.

You probably would have beat me to the library. But I was happy to keep
my crash risk to a minimum.

I doubt you could teach me anything about technique, particularly when it comes to train tracks. Downtown is solid Max and streetcar tracks. A small segment of my commute through south waterfront: https://bikeportland.org/wp-content/...moody-high.jpg

Yes, I remember Portland's rails.

I doubt our differences are ones of technique. I think they're
differences in judgment. I give lots of attention to potential hazards,
and I take measures to avoid them. That often includes taking them
slowly, if I can't steer around them.

This was not you, obviously, but here was the last bad fall I saw on a
group ride. A new rider was among the bunch that rode a 25-30 mph
downhill with LOTS of potholes. Honestly, I think I was pushing the edge
riding it. (I did make sure I had plenty of space away from other
riders.) Anyway, the newbie didn't avoid some rough patches, his water
bottle bounced out of his cage, and he turned to see where his bottle
went. He dove into a pothole and went over the bars.

There were at least three things that I would have done differently if I
were him. But some people don't even bother to watch the pavement.

The best part of downtown are the MAX tracks combined with the cobbles
or the slippery death-brick pavers. We get 140-150 days of rain. Have
you ever ridden for 140-150 days on wet pavement in a year? I've done
that for the last 35 years. It's a jungle out there.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3046/...223dd5bed8.jpg

My wife and I saw the same sign, minus the alligator, in Halifax, Nova
Scotia a few years ago.

If you had raced for 20 years, I could also guaranty that you would have crashed.

That I believe. It's part of why I did hardly any racing.

Anybody who rides daily will at some time crash.

That's much less believable. It depends on their riding conditions,
their skill and their attitude toward risk. And almost everyone who does
crash while riding has only a simple fall and incurs only minor
injuries. The most common injury bike riders present at ER is road rash.

https://bikeportland.org/2010/11/11/...released-42622
https://www.portlandmercury.com/Blog...ured-in-a-year

Yes, that's the study purposely designed to make bicycling sound as
dangerous as possible. It's the one where they contacted each volunteer
once per month to ask about _any_ injury, no matter how small; and how
they called _any_ injury shown to any medical person a "serious
traumatic event" even if it were a tiny scratch.

That's the one where, if you do the division, they found an average of
6667 miles per boo-boo, and 25,600 miles between injuries that generated
_any_ medical attention, even just a band-aid.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On 2/21/2019 2:23 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:


I think it was last week that I rode to the library on icy streets. To
tell the truth, I didn't realize they were as icy as they were; if I
had, I might not have taken the bike. But I did keep going - very,
very slowly and carefully. There were times I was riding at 3 mph on
icy turns, keeping the bike as upright as possible and ready to put my
foot down instantly.

I am not convinced that going extra slow on patchy ice is really
helpful. For one thing, if the ice isn't continuous, then the slower
you go the more time you spend on any one patch. For another, at 3 mph
my steering corrections are of much greater magnitude than they would be
at, say 8 mph, leading to more slipping.

My main concerns were traction on turns, and the uneven surface of the
ice. It was a product of melting and re-freezing, and it was lumpy in
many places. I know from years ago that the lumps can slide the tire
sideways.

But you're right, on smooth level ice, it's best to just ride dead
straight (possibly coasting) and get past it.



--
- Frank Krygowski