Road Rage Doctor Found Guilty!

http://velonews.com/article/99800/

The good doctor was found guilty of six felonies and one misdemeanor and could face as much as five years in prison. Hopefully he serves the time.

Cycling Board Games

Since im a designer, well an awful one anyway, I found this interesting from an aesthetic and historical standpoint. Its a pretty nice collection of cycling board games.

The Fear of Cycling

http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/09/fear-of-cycling-01-essay-in-five-parts.html

Written by Dave Horton of Lancaster, England. A sociologist by training, and currently working at Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, on an interdisciplinary project concerning walking and cycling, and the capacity of these most sustainable modes of mobility to re-make cities and towns fit for the twenty-first century.

“Most obviously this fear relates to anxieties about being in close and unprotected proximity to speeding cars, it’s to do with a fear of crashes, injury and death. But fear of cycling is also more complex than this. People on bikes move through public space in a much more open, less mediated way than people in cars. That’s one of the pleasures of cycling, but it also potentially heightens feelings of existential vulnerability. Some people also undoubtedly fear looking inept on a bike, fear working their bodies in public, fear harassment or violence from strangers. Cities are full of fear, which is partly why and partly because people move in cars. “

Read the rest of the article!

 

Local advocacy group plagiarizes their “about page”

From Yay Bikes!:

Mike Reed

Plagiarism is unethical. It is also the hallmark of a complete lack of innovation and original ideas. How bad are things going when the very words your use to describe your group are taken from another source?

courtesy of someecards.com – get some

Join me for a trip in the Wayback Machine to December of 2007 where we’ll learn that Bike PGH has used the language describing their organization for quite some time (Bike PGH circa 12/2007)

Let’s look at a local bicycle advocacy group, Consider Biking. This is just sad. I’ve bolded the parts that differ- they are hard to spot as they are so few and far between. I will break my own rule about not linking to this group in this one case to point out the plagiarism.

COBAC/Consider Biking’s about page:

Quote:

Consider Biking is committed to making Central Ohio increasingly safe, accessible, and friendly to bicycle transportation. The work we do is at the heart of urban environmentalism – raising awareness about oil dependency, pollution, congestion, safe streets, good urban design, and public health. We are partnering with local stakeholders to improve our streets, bridges, and trails in order to make riding to work, shopping, and exercising by bicycle safe and fun for everyone in the Columbus metropolitan area.

Bike Pittsburgh’s About Page:

Quote:

Bike Pittsburgh is committed to making Pittsburgh increasingly safe, accessible, and friendly to bicycle transportation. The work we do is at the heart of urban environmentalism – raising awareness about oil dependency, pollution, congestion, safe streets, good urban design, and public health. We are partnering with local stakeholders to improve our streets, bridges, and trails in order to make riding to work, shopping, and exercising by bicycle safe and fun for everyone in Pittsburgh.

Wait, there’s more.

COBAC

Quote:

Why Consider Biking Works: Consider Biking has been here helping, asking, training and working to make Columbus a better place to live, work, and ride. We bring cyclists in the region together with the know-how to make bicycling a safe, convenient and fun way to get around. Our achievements rely on three key elements: • A professional staff that meets regularly with government officials in the meetings that affect your cycling environment • Dedicated volunteer leaders and a board of directors who meet regularly to keep us on track • Active members who come from a multitude of backgrounds to combine the strengths of commuters, bike clubs, trail users, racers, and mt. bikers to create a potent constituency. To find out in more detail what steps we are taking to improve bicycling in the Columbus area, please read about our projects and campaigns in our Events section.

PGH

Quote:

Why Bike Pittsburgh Works: Since 2002, Bike Pittsburgh has been here helping, asking, training and working to make Pittsburgh a better place to live, work, and ride. We bring cyclists in the region together with the know-how to make bicycling a safe, convenient and fun way to get around. Our achievements rely on three key elements: * A professional staff that meets regularly with government officials in the meetings that affect your cycling environment * Dedicated volunteer leaders and a board of directors who meet regularly to keep us on track * Active members who come from a multitude of backgrounds to combine the strengths of commuters, bike clubs, trial users, racers, and mt. bikers to create a potent constituency. To find out in more detail what steps we are taking to improve bicycling in the Pittsburgh, please read about our projects and campaigns in our campaigns section.

Who knew that Pittsburgh and Columbus had the exact same kinds of cyclists with the same needs, and employed the same exact tactics for promoting cycling? Exactly.

Here are some original ideas- and COBAC even can have my permission to loot from these as they please. A strong cycling constituency begins with a group that has and is founded on integrity. Integrity means, among other things, not helping yourself to things that are not yours because you feel like it. To effect any real mode shift people are going to have to dig deep and muster up some original ideas. This group appears to lack them at the core. At the very least know what your organization is “about” and think up some of your own words to describe it. Respect ideas and intellectual property. It may seem like a small matter in your group to lift content from some other advocacy group’s site, but it suggests much about your organization. Finally, Columbus has unique cyclists and our cyclists have unique needs. Do them a service by doing your own work and thereby demonstrating that you have a clue about their needs beyond some boilerplate copy/paste text you took from someone else.

I love Pittsburgh and I’ve talked with folks from Bike PGH at BikeBike- they are an innovative, cutting edge advocacy group and don’t deserve to have their hard work appropriated in any way, no matter how large or small. I’ve sent them a quick note to let them know. I’m not sure if they’ll be outraged or not, but I get pretty miffed when people take the stuff I think up.

A word of caution. Know what you are getting into if you work with Consider Biking/COBAC- in my opinion this group lacks of original ideas and has demonstrated that they are not above taking ideas from some other source to fill that big, empty void… down to the very words that describe their organization.

Screenshot attached- these kinds of things have a way of disappearing or getting corrected once you shine a light on them.

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I’m really loving Mike right now, hes got me feeling that special feeling deep in my loins.

Foul Fixed Gear Velocipede

From Married to the Sea

I totally know how she feels. I mean at least about getting off the fixie.

How is this any more disgusting than eating a dead bird in the first place?

A story about a woman who was “disgusted” by finding the head of a chicken in the package with the rest of the bird she bought at a grocery.

“Miss Kirby said: “I bought it a few weeks ago and put it in the freezer but when I took it out and cooked it, I saw its head and neck were tucked underneath.”
“It was disgusting. It was cooked but I took it into the shop because they weren’t answering the phones.”

How is this any more disgusting than the carcass of the bird? People are silly animals.

Road Rage! Doctor on trial for hitting cyclists.

http://velonews.com/article/99398/

“After one cyclist slammed into the rear of his car and vaulted over it into oncoming traffic, and another crashed through his rear window, Dr. Christopher Thomas Thompson called 911 and told the operator, “They’ll tell you they are seriously injured, but they’re not.”

Prosecutors presented a recording of the call on Friday during the opening day of testimony in Thompson’s trial on assault with a dangerous weapon and other charges. The trial continues Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Prosecutors say Thompson, 60, a former ER doctor, purposefully braked in front of the two riders as they descended Mandeville Canyon Road on July 4, 2008.

Cyclist Christian Stoehr hit the back of Thompson’s Infiniti sedan and went over the top into the other lane. His injuries included a grade-3 shoulder separation and road rash. Ron Peterson went through the rear window; the impact broke his nose, nearly severing it, and shattered several of his teeth. More than 90 stitches were required to reattach his nose.”

Read the rest of the article here.

someone had better find this guy before the bike owner does.

someone is a gonna get a hurt a reaaaaal baaad

Bicycle Wins Race vs. Car, Motorcycle, even Helicopter!

http://www.psfk.com/2009/09/bicycle-beats-helicopter.html

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Being the business hub of South America and one of the largest cities in the world has its bitter side: São Paulo has been drowning in a sea of automobiles (6 million and counting) for quite some time, and the future doesn’t show any signs of improvement. Insufficient buses and subway lines, together with private vehicles mostly with single occupants, compose a scenario of daily chaos, with frequently over 80kms (50mi) of traffic jams in the main avenues.

This car-centric urban transport model is showing signs of exhaustion. The average São Paulo inhabitant spends almost three hours a day stuck in traffic jams. That’s about 15 hours a week – or almost 2 working days. Apart from the economic and psychological damages, let alone the carbon footprint, this situation is a true hindrance for the city’s development and for the well-being of the people who live in it.

It was in this scenario that the São Paulo Intermodal Challenge was held. The challenge was simple: to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible – during rush hour – using the mode of transportation of your choice. The goal was to raise awareness regarding a number of alternatives to cars, and to promote the World Carless Day, by proving that avoiding traffic – and its consequences – might just be a matter of choice.

The means of transportation chosen ranged from cars, bikes, motorbikes, and a helicopter to buses, metro, their own feet and even a wheelchair. Contrary to all forecasts, a biker won the challenge, with a total time of 22 minutes – more than 10 minutes faster than the person on the helicopter, who spent a total of 33 minutes and 30 seconds between going to the heliport, waiting for takeoff clearance, flying and landing.
The car came way behind, with a total time of 1:22– slower than the runner, who took 1:06, the bus (1:11) and just 10 minutes faster than the person who chose to walk the whole path (1:32).

To move beyond the car paradigm is a necessity, one that gains an even greater importance due to São Paulo’s size and economic relevance. The Intermodal Challenge may not present any real solution to the problem, but at least it brings some attention towards a fundamental question that is urban mobility and how it impacts the ecosystem we live in every way.

Contributed by Mauricio Soares

Columbia, Missouri. We need more of this.

http://www.parade.com/news/2009/09/27-a-free-wheeling-city.html

How do we get this guy elected president?

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For a bicyclist, Darwin Hindman is rather nattily attired, wearing a crisp tweed blazer and an orange silk tie as he pilots his ancient mountain bike through the center of Columbia, Missouri. Hindman, 76, (pictured) is this Midwestern town’s mayor and a survivor of both esophageal and prostate cancer. As he glides along, coattails flying, he is savoring the streets of Columbia, which he’s transforming into one of the nation’s premier cycling cities.

“Here outside this café is a huge corral of racks for locking your bike,” Hindman says, riding along happily. “And here, we’ve painted a bike lane. We want bicyclists to feel as happy as larks out in the road.”

Read the rest of the article!