All posts by Mike

Never again. What can we do to stop the carnage?

Advocacy & Local Issues, Personal stuff, Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride

It’s Tuesday. I shouldn’t be here, taking this photo. But a cyclist was killed yesterday afternoon, around 5pm, on Canada Road. A road with incredibly-long sight lines so there really shouldn’t be surprises.

After climbing Kings we immediately headed back down, so we’d have time to get to “where it happened” and try to make sense of it. That’s one of those things I do, try to make sense of things. Over the years, that’s brought me to a number of spots where a cyclist had recently died in a collison with a car or truck. How did it happen. And, from experience over many decades, what is it the CHP might miss, or believe not relevant.

Bike parts in the weeds.

The guy was heading north on Canada. That red circle towards the bottom, just left of center,  is the first of many markings placed on the pavement by the CHP investigators. They didn’t do a very good job of cleaning up; sure, they only had 2.5 hours of daylight left, but why didn’t they come out the next morning? Kevin and I (and, later, Becky) found a lot of bike parts in the field to the right of the roadway. Heavier parts closer, lighter parts further, as you’d expect when something is hit violently from behind.

There is nothing to be learned from those bits and pieces? What about the smashed up remains of the cyclist’s wahoo heart monitor? Did that not mean something to anybody? The force and location of the impact.

The blood on the roadway. Some of it located within circled areas, most of it just spread across the tarmac. That seems wrong. We have greater respect for the fear of a car burning so we hose down whatever is left when a car strikes a car, and less respect for the remains of someone’s last moments (Becky and I went back again late in the day; it appears someone did come in and clean things up).

We had to leave with more questions than answers, and after looking at the photos later, found a few things that had to be checked out some more. Becky volunteered to head out and check it out herself; she became pretty distressed, figuring out what the circles were about. As Becky was looking for clues, many cyclists were riding through, unaware they were riding through the remains of another cyclist.

Canada Road could use something like this, to slow cars down.

Canada Road. Why is it designed like a speedway? When 280 gets backed up, many use it as a way to speed around the blockage. That’s not a legit reason to maintain it as a high-speed throughfare, and the only “local” traffic is for the Filoli estate and the Pulgas Water Temple. It’s speed should be 25-30mph and the design changed to make it impossible to do 100+mph high school drag races. Why not install traffic calming curves and obstacles like Junipero Serra has near the Stanford campus?

It’s time for something to be done. I’ve visited enough places where cyclists have been killed by motorists.

Tacos! Maybe not the best mid-ride fuel though.

Ride reports (not Tu/Th)


Unlike last week’s solo ride to the coast, my first visit to Pescadero since early October, skipping Tunitas in favor of less climbing on 84, today’s ride would be the traditional. How traditional? Strava says 146 rides of this route since I started using the service back in mid-2008. Strava didn’t actually start until 2009, but I had saved Garmin rides from about half a year prior.

Back to normal also means Kevin was on the ride. He held back with me on Old LaHonda, which might have been a good thing, seeking safety in numbers. Safety? There’s a fair amount of hostility towards cyclists on Old LaHonda right now, especially after they added signage at the bottom that says “Not advised for Bicyclists.” Even had a car coming down the hill yell that to us. That sign is both inappropriate and dangerous. Because 84 is shut down, Old LaHonda is getting increasing traffic and it’s just the cyclists they want to pick on? But we made it up without further incident.

Forgot to mention the weather. We definitely over-dressed, with base layers, leg warmers and long-fingered gloves. Leg warmers were a good thing, because it wasn’t that warm but not sure if we ever really needed a base layer at all; for the few times it might be been cool enough, we could have put on one of our packable rain jackets.

Kevin said he was feeling pretty good, so I sent him flying on Haskins, and fly he did. 8:44, a PR for him and faster, I think, than anything I’ve done the past 15 years.

I knew from last week’s ride that Arcangeli market & bakery was going to be closed, so we got tacos from the gas station/mexican food restaurant. Tasty but I think just a bit too greasy for riding food; both of us felt a bit bogged down, my version of bogged down being a fair amount slower than Kevin’s.

This was Kevin’s first opportunity to see the Stage Road washout; I think he was reasonably impressed.

Because Kevin had done so well on Haskins, I suggested he go for it on Tunitas. He did really well on his time for getting to the forest (I wasn’t there to see it, being a couple minutes behind already) but had a couple of times he died on the steep stuff, so no records this time. Still, his 45:38 isn’t bad.