In Honor of the Departed

(Warning: Wince Inducing Photos Below)

The Departed:

I've been at this bike commuting thing for roughly 5 years now. I think I can safely say I'm a fairly competent cyclist, seeing as how that adds up to somewhere north of 1000 days I've ridden my bike in the recent past. But accidents happen. And my first did a few weeks ago, as I recently alluded to. I wasn't hit by a car, wasn't doored, wasn't run over by an errant elephant. Nope. Something strange happened while I was all by myself and over I went.

Luckily I was moving pretty fast at the time and didn't have much time to react before I hit the ground. That kept me from getting my hand out to brace for impact (which invariably leads to a broken wrist or collarbone, and maybe serious elbow injury). Instead, I hit the fleshy parts . . . and that's a good thing (mostly).


Once upon a time I went through Army Airborne training. They spend two weeks teaching you how to fall, then the third week they push you out of the plane a few times to see if it took. The basics of falling are your points of contact: (1) Balls of your feet; (2) calf; (3) hip; (4) butt; (5) shoulder blades. That's the idea. Your head isn't supposed to hit and they spend a bunch of time with you lying in the dust wearing your heavy ballistic kevlar helmet while the instructors scream at you to keep your head up. This helps build muscle memory and strength. Then they drop you a bunch of times from about 10 feet -- before sending you up in a plane -- to test how well it worked. Most of the time it works pretty well.

Well, here's how it worked out on Townsend (evil incarnate): feet in pedals, so no balls of feet first. Calves? Maybe. Hip? I think that was the first point of contact. Shoulder blade? Yup:about the same time as the side of my elbow (in Airborne school they don't drop you on asphalt): Then the back of my head. And it hit hard. No two weeks of fall training leading up to this one.

And that's where the Bell Corporation came in.
See those cracks along the bottom right (you can't see the hairline one on the left side)? I much prefer cracks in my helmet to cracks in my head. I assume most people feel the same way.


Let's face it, you don't wear your bike helmet because it looks cool. But if I hadn't been wearing mine I was in the hospital for sure, and maybe for a long time. So folks, take the helmet off your handlebars, rack, panniers, whatever, and put it on your head, securely fastened. Most days it will just mess up your hair. Someday, and you never know which one, it may just save you a trip to the hospital (or worse).

Full Use of the Lane?

Cyclists are allowed the full use of the lane. I know this because big yellow signs beside the road tell me so. But maybe those signs are difficult to interpret. What do you think?

This morning waiting at the light at the corner of Cesar Chavez and 3rd I see a cyclist at the front of the line in the middle lane, which makes sense. The left lane is a turn only onto 3rd (why anyone -- and I'm looking at you Silicon Valley Bike Coalition -- would recommend riding on 3rd is beyond me), the right lane is a straight or right turn onto 3rd, but used to be right turn only and is most often used for that, and 1/2 block later is the left turn onto Illinois that makes sense for cyclists heading downtown (SVBC, take note). So, you get in the middle lane, go straight, then 150 feet later turn left. Anyway, where this guy was made sense. Here's the satellite view:
The light turns green, he heads out, staying to the left of the lane (seeing as how he's turning left shortly), but he's not lightning fast, nor should he be, as he has to ride over the train tracks connecting the 3rd Street Rail to the MUNI service station. Apparently that was too much for the silver sedan behind him, who rocketed around him on the right -- but still fully in the same lane.

I caught up with the cyclist a moment later, "Apparently you're allowed the full use of the lane . . . as long as it's not his part of the lane."

Sigh.

Where Wheels Go To Die

It's there, on the outskirts of town, where empty old industrial buildings decay, pristine city streets give way to shadowy, unkempt ghettos, and the ghost of Jack Kerouac hovers, as if still living in the shanty towns that once accompanied the grit of heavy industry and international shipping. Literally, where the passing trains split the civilized from "the other side of the tracks." A place so dark and lacking in civility the residents of this beautiful San Francisco see fit to call it Town's End.

It's there, on dark, crumbling, rocky pavement, that the City claims its victims. It's there that dreams -- and wheels -- go to die.

Townsend. The bane of my commuting existence.

Allow me to explain. Since beginning my CalTrain/bike commute, I've ridden from my office, along the Embarcadero, to the train station at 4th and King to catch my ride home. It's an easy 2 miles, with fairly wide bike lanes and manageable traffic. You can stay on Embarcadero all the way to 4th, but where it turns into King you lose the bike lane and have to joust with autos intent on rocketing out onto 280 to get home, or you can turn right on Townsend, avoiding the traffic and shortening the ride (by about 1 block). But there's a problem. Townsend is a disaster.

My introduction is perhaps misleading: the China Basin area I'm talking about is actually quite nice: the ballpark is beautiful, there are several good restaurants and bars down there, new condos dot the landscape, and urban malls make up the remainder of the area. The tired and decaying industry that used to be there is largely gone, replaced through surprisingly effective urban renewal projects and city planning. A little further south you see some decaying industry, primarily down by the old shipyards and docks, and then, finally (pretty far south), you actually reach Hunter's Point, San Francisco's ghetto. I never actually ride that far down. China Basin's pretty nice. Except for Townsend.

I have what I misleadingly call "inside information" from a source at the City. The problem with Townsend is the endless argument over how to properly develop what remains undeveloped (or, in reality, un-redeveloped). Due to whatever pressures the various lovely interest groups bring to bear on the [sarcasm] always efficient [/sarcasm] Board of Supervisors, Townsend remains as is. Which translates to the worst road conditions I know. Riding down Townsend is like riding over a cobblestone road, but less predictable. Not ideal conditions on a bike.

It was bad enough when I was on my mountain bike, designed with fat tires, a wide stance, and a forgiving frame. It still jostled me daily as I returned to CalTrain. On the road bike? The 700x23 tires aren't designed for monster truck rallies, nor is the racing frame. And it got worse one fateful day as I changed lanes to turn onto 4th and into the train station. A bump, a pop, and my front wheel jerked to the side. Was it a rut? A groove in the road? A pothole? Does it matter? Over I went, leaving me beaten, bloody, and in need of both a new helmet and a new front wheel.

Townsend: where wheels go to die.

Breakin' the Law!

The motorcylce cop was writing a cyclist a ticket. That's not something you see every day. Moreover, the cyclist wasn't some fixie-riding, hipster bike messenger taking hits on, well, you know. Nope, just a guy commuting to work. In the five years or so that I've been at this, it was the first time I'd seen it.

Not that cyclists aren't constantly breaking the traffic laws (most often not stopping when a sign or a light indicates they should). Of course they (who am I kidding -- "we") are. But what did that guy do to get a ticket? A friend of mine was stopped once, but let go with a warning. He rolled a stop sign right next to a cop. Not smart, but still not enough for the officer to take the time to write the citation. So what's it take to get a ticket (or was the cop just in the mood?).

The thing that's frustrating about all of this is that I want to do the right thing, but I'm torn by two other influences; first, I don't want to stop when I don't have to; and second, the folks driving the cars apparently don't want me to follow the law, either. You know the situation: you roll up to a stop sign, see an approaching car and do the right thing: you stop. The driver looks at you like you're crazy, waves you on, and throws her hands up in disgust that you wasted her time like that (she's in a hurry, too). Even if the driver gets there before you, the pattern is often the same. What's a guy to do?

Well, here's what I do: I break the law, but I try not to get killed. If there's cross traffic, I stop, at least long enough to get a signal from the driver (I don't care if that guy's in a hurry, I want to make it home tonight in one piece). The biggest conundrum for me is riding on San Francisco's Embarcadero in the morning. I'm headed North from the train station, with the Bay to my right. That means even at the lights there is no cross traffic, because the roads T into Embarcadero. Well, there's almost no cross traffic: there are sometimes pedestrians. The commuters I ride with (and I) constantly blow those red lights. Poor cars are stacked up at them, we go right through. Now, I slow down and take a hard look for those pedestrians, but rarely do they appear, so away I go.

Is it the right thing to do? No. But (I rationalize), if I were on the sidewalk to my right (as many of my fellow bike commuters are), I wouldn't stop. What difference does the curb make? Moreover, I think I'm safer and far less likely to mow down a pedestrian than those guys up on the sidewalk, so why should they get to burn through, but not me? On top of that, at Bryant, where there actually is cross traffic entering the parking lot on the pier, I stop . . . or at least slow to a near stop to make sure there isn't any tracffic. Those guys up on the sidewalk barrel right through, and I've seen several close calls from that. So you see, I'm in the right . . . right!?!

That's what I tell myself, anyway.

Look, I want to live to see tomorrow as next as the next guy. From what I've seen from a lot of cyclists (commuters and otherwise), I'd say more than the next guy. But at the end of the day, we're not all great drivers all of the time. I get annoyed at cars and other cyclists that do dumb things, but the reality is I do them sometimes, too. I've had a close-ish call with a pedestrian or two that was my fault. I've misread a light change and taken off when it wasn't my turn. I've thought an intersection was clear when it really wasn't. You probably have, too. So patience with those who trespass against you . . . and caution, my friends.

My brother once wanted a speeding ticket on his bike. That was a traffic law he was more than willing to break. Alas, to my knowledge he never got one. That would be a neat trick.

It being my generation, I guess I'll leave on this note:

Hypocrisy, Politics, and the Bike Commuter

Ok, so hypocrisy and politics are synonyms, right?

There was big news for the bike commuter in 2008. Part of some spending bill or another that made its way through the federal government included tax relief for bike commuters. Makes sense. There was already a tax incentive to take public transit. You can (and I do) buy your public transit passes (BART tickets, MUNI pass, CalTrain tickets) pre-tax through your employer. That's a nice benefit, probably reducing the cost of those tickets by 1/4 or more (depending on your highest marginal tax rate). And it makes sense: it contributes to the public good by taking cars off the road, reducing congestion, and reducing pollution/emissions. So here's an added benefit for the bike commuter who removes a car from the road, produces virtually zero carbon emissions, and is probably healthier (costing everyone less in the shared burden of medical expenses).

Or at least that was what it seemed.

Turns out you can only take advantage of the tax credit if you don't take advantage of any other transportation-related tax relief. No double dipping, right? Well . . . you can order any combination of CalTrain, BART, and MUNI tickets, getting the tax break on all of them. Let's say you live in Oakland, but work in Palo Alto? To keep a car off the road you take BART to Millbrae then hop on CalTrain the rest of the way. You use your transportation credit on both. Or you take BART or CalTrain into the City and take MUNI from there. Tax relief for both.

Worse yet (and a generally inexplicable), you can use your pre-tax dollars to buy parking for your car. How on earth does that fit into all of this, and why is the government subsidizing more cars on the road? But on top of that broad question, why can you buy both public transportation tickets and parking pre-tax, but you can't combine your bike commuting tax relief with your public transportation tax relief? I mean that would make sense.

Hypocrisy. Some one should make a law . . .

Maybe I should write my congressperson.

(and if you're a bike commuter who is eligible for the tax credit, ping HR about it)

New Bike Computer

The last few months have seen a rapid change in my commuting decor. First, the new (used) bike. Second, bike jerseys. Now, a computer. There's no getting around it, I'm very nearly "that guy" everyone else rolls their eyes at and wants to pass.

I've never really cared to have a computer on my bike. I had to get to work and would get there when I got there, whether or not I knew exactly how fast or how far I was going. But when Performance Bike opened their new store in San Mateo 10 days ago and was giving away $20 gift cards, I wasn't going to turn that down. On top of the $20, my daughter gave the prize wheel a spin for me, and voila! She hit "the big prize." Looking at the "big prize" table, a bike computer was the obvious thing.

This isn't too fancy; it's not wireless, won't do my heartrate, no GPS. You know, about what you'd expect for $44.99 (or free, in my case). Last weekend I hooked it up. One false move with a ziptie (wireless does have a certain appeal); I've got one wrapped around the rear brake cable housing at the top of the down tube, but the brake still works fine, so for now I'm leaving it alone.

I admit it's kind of fun to have the computer. It's interesting to know what my top speed is, what my average speed is, and what my cadence is. I know now that my commute to work (when I ride all the way in) is very nearly exactly 17.5 miles. It's kind of fun to keep track of my total miles on the odometer. It's interesting to see what my speed is like on the flats, up hill, down hill, into and with the wind. All interesting.

A concern I started with, that I'd be distracted by the computer, hasn't materialized. I generally know what I'm looking for before I look down and can get the info in a hurry.

The biggest thing I think I'm feeling the computer do is speed me up. I want the speed I'm looking at to come up. I want that average speed to come up. Overall, I think the info the computer gives me pushes me harder. That's probably a good thing. Stronger, faster, and in better shape all sound pretty good.