A bike commuter on close calls, and how physics couldn’t care less who’s at fault.

By BILL WALSH

In my rambling treatise on the automobile last week, I left out my own tales of angry motorists and close calls. Most cyclists have no doubt encountered angrier motorists, and had calls that were closer—or more than just close. But I’ll share them this week, because I’ve been thinking about assumptions.

Since last April, I’ve been bicycling three miles each way from my house in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C., to my job downtown at the Washington Post. I work a night shift, so I’m heading in around 2 p.m. and home around 11. One night a few months into my tenure as a bike commuter, I chose a route home that takes me parallel to the west front of the U.S. Capitol, on the wide, tourist-friendly sidewalk on the edge of the Capitol grounds. It was maybe 11:15 p.m., and so pedestrian traffic was not an issue. It never is at that time. There is usually some car traffic, and as it happened, a car was stopped on Maryland Avenue at Third, one red light away from exiting the Capitol grounds.

I had the green light to cross Maryland Avenue in the crosswalk in front of the stopped car, but green turned to yellow as I approached. It was one of those right-on-the-cusp timing decisions, but I was moving fast enough that (a) it would have required some sharp braking to stop, and (b) I knew I could easily clear the intersection before the driver got a green light. So I zipped through on the “orange” light. And then the yelling began.

“YOU RAN A RED LIGHT!” was the crux of the message. It was a message that apparently bore repeating. And more repeating. There may have been some bad words and some references to how I could have been killed—I don’t remember. I wasn’t foolish enough to double back and entertain an extended discussion with the man behind the wheel, but I believe I slowed enough to yell back that, no, “YOU had the red light!”

And he did, no doubt about it, but that was beside the point. I was wrong to cross that street, for any number of reasons. I had no reason to be in a hurry. Even if I did, I could have turned left on the sidewalk and used another route. And even though I was lighted up like a Christmas tree, I should have had the sense to realize that, at that time of night, with no other cars in sight, the driver of this one might have a reasonable expectation that he was alone out there. Maybe he was fiddling with the radio or looking at his phone, or a map. It’s clear to me, based on his response and his erroneous perception of when the light turned, that I startled him as he was giving very serious thought to jumping the light. My orange light and his—what, chartreuse?—light could have produced some red lights with sirens, and red stainage in the street. He would have been in the wrong, but I would have been on the ground.

He assumed that nobody would be anywhere near his path. Worse, I assumed that he saw me just fine and that he would never dream of hitting the gas before he saw a green light.

By Bob Mionske

It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop—and when it did drop, it was even worse than expected. “It” is the new House Transportation bill, and it is a disaster for cycling, reversing decades of bicycle-friendly transportation policy.

A bit of background: In the 2006 election, the Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives, and Representative Jim Oberstar (D-MN), long a champion of cycling, assumed the Chair of the House Transportation Committee. Two years later, Democrats won the White House, and solidified their control of the House and Senate. Strong cycling advocates like Representatives Jim Oberstar and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) were now poised to transform transportation policy in this country, away from the old model of motor vehicle-centered infrastructure, and towards a new multimodal model, including infrastructure for rail, bicycling, walking, and of course, motor vehicles.

That all changed in the 2010 election. Republicans regained control of the House after a massive mid-term election shellacking of the Democrats. Even Representative Oberstar lost his re-election bid, after 36 years in Congress. With the Republicans firmly in control of the House, Representative John Mica (R-FL) assumed the Chair of the House Transportation Committee, and transportation policy was once again poised for a new era of change.

This week, we found out just how much of a change we are in for, and although cycling advocates were braced for some bad news, the new Transportation bill—its official title is “The American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act”—is far worse than what anybody had expected. Here are some details:

• Completely reverses 20 years of bicycle and pedestrian-friendly federal transportation policy.
• Completely eliminates the dedicated funding for the Transportation Enhancements program that funds the cycling and walking projects.
• Allows states to build bridges without safe access for cyclists and pedestrians, as previously required.
• Completely eliminates Bicycle and Pedestrian and Safe Routes to Schools coordinators in state DOTs.
• Repeals the Safe Routes to Schools program.
• Eliminates language that ensures that rumble strips “do not adversely affect the safety or mobility of bicyclists, pedestrians or the disabled.”

In place of these modest programs, the House Transportation Committee plans to roll the clock back to the days when bicycles were toys, and the roads were for cars. And that’s just the transportation part of the bill. There’s more: The bill links funding for transportation infrastructure to oil production. Here are the details.

• Permanently removes environmental regulatory barriers to American oil production and infrastructure development, and links infrastructure to oil production by funding motor vehicle transportation infrastructure with oil production revenues.
• Lifts current offshore drilling bans and requires leasing of new offshore areas.
• Promotes shale oil extraction research and development.
• Approves the Keystone XL pipeline rejected by President Obama in January.
• Opens the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration.

A bicyclist and driver with peeves from both sides.

By BILL WALSH

I love cars. I hate cars.

Motorists think bicyclists are encroaching on their turf. They mutter nonsense about “road tax.” They’re just dying to speed around us so they can sit at the next stoplight a few seconds longer. They seethe if we run stop signs or red lights. They resent our ability to squeeze between them get around them and make use of shoulders and sidewalks. They envy our relative immunity to traffic jams and the almost recreational nature of our commutes.

They hate our freedom!

I’m passionate about bike commuting now, but, like most adult cyclists, I’m also a driver. To say I’m also a driver is understating things: I’m a car enthusiast from way back. I grew up just outside the Motor City, with a dad who worked at GM. I was able to name any automobile on the street by age 3, and I dreamed of becoming a car designer, or maybe writing reviews for a car magazine. I lived on a bike, like most any kid of the ’60s and ’70s, but couldn’t wait to graduate to four wheels and four or more cylinders. I have fond memories of a tongue-in-cheek road test of a 10-speed in Car & Driver.

When I was in high school, my family moved to the Phoenix area, where the sprawl is so vast it’s like driving through a cartoon background, the same big-box stores and chain restaurants repeating at regular intervals. There, sidewalks are optional and cars are necessary as personal air-conditioning units as much as they are for the distances. My family would ride bikes around the subdivision for fun once in a while, and I took my Kmart 10-speed to college in Tucson my freshman year. I’m not sure what became of the 10-speed once I got my four-speed (a ’78 Toyota Corolla).

Between here-and-there jobs and my first real job, downtown at one of the Phoenix papers, I spent a decade driving a fair distance to work. My first house, a condo in a complex bordering farmland in the now mainstream but then almost exurban suburb of Chandler, was 21 miles from the office. Twenty-one miles: Yes, I was once a real American. Now, in Washington, D.C., I’m three miles from work. The shameful part of the story is that, after a brief experiment with subway commuting when I was first hired by the Washington Post, I went back to the car. For a rather shameful 12 years I paid good money to a parking garage across the street from the paper and grumbled about the difficulty of finding a good parking space on the street when I got home.

Two years ago, my car was snowed in by a couple of winter storms around the same time I was going to the gym and exploring a renewed interest in not being a big, fat slob. I went back to Metro and found that I liked it. It was plenty convenient, and the quarter-mile walks to and from stations acted as little bonus workouts. I felt virtuous for more than one reason. Nine months ago I tried biking to work, and my conversion was instant.

All of which is to say: I’ve looked at life from both sides now. I understand the motorist mentality. If you had been talking to me a couple of years ago and the topic of bicycles had come up, I would have said (a) that I would love to get around by bike in the city if it weren’t for all those drivers, and (b) as a driver, I just wish all those cyclists would obey the law and stay out of the way.

The growth in bike lanes and cycle tracks in Washington has made (a) true to some extent, and I guess I’ve lived up to my part of the bargain. As for (b), I remain ambivalent. I’m still sheepish about biking in the street if it means slowing a lane of traffic, and I still shake my heads at fellow cyclists who blow through red lights and stop signs. I break those laws, too, but I make an elaborate show of looking both ways and I proceed only if I’m 100 percent sure no cars or pedestrians or fellow cyclists are anywhere close.

For even the most patient and conscientious driver, a cyclist’s slow pace and scofflaw tendencies make for an infuriating double whammy. You slow to a crawl until you have a chance to pass, and you finally do pass—very carefully, if you’re conscientious—and then the cyclist blithely meanders past you only because you’re obeying the law and he’s not. So the routine has to start again. Lather, rinse, repeat. In my non-biking days, I don’t think I had anything against cyclists’ careful flouting of traffic-control devices in isolation, but the leapfrog thing led me to say things like “You can’t have it both ways. Either you’re a vehicle or you’re not.”

Luckily enough, my Ritchey Breakaway Ti/Carbon road frameset tester arrived just in time for my trip last weekend to see family in Las Vegas, Nevada. I know it's only been one trip so far, but I'm already declaring this a game changer.

I was only on the ground for two full days and two half days, yet I was still able to log 4 ½ hours of blissful — not to mention high quality — saddle time in the picturesque areas west of town. Day one took me out to Red Rock Canyon, a loop inside the park, then back. And two days later, I managed to squeeze in an early two-hour ride before flying back to Colorado in the afternoon.

If all you've ever seen of Vegas was flashing neon lights, you're certainly missing out. There are few things prettier than the desert at dawn, and let's just say that Calico Basin is especially stunning in early morning light.

Overall, the whole trip went remarkably smoothly. Despite the hectic nature surrounding the frameset's arrival, which was followed by a frantic late night session of transferring parts from another machine, and crash course in learning how to pack the Breakaway in the included case — I was able to pack the completed bike in just thirty minutes. Better yet once at my destination it, also, arrived intact and unscathed. The wheeled case is as easy to move around as any other similar piece of luggage and the airline counter agent barely gave the case a second glance when I checked in. Thanks to a Garmin GTU 10 tracker tucked inside, I always knew exactly where my precious cargo was after that point, too.

Reassembly was even faster, taking just fifteen minutes. All assembled and I was ready to hit the road on a bike that I knew fit me and was properly built with components of my choosing. It turns out that I wasn't sacrificing much weight-wise in bringing along a travel bike instead of some fancy carbon machine, either.

Built with a complete SRAM Red group, all aluminum cockpit components, and SRAM S30 AL Gold clincher wheels — I originally planned on Bontragers but the SRAMs already had tires and a cassette installed and I was seriously pressed for time — the whole thing weighs just 7.1kg (15.65lb, without pedals for sake of comparison). Sub in some good carbon tubulars into the mix and the bike would barely even be UCI-legal.

Yep, it all fits in here — quite easily, in fact. We did, however, find the S&S Machine method to be much more efficient than what Ritchey prescribes

All in with heavy pedals, a stuffed saddle bag, a bulky computer, bottle cages, a mini-pump, and front and rear flashers, it's still only 7.99kg (17.61lb). Even more impressive is the fully packed weight of 15.54kg (34.26lb) including the bike, case, some tools, spare small parts, and a full-length frame pump – roughly the same as an emptyfull-sized hard case.

I'm only one trip in with more planned in the near future but this thing has already turned my perspective on travel on its ear. Instead of ruing the prospect of days off the bike, I'm now wondering what far-off location I'm going to ride this thing in next and eagerly mapping out routes — quite the reversal.

I also have a bunch of tips on traveling with a bike to share with you after this first go-around, some are Ritchey Breakaway-specific but mostly not. With this inaugural trip under my belt I imagine plenty more insight, and stress-relief, to come as I pack on the miles (both pedaled and flown) this spring — stay tuned.

Calico Basin, shortly after dawn — certainly a more pleasant view than the Las Vegas Strip

So, you’ve bought a new mountain bike and it’s got the latest rear shock on it, with all kinds of letters and numbers after its name, and an RRP that would make you wince if you had to buy it aftermarket. That means your bike is going to work perfectly, right?

Wrong. What most people don’t realise is that the shock probably has a broad tune inside it that's designed to suit a wide range of riders, of different sizes, weights and riding styles. Almost a jack of all trades in shock absorber form. And like a jack of all trades, it may be master of none.

Companies like RockShox and Fox Racing Shox now offer a range of base shock tunes, which are designed to extract maximum performance from particular suspension designs and models of bike. Custom valving for a more specific feel is sometimes available too, depending on the shock. 

But a bike company's idea of how a bike should feel may not match up to your own preferences. On the shop floor, a linear suspension curve feels plush, and plenty of low-speed compression damping gives a bob-free test ride. But out on the trail, more aggressive riders are likely to regularly bottom-out, and excess compression damping can choke the suspension and give a rough ride over smaller bumps.

If your new bike isn't giving you the ride you'd like, don't go straight out and spend a massive amount on component upgrades or a new shock – you could achieve a lot more by getting your existing damper tuned up. Custom tuning generally costs around £150 and it's one of the best ways of increasing your bike’s performance without spending a serious amount on something new and shiny. I've had some of my best rides on bikes with cheap shocks that have been tuned to the application (ie. the type of riding) and to myself as a rider.

Shimmy Shimmy Ya

I'm part of Mountain Biking UK's product testing Wrecking Crew and we've spent a lot of time with SRAM over the past year, working with our trail bikes and the new RockShox Monarch Plus shock to get the exact performance we were after. I first had a Monarch Plus bolted into my Devinci Dixon long-term test bike back in June while out in Les Gets, France. Since then I've worked with Torben and Danny, RockShox's elite suspension fettlers for Europe, to achieve the perfect tune for my downhill-orientated riding style.

Jake has swapped the Fox RP23 shock that came with his Devinci Dixon for a RockShox Monarch Plus RT3 that's now been tuned to suit his aggressive riding style

What I wanted was a shock that gives loads of support throughout its stroke, so the bike doesn't wallow or blow through its travel, but one that'll still deliver full travel when needed. Essentially, I wanted a coil shock feeling, but with a more progressive leverage curve.

Basic tuning of the Monarch Plus is done by altering the internal shim stacks. These piles of thin shims – basically, washers – sit either side of the main piston and determine the rebound and compression characteristics of the shock. By altering the size of the shims, oil is made to flow through the shock in a different way and this either slows down or speeds up its movement as it's compressed (when the wheels hit a bump) and then re-extends.

We decided to stick with the stock rebound damping and concentrate on adjusting the compression stack to extract maximum performance from my Monarch Plus. We also made the air chamber of the shock smaller, to create more ramp-up towards the end of the travel. It's possible to tune the Monarch Plus's internal floating piston arrangement too, using different air pressures, but this wasn’t something we needed to change for the Dixon.

The Monarch Plus shim stacks laid out, with the rebound and compression shims on either side of the piston head 

So, could we notice the changes we'd made? Undoubtedly. Although the tune that we had done for our super-hard riding wouldn’t be perfect for everyone, it's massively improved the bike’s handling over some serious terrain.

When sending your shock off to be tuned, be sure to let the tuners know your weight, riding style and what kind of trails you ride, as well as the bike the shock is going on. Chances are, it’ll be some of the best money you’ll spend in terms of bang-for-your-buck ride improvement. 

Check out our image gallery to see the SRAM shock tuning team in action.

Travel can be a major hassle these days, and it's even more frustrating if you're a cyclist. All of those days spent on the road usually mean days off the bike. But what if the situation changed from being stuck without your bike, to that of a new place to ride? Yes, I’m suggesting you travel with your bike, and it’s something I’ve vowed to do more this year.

I won't deny that as technical editor for BikeRadar and Cyclingnews I've got a great job, but between work and personal travel, I was gone from home 111 days in 2011. Most of those days fell right in the heart of the best riding season in Colorado and ironically, there was usually no bike in sight – at least not one that I could ride.

I've long entertained the notion of traveling with a bike but with airline fees being what they are (with notable exceptions such as Frontier), and the hassles of lugging a case around, it's usually not practical. Full-sized travel bikes such as Ritchey's clever Breakaway design, various S&S incarnations, and even the Ibis Tranny, neatly get around the oversized baggage rules but even with a budget build, they're still an expensive luxury item for most people.

That got me thinking: what if your favorite everyday bike was your travel bike? What if the bike you traveled with wasn't some niche machine but the same one you happily rode at home? In that case, a travel bike wouldn't be a pricey extra bike, it would just be your bike.

I told myself just before the winter holidays that I was going to spend more time on my bike than I do in airports and on planes in 2012. Looking back at last year's calendar, I could potentially have added upwards of 30 days in the saddle if I had a bike with me (and that's not including days covering races when it's not realistic).

So in light of that, I'm about to take delivery of a Ritchey Breakaway Ti/Carbon road frameset, and dammit, I plan on using it – both at and away from home. It's light, the paint-free finish won't chip and the geometry looks well suited to "any place, any time" road rides, with plenty of tire clearance. I'm hopeful the titanium front triangle and carbon fiber stays and fork will deliver overall performance and ride quality that I won't want to reserve only for days away from home.

The build will be high-end but not over-the-top: a SRAM Red group, all-alloy Ritchey cockpit components (this bike will be disassembled and reassembled a lot) and for now, a set of Bontrager Race X Lite aluminum clinchers shod with 25mm-wide tires (or maybe even 28s). Ultimately I plan on switching to something more conventional with easier-to-find replacement parts since a busted spoke or slipping proprietary freehub body is no way to start a trip.

Since I'll invariably be riding somewhere unfamiliar, I'll also rely on a Garmin Edge 800 computer or my iPhone housed in a Wahoo Fitness case so I'll have GPS tracking, full mapping capabilities and downloaded routes at the ready. 

I'll keep you updated here and on Twitter @angryasian with where this bike and I are headed, recent rides and periodic performance updates on not only the bike but also whatever travel-friendly accessories I toss in along the way. It'll also be interesting to see how quickly I can learn to pack and unpack the thing.

I'll keep track of airline fees, too. Travel cases like the Ritchey Breakaway may not be classified as oversize but in the eyes of many airlines, a bike is a bike no matter the size or weight so – pardon the pun – we'll see how regularly I can fly under the radar.

Though the Breakaway packs small, we'll see how successful I am at avoiding airline 'bike' charges this season

If all goes well, the frameset will arrive and I'll have enough time to build it up before heading off to Las Vegas to visit some family this weekend. All-you-can-eat buffets, cheesy shows and slot machines may be the standard fare in those parts but I hear Red Rocks is awfully pretty this time of year...

A bicyclist and pedestrian on bicyclists’ peeves about pedestrians.

By BILL WALSH

Have you run over a pedestrian today? Ah, so far, so good. Chances are, it wasn’t for a lack of trying on their part.

Before I continue this rant, I must express a great deal of empathy. All cyclists are pedestians, of course, to one degree or another. We were pedestrians before we were cyclists. And the walkers and runners are our allies on the self-propulsion front, whether we’re into cycling as militant save-the-planet anti-automobile fitness nuts or just because pedaling is practical and pleasurable.

And we should never forget that our grievances with drivers tend to sound very similar to pedestrians’ complaints about us. As with all multimodal curmudgeonry, there’s a lot of overlap. I had many of these complaints about pedestrians as a fellow pedestrian, or as a motorist, before I had them as a bike commuter. If I had to sum them up in one sentence, that sentence would be: Have you no self-preservation instinct? While there are tiny elements of “Hey, this is my turf!” and “Hey, don’t inconvenience me!” in my diatribe, it’s mostly along the lines of “Hey, I don’t want to hurt you! Why are you trying to make me hurt you?”

When I was little, I was taught “Look both ways before you cross the street.” Now, that was during the Johnson administration (Lyndon, not Andrew), and times do change. Apparently today’s youth are being told: “Close your eyes and listen for the engine of a GMC Yukon Denali. If you don’t hear one, keep your eyes closed and wander into the roadway.” And so it’s rare during my three-mile ride from Capitol Hill to downtown Washington that people don’t step into a crosswalk or a bike lane or just a regular old street seemingly unaware that they’re walking directly into my path. (“Bike lane! Bike lane! Kind of a bike lane here!” has become my refrain.)

Jaywalking is an integral part of city life. No self-respecting urban type stands at every intersection like a moron whenever the sign says DONT WALK (though some of us fantasize about apostrophes). But those of us with a brain, a self-preservation instinct and a modicum of courtesy follow my golden rule of getting around: Walk (and bike, and drive) as though you’re invisible. Do not jaywalk into moving traffic. Do not force others to take evasive action. As a driver, I’ve gotten to the point where I feel tears welling up at my renewed faith in my fellow man if the sauntering jaywalkers so much as quicken their stride when they see me bearing down on them.

There is something curious, whether it’s timeless human nature or some sort of post-Arthur Fonzarelli sense of “cool,” about the tendency of many, probably most, people to determinedly go about their business no matter what signals they’re getting that it might be a good idea to change things up. It’s fascinating, if infuriating, to try to imagine what’s going on in their heads: Bicyclist warning that he’s trying to pass on my left? No, I will not acknowledge the bell or the “on your left” in any way, and I most certainly will not move so much as a millimeter to my right. Bicyclist/motorist/rocket-sled pilot coming directly at me with the right of way? He can stop and wait. Seconds counting down to zero on the crosswalk sign as I’m barely to the middle of the street? I walk 2.1 mph, and I’ll be damned if I’ll make it 2.2 or 2.3 mph for four seconds just because of some flashing sign. (I love the new countdown signs, whether I’m driving, biking or walking. I watch the seconds tick off, and so the yellow light is never a surprise. I take pride in my status as a sentient being capable of adjusting my behavior to fit the circumstances. Yeah, I guess it’s just me.)

That obliviousness, that self-absorption, that solipsism is aided and abetted by the iPods and smartphones and other electronic devices that allow walkers and runners (and, to be fair, cyclists and drivers) to shut off other avenues of sensory input. In his excellent blog Tales From the Sharrows, my fellow Capitol Hill resident Brian McEntee often refers to “zombie joggers,” and I think the ubiquitous ear buds play a large role in the zombification.

Here in these United States, we travel to the right. Thankfully, the drivers are pretty good about that. I can’t honestly say the same for my fellow cyclists, but they’re not all over the place the way pedestrians are. I don’t bike on sidewalks if there’s a good alternative, but there are wide walkways that invite shared use here in Washington, and the walking-to-the-left-for-some-reason problem extends to the trails as well. And this peeve long predates my bike-commuting days. If you have evidence that Pedestrian Bill shouted “Go back to England!” at one or two or several dozen wayward peds, I’ll take your word for it. (No offense intended, British friends. I’d be walking to the left and shouting “Go back to America!” if I lived in the land of clotted cream and Ribena.)

Then there’s the phalanx. There seems to be a misconception that the Constitution guarantees the right to walk [insert number in your party] abreast. For whatever reason, people on paths just love to spread out and block them. Two-way traffic or even the presence of other humans just vanishes from their minds. In supermarkets, you often see them positioning their shopping carts for maximum blockade efficiency. Those Duggar-capacity strollers also do a good job. On sidewalks and bike paths, it’s amazing the ground that walkers can cover in parties as small as two or even one. I’ve seen a 59-pound little girl perfectly center herself and expand to Vasily Alekseyev proportions to keep me from getting by, like Zelig next to the world’s fattest man. Oh, and one more little thing: Curb cuts are a heck of a lot more important to wheeled conveyances than they are to pedestrians. Please, dear walkers, if you see me coming, expend the effort to move over a yard or two and negotiate that treacherous four-inch curb. There’s really no need to race my bike, or someone’s wheelchair, to the smooth spot.

All right: That’s probably enough traipsing on the traipsers. Remember what I said about bikers being to pedestrians what motorists are to bikers? Our vehicles weigh only a fraction of the drivers’, but the speed differentials are comparable, and getting hit by a bike isn’t exactly pleasant. It can even be deadly. So we have a responsibility to practice what we preach and recognize the vulnerable side of the equation. Maintaining your 18-mph pace on a populated sidewalk is just as foolish and pigheaded as a pedestrian maintaining 2.1 mph against a red light and opposing traffic. And some shared paths are more shared than others. On the Mount Vernon Trail and other paths that make the D.C. area so great for cyclists, the on-two-wheels crowd rules. That’s not to say the on-two-feet users always behave in their own best interests, let alone ours, but they can’t very well claim to be surprised at the presence of bikes. The wide sidewalks along the National Mall and around other tourist attractions, on the other hand, are primarily ped territory. We’re the interlopers, and there’s a good chance we’re going to startle some people.

While I don’t think there’s a right to walk in phalanxes, I do think there’s a right not to be unnecessarily startled. I try to slow down and warn pedestrians as gently as possible if I’m approaching for a close pass. If they acknowledge me and move, I acknowledge them in return. Eye contact, a smile, a nod, a “thank you”—they go a long way. (These courtesies may not seem like much, until you consider that I don’t extend them to my own friends and family members.) Remember: In the delicate diplomacy of making the world better for bicyclists, you are your own ambassador.

….

Bill Walsh is a copy editor at The Washington Post and the author of “Lapsing Into a Comma” and “The Elephants of Style.” On Twitter, he discusses language as @theslot and miscellany, including bicycling, as @thebillwalsh.

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Is It Safe to Wear Headphones While Cycling?

By Bob Mionske

“I didn’t see the cyclist.”

It’s the most common explanation motorists offer after hitting a rider.

Even though the cyclist was wearing high-visibility clothing.

Or was well-lit.

Or was riding in broad daylight.

It’s the “ignorance is bliss” defense: “I didn’t see the cyclist, and I didn’t intend to hit anybody. It was just an accident. It’s nobody’s fault.”

Well, yes, it is somebody’s fault. It’s your fault, it doesn’t matter that you didn’t “intend” to hit somebody. You did hit somebody, and if you didn’t see the cyclist because you weren’t paying attention, it’s your fault.

Let’s be clear about this point, because it’s the other Get Out of Jail Free card that negligent drivers always seem to reach for. Intent is not relevant in determining whether a driver was at fault in an accident. In fact, that’s why we call unintentional collisions “accidents.” If the driver intended to hit somebody, that’s assault. If the driver didn’t intend to hit somebody, that’s an “accident.” But just because the collision was unintentional doesn’t mean that nobody was to blame. Almost all collisions are preventable. If the collision occurred because a motorist didn’t see a cyclist who was plainly visible, guess what? It’s the motorist’s fault.

I’m reminded of these excuses by two recent cases involving drivers who “didn’t see” the cyclists they hit. Sommit Luangpakham is an Ottawa motorist who was recently found guilty on 10 charges of dangerous driving causing bodily harm. The charges stemmed from a horrific collision that occurred on a summer morning in 2009. Five cyclists set out on a morning ride from Kanata, Ontario to Pakenham and back. Three miles into their ride, Luangpakham drifted into the bicycle lane. He hit one of the cyclists. And then another. And another. And another. And another. He hit all five cyclists, and continued driving.

Luangpakham’s excuse? He thought he had hit a pole. Even though he’d driven 240 feet through a line of brightly clad cyclists riding in broad daylight. Even though one of the cyclists had smashed into the driver’s side of his windshield directly in front of his face, leaving blood splattered on the caved-in windshield. Luangpakham, his attorney explained, had only had a “momentary” lapse of attention. In other words, he “didn’t see them”—the negligent driver’s universal Get Out of Jail Free card.

Let’s accept Luangpakham’s claim at face value: He didn’t see them. That means he wasn’t keeping a proper lookout while driving, even though the law requires him to do so. The fact is, “I didn’t see them” isn’t a defense: It’s an admission of guilt. Whether Luangpakham merely had a “momentary” lapse of attention—that continued for 240 feet as cyclist after cyclist smashed into his vehicle—or whether he had been drinking, as police believed, Luangpakham admitted that he didn’t see a line of people who were plainly visible to any driver observing his duty to keep a proper lookout. It was an accident, but accidents can also be crimes, and the jury decided that Luangpakham’s driving behavior was criminal.

So here’s a suggestion for police, prosecutors, and personal-injury attorneys everywhere. The next time a driver tells you “I didn’t see” the cyclist, ask yourself one question: Would a driver who is observing the duty to keep a proper lookout have seen the rider? Unless there is some extenuating circumstance to explain the driver’s behavior (it was nighttime and the cyclist was riding without lights), then treat that statement as what it is—an admission of guilt.

When drivers start realizing that inattention is not a valid excuse for injuring or killing another human being, they might start paying more attention. At the least, they will start facing appropriate charges.

And that brings me to the approach that police took in the case of Michael Gustman, a Seymour, Wisconsin driver who hit a pair of cyclists riding a tandem, in a rear-end collision that took the life of one of the cyclists.

“You’re supposed to be able to see what’s on the road in front of you and you should only proceed when it’s safe to do so,” Outagamie County Sheriff’s Capt. Mike Jobe said. “When you run into another vehicle or in this case, a bicycle you should have seen, then obviously it’s our view that the only reason you didn’t see it was because you weren’t paying attention.”

That’s exactly right, although I would argue that there is a world of difference between “inattentive driving”—the violation Gustman was cited for—and inattentive driving resulting in a death. So why wasn’t he charged with a more serious offense? Wisconsin law requires evidence of reckless driving to support a conviction of homicide by negligent operation of a vehicle. It’s one more example of the enormous donut hole in the law between minor and serious traffic offenses. In the interest of justice, that gap in the law needs to be filled, but that is a job for the state legislatures. The Outagamie County Sheriff’s Department did the best they could with the existing law, sending a message to negligent drivers that “I didn’t see them” is not going to be a Get Out of Jail Free card in Outagamie County. They got it right. Now it’s time for police, prosecutors, and legislatures everywhere to start getting it right, too.

Research and assistance by Rick Bernardi, J.D.

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Related:
Blaming the Victims, Again
How to Handle Bike-Car Accidents, Part 1
Hit-and-Run in Vail, Colorado Incites Outrage

How bike sharing and bike lanes turned me into a bicycle commuter.

By BILL WALSH

A year ago, bicycling to and from my job would never have crossed my mind. My late-’90s Trek hybrid had been in the shed for years. I couldn’t have told you what the bike-parking situation at work was. And who has that kind of time and energy? My bicycle consciousness has waxed and waned since my Huffy Cheater Slick banana-seat bike and then my Kmart All-Pro 10-speed carried me around Madison Heights, Mich., in the ’60s and ’70s, but it was at a pretty low point. My keen interest in the World Naked Bike Ride had absolutely nothing to do with cycling, if you can believe that.

Sure, my wife, Jacqueline Dupree, and I had wistfully discussed how nice it might be to occasionally pedal the three miles home on a balmy summer night—as a copy editor at The Washington Post, I go in around 3 p.m. and leave around 11 p.m.—but the inbound ride, amid all the car traffic, was out of the question. And crime seemed like a concern on the way home at that hour. I was even a little skeptical of Jacqueline’s contention that a Vespa might work well for that commute.

I was as perplexed as anyone in late 2010 as I watched the District of Columbia scoot parallel-parked cars out from the curb to make way for a “cycle track” outside the Post and up and down along 15th Street NW. “Is this really necessary?” I wondered. It just looked wrong. The bike lane installed down the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue that year looked not only wrong but also dangerous.

But that year also brought Capital Bikeshare. Washington was a pioneer among U.S. cities when it comes to bike sharing, launching SmartBike D.C. in 2008, but that system, to the extent that I thought about it at all, struck me as something for tourists. I wasn’t the only one to ignore it—the bikes seemed rickety, and the stations were too few and far between. In September 2010, however, the District and its neighbor across the Potomac River, Arlington County, Va., harnessed Alta’s way-cool technology to start blanketing the area with bright-red bikes in ingenious smart-card-operated docking stations. Jacqueline, who travels in urbanist circles in her role as chronicler of change in the neighborhood that sprang up just south of ours, became a charter member. She didn’t use the system all that often but considered the annual membership fee a charitable contribution of sorts to an idea worth supporting.

I agreed, but it wasn’t until the Living Social daily-deals site offered a better-than-half-price membership—$37 a year instead of $75—that I was finally motivated to pull the trigger. On April 11, 2011, I joined Bikeshare, and on April 24, a Sunday, I tried commuting by bicycle for the first time. Jacqueline and I checked out bikes from the station three and a half blocks from home and pedaled out from Capitol Hill and down the National Mall. She turned around at the Washington Monument and I turned right and headed to the Post. Since then, I’ve used a bike on 302 out of 320 commuting legs, or 94 percent. (That percentage will continue to rise, I’m confident, now that I don’t let a little rain stop me.)

I still use the Mall occasionally, for the sake of variety, but suddenly the bike lanes made perfect sense. I was interested to learn, in reading Jeff Mapes’ excellent book “Pedaling Revolution,” that some cycling advocates are vehemently opposed to dedicated bikeways, instead favoring a “vehicular cycling” approach that gets drivers more used to sharing the road. As a bit of an anagram fan, I do find it disquieting that A BIKE LANE is LIKE A BANE, but still: If bike sharing was my gateway drug as a two-wheeled commuter, bike lanes were my enabler. I’m confident about riding with cars now that I have some experience, but I’m not sure I ever would have started down this path if the dedicated car-free routes (and that includes the Mall) had not been available.

Capital Bikeshare was pretty novel for a second there, but now bike sharing seems to be taking over the country. You can now find systems in Boston, Chicago, Des Moines, Denver, Miami Beach, Minneapolis, Omaha and San Antonio, among other places, and before long New York’s NYC Bike Share will be the biggest of all.

The world is way ahead of us, of course. Bike sharing is big in Paris and almost incomprehensibly huge in the Chinese city of Hangzhou. Jacqueline and I saw station after station last spring on a cruise that took us to Rome, Barcelona and Mallorca.

(continued)

By Bob Mionske

As dedicated cyclists have long known, cycling is not just a fair-weather activity. Day or night, rain or shine, cyclists ride. Now that winter has arrived, you may find yourself spending at least some time biking in the dark. That means you’re going to have to run cycling lights and reflectors.

Usually, we think of “darkness” as being equivalent to “nighttime.” In fact, darkness includes much more than nighttime. The Uniform Vehicle Code, which serves as a suggested set of traffic laws for the states to adopt, defines darkness to include “any other time when visibility is not sufficient to render clearly discernible any person or vehicle on the highway at a distance of 1,000 feet.” This means that if there’s fog, a blizzard, or heavy rain, it may be a “period of darkness” under the law.

What kind of lighting does the law require? The specific requirements depend upon the state you are riding in (and if you are crossing a state line, you will need to meet the requirements of both states), but generally speaking, you’ll need to be equipped with both passive and active lighting.

Passive lighting, such as reflectors, doesn’t require you to do anything to make it work. By federal regulation, every new bike intended for use on the road comes equipped with reflectors. Once you’ve bought the bike, it’s perfectly legal for you to remove the reflectors, if that’s your thing. But while it’s legal to ride that bike without reflectors, what’s not legal is riding your bike during “periods of darkness” without the required reflectors. So if you’ve removed the reflectors from your bike, or if you bought a used bike that is missing reflectors, you will need to put reflectors back on the bike to make it legal for riding in the dark.

Now, in at least one state (Oregon, where I live) it’s legal to ride with reflective material on your clothing in lieu of reflectors on your bike. But many states require a clear front reflector, a red rear reflector, amber pedal reflectors, and clear side reflectors. If you don’t equip your bike as the law requires, and you’re involved in a collision, you are the one who will likely be blamed. That might seem an unlikely outcome to you, but there isn’t a cyclist out there who went for a ride planning to get hit. That unintentional nature of most collisions is why they’re called “accidents.”

Of course, as almost any experienced cyclist will tell you, a reflector by itself is not sufficient lighting. You need something much brighter, and much more conspicuous, to let drivers know you’re there so they can avoid hitting you. When it comes to active lighting, the brighter, the better: the more noticeable the lights, the sooner an approaching motorist will react to your presence on the road. A good set of lights will also help you avoid potholes, gravel, and other road hazards.

So what’s required for active lighting? Generally, you are only required to have a white front light. You are generally not required to have a rear light, but many cyclists prefer to add one. Some rear lights even combine a light and a reflector into one removable unit, so you don’t have to ride with a separate light and reflector. If you do run a rear light, the law requires it to be red. Often cyclists get the law backwards and ride with a rear light, but no front light. If you do that, you can be ticketed, and if you are involved in a collision, it is likely that you are the one who will be blamed.

For your own safety, make sure that you meet the minimum requirement for passive and active lighting in your state. But if you really want to protect yourself, remember that the law only establishes the minimum lighting equipment required. To increase your likelihood of being seen in the dark—and reduce your risk of being involved in a collision—you should seriously consider going beyond the minimum that the law requires.

Research and assistance by Rick Bernardi, J.D.

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By BILL WALSH

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” is supposed to deter our letter carriers, and so far, I’ve been able to take a similar approach toward bicycle commuting. I said so far. We’ll see about that snow part. I’m not trying to win a prize or join a cult or even really make a point. I’m just doing something that makes sense, and something that I happen to love. Neither may be true when there’s snow and ice in the bike lane.

RAIN
I hate rain. It’s pretty when viewed through a window, but I like to leave the house on occasion. It nourishes the crops, but I’ll let the farmers worry about that.I left Phoenix’s suburban sprawl a couple of decades ago for Washington, D.C., but the desert climate? I’m there, dude.

Last spring, when I started commuting by bike, I let weather forecasts intimidate me. I was using Capital Bikeshare for the first few months, so I could easily decide to head in by bike but home by subway, or vice versa. A 10 percent chance is still a chance, though, and inevitably I got rained on. And you know what? I was fine. It was fine. No, it was more than fine — it was kind of nice.

It helped that my baptism-by-scattered-showers was mercifully gradual. Before I procured the obligatory waterproof, windproof yellow jacket, I encountered light rain (not downpours) on the way home (not on the way to work). Before I mastered layering and added rain pants and a helmet cover, we were talking late-spring showers, not bone-chilling winter deluges. When I got my own bike out of the shed, the skunk-stripe-up-the-back initiation that vividly illustrated just why fenders are a good idea happened on a pleasure ride, not a commute.

But the missing piece of the rain puzzle, the strategy that now allows me to venture out fearlessly in even a driving rain, was contact lenses. I’m a member of the bespectacled class, and raindrops on lenses are not among my favorite things. My early-1980s flirtation with full-time use of contacts didn’t go well, but I’ve continued to wear them for tennis and other sports, and now I’ve added foul-weather cycling to the list. Vision correction isn’t the only purpose of eyewear for bicyclists, of course, but I’m operating on my theory (probably wrong) that precipitation washes particulate matter out of the air, rendering goggle-gear less vital. And so, outfitted with my Bausch & Lombs and my nylon overpants, I’m actually more comfortable in the rain than I would have been stepping through puddles, fumbling with an umbrella, and trudging to and from the Metro. It’s not as though the elements didn’t present challenges in my pre-bike-commuting life: I live and work near subway stations but not on top of them.

Today I can look to the sky, at rain that once might have kept me off the bike, and extend a symbolically significant finger. Which is no small feat when I’m wearing my lobster-claw gloves.

HEAT
Then came summer, which in Washington means — you guessed it — a Washington summer. I fully expected to log at least a few too-hot-and-humid-to-ride days, but there were none. When it got to 75 or 80 degrees, I packed my dress shirt in my backpack and rode in a T-shirt. At 85 or 90, I went for a full change of clothes, packing my trousers and shoes and socks and a change of underwear and opting for shorts and espadrilles. (I hung the riding clothes in the coat closet at work, and they’d be dry by quitting time.) I learned the importance of wearing a bandanna or even a specially engineered head covering under my sweaty helmet. My employer offers shower facilities, but even on full-change days I was able to get by with a wet-paper-towel mop-down and a new application of Right Guard. As for rain anxiety, it fades pretty dramatically once you realize you’ll be changing clothes anyway.

GLOOM OF NIGHT
In July, I made the transition from full-time Bikeshare commuter and had my old Trek 730 hybrid properly outfitted. A rear rack allowed me to stash my clothes and my all-important cans of seltzer and Coke Zero in a pannier instead of a backpack, affording me a little more comfort and a little less sweat. And then there was the question of lights. Just as rain is an element, so is night (or at least gloom thereof, if that old post-office epigram is to be believed). My commuting route is nicely streetlighted all the way and largely on dedicated bike lanes, and there’s hardly much traffic for my 11 p.m.-ish ride home, but I like the idea of illumination. I started with three lights — strapping USB-rechargeable lights (white front, red rear) to my bike and a battery-powered Topeak Headlux to the back of my helmet. Before long I bought a set of Topeak HighLites (WhiteLite/RedLite) to give me two whites up front and two reds in back.

(continued)

By Bill Walsh

I’m new to this blog, and relatively new to bicycle commuting. I decided to give pedaling to work a try this past April, and I’ve never looked back.

Before I get too far into my first post, I should confess something: Chances are, if you’re a bike commuter, your ride is more challenging than mine. Here’s my route: Narrow residential streets, public plaza, bike lane, then another bike lane—and not just a bike lane, but one of the “cycletrack” variety. That’s it. Three miles, maybe 3¼ if I mix things up a little on the residential streets (three or four of the alternatives have their own bike lanes). There are cobblestones, but just on one block and there’s a hill of sorts, but nothing Alpe d’Huez-y.

Yes, I’m pretty fortunate, as bike commuters go. And I haven’t even mentioned the scenery yet. I live in Washington, D.C., a few blocks southeast of the Capitol building, and I work a few blocks north of the White House. My route to work, like this column, is inaugural—it pretty much traces the every-fourth-January path of the presidential motorcade. If Jimmy Carter could walk it, I most certainly can ride it. (That’s my general rule, though I’ve never been to Plains, Ga.)

On the way to work (my day—well, night—job is as a copy editor at The Washington Post), I ride past the Library of Congress, the House of Representatives office buildings, the Capitol and its grounds, the National Gallery of Art, the Canadian Embassy, the Newseum, the National Archives, the U.S. Navy Memorial, FBI headquarters, the Justice Department, the Internal Revenue Service, the Commerce Department, the Treasury Department, the White House and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Detours for variety’s sake might add the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Botanical Garden, and pretty much all of the Smithsonian museums.

There are downsides. There are tourists, lots of tourists. There are motorcades. There are cops from any number of agencies, some of whom treat the bike lanes as parking spaces. There are taxi drivers making illegal U-turns across the bike lanes. There are two Occupy D.C. encampments and their occasional demonstrations-on-top-of-a-demonstration.

But those are minor inconveniences. In two decades as a Washingtonian I never tired of playing tourist in my car or on foot, and I don’t think I’ll ever tire of my accidental tourism as a cyclist. This has always been a beautiful city, and now it’s a beautiful city with a pretty awesome bicycling infrastructure. And so I guess what I’m getting at, aside from the unseemly bragging, is that my blog posts will attempt to view the incidental in more universal terms. You may not be able to relate to being hassled by a Secret Service agent, but you’ve probably dealt with cops. Clueless pedestrians are clueless pedestrians, whether they’re tourists or not.

Oh, and one note from the nightly ride home: Capitol Hill is a hill.

Here’s a slightly shaky video I took of one ride in:

….

Bill Walsh is a copy editor at The Washington Post and the author of “Lapsing Into a Comma” and “The Elephants of Style.” On Twitter, he discusses language as @theslot and miscellany, including bicycling, as @thebillwalsh.

Related:

My Family Gave Up Driving

By Bob Mionske

One of the most egregious violations of our right to the road is the “buzz,” when a motorist passes a cyclist perilously close—so close that buzzes frequently become rear-end collisions.

Some motorists are simply so inattentive while driving that they don’t even know that they are passing a cyclist. Other motorists don’t understand what a safe passing distance is.

But many drivers who buzz cyclists know exactly what they are doing. Vigilante motorists who disagree with the laws that give cyclists the right to the road attempt to force us from that road, by using their vehicles to intimidate their victims.

Every state requires that overtaking vehicles must pass at a safe distance. If the overtaking vehicle cannot, the law requires the driver to wait until the pass can be safely executed. Thus, buzzing a cyclist is against the law in every state. It is never legal, under any circumstances.

Despite the law, drivers who buzz cyclists are rarely ticketed, because buzzes rarely occur in the presence of police. But even if the police do observe a violation, it can still be difficult to get a conviction. The law requires passes to be made at a “safe distance,” but what does that mean, exactly? A driver who is accused of making a pass at an unsafe distance can argue that the passing distance was safe for existing conditions—even if the pass resulted in a collision. It’s then up to the judge or jury to decide what is safe.

What if, however, we could specify what the minimum safe passing distance is? That is the idea behind the movement to create laws that specify a minimum safe passing distance, typically three feet. This gives drivers, police, judges, and juries guidance in deciding whether a pass was made safely.

On September 6, California became the most recent state to tackle the problem, when the legislature passed a bill requiring drivers to pass at a minimum distance of three feet; included were several provisions to help make it easy for drivers to comply with the law. California cyclists were elated—but not for long. One month later, on October 7, Governor Jerry Brown vetoed California’s new three-foot law—an act that put him squarely in Rick Perry territory.

Let’s take a look at the explanations the two governors made in their respective veto statements. (While both governors have teams of lawyers helping with the legal analysis, it is the governor’s signature that appears on his explanation for vetoing the bill. Thus, the governor owns that explanation.)

First, consider the changes the 2009 Texas bill would have made to the law. The bill created a class of “vulnerable road users,” defined to include, among others, pedestrians, runners, highway workers, equestrians, motorcyclists, and cyclists. The bill made it illegal to pass closer than three feet to a vulnerable road user, to fail to yield when making a left or right turn, to open a car door unless it is safe to do so, and to threaten, intimidate, harass, or throw something at any vulnerable road user.

Governor Perry argued that “this bill contradicts much of the current statute…”

Except it doesn’t contradict the current statute…unless Governor Perry is arguing that the current statute directs motorists to buzz, fail to yield, door, and threaten, intimidate, or harass vulnerable road users.

Of course there’s also Governor Perry’s argument that the bill “places the liability and responsibility on the operator of a motor vehicle when encountering one of these vulnerable road users.” Well, yeah. If a motorist is passing somebody on the road, or making a turn, or opening a door, shouldn’t the law require the motorist to do so safely? But ignoring that, Governor Perry implied that requiring motorists to operate their vehicles safely would somehow be an unfair burden.

And yet, despite Governor Perry’s faulty—and disingenuous—legal analysis, Governor Brown managed to outdo him.

Under Senate Bill 910, motorists would have been required to pass cyclists at a minimum distance of three feet when the driver is traveling at speeds greater than 15 mph in a “sub-standard width lane.” At speeds lower than 15 mph, the driver would still be required to pass at a safe distance. To help facilitate safe passing of cyclists, motorists would be allowed to cross over the center line to pass when it is safe to do so. And on roads where the lanes are wide enough “for a bicycle and a vehicle to travel safely side by side within the lane,” motorists wouldn’t even have to change lanes; they would be able to pass within the lane as long as they left a minimum three feet of clearance.

However, requiring drivers to safely pass cyclists was apparently too much for California’s governor. Joining Governor Perry in siding with unsafe drivers, Governor Brown vetoed the safe passing law. Explaining his decision, Governor Brown argued that requiring drivers to slow “to 15 mph to pass a bicycle could cause rear end collisions. On other roads, a bicycle may travel at or near 15 mph creating a long line of cars behind the cyclist.”

The problem with Governor Brown’s analysis: The law did not require drivers to slow to 15 mph to pass a cyclist; the law required drivers to leave a buffer of at least three feet when passing cyclists at speeds greater than 15 mph.

Despite his claim that he “wholeheartedly supports” bicycle safety, Governor Brown sided squarely with the California Highway Patrol and the AAA in protecting drivers who buzz cyclists—and then asked for a bill next year that solves the imaginary problems raised by his mischaracterization of the law.

Good luck coming up with that law, California. And good luck to California’s cyclists, now that the message has been sent to unsafe drivers that they can continue to endanger cyclists’ lives.

Research and assistance by Rick Bernardi, J.D.

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I'm currently suffering from a surfeit of bike related gadgets, the latest being a Power2Max crank-based power meter and a set of Look KeO Power pedals. Both devices measure your power output and, being a bit of a power meter geek, I've been asked to test them.

It's going to take some time to complete the full reviews so I thought I'd blog about how I'm going about it and any technical problems that I encounter. If anyone has any tips or experience with these power meters, I'd welcome your comments. I'll update the blog as I go.

The kit

We were sent a Power2Max with a set of BB30-compatible Rotor 3D Plus cranks – no chainrings unfortunately, but I was able to scrounge some from another bike. And no head unit – you'll need an ANT+ compatible one, such as a Garmin Edge 500, 705 or 800, Bontrager Node 1 or 2, or an O-synce Macro X. I wouldn't recommend using a CycleOps Joule, which is ANT+ enabled but doesn't have a function to check the calibration of the Power2Max. The Power2Max kit weighs 776g (power meter, chainring spider and bolts, crank arms and bottom bracket) and costs €1,165 (£1,000) direct from Germany. Cheaper options are available.

Power2Max

The Look KeO Power pedals came with pedals, cleats, sensors and a Polar CS600X computer with Protrainer 5 software – £1,699.99 for all that or £1,499.99 without the computer. But don't think you can get away with using a Garmin with these pedals – they're not ANT+ compatible, so you'll need a Polar CS500 or CS600X to read the data via Polar's proprietary WIND protocol. The whole Look-Polar setup is seriously light, with the pedals weighing 344g, the sensors 36g and the computer just 40g.

Look KeO Power pedals

Test rig and installation

My regular road bike didn't have a BB30 bottom bracket so I commandeered a Cannondale SuperSix 105 that we tested recently. I swapped the back wheel out for one of the PowerTap SL+ wheels that I use in training to act as the control. I own three PowerTaps and have found them to be reliable and stable under changing temperature conditions. As far as I can tell, they agree with other to within a couple of watts. The one I'm using in this test was about 5-8W lower than a Quarq power meter that I tested earlier in the year, which is entirely consistent with losses you'd expect through the drivetrain.

I'm not the world's best mechanic so I sent the two power meters over to our workshop, where our hard working wrench George Ramelkamp installed them. He's experienced in dealing with new-fangled bits and bobs so it didn't take him too long to work everything out. The Power2Max was the easiest to install, as it's just a crank and it comes with the right tool.

The KeO Power pedals were a bit more fiddly, as they require you to be quite precise with the alignment of the sensors (you get a tool to do this too). Once installed, you need to tell the Look sensors what length cranks you use. This is quite quick and is done via a button on the left-hand sensor, although you're limited to just four lengths: 170, 172.5, 175 and 177.5mm.

First ride

Initially I opted to pair my PowerTap with my Garmin 705, the Power2Max with the Joule (oops) and obviously the Looks had to go with the Polar CS600X. This doesn't take long, although when you've got two ANT+ power meters running at once you need to be careful with which one you 'wake up' to pair.

I performed initial zero offset checks indoors, where it was about 20°C, then set off for my first ride, where it was about 2°. The first problem became apparent immediately: the Joule would display the power of the Power2Max but I couldn't record with it because it needed a heart rate or a speed signal. I was using a non-ANT+-compatible Polar heart rate strap so that was out. And my Garmin, which does record speed, was talking to the PowerTap, so that was out.

No matter, this was only a first ride – I'd wake up the Joule from time to time to eyeball the power compared to what I was seeing on the PowerTap/Garmin. It looked okay right near the start but then drifted downwards to about 30W below my PowerTap.

Second problem: the Polar was set to record every five seconds, so I wasn't seeing much in the way of meaningful power figures. I also couldn't see average power on any one of the screens so I just amused myself by checking my left/right balance (58:42% unless I was going hard) and my heart rate. From what I could tell, the Look KeOs were reading lower than my PowerTap too.

Three hours of solid riding done and I downloaded the data I had. The PowerTap numbers were perfectly consistent with my effort level and my recent training. The Power2Max didn't record so I couldn't compare, while the Look KeOs gave me an average power about 25W lower than my PowerTap. Given that I didn't do any mid-ride manual zero offsets, that was okay. At least they worked.

Second ride

Lesson learned from the first outing, I swapped the head unit pairings around so I had PowerTap/Joule and Power2Max/Garmin 705. This meant I could record off both head units as well as being able to stop and zero the torque on the PowerTap and manually zero the Power2Max during my next ride (the Looks are zeroed just by turning the transmitter off and on and the Power2Max should zero whenever you stop pedalling).

I made a mental note to do this a couple of times to try to iron out drift caused by temperature variation. I also set the Polar CS600X to record every second rather than every five. This gives a total recording time of six hours – not great considering you can get double that on a Garmin, but still well within my needs. Four-and-a-half hours of battling a typical December day later and I had some data. And was quite hungry.

Data

Conclusions so far

I'm getting data and it's fairly consistent from all three power meters. This is a good thing but there are some anomalies. At first glance it might appear that either the Power2Max and Look KeOs are reading low or my PowerTap is reading high. Anything is possible but I'm disinclined to believe the latter as, based on my race data, it would imply that I'm more aero than just about anyone in the world.

The Power2Max appears to read lower on climbs than the other two. I'm also curious about the 58:42 L/R balance measured by the Looks, which evens out to 53:47 or even closer to parity when I'm going hard. Is this because I favour my left leg that much on a long ride, or is the right pedal under-reading because it's slightly out of alignment? Something to check in the next set of testing.

Here's something a bit clever. The following graphic shows how the three power meters stack up against each other using virtual elevation modelling, a method invented by Robert Chung (who kindly did this graph for me) for estimating CdA (coefficient of drag x frontal area) and Crr (coefficient of rolling resistance) using a power meter. You can do it the other way round, holding CdA and Crr fixed and plotting the elevation you'd expect from the power and speed data. Or as Robert did in this case in order to show the variance between power meters, hold Crr fixed, choose a CdA for each power meter and match up the shape of the curves.

Virtual elevation profiles of Look KeO Power pedals (Blue), Power2Max (Green), PowerTap (Red) and measured elevation (Black dotted line). CdA different for each power meter. Courtesy: Robert Chung

The virtual elevation won't, in general, match up with the actual measured elevation because wind, braking, changing position and road surfaces are all factored in as elevation. Also, measured power was different across all three power meters. What we can do is get an idea of how the power meters track against each other over time. The fourth section in the graph above shows this quite well: the blue Look and red PowerTap lines are nearly superimposed, whereas the green Power2Max line drifts around.

Fixing CdA at 0.404 (PowerTap value, which we think is realistic for all the gear I was wearing and the bike I was riding), the Look and Power2Max appear to be under reporting as they quickly drop off the virtual elevation profile. The alternative is to fix CdA at 0.35 (which we think is unrealistic) and the PowerTap will appear to over report. Courtesy: Robert Chung

After seeing this I'm more satisfied that the Look and PowerTap are giving consistent results, with the Looks possibly under reporting. But I'm not happy with the Power2Max at the moment. In ride number 3 today, I performed a zero offset at the start and got -329 (similar to Sunday) then again at the finish after two hours and it was -262. During this time, the Power2Max started off reading ~40W higher than the PowerTap but finished ~25W lower. Upon further inspection of the file it took about 20 minutes to stabilise to the lower value.

That's a big swing, but Power2Max say this can happen in the first part of the ride until the unit adapts to the temperature (2-4W/degree). A similar problem can arise if you're climbing a long hill where the temperature changes from bottom to top. Alpine climb anyone?

What next? Julius Jennings from Koolstof Coaching has offered to bring his calibrated Computrainer up to Bath so we can independently test each power meter against a standard. I will also do a torque calibration based on known weights. Polar have checked my pedal setup and have confirmed it's OK but they are sending me a new computer as the battery in the CS600X looked rather lacklustre. They also tell me that they're going to be some major updates to their head units and web software next year which should make data collection and transfer even easier.

To be continued...

In most cities, cyclists have nowhere to lock their bikes legally. Here’s how to change that.

By Bob Mionske

Whether your bike takes you to work or just on the occasional coffee run, when there’s no rack at your destination, riding suddenly becomes a less practical means of getting around.

After all, cyclists are often prohibited not only from bringing bikes inside, but also from locking them to posts or railings.

Of course, we’ve always made use of whatever structures are available. But law enforcement can, and sometimes does, impound illegally parked bicycles, a fact New Yorkers know all too well.

The unfortunate truth is that in most places, cyclists don’t have the right to a safe place to park.

To change this, you must organize locally and lobby your elected representatives. Here are some points worth sharing with them.

The Demand Is There

In 2009, New York City began requiring the owners of commercial buildings equipped with at least one freight elevator to provide access for bicycle commuters.

Interestingly, even though the law does not apply to residential buildings, bicycle parking has become a popular real-estate marketing tool in that city.

Resources Are Available

Cities are increasingly coming up with creative solutions (see “Park Here,” below). Philadelphia has turned old parking-meter posts into bike racks; officials in New York plan to do the same.

In Los Angeles, a new law will require more parking spaces for cyclists and make it easier for developers to swap car parking for bike parking.

Bikes Mean Business

On-street corrals, or rows of bike racks, are a smart use of space. A single car-parking spot can fit 12 bicycles, according to the Clif Bar 2-Mile Challenge.

In other words, bicycle-friendly shopping districts could potentially draw more customers.

Assistance provided by Rick Bernardi, J.D.

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Park Here!

Three genius bicycle-storage solutions. —Emily Furia

Vancouver, Washington

Top off your tires before heading home using one of the floor pumps attached to some of Vancouver, Washington’s bike racks. Or protect your baby from thieves and the elements by stowing it in one of the city’s card-accessed bicycle lockers.

Long Beach, California—and beyond

Bicycle centers or stations offer secure, indoor bike parking, along with showers, lockers, and sometimes repairs. The first one opened in Long Beach in 1996. Today there are facilities in Minneapolis; Portland, Oregon; St. Louis; and Washington, D.C.

Tokyo

The city’s Kasai train station boasts the world’s largest bicycle garage; it can hold 9,400 bikes underground. Punch in a code, and an elevator retrieves your ride—in about 23 seconds.

Related: Lock Reviews

Those of us lucky enough to live in Boulder County have yet another reason to get outside and ride our bikes–even on wet, snowy days like today. And now, we can do it in a park design purely for knobby tires–be they fat tires or cross tires. The brand-spankin’ new Valmont City Park features two terrain parks packed with Dirt Jumps, slopestyle, dual slalom and two pump parks; cyclocross-specific features, like the sandpit and two staircase run-ups. Perhaps best of all, the other family-friendly features that help make Valmont a world-class facility: the front-side network of single track trails, complete with a Learning Loop (the Skills 101 trail), a permanent podium for competitions, a tot track for tricycles & strider bikes within the Tot Lot Playground and Event Plaza.

The park was labor of love that’s been in the works for some time now, and with the help of a few huge partners, this project was lifted back off the ground in 2010. Now, as we enter 2012, there is a place that the entire family can learn to ride and enjoy the variety of trails and feature in a safe, maintained environment. Valmont might just made me a better rider, and for that I am very happy and excited–as a cyclist and a member of the Colorado riding community.

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Not living on the fat tire mecca of Colorado’s Front Range? Here’s some links that will scratch your singletrack itch:

Desert Oasis: Santa Fe’s Delicious Singletrack
Explore this Southwest paradise complete with giant margaritas, scorchin’ hot burritos and beautifully crafted singletrack. Aaron Teasdale serves up heaping helpings of all three in this Mountainbike.com exclusive travel planner to the high desert of New Mexico.

The Best New Trails
The article from Chris Lesser highlights nine trails that represent a new breed of trails built just for mountain bikers. They flow and weave around terrain, and are more fun to ride than anything you’ve ever experienced. These trails span North America (From British Columbia to South Carolina, with six other states in between) and even dips across the pond to England’s top park.

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In honor of December, and to combat the lull in the riding season, we want to highlight some sweet mountain bike rides in the Bicycling.com Ride Maps database–contributed by readers like you!

Thin-Air Odyssey: The Colorado Trail
The numbers tell the story: This 480-mile trek, from Denver to Durango, averages 10,000 feet elevation and passes right under clutches of Fourteeners and hundreds of 12,000- and 13,000-foot peaks.

McKenzie River Trail, Oregon
Deep sapphire pools, roaring rapids and 40-foot waterfalls await as the trail winds 40 miles along the McKenzie River

Roll with the Incas: The Peruvian Andes
It’s no surprise that a nation with 70 peaks above 18,000 feet would rank among the world’s premier mountain biking destinations. Once the epicenter of the Incan Empire, Peru’s vertical landscape is crisscrossed by thousands of ancient trails that are ideal for two-wheeled exploration.

Canadian Cross-Country: The Chilcotin Mountains, British Columbia
Miles of empty, portage-laden singletrack await in the deep mountains of British Columbia’s Spruce Lake Protected Area.

Good Ride in Badlands: The Maah Daah Hey Trail, North Dakota
Riding the Maah Daah Hey Trails involves more than 160 miles and 13,000 feet of climbing and descending over remote, flat-topped buttes, vast grasslands, and wide-open cattle ranges through Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the Little Missouri National Grasslands.

Monarch Crest Trails The Monarch Crest is one of the finest mountain bike rides in Colorado. A fantastic high altitude singletrack above treeline, remote but easily accessed, the Crest Trail treats you to jaw-dropping views while traversing a section of the Continental Divide Trail between Monarch and Marshall Passes.

Desert Classic: The Kokopelli Trail, Colorado and Utah
A canyon-country classic along Kokopelli’s Trail, this 8.7 clockwise loop combines spectacular Colorado River views with trail thrills for riders of any ability–a must-hit for Fruita first-timers.

To the rest of you in All Over the Map land: If you’re seriously hitting the trail, you should contribute your rides to the Ride Maps project. We can help you out with digital mapping, GPS skills, and trip planning. It’s what we do.

Get Started
1). Use your own GPS unit, or download a GPS mapping app from our technology partner, Trimble Outdoors. Try allsportgps.com.
2). Ride. Map. Submit.
3). Then drop us a line: ridemaps@aimmedia.com

Happy singletrack season!
-Andrew Matranga, bicycling.com map editor