Mass travel

This is the fourth week in which I've had to surrender my precious 3 1/2 day weekend to provide office coverage for those who are not retired, and who are on salary. The plus is that I've been commuting on the bike twice as much as usual, with concomitant brain fodder.

The local paper has hosted some especially vicious pro-and-anti bicycle rants in recent weeks. These closed with the observation of a columnist, who had been as vicious and anti as anyone, that "nobody hates all bicyclists." Hoohahahahaha.

Some do. Cyclists have to accept that, be on guard, and work to change it. Once again, ranting letter writers and columnists may not hate all bicyclists, but their words enable those who do.

Mostly, though, motorists haven't got a clue what to do in the presence of a cyclist. This leads them into actions that would bring on an accident or a citation if they involved another motor vehicle. Likewise, far too many cyclists have not the least idea what their responsibilities are on the road.

Or off. About half of my commute is over a reclaimed railroad bed. This was originally paved in rottenstone (as I grew up calling it). This is a fine gravel with a high clay content. It packs to a firm surface which muddies up only in a few low spots, and is hard enough to support skinny tyres. However, nobody thought to explain this to our Electric Department, which maintains the right-of-way. They've fallen into the habit of filling in the worst low spots with washed half-inch gravel, which is about the worst possible surface for a bicycle. It has no clay content, and unless rollered in, remains a loose and shifting surface for years.

The Salem end of the right of way is paved, with a centre stripe and elegant iron gates at each end. Having lavished all that money on this treatment, the Salem authorities then didn't have the money to reclaim the rest of the right of way, so their bike path is under a mile long. Rant out.

Whilst we're commenting that motorists bicyclists are equally incompetent at obeying traffic laws and sharing public ways, let us not overlook pedestrians. My town, with its maze of 17th century streets, has a great many pedestrians in the street. Locals are in the habit but at least move when they hear something on wheels. Tourists, I suppose, are astonished that a way not much wider than the average urban sidewalk actually has vehicular traffic, and are slower to move.

My peeve of the month, though, arises from a peculiar new behaviour on the right of way. Pedestrians, and even cyclists, are moving to the left rather than the right in the face of oncoming bicycles. The surface, remember, is fairly hard, and allows a good turn of speed. To someone trained for a lifetime to keep to the right on roads, in corridors, and in watercraft (the "port-to-port" rule is international), this conduct is disconcerting. Is this the pernicious influence of British drama?

Road Rage: his or mine?

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OK, I was a little unfair last time to Greater Boston and the Marblehead Reporter. Their bicycle coverage turned out to be reasonable. However, the Reporter also ran an Op-Ed signed by Joe McLaughlin that neatly captured all the venom and hypocrisy of those who don't just dislike bicyclists behaving badly, but hate all bicyclists all the time. It follows the time-honoured pattern of much expression of this hostility. It begins with an attempt at reasonable dialogue, drawing comparisons between Massachusetts road behaviour and West Coast behaviour. (He saw all this on one trip to Seattle.) 

Reason usually is too much for these people to sustain, and they collapse into naked hostility after one or two paragraphs. It would appear that Joe brought nothing back from the West Coast but a skinful of pent-up hostility toward all bicyclists everywhere.

In 30-plus years as a cyclist, what I've observed is that motorists carrying a chip that size on their shoulder remember every bicycle infraction they have ever seen. They don't seem to have quite as sharp a memory for the tens of thousands of thoughtless acts that bicyclists are subjected to daily when they exercise their right to use the road.

Joe informs us that there are two types of "bikers....Turned-down handlebars, skinny tires, Spandex and Day-Glow [sic]: Seldom do the rules apply. [The other group:] Turned-up handlebars, fat tires, polo shirt and Bermudas: Not so much of a threat."

Threat, Joe? Threat? In your stereotyped universe, you seem unable to remember that car and driver outweigh the bicycle and rider by 3500 pounds or more.  Bad behaviour is endemic on the roads of Massachusetts, and isn't confined to people on wheels. But good heavens! A bicyclist's carelessness poses an inconvenience to the Kings of the Road, not a threat. On the other hand, a driver's carelessness or animosity may seriously injure or kill a bicyclist. You seem to forget that, Joe. Your stereotype also illustrates the habit bicycle haters of arguing from the extremes. Cyclists between the extremes seem to be invisible to you.

Despite Joe's failed struggle to be open-minded, he would have us believe that West Coast law enforcement means cracking down on cyclists and giving motorists a pass. Sorry, that's what happens here, now. Experienced cyclists will testify that they feel no one is on their side: not police, not prosecutors, not judges, and certainly no motorist who failed to master the bicycle at age eight, and has it in for everyone who did. When I see cyclists disobeying traffic laws, I blame the individual, not everyone on two wheels. I do the same with careless motorists: I just have many thousands more chances to exercise my forbearance.

The West Coast seems to be ahead of us, to be sure. I can only speak for Berkeley, not Seattle. There, enforcement is level, making no distinction between users of the road. Sorry, no entitlement for anyone. And sorry, Joe, that doesn't mean everyone always obeys the laws. There are still jaywalkers, still sidewalk cruising cycling stoners with headphones, and many thoughtless fools on four wheels. Could Massachusetts laws have more uniform penalties? Absolutely, but whose fault is that? The cyclists and pedestrians, or is it an unmotivated police, judiciary and legislature? None of these can be bothered to take cyclists and road safety for all seriously until there is a fatality, such as the high-profile cyclist death in Wellesley last year? Even after a fatality, the motivation won't stand much strain. Officialdom's attention span is very short where bicycles are concerned.

Next time you go to the other coast, Mr McLaughlin, try opening your eyes. Next time you drive here, try to generate a little empathy for users of the road other than yourself.

Gather ye bicycles while ye may

I got the mountain bike back on the road. Shakedown cruise revealed the usual  inventory of required tweaks. Headset is a trifle too loose, rear brake cable needs to be tighter. However the main event--the new rear wheel and gear cluster--are working well. I bought the wheel with a bolt-on axle, intending to replace it with a quick-release. That comes later: the quick release I had available has seen better days.

Non-cyclists can wake up now. The question will be whether the media will have run all bicycles off the road by the end of this week's "objective" coverage of sharing the road . The week seems to be shaping up as "trash cyclists" week under the guise of balanced reporting. My opinion of  Greater Boston has been vile since April 15. They're turning the whole week onto this topic and I expect little or nothing in the way of objective coverage. The local media up heah are doing this too.

By the time they're all done, I fully expect to have SWAT teams breaking down my door and bomb squads taking my bikes off for "examination." I've seen some balanced reporting on this subject before. By the time they're done, you'll need to hail a cab to cross the street,  because the balanced reporters will make one thing clear: The road is for no less than four wheels. As I said, I admit my current bias against Greater Boston. I wonder if the host will admit hers?

If we could be objective, I have a contribution to make. I was driving through downtown Salem at lunchtime last week. As a woman stepped out of a restaurant, she was nearly (by nearly I mean inches) run down by a cyclist: on the busy sidewalk, cruising at maybe 12 mph, wearing noise-deadening headphones. He didn't appear to apologise; in fact, he hardly acknowledged the woman's existence.

It's hard to know where to begin critiquing an asshole like this. I just know where I wouldn't begin, and that is to damn all cyclists and keep all of them off the road, but that's exactly what I expect to hear during a week of supposedly objective bike reporting.

Wake me when it's over, and let me know if I should bury the bikes.

Le Grande Tour

Back in the less-inhibited 1960s and 1970s, my town was the terminus of an event called The Great Race. It originated in a bar bet, considering whether one could go from Watertown to Marblehead, solely under human power, faster by land or by water. Sobriety was a secondary consideration. In a remarkably short time for those benighted, pre-Interwebz days, the bet morphed into a full-scale event with thousands of participants and spectators. Modes of transport were freestyle, ranging from racing bikes and kayaks to three-decker bikes and four-abreast paddleboats...and not a liability lawyer in sight.

The Great Race had one fundamental rule. Whoever came in first was assumed to have cheated and was forthwith disqualified. The next finisher, in turn, was disqualified for the same reason, and the next, and the next. When all was over, nobody had won first place, but everyone had a place at the taps: and, presumably, such other elevating substances as the times provided. After several years, liability lawyers had been invented and the anal retentives shut the party down.

Today on CBS This Morning, I was listening to Charlie Rose interview Peter Flax, editor in chief of Bicycling magazine, about Lance Armstrong's de facto plea of nolo contendere to the USADA's doping charges. Of course, it remains to be seen how the French organisers of the Tour de France respond to the decision of an American anti-doping agency to strip Armstrong of his several French yellow jerseys. (Logic goes under the bus at such moments, but I hope the jerseys have stood up in the wash.) However, Flax pointed out another problem: just who gets the recycled jerseys? In the years since Armstrong won his Tours, each of the second-place finishers has been found liable for doping. Each of the third place finishers have also, and so on.

Inevitably, I was reminded of The Great Race, and I concluded at once that its organisers had a much better idea than the stuffed shirts who hand out yellow jerseys. Infamous, indeed! If nobody wins, we're all losers, so, let's party!

The idea behind banning doping was not moral, beyond the universal principle behind sports rules, that no one should have an unfair advantage. But if everyone was (or is) doping, and everyone doping is, in theory, going to be caught and punished, doesn't that mean the people with the unfair advantage are the ones who aren't doping? They may win the yellow jersey, but they won't get a shot at the kegs.

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Most of the local media coverage of the Armstrong announcement was fatuous in the extreme. It seemed to be based on the assumption that no American was riding a bicycle except under the inspiration of Lance Armstrong, and thus all of them would go away if Lance is banned. Look, I own two road bikes that were built before Armstrong could drive. One was built before he entered kindergarten. I ride because I love to ride, not because I'm under the influence of celebrity culture. So stuff that angle away and go find some news.