I always figured the dollar bill fix was just to get home and get a fresh tire. Or are you just running an informal competition “How Long Can A Dollar Go?”

also lately i’ve taken to driving the back roads on my commute because watching other idiots’ brake lights on the freeway gets quite fatiguing. discovered all sorts of things i’d never seen riding those same roads, some quite surprising.

signed crun, professional idiot

also, don’t sign up for aarp. 1) it’s a ripoff and 2) they do a fine job of representing their interests rather than that of real seniors (for instance, their take on cutting social security is rather regressive).

1) You and Karin raised Kevin well. Kudos to you both for that.

2) It has literally been years since I have ridden 67 miles on a bike in one day,and I really, really miss it–and the feelings that go with it. (There are lots of “reasons,” most of them insignificant. Sigh…)

“….Those people who drive up to Skyline, to admire the view from the scenic overlook… do they really appreciate it? They’re just looking at it, while those of us on bikes… we’re part of it. ”

Very well put, I’ve felt like this for quite some time and you did a great job of putting words to that somewhat ephemeral feeling.

However, when I switched to 700×25 Continental GP4000S (which I love, by the way), I’ve had to actually pick and dig the glasses out with a safety pin.

Is this normal? Is there a better way to get those deeply and tightly embedded foreign objects rather than using a safety pin?

John Spencer
Sunnyvale, CA

i should have taken his picture when i pulled out my phone, but i wasn’t thinking very clearly – gave me quite a fright dealing with this thug.

thanks

today climbing arestradero southbound, i’d seen a rider crowding me from behind. so what. but then he passed and cut in front of me so closely he nearly clipped my wheel.

i cursed him.

you’d expect perhaps he’d curse me back. or maybe miracle of miracles, apologise.

not this pinhead: he went ballistic. cursed. yelled at me to get off my bike and
fight him. he was a big bruiser – no way i was going to do that. he got worse, cursing me for riding a fixed gear, boasting how he was two-time national sprint champion.

then off he clopped. not far enough, though.

at the top of the hill, he was waiting for me. he’d gotten off his bike and still cursing away, yelling he was going to knock me off my bike. i debated giving it the gun and running right into him but swerved around instead. he shoved me in the kidneys but not hard enough to knock me down.

right. enough of this: i pulled over and hauled out my phone to call the cops. he got back on his bike and clopped off again, still cursing away.

reason for posting this here is you have a wide audience in the cycling fraternity and perhaps someone can identify my assailant. whoever he is, he needs to be turfed off whatever team sponsors him. i want to know who sponsors him so i can ensure i don’t give them any business for allowing such an insane thug loose on the roads.

thanks for reading

I wish they’d leave a gap at the side of the upper gate to make it easier to get past without lifting bikes over.

Looks like the road below the gate has grass or moss growing down the center with weeds encroaching from the sides. I’m surprised this is your first (or second) trip down to Old Haul Road.

You should have left the camera running longer. The bridge over Pescadero Creek is tricky on narrow tires that can get wedged between the planks if care is not taken when riding across.

Tarwater Trail, with the inspiring Tarwater Tree old growth redwood, parallels Camp Pomponio Road. Ride on.

Interestingly, you may ultimately get repaid by Floyd thanks to Lance!

I was ‘demo-ing’ a mountain bike yesterday around the corner here in Belmont at Waterdog Park. The new mountain bikes have 10 speed chains on them. And guess what, they can break! (My current ancient bike has 7 speeds–never broke a chain on that in the 10,000 or so miles I have on it.)

No problem, I had a multi-tool with a chain tool on it. I’ve used a chain tool once or twice…a long time ago. The key, I think, is to: A) have a new pin handy, or B) don’t drive the old pin completely out the other side. Didn’t have A, and didn’t accomplish B, unfortunately. Tried for 15 or 20 minutes to get the pin in place to drive it back in once I took out the bent link, but couldn’t manage it by the side of the road, with my tiny unwieldy multi-tool and my large fingers.

Luckily a nice couple stopped to help. The woman was a ‘chain whisperer’ of some sort and managed to get it in after about only 10 minutes of fiddling. She also had a quick link in her Camelback, just in case. Gotta get me some of those!

That first picture on the left is the top of the second climb.

Returning at 12:30 is about right since we left at 9, took a little under 2 hours to get to the top including at least 10 minutes for Mike to change his tube, and hung around for at least a half hour at the top. We were descending cautiously so that took about an hour. It’s about 50 min for me when the road’s dry.

Your overhead view suggests that the impact point was in the bike lane on Alameda. Do you know this to be true? If so, I don’t see why it matters what happened on Jefferson prior to the turn or whether the girl was riding or fell when she was crushed. The fact is that a car hit her while she was riding in the bike lane.

However, it’s much easier to imagine that the motorist did not have foremost in his mind the fact that he was driving 4,000+ pounds of metal around a 110 lb (?) human. Let’s see, that’s like me body slamming a 4 lb chihuahua, assuming I was running 20 mph faster than the dog. This is why I think this type of incident is 2nd degree murder. Motorists should well know that the vehicle is a deadly weapon. This is the same reasoning that the woman in SF got convicted when her Presa Canario dog killed Diane Whipple. I thought the same reasoning should have been used for the sheriff that fell asleep at 11 am and killed those cyclists down by Stevens Creek Reservoir (driving when you’re sleepy should be understood to be reckless). If he was at a red light, he must have passed the girl. If he was behind, he was also aware of the girl. He likely did not realize, because our society does not reinforce the message, that driving a motor vehicle near cyclists or pedestrians is like shooting a bullet past their shoulder. You hit them, they die.

I’m going to go out there and video bikes making that turn and see how it all plays out. I don’t accept the idea of an accident like that having no traffic violations. People are responsible for knowing the environment around them, and riding/driving accordingly. If you could have reasonably known that a bike was in the area, you should have known. Could the motorist have known? A question whose answer might help with this- was the light green or red? If the light was green, on Jefferson, then the motorist making a right hand turn needed to be completely aware of everything to his right, because a pedestrian could have been walking through the intersection.

http://www.almanacnews.com/news/show_story.php?id=12566

The first scenario I thought of:
- SUV is stopped at red light, waiting to turn right.
- Cyclist approaches from behind and tries to pass SUV on right to take the right turn.
- Light turns green (or driver decides to go right on red) just as the cyclist starts to pass on the right.
- Collision.

In this scenario, the two violations I can think of are:
1. Perhaps driver did not use turn signal and cyclist then assumed it was safe to pass on right.
2. Cyclist passing on the right (no bike lane here).
I can’t think of any scenarios where there are truly zero violations, unless the cop was speaking just about the SUV driver.

And now that I’ve re-read your post, I realize this is pretty much the case you postulated for “cyclist at fault”. From what I’ve seen on the roads, this seems very plausible to me — so I would have to disagree with your “unlikely” comment.

Research has shown that the issue is not so much that your hand is busy with the device, but that your head is. Unlike a conversation with a passenger, who can see what’s going on around you as well as you do, the person talking to you on the cell phone is unaware of when you have to make a turn or merge lanes or other drivers happen to do stupid things, suddenly requiring your undivided attention. The remote caller will keep talking even when you get busy as a driver. Chatting to a passenger and talking to a remote calling are two entirely different situations.

Hands-free speaker phones do not address the real issue: that your head is no longer 100% in the car when you talk on a mobile phone.

The downside to the new rig is that I’ve got to get out and re-ride everything from the original videos I made! I’ve also got to get a spare battery to get more running time; the Contour could easily go three hours, but looks like I’m getting just under two with the GoPro. –Mike–