I was living in an apartment on Webster Street in San
Francisco’s Western Addition, aka Lower Haight. This wasn’t one of your better
neighborhoods, but wasn’t too rough either. The rent was low and the
architecture was really good, mostly Edwardian/quasi-Victorian row houses that
were built not long after the 1906 earthquake. Honestly, in those days—and to
some degree even now—architecture and walkability were more important to me
than safety.
Doing a little light fact-checking now, I see that in the
early ‘90s this neighborhood was worse than I’d realized. It was considered sketchy
by most San Franciscans, and compared to today had significantly higher rates
of violent street crime, largely due to a crack epidemic that lasted until around
1994. The homicide rate was bad enough that the local media often described parts
of the neighborhood as a “war zone.” If Internet research had been a thing back
then, I might have chosen not to live there.
Still, it was cheap, I had my own room, it was a short walk
to my favorite Thai restaurant,
and it offered easy mass
transit to my office job downtown. Plus, it was only six blocks to the
Market Street Safeway where I shopped. And that’s where this story (finally) gets interesting:
if I was willing to take a little risk and go down an alley next to the tall,
fenced-off hill where the San Francisco mint is, and then cross over the subway
tracks at a place where you really weren’t supposed to, I could cut the walk
down to just three blocks. It was practically a straight shot from my
apartment, and from the standpoint of convenience, pretty much irresistible.
Granted, this was a pretty dicey shortcut. I can’t remember
if there was an actual fence, but if so it wasn’t high (though looking at
Google street view I see now that they’ve since built a giant fence, easily 12
feet tall). This wasn’t the classic dark alley of the imagination—long and
narrow and dripping wet for some reason—but it was remote and kind of spooky,
especially at night. It drove my girlfriend crazy that I took this shortcut,
and she exhorted me to go the long way around, but I didn’t want to listen.
Perhaps I had some premonition that one day she’d
be my wife, with all the authority that goes with that, and then I’d have
to toe the line—so I should enjoy my freedom while I still could.
On the night in question, as I headed toward the tracks well
after dark, I encountered three shifty-looking characters off to my right in a
narrower, perpendicular alley. They wore large black hooded Starter jackets,
sagged pants, and ribbed wool watch caps. They were leaning in toward one
another, speaking in low voices. Just as I passed their tight huddle I saw a
flash of light, which had to be a cigarette lighter. Even back then, smoking a
joint right out in the open in this neighborhood would have been perfectly
normal, so their discretion meant something. Wow, I thought. How urban …
they’re actually smoking crack!
Of course I didn’t gawk or anything—wouldn’t want to draw
attention to having witnessed them. I kept my head facing forward, kept
walking, minded my own business. I crossed the subway tracks, went around to
the front of the Safeway, and did my shopping.
Now, given what I’d just seen down this alley, you’d think
I’d finally go the long way around on the way home, right? But I was really loaded
down with groceries and just didn’t feel like walking that far. I had
multiple plastic shopping bags hung along each arm, all the way down to my
wrists. One hand clutched a couple more loaded bags, and the other a big
plastic jug of liquid laundry
detergent. So I was lumbering along pretty slowly.
Past the subway tracks, when I was halfway down the alley, I
saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t look over—just kept my eyes
pointing ahead, seeing what I could with my peripheral vision. The movement was
getting closer. I wasn’t sure it was the three dudes from earlier until one of
them spoke. “Yo man,” he said, “hold up.”
I stopped and turned. It seemed important to act as casual
as I could. Obviously these guys weren’t asking for directions … maybe they
just wanted to mess with me. Could be they were sizing me up. I gave a quick
chin-up nod, like, ‘sup? The dude looked me over and said, “Whaddya doin’,
man?”
I glanced down at my bags, reflecting soberly upon how
utterly impossible it would be to run with such a burden, and yet also how
ridiculous it would be to abandon my groceries and flee, on the mere
speculation that I was about to be mugged. I mean, I’d be pretty irritated if
someone took one look at me and decided I was obviously a criminal. So I played
it off. “Just doin’ my shopping,” I said. It’s funny: years before this, when I
was an awkward teenager, suddenly called upon to speak, my voice would
sometimes come out high and weak, like there was a reed stuck in my throat and
I was short of breath, but now, when I really might have had something to be legitimately
nervous about, I managed to sound fine. Casual, even, I thought.
“Hey man, I see you got detergent there, man, you gonna do
some laundry?” the guy asked. He and
his buddies were standing awfully close. Was this some preamble while they got
ready to surround me? Or was I just being paranoid?
I glanced down at the laundry jug, wondering if it would
make a good bludgeon but reflecting that the soft plastic would be more like a
wiffle bat. Plus, loaded up as my arm was, I lacked the strength to even lift the
jug that high, much less swing it. So I just looked back at the dude and gave
another upward nod. “Yeah. Of course.”
This is the part you’ll swear I’m making up, but I’m not: the
dude reached into his coat and pulled out—not a gun, but a box of Bounce. You
know, the fabric softener. “Man, you wanna buy some Bounce?” the guy asked. I couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d
pulled out a bouquet, or a puppy. Where did he get that? I wondered. Did he roll some other guy walking home from
Safeway?
I shook my head. He persisted: “For the dryer, man, make your clothes softer!”
I shook my head again. “No, man,” I said, feeling
increasingly like I was part of some improv skit. “I don’t use that stuff.”
“Aiiight, ‘s cool,” he shrugged, and the three of them
shuffled off without so much as a glance back. I faced forward again and
resumed my slow trudge home. I resisted the temptation speed up, or to look
back. Was that really it? Was the encounter truly over? The whole way home I
was simultaneously a) braced for the other shoe to drop, and b) working hard
not to burst out laughing. Were those dudes
just screwing with me, or had I passed some test? I will never know. And
did I ever take that shortcut again? Honestly, I can’t remember.
—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—~— Email me here. For
a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.
A member emailed our bike club a photo of a trailhead
sign banning e-bikes. This spawned a brief debate among our members about
whether it’s reasonable to ban e-bikes, but not regular mountain bikes, from
multi-use trails. In this post I provide my two cents … for free.
What is an e-bike?
Part of the problem here is that not all e-bikes do the same
thing. The most subtle version is the illegal racing bike with a tiny motor hidden in it and I won’t go into that (other than to say I kinda want one). Among consumer
products, there are three major types of e-bike, as described here. Class 1 helps out when the rider pedals, and can get the bike up
to 20 mph. (This is the “pedal-assist” model called out in the photo above.)
Then there’s the Class 2 that doesn’t even require you to pedal, and can also
reach 20 mph. This is the kind that might have huge tires, and the rider is often
just slumped over the thing, slack-jawed, languid, sometimes almost catatonic,
his only input being the hand on the throttle. The final type, Class 3, doesn’t
require pedaling unless you want to hit its top speed of 28 mph. And then there
are the rogue companies putting out e-bikes that can go 55 mph if you snip a
wire or otherwise disable their governor. So they’re basically motorcycles in
disguise.
If a community wants to regulate e-bike use, the most
practical way is across the board, even if the Class 1 might not be a particular menace.
What are e-bikes for?
Let me just say I love the concept of e-bikes. I’m not some
purist who gets annoyed when some dude blows by me on the road, his cadence
having nothing to do with his speed, like he’s just kind of floating along,
pretending to exercise, like the person on the Stairmaster at the gym
supporting all his weight on his hands. Who cares? At least he’s on a bike.
That said, I think the sweet spot for e-bikes is commuting.
Sure, the world would be a better place if everybody were super fit and
commuted everywhere by regular bicycle. (It would be Holland, basically.) But
if somebody isn’t fit enough to ride to work in a reasonable amount of time,
and/or just doesn’t want to show up red-faced and sweaty, and/or has a big hill
that’s too much to handle after a long workday, and/or has cargo or a pet or a
kid to carry … go for it! I’m not comparing this rider to a Tour de France racer;
I’m comparing him or her to a car, which takes up too much space and wastes too
much energy and somewhat endangers cyclists and pedestrians.
This isn’t to say I’d begrudge anybody for using an e-bike for
exercise. Cycling is hard, and my favorite rides around here feature serious climbs. If I somehow lost half my fitness, and had to choose between riding on
the totally flat Bay Trail on my current bike or continuing my beloved hill
climbs on an e-bike, I guess I’d choose the latter (at least until I could
somehow get my fitness back).
E-biking on trails? I’ll get to that in a minute. But first:
Whom are e-bikes for?
I’ve been Mr. Nice Guy so far but now I’m going to be less
generous: e-bikes are not for the young. First of all, if a kid or teenager
doesn’t have the energy to schlep himself or herself around on a regular bike, he
or she isn’t being parented properly. Buying your kid an e-bike is just
throwing in the towel on their poor fitness. It’s also, arguably, endangering
your kid. Check out this article about the disturbing uptick in bad accidents involving teenagers who lack the
skill to pilot an e-bike safely, and lack the sense to even try.
Safety is why allowing e-bikes on trails is problematic. I
don’t have an issue with older folks taking up road cycling, though if they
choose e-bikes they’d better be careful. (I wouldn’t want to tell them not to
do it, since managing the risk is really their business. If they hit a car,
it’s not like the driver is gonna get hurt.) I also have nothing against older
folks taking up mountain biking—after all, as a high school mountain bike coach
I actively recruit parents as assistant coaches. But these parents are not on
e-bikes, and that keeps things safe. Given how rigorous it is to pedal up a
steep dirt climb, new riders develop gradually, and their skill builds along with
the range they can cover. This is all for the best. Older folks learning how to
ride off-road on e-bikes is just a recipe for trouble, and the danger extends
to other users of the trail, who don’t have two tons of steel protecting them.
Then you’ve got your ageing former bikers, who at some point
put on fifty pounds and gave up the sport, and now want to drop $10K or so on a
fancy e-MTB and pick up where they left off. I was on the backside of China Camp a couple years back and came upon one of these guys. The backside has some
gnarly descents, but the climb getting to it hits pitches of over 20%, which
normally keeps the novices, and the out-of-practice, from partaking. This
(rather stout) dude had motored his way up there and found out the hard way how
much his skills had atrophied since the last time he did this descent. His
collarbone was clearly broken and he was being carried out by EMS.
What, and whom, are
trails for?
Now let’s step back and come at this issue from the other
direction: the purpose of nature trails. I love mountain biking, and I also
love (well, like) hiking. There’s a fundamental difference, in my opinion,
between road cycling on the one hand, and mountain biking or hiking on the
other. On the road, you have to contend with cars, along with other aspects of
humanity like buildings and of course the road itself. So even though it’s
super fun, it’s not exactly communing with nature. Biking on a trail, I can
enjoy more of a Grizzly Adams experience, and have a relief from the crush of
humanity I normally have to tolerate. (Yes, I’m an introvert.) And when I’m
hiking, free of the need to operate a machine, I suppose I’m even closer to this
bucolic bliss. I don’t appreciate being spooked by a bicyclist whose sense of a safe passing
speed may be radically different from mine, but fortunately this is a rare
occurrence.
With all this in mind, as a mountain biker I do my very best
to respect the hikers I encounter. I slow way down; I offer a greeting so I
don’t startle anyone; I am gracious when a hiker doesn’t feel like
acknowledging me. We MTB coaches teach our student athletes that they need to
slow down enough that when they say hi, the hiker has the chance to say hi
back. (This is a lot to ask of a teenager but we’re tenacious about it, and
they generally behave.) With this as the model, I believe that mountain bikers deserve
the privilege of sharing trails with hikers. That being said, I’m totally fine
with some trails being for hikers only, and I’m stoked to have encountered a
few trails specifically set aside for bikers. But not e-bikers, because of the…
Unique problems
e-bikes present on trails
Since I started mountain biking in the early 1980s (when the
sport was brand new), I have observed how tenuous the relationship can be
between bikers and hikers. In the mid 1980s, I loved riding the Shanahan Ridge and
Mesa trails in my hometown of Boulder, Colorado … until the city heard from too
many angry hikers and closed every single
trail to bikers, a ban they still uphold. (I attended the city council
meeting where this was argued about, and—being an unprepared, clueless
teenager—made an absolute ass of myself and was laughed at by the entire room,
which is why I have so much character today.)
The debate about regular mountain bikes on trails will never
end, which is why I think we need to be really, really careful when it comes to
e-bikes. This technology presents several unique problems.
First of all, as I mentioned before, part of why regular
mountain bikers do okay on trails is that they have to pay their dues,
fitness-wise, before they have a lot of gnarly descents to contend with. By the
time they’re passing hikers on a steep downhill, they’ve acquired the skill
they need not to lose control and take somebody out. With an e-bike they’re
going everywhere, ready or not.
Second, with increased speed comes extended range, which
means more total encounters with hikers. I mean, if I could ride twice as fast on
an e-bike (which I probably almost could), I’d go twice as far, and automatically
pass a lot more people. And as careful as I try to be, I’m going to encounter some hikers, usually older people, who cannot abide mountain bikers in any form. Even
on a regular mountain bike, with all the politeness I can muster, I can’t do
right by some of these folks. I could dismount my bike, greet them kindly with
a tip of my helmet, hand them a $100 bill and say, “I’m pretty sure you dropped
this, even if you don’t remember doing so,” and then give them some homemade
chocolate chip cookies and a hand-knit sweater for their dog, and they’d still scowl
at me with a look that says, “Go back to your gutter, you filthy vermin.” Meanwhile,
at the other end the spectrum, you’ll always have a few mountain bikers who are rude
and/or incorrectly gauge the socially acceptable passing speed. If, due to a
surge in e-bike popularity, the trails suddenly had twice the number of bikers
going twice the distance, the number of pissed off hikers would surely increase,
and as I said before, this détente between hikers and bikers is already
precarious. In a nutshell, I don’t want e-bikers tipping that balance and
ruining the party for us regular bikers.
Third, e-bike motors are allowed to produce up to 750 watts,
which is half-again more than Lance Armstrong could sustain for a single climb
at the height of his dope-fueled career. This kind of power could surely enable an e-biker to spin the rear tire on
climbs, not just half a pedal revolution at a time like I might accidentally do
here and there, but more like a motorcycle can. They could totally peel out and
some yahoos probably would. I suspect this could really damage a nature trail,
which is not designed for such stuff. (And remember, not all e-bike
manufacturers play by the rules, power-wise, to begin with.)
Finally, there’s the douchebag factor. Some e-bikers just
wanna pretend they’re motorcyclists and will get all armored up and go treat
the trail like it’s a motocross course. I was hiking at the Rockville Hills Regional Park, where e-bikes are disallowed, and this dork
on an e-bike with a full face helmet and knee and elbow pads was riding with
his buddies who were on regular bikes. He kept zipping on ahead and passing my
wife and me, and then circling back to rejoin his friends, then passing us
again. My impulse was to knock him to the ground and beat him about the head
and shoulders with his bike, but it would have been too heavy given my spindly
bike-racer arms. Lucky for him, I didn’t think of seizing his battery pack and
flogging him with that. Granted, the prohibition against e-bikes hadn’t stopped
him from riding there, but presumably the park rangers are licensed to kill and
that dumbass is no longer bothering anybody.
What is to be done?
The majority of trails I encounter that allow mountain bikes
also allow e-bikes, so far. It appears that the trail managers are either
struggling to figure out how to regulate e-bikes, or are adopting a
wait-and-see approach. As you have surely gathered by now, I’d favor something
more assertive. Fire roads are fine, as there’s plenty of room for everyone,
but any single-track trail that allows mountain bikes today should err on the
side of caution and ban e-bikes initially, until they’ve figured out the best
way to govern them. Anyone wanting to use an e-bike for exercise can go buy an
(albeit sexist) Pinarello Nytro and pick on old school roadies like me, or do their
shopping on an electric cargo bike. Leave the trails for nature lovers.
(At least, that’s my take, for now. I hope I’m more thoughtful than in my teenaged years, with that disastrous presentation at the Boulder city council meeting.)
—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—~— Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts,
click here.
This post is available as a vlog as as service to the blind, the illiterate, and the lazy. If you are blind, I hope somebody will start up the video for you so you can listen. (As for not seeing anything, trust me ... you’re not missing much.) If you are illiterate, I hope the Play button is self-explanatory. If you are lazy, congratulations on making it this far. If you are none of these, scroll down for the text version. Or not ... whatever.
Introduction
As if the COVID-19 pandemic weren’t bad enough, we as a
nation are also facing a lot of scolds who have sky-is-falling, buzzkill
attitudes about getting together with our families over the holidays. I say if
we’re going to simply ignore or defy these naysayers, we might as well be
responsible about it. This post tells you how.
Planning your trip
Leo Tolstoy wrote, “All happy families are alike; each
unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” What about healthy families? It’s
worth taking some time to think about your particular crew and its COVID-19
profile. If your family Thanksgiving dinners inevitably descend into vicious
long-winded bouts of character assassination, with everybody yelling at once
like protesters at a political rally, maybe it’s best to sit out this holiday
season. On the other hand, if the grownups sit with their hands in their laps,
staring at their plates and finding themselves once again at a loss for words,
while the kids sit isolated in another room, peering into their smartphones,
silent and sullen for the entire long weekend, then it’s game on for holiday festivities!
Let’s be realistic about it, though: there is some question
as to whether traveling is safe right now. According to the Georgia Departmentof Public Health, “Cases of COVID-19 have been reported in many states, and some areas are
experiencing community spread of the disease.” Wow. I did not know that. Thanks, Georgia! (Yes, click the link and see for
yourself: they really did say that.)
As it stands, the pandemic is certainly escalating. One of
the main risks right now is the colder weather, with everybody gathering
indoors. So instead of you and your far-flung siblings rendezvousing in Duluth,
Bismarck, or Fargo where your parents live, you should have everybody meet up in
a warmer clime. Australia would be ideal, but avoid the big urban centers. Kiwirrkurra,
which is 450 miles from the nearest city, would be ideal. Kiwirrkurra’s population
is barely over 200, so there can’t be much coronavirus there! Plan your trip
carefully though, because it’s probably no tourist mecca … chances are you’ll
be camping out. And steer clear of the locals ... you wouldn’t want to wipe out an entire community.
Flying during COVID-19
A new study by the US Department of Defense suggests that aircraft ventilation systems aren’t actually spreading the
virus as badly as previously thought. “Planes don’t spread lethal
viruses—people do,” snarled retired Lieutenant Colonel Miles Briggs, who knows
a guy involved with the study. Unfortunately, when I fact-checked this article
I discovered that its conclusion was based on a misunderstanding: the authors
were talking about two-seater fighter planes where both travelers have those
cool helmets with built-in air supply hoses.
Notwithstanding the DOD’s little goof, it is true that even
the CDC has acknowledged the efficacy of ventilation systems on
airplanes. Thus, the chances of spreading the virus on the plane aren’t that
high … you won’t start infecting people until you reach your destination or
have returned home. Obviously the problem isn’t spreading the virus
geographically, but contracting it somewhere between points A and B. After all, the difference between an
epidemic and a pandemic is … wait. I’m getting a bit confused. Let’s move on.
It turns out the airplane itself may not be the most
dangerous part of your trip. There are also the logistical hurdles at either
end. Taking a cab or Lyft to the airport would obviously be a bad idea, so
you’ll want to drive there and park in the long-term parking, expense be
damned. But the shuttle bus from the parking lot to the terminal is also out of
the question, so leave an extra hour early and walk.
The security line is of course a Petri dish of coronavirus.
Look at this typical line. I don’t think that’s six feet between travelers;
that woman’s mask has slipped down below her nose; and the dippy little dog
doesn’t even have a mask! (Can a dog transmit COVID? Hello, we had a bat and a
pangolin infecting people already … a slobbering, yapping dog is obviously a
mobile four-legged superspreader event!)
Conventional wisdom has it that you should skip the long
security line by using TSA Precheck or CLEAR, but that actually might be worse than the longer queue. Why? Because you’ll
be in line with frequent travelers—the guys who continue to travel on business,
all over the country, treating our beleaguered nation like their own personal
coronavirus tasting menu. You want to steer clear of those guys, believe me.
Instead, just walk from long-term parking right out to the jetway and simply
board the plane, without having set foot in the airport! If you act natural,
they’ll just wave you through. Note that this means flying only on those tiny
commuter planes without the enclosed jetway bridges, so you may have to
hopscotch a bit to your final destination, but hey, safety first!
If you can’t take a commuter plane and are forced to brave
the airport security line, remember that the most dangerous aspect of air
travel is forgetting to remove your toiletry items from their kit and place
them in a Ziploc bag. If your toothpaste, deodorant, and shampoo aren’t
segregated like this, the virus has already won. Also, if you have any liquid
in a container over 3.4 ounces, you can pretty much kiss your whole family
goodbye, unless the TSA catches you and saves the day (again). The exception is
that they’re now allowing alcohol-based hand cleaner in containers up to 12
ounces, bless their hearts. So you can bring plenty of that, whether it’s to
clean your hands with or to squirt on fellow-travelers.
Brace yourself for some unpleasant changes, though.
Airports, which were crappy to begin with, have become even worse. For one
thing, they aren’t offering the same amenities, like that $9 beer you normally splurge
on because your can no longer handle your (spouse, kids, loneliness) without
taking the edge off. Tip: bring your own beer, and charge your (spouse, kids,
neighbor in security line) $9 a bottle so they can feel a sense of nostalgic
normalcy while you make a few bucks. Yes, you’ll have to consume the unsold
beers quickly before going through security, but chugging three or four good
IPAs in 30 seconds at the threshold of the X-ray (actually, it’s properly
called a millimeter-wave full body scanner) is bound to get your flight off to
a good start.
As far as the flight itself, the best way to ensure safety
is to make sure you’re well-equipped. I’m not just talking about N95
masks—though those are a good start—but also a good sturdy face shield (not
just for blocking droplets, but in case you get in a fistfight, which is not
unlikely during these trying times) and also some great noise-canceling
headphones, so you won’t be unduly stressed out by the sounds of sneezing and
coughing all around you, or people barking at you trying to pick a fight. If
you can get your hands on one of those cool fighter pilot helmets with the
built-in air supply hoses, that would be ideal.
Most planes use HEPA filters, but how will you know in
advance about the plane you’re on, since airlines swap out the aircraft at
their whim? The answer is, you can’t know: so bring your own HEPA filter if you
can. Since these vary dramatically in size and shape from one manufacturer to
the next, practice at home first. Ideally, you can bend the filter so it
conforms almost exactly to your head.
If you can, get a window seat. Studies show that people in
the aisle are there for a reason—usually because they use the disgusting
lavatory several times during the flight, pace up and down the aisle constantly,
rummage around in the overhead bin touching whosever bag they want, and
otherwise act out annoyingly. Having one of these dirtbag extroverts right
across the aisle can’t be a good thing. Meanwhile, if you’re sitting in the
window seat and things get a little stuffy, you can open the window and get some air.
Keep your eyes open during the flight in case of unsafe
behavior around you. For example, the guy next to you might remove his mask for
no good reason, or let his nose poke out, or has a big greasy beard with
possibly pestilent saliva dripping down it. Or maybe his mask is made out of
tissue paper, or a pancake. Give that guy a proper N95, or ask to change seats!
Using an aircraft bathroom is sketchy during the best of
times, and especially dangerous now. The number one rule? Keep it quick! But
wash your hands for at least twenty seconds. How is that quick? Doesn’t proper
hand washing violate the number one rule? Hey—nobody said this pandemic would
be easy. One more thing: if you suspect a pangolin has used the coach class
lavatory, don’t take the risk of following it in there. Go through the
forbidden curtain to the first class restroom, no matter how much the flight
attendant and first class passengers yell at you.
Since the most dangerous part of a flight is removing your
mask to eat, you don’t want to do that—and yet you still need hydration and sustenance.
I recommend you purchase the Self Help Personal I.V. Kit for air travel ($48.99
from amazon.com, though the needle must be purchased in the airport gift shop or newsstand).
With the Personal I.V., you can just run a quick intravenous line, and infuse a
bag of saline if it’s a short trip, or Gatorade if it’s a long one. Heck, if
it’s a full flight you might even consider putting a little bleach in there!
The road trip option
If you decide it’s just not worth the extra bother of
flying, taking some extra time to turn your vacation into a road trip is an
excellent idea. I fear for Generation Z, with their reluctance toward learning to
drive and getting their licenses. Will they miss out entirely on the classic
American young-adult road trip experience of blasting along I-70 at 90 miles an
hour, sending toilet paper comets flying out the window, eating greasy fast
food and blasting Nine Inch Nails at party volume to drown out the roar of air
through the open moon roof? Well, maybe the pandemic can be their savior. Of
course, it takes months to learn to drive and get your license, so it’s a
little late for that now. Once again, the parents will have to drive, which
means windows rolled up, AC on, and Maria Carey, Coldplay, or Sting on the
stereo. But there are arguably worse things, like dying of COVID.
Once again, staying safe during the trip will require extra
precautions. Going to the bathroom, for one thing, is going to be harder. Many
service stations are using the pandemic as an excuse to shut down their
restrooms, and others are simply understaffed so their restrooms are filthier
than ever. The obvious solution—just pulling over to the highway shoulder,
walking a ways out into the bramble, and peeing on a rock or tree trunk—isn’t
fair to the women or girls in the car. Luckily, there’s a solution: you can now
purchase a Foley catheter in their new “Road Warrior” edition (amazon.com,
$58.95), designed specifically for consumers who aren’t comfortable with restrooms.
If you will be driving for several days, sleeping
accommodations become a necessity. Campgrounds may not be open, and sleeping in
random city parks with homeless people might be bad for your family’s morale.
Clearly you’ll need a motel, but are they safe? Once again, the conventional
wisdom—to find places that have high reviews on Yelp and TripAdvisor—doesn’t
apply here. Look, the most dangerous part about lodging is people: so you want
to stay where nobody else is willing to go. Look for one-star reviews ranting
about how filthy a place is. The gold standard here is a review containing something
shocking, like “toadstools growing in the bathtub!” To remain safe, bring a
large supply of disposable latex gloves, Tyvek bunny suits, plastic sheeting
for the beds, and of course all your own toiletries and bedding.
Is holiday travel
ethical?
It has been suggested that getting COVID-19 tests in order
to travel more confidently is ethically questionable, when the number of
tests—not to mention the personnel to process them—are limited. This can be a
problem when we have front-line healthcare staffers to think of, and
service-sector and manufacturing workers who don’t have the luxury to earn
their living over videoconferences. To them I say hey, this is America. Anyone
who can afford a test should just go get it. What’s all this money for, after all,
if not to purchase the life we want for ourselves? Read my lips: we are having
Thanksgiving with Grandpa, and yes, this means other people may die. You don’t
like it, tough titty: this is just how capitalism works. You want you go spend
your holidays in Russia? Be my guest. (Well … theirs. Whatever.)
In closing: ten easy
travel tips
Here are ten easy tips to keep in mind when planning or
conducting holiday travel during the pandemic:
Get tested for COVID-19 before, during, and after the trip.
If you plan to visit a family member who has extra risk
factors such as type 2 diabetes, kidney disease, heart conditions, cancer, or obesity,
make sure these are cured before you visit them.
Quarantine for two weeks before beginning travel and again
when you arrive at your destination, and require all family members, including
your hosts, to do the same—and then quarantine for another two weeks, ideally
in a hermitically sealed room, before heading home.
Download a COVID-19 app to your smartphone and use it
regularly, being sure to rub down your phone frequently with an
alcohol wipe.
If you’re flying, get tested for COVID-19 before, during,
and after the airport security screening, and before, during, and after your
flight—ideally, without removing your mask.
Demand COVID tests of those around you: at the airport, on
the plane, at the florist, at the gift shop, and before hugging any family
members.
If any take-out food is served at family gatherings, make
sure it’s safe by putting it under the broiler for at least 30-40 minutes, and
serve it on paper plates, employing gravity rather than utensils to achieve the
transfer from pan to plate.
Keep your guard up—if somebody around you, whether it’s a
family member or a complete stranger, endangers you by not wearing a mask, not
keeping six feet away, or speaking too loudly (or worse, singing), take that
dude out (but remember to wear
disposable latex gloves if you strike him with your fists).
Be smart about this: if you’re not that smart, read some
books, take a few classes, get educated!
Reconsider your actions as the situation changes. For
example, if COVID-19 cases should happen to rise during your trip, don’t
hesitate to just turn around and head home.
Vlog
This post is available as a vlog. You can open a bag of chips, plug your laptop into your TV, kick back, and pretend you’re watching TV. Or, you could plug in some headphones and pretend this is a podcast, and listen while doing your laundry. Or just read it, below. The world is your oyster.
Introduction
This post continues the tale, from my archives, of how I
became a bike racer. What started as an unearned identity became an object
lesson in recognizing self-delusion. Things improved a bit from there, but I’m
getting ahead of myself.
Here is how I looked at the time. You can see how hapless I am: my belt is crooked, as is my cap, and I’ve got my shirt buttoned up wrong.
Portrait of the Cyclist
as a Young Man – Part Two: The Art of Failure (written in February 2003)
As I was saying at the end of my last post, I took up bike racing mainly because my dad had forbidden it. It’s not that
I sought to defy him; it’s that my mom did, disgusted by his attitude. “You
boys are too stupid to race bicycles,” my dad had warned. “You’d get yourselves
killed.” Hearing that, my mom insisted that we all sign up for the Red Zinger Mini Classic. I submitted my application, and a few days later I brought my bike to the
High Wheeler bike shop for its mandatory pre-race inspection. It failed. The tires
were completely shot.
Now that I think back, it’s a bit odd that Dad prohibited us
from racing for safety reasons, since he let us all ride around all day on
unsafe bikes. Dad couldn’t be bothered to maintain our fleet, and was too cheap
to pay a shop to do it. So we tried our best to fix our own bikes (so long as
replacement parts weren’t required). This didn’t always work out so well.
Once, when I decided my brakes weren’t working like they
used to, I thought maybe the center bolt was loose. I tightened the bejeezus
out of it, thinking tighter must always be better. In fact, now the calipers
were too stiff for the springs, which meant as soon as I applied the brakes,
halfway down Table Mesa to King Soopers, they stayed on and my bike ground to a
halt. I can still remember dismounting and staring at the brakes in confusion,
unable to understand or accept what was going on. Finally I pried the calipers
apart and resolved not to use the brakes anymore, at least until I had another
crack at “fixing” them.
Whenever my bike got a flat tire, I suffered two
consequences. First, my dad would be angry at me, like that was a damn fool
thing I’d gone and done. Second, I’d be in bike-less purgatory until one of my
brothers, in an uncharacteristic magnanimous mood, got around to fixing my
flat. During one of these bike-less periods I borrowed my brother Bryan’s bike (probably
on the sly). I was shocked by a violent whump-whump-whump sound the rear wheel made,
coupled with a terrible lurching. I jumped off and investigated. It was the
tire: Bryan had skidded so badly on it at some point, he’d worn completely
through the tread and the casing, and had fixed it with Shoe Goo.
Getting back to the pre-race shop inspection, tires were the
only flunk-able safety problem with the bike, but it had other issues. The
gears, for example, were a mess. Despite being cautioned against using the
gears at all (my dad probably thought they’d distract me and I’d run into a
parked car), I had eventually transgressed and started making use of all ten
speeds. It was Max who taught/corrupted me, one day riding across town. We were
descending a steep hill and he kept dropping me, until he spotted the problem—I
was always in first gear!—and advised me to push both shift levers all the way
forward. God, what a rush! All of a sudden I could pedal again, and I just
flew!
(Both levers forward? Yep. This was a Suntour Spirt front derailleur, that was backwards from every other front mech
ever made.)
Unfortunately, by the time I had shifting mastered, Dad
changed out my rear cogs and derailleur, to give me lower gearing. This had
meant replacing the fairly new components with ancient ones from some other
bike, and I could never shift cleanly again. Now I was as clumsy as a surgeon operating
in mittens.
I wish the gearing had been deemed unsafe by the High
Wheeler, because then maybe something could have been done about it. As it was,
just getting new tires on our bikes was a big crisis in the Albert household.
You’d have thought my parents were being asked to buy EPO for all four boys.
Lots of big sighs from Dad, who apparently was resigned to our participation in
the race (probably the economist in him couldn’t handle the idea of our
registration fees going to waste).
Worse, the whole ordeal made me look at my tires closely for
the first time and realize that they were fatter than my brothers’. I had 600C
wheels (roughly 24”), with tires 1-¼ inches wide, to my brothers’ dashingly
narrow 1-1/8”. Actually, finding any
tires was a chore. I had to make a lot of phone calls to a lot of shops, and
nobody was happy to hear from me because skinny 600C tires apparently didn’t
exist. Invariably I got a big lecture about how the width didn’t matter, that
skinny tires were actually less stable and wouldn’t make me go any faster
anyway. At first I assumed I was being told the truth, but I didn’t care
because looks trumped everything. And of course it was only a matter of time
before I realized that all these bike shop adults were lying out their asses to
begin with. Of course narrow tires are better, everybody knows that. You think
those hypocrites had fat-ass tires on their own bikes?
Eventually I found (albeit fat) tires at some shop in
Denver, and my bike passed inspection. This was kind of a gift from the High
Wheeler, actually, as my bike lacked reflectors. My brothers had removed them,
when they worked over my bike for me, adding toe clips and moving the
stem-mounted shifters to the down tube where they belonged. They also removed
the so-called “chicken levers,” which enabled braking from the tops of the
handlebars. Don’t get the wrong idea: my brothers didn’t do this because they
were good guys. They did it in case they were ever seen with me out riding—they
didn’t want to be humiliated by association if somebody noticed an amateurish
look to my bike.
One of the benefits of the Mini Zinger was the bike clinic
they gave far all riders. They found some old veterans of the sport who were
willing to volunteer and took us on a ride up NCAR—that is, the road leading
from my neighborhood to the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a mile or
two from town. We all met at The Spoke, a bike shop in the Table Mesa center.
People I knew from school were there, which in itself was an insult, since I
thought I was the only guy around with any awareness of the sport. To make
matters worse, they were giving this other kid, Mike Blaney, a hard time
because he had a Schwinn. He tried to defend himself by saying, “Yeah, but it’s
a nice one, with Quick Release!” This made the other kids laugh even harder at
him, and they all started mimicking him—“I have Quick Release!”—which terrified me because my bike could just as
easily be mocked. Hell, I didn’t even have
quick release.
Sure enough, it wasn’t long before some guy went and started
making fun of how small my bike was, with its 18-inch seat tube and miniature wheels.
The look on my face must have been downright lugubrious, because he actually
took pity on me. He lifted up my bike and said, “But it’s so light!” (Of course
it wasn’t.) Just like that, the expected fusillade of teasing never
materialized. Paradoxically, everyone’s restraint in razzing me became an
insult in itself, as thought they knew I couldn’t handle a little verbal abuse.
On our way out of the parking lot, I tipped over because I’d
just switched to toe clips and straps instead of mini-clips, and was still getting
used to them. So I felt like a complete Fred and the ride hadn’t even really
started yet. Things got worse from there. Just getting to the base of the climb
almost killed me as I was nowhere near fit enough for the grade. We took a back
route, via Stanford Ave and Vassar Drive, which gained about 230 feet but might
as well have been Alpe d’Huez. I was totally out of breath and dizzy by time we
got to the base of the NCAR climb proper. I thought I might even hurl.
The actual climb wasn’t so steep, so I was able to loaf. It
didn’t matter that I’d self-identified as a cyclist for years by this point, or
that I’d been one of the first kids in town with a helmet, or that I loved
“Breaking Away” … I was dropped immediately and mercilessly. Just like in gym
class, I was dead last. The leader of the clinic dropped back and rode next to
me, offering up encouragement. He politely suggested I get out of the saddle
and go a little faster. This concept was completely foreign to me. The idea
that I could choose to pedal harder
just didn’t make sense. It seemed to me that if I wasn’t keeping up anyway,
there was no point in exerting myself beyond what it took to keep my balance
and eventually complete the ride. What this guy was asking me to do was to
suffer—more precisely, to inflict suffering upon myself. This just didn’t make
any sense.
He left me alone and cruised back up to the group, and as I
continued picking my lone way up the road I pondered his words. (I had plenty of time to think.) I eventually
began to understand what the old pro was saying. At some point in that ride I
finally grasped that what he was suggesting not only wasn’t absurd, but actually
made sense. What he was giving me was nothing less than the key to training, to
racing, and above all to improvement. Those who went fast, I realized, might
not just be more talented. They might actually be working harder, day after
day, to service their ambitions.
So did I take the veteran cyclist’s advice? Did I get out of
the saddle and push myself a little? Of course not. I understood his tutelage,
but lacked the drive to apply myself to it. It would be weeks or months or
years before I had the psychological gumption to fully embrace this bold ethos,
to locate the will to flog myself vigorously and often in pursuit of betterment.
It’s possible today for me to be mistaken for someone with talent, but it has
taken decades of suffering to get to this point, all stemming from that day. Not
to sound maudlin or anything, but that guy gave me one of the most important
lessons I have ever learned. I wish I remember the guy’s name. He deserves to
know that, despite all appearances, he did get through to me.
The Mini Zinger itself, a week or two later, was a real
eye-opener for our family. Watching my brothers race, it was easy for me to see
that gym class was no real indicator of athletic ability, at least for them. At
Track & Field in gym class, these guys were slaughtered as badly as I was, but
they did pretty well in the Mini Zinger, especially Geoff, who finished
somewhere around tenth overall. Here is Bryan toiling away:
And here is Geoff (alas, the best photo I can find):
The difference was the duration of the race: the typical
Mini Zinger stage lasted at least 25 minutes, which was an eternity when
compared to anything you did in gym class. Geoff, Bryan, and I don’t have a
single fast-twitch muscle fiber among us. Our only hope is to wear down our
opponents, which isn’t exactly possible in a ten-second running race during a
half-hour gym class, of which twenty minutes is spent walking to the park and
back.
Our brother Max had mixed results. He had been a champion
swimmer for years, and his bike races always started strong. He’d go straight
to the front of the pack, fly high for a few laps of a criterium, be the boss
of the peloton for several stunning minutes, and then would inexplicably suffer
mechanical problems. His derailleur get stuck between gears, or his chain would
fall off. He’d announce the problem very loudly. In one race, a criterium, he came
around a corner with his saddle broken clean off. He waved it at us frantically
as we lowered our heads in shame.
Which brings us to my performance. God, what a travesty. I
was just as bad at bike racing as I was at everything else. Probably worse. If
I’d been a Japanese kid, I’d have been honor-bound to commit seppuku on the
spot to save my family from disgrace. The first event was a short prologue time
trial, and when I saw the results I couldn’t believe how far down I was. I
think I was second-to-last. Last place, at least, would have carried some
distinction. Worse, while hanging around after the race I pointed out to one of
my brothers a kid with really skinny legs—probably to try to cheer myself up by
badmouthing him—and my brother was quick to point out that my own legs were
even skinnier, and to my horror I realized my brother was right. I’d just never
really looked at my legs before, never realized how spindly I was. Two rude
awakenings in one day. How could I handle it?
The next day was the North Boulder Park Criterium, where my Leisure
Time Products teammate John Lynch placed top ten and I was lapped, probably more
than once, notwithstanding the rather long circuit. I was second-to-last again,
beaten out once again for the Lantern Rouge. I actually remember the kid who
always got dead last: David M—. I guess I could have tried to let him beat me,
so I could have Lanterne Rouge, but the fact was, I never knew what was going
on in the bike race. I knew who was ahead of me, but never really could keep
track of who was behind me, if anybody. (Of course it was never anybody except
David M—, who was probably actually much stronger than I but always crashed or
something, for all I knew.)
Once the pack started lapping me I got especially confused. It was a complete
nightmare. I’d roll, snail-like, past my brothers, who would be yelling at me.
This wasn’t really cheering, but more like a wailing lament such as you might
see at a funeral from some bereaved mother throwing herself across the casket, lashing
out at her son’s having been cut down in his prime. Unlike the brief moment of
cheering we’d do when watching a Coors Classic stage, this interaction with my
brothers would go on for a long time because I was moving so slowly. They’d
yell for me to shift up, and I’d put the bike in my highest gear, and barely be
able to pedal. They’d yell “No, no, that’s too high, shift down!” and I’d put
the bike in my lowest gear and be spinning futilely. I was as awkward as the
word “futilely.” Now, don’t get me wrong, my screwed up derailleur and
freewheel alone cannot be blamed. I know that I possessed the ability to make
that bike shift properly, but facing the humiliation of the race, and the extra
pressure from my brothers’ yelling, I was just too flustered to function.
After one particular race, I broke down crying. The race
organizer, Eddie Sandvold, a kind man, came running over,
asking if I’d crashed. I sobbed that I didn’t crash, that I just lost. He
didn’t know what to say. His look said, “Well, what did you expect?” This
brought about another epiphany: it was just plain stupid of me to expect any other result. I’d
never done well at anything athletic before; why should I have assumed that my
knowledge of bicycles (which consisted of knowing that Dave rode an
Italian Masi with full Campy in “Breaking Away”) and general cycling arcana (e.g., cycling caps) would make me a successful racer? And what about training? Had I ever done
that, after all?
Solving this fundamental problem would have to wait, though.
In the short term I had to face the crushing knowledge that my dad had seen me
lose. He’d watched the whole thing, watched me get dropped and then lapped, and
to top it all off, watched me getting removed from the course by the officials.
You see, I hadn’t understand that all riders, including the lapped riders,
finished on the same lap. I figured I had at least a lap or two more to
complete after the winners were all done, and doggedly stayed out on the
course, knowing that I could score three points just for finishing, which was
slightly better than nothing. By the time somebody was able to make me
understand that I really was done, I was more humiliated than ever that once
again, just like with baseball and football, I didn’t even understand the
rules. This is what had finally brought me to tears.
On the drive home with my dad, he asked me what I’d had for
lunch. I said some bread and cheese. He explained to me that cheese, being a
dairy product, took a long time to digest, and that likely I didn’t have enough
fully digested food in my system to properly fuel me. I brightened at this
suggestion, probably as much out of relief as anything, and trotted it out
several times that day to explain, to each of my brothers in turn, and then to
my friends, why I’d done so badly in the race. I was able to ignore my
brothers’ reaction—after all, they were always
trying to undermine me—but after the second or third friend gave me the
same knowing, kind of disappointed, look, I recognized it for what it was: a
look that said, “Yeah, right, whatever.” My dad had (albeit inadvertently)
taught me a valuable lesson about making excuses, and at a young age. Of
course, this did nothing to improve my morale. I was a loser, after all.
To be continued
Tune in next time for the unlikely tale of how I persevered
in the sport, made a fresh start with a new bike, learned how to train, and
went on to endure an entirely new form of humiliation.
—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—
For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.
During a recent business trip to Irvine, in southern
California (motto: “The other, lesser California”), I was pulled over by a
motorcycle cop—while walking. He gave me a long, brain-freezing lecture and a
ticket for jaywalking. The fine is close to $200. I’m going to fight it via a
written testimonial. This is my rough draft. Very rough.
Appeal to Citation #[———],
Superior Court of California, County of Orange
I humbly request that my citation for Section Statute 21955
VC (Jaywalking) be dismissed, on the grounds that it’s complete nonsense.
First of all, $200 is really steep for a victimless crime.
If I’m driving a car in an unsafe manner, I’m endangering others—I get that. I
understand that driving a car is a privilege, and that by obtaining my Driver
License I am agreeing in advance to follow the vehicle code. Walking, however,
is not a privilege. It is a God-given right, pre-dating all laws and societies,
and I never agreed to anything when I first put one foot in front of the other
at age two. What right do you have to fine people for not walking how you’d
like them to? When’s the last time a pedestrian hurt anybody?
Moreover, holding my Driver License or Vehicle Registration
hostage if I skip out on this fine is totally baseless. How can you restrict my
driving privilege on the grounds of any misbehavior I committed when not driving a motor vehicle? What’s
next, suspending my license due to moral or intellectual turpitude? And if you
actually make it impossible to register my car, which my wife shares, you are
punishing her as well, along with our two kids. Why stop there? Why not go
after my brothers, my cousins, nieces, nephews, and our parents? It’s insupportable
and absurd.
The motorcycle cop who came after me—long after I committed my
misdeed, which suggests you’re using video cameras to crack down on errant
pedestrians, which is bizarrely inappropriate—has already subjected me to a
long safety lecture which was, I feel it safe to say, humiliating to the cop
and me both. So haven’t I suffered enough? The lecture insulted my intelligence
because the cop said, “Safety is a two-way street. I can’t protect you if you
don’t obey the law.” Protect me?
When’s the last time a cop protected
a pedestrian? There is nothing a cop can
do to protect a pedestrian except perhaps block an intersection, which he
would never do. Pedestrians are utterly defenseless in an era of increasingly
distracted drivers.
Since when do cops protect anybody, for that matter? They only show up after an accident and occasionally
assign penalties, and maybe call in the actual paramedics who try to mitigate
the bodily damage. When’s the last time you saw a cop and thought, “Oh, thank
goodness”? The vast majority of the time, seeing a cop approach you is a basic
“Oh, shit!” moment. But this was not always the case. Cops used to be respected
members of the community. They walked their beats, got to know the citizens,
and built up some rapport and trust. That all changed when they started driving
cars. Now they are just faceless badges, ensconced in vehicles, that go around
busting people. (This is not just my own supposition. A college history course
I took devoted a couple of weeks to the subject of law enforcement, and presented
this as a widely accepted assessment.)
The other totally absurd thing about the cop’s safety
lecture is that he delivered it while stopped on a six-lane thoroughfare that
had no shoulder. I was up on the sidewalk at least, but he was right out there
in the road, absolutely at the mercy of the cars whizzing by. Anybody drunk, texting,
or otherwise distracted could have just wiped this guy out. As annoying as the
cop was, I did not want to see him get run over, so I was cringing the whole
time. And you wanna talk about reckless? This guy is riding around this
congested megalopolis on a motorcycle
forty hours a week! What, is he fricking crazy?!
Who is he to lecture me about
safety? I was tempted to ask him, “Does your mother know what you do for a
living?” But of course I couldn’t, because you just can’t mouth off to cops.
And that’s the most degrading part of all. I had to try to
be all contrite and docile, in the vain hope that he’d let me off the hook. I
tried my best, but I’m sure he caught a whiff of contempt—even if he didn’t
catch mine. I’m sure he didn’t feel this was his finest moment, pontificating
to this hapless pedestrian, sensing the passing cars snickering at both of us.
I’m sure when he dreamed of being a motorcycle cop—a dream based on watching CHiPs, needless to say—he was thinking he’d be catching bad guys, solving actual
crimes, and being a hero. He’d watched Erik Estrada in that one CHiPs episode dancing onstage to “Celebration” and thought maybe he himself also had what it takes. I doubt he figured he’d
one day find himself taking his life in his hands merely to slap the wrist of
the only person stupid enough to try to walk somewhere in southern California.
By the way, the cop was apparently unaware of how egregious
your fines are. I asked for an estimate and he said, “Well, the ticket itself
is only like $20, but then you get all the local and state governments piling
on, with all these extra fees, so it ends up being like $85.” He acted like
this was a real shame, the result of a bloated government apparatus that was a
hindrance to us both, when of course he had the option to let me go with just a
warning. Maybe if he’d known it was $200 he’d have spared me the ticket, or at
least the lecture.
Now, let’s get back to this safety-as-a-two-way street
business. You, the so-called Superior Court, see fit to fine me for behavior
that put my own safety at risk, but actually, you are going after the wrong party. If you really want justice, challenge a road and sidewalk layout that discourages walking, and seek out the city planners that make walking legally in your county a unreasonably inconvenient thing to do. The setup of your roads and sidewalks is actually putting pedestrians like me in far greater danger than we ourselves ever could.
Yes, I crossed a street in the middle, rather than at an
intersection—I admit it. You know why I did it? Well, I was walking along the
sidewalk, which was unpleasant enough because all your streets are like
highways—nothing even slightly resembling a residential street seems to exist
in Irvine—and suddenly the sidewalk just ended. I found myself walking along in
the plants growing alongside the road, literally off in the weeds, with nothing
between me and the cars. This is not only unpleasant, but unsafe. Why provide a
sidewalk for like half of a long stretch of roadwayand then suddenly end it? What city engineer masterminded that design? Or did the city or county just run over budget with the sidewalk half built? Or maybe the construction guys got sick of
building it?
(Here is a photo of what I’m talking about. No, it’s not the
scene of the crime, which location I’m not sure of because your cop pulled me
over far away from where I committed my transgression. Meanwhile, I didn’t know
I’d be ensnared in your legal imbroglio at the time so I didn’t photograph the
civic inadequacy. I snapped the below photo later, in another location which
was equally representative of what I’m talking about. One more thing: I jaywalked in broad daylight, not at night.)
So yeah, I could have turned around and walked a quarter
mile back to the previous intersection, but to be honest, I just didn’t feel
like it. I was not enjoying my walk whatsoever and just wanted to get it over
with. I was like, “Okay, Irvine, you win! I won’t walk anymore! I didn’t
understand before! I get that you hate pedestrians!” I had come to understand
why I was almost the only pedestrian in the entire city, unless you count the
quasi-homeless-looking woman I saw herding her small child the day before. But as
it happened, an instance of amazing fortuity presented itself: in both
directions, all the traffic was stuck behind red lights off in the distance,
giving me ample time to cross the road to the other side where there was a
sidewalk. I calculated that no believable rate of acceleration could bring
either wall of cars in range of hitting me. I was in a position to manage my
risk very effectively.
Crossing a road in this situation, I believed in the moment
and continue to believe, is a safer scenario than crossing at an intersection,
where motorists are allowed to turn right whenever they deem it safe. It’s up
to them to look for pedestrians in the intersection, and in SoCal the motorists
do a very poor job of this. Why? Because there are hardly ever pedestrians in
your sprawling, poorly planned so-called community! We’re about as common as
space aliens! In pretty much any intersection in your wretched county, I am
putting myself at the mercy of people who have all but forgotten pedestrians
exist. Your jaywalking law essentially mandates that I outsource my safety to
complete strangers who routinely neglect to use their turn signals, fail to pay
attention, and have been taught to believe cars are “the heartbeat of America”
and that driving is some kind of game.
When I ponder the fact that you’re slapping me down for my measly infraction, in support of a civic engineering apparatus that demonstrates not just incompetence but practical contempt for safety, I almost throw up
in my mouth. You know what’s dangerous? These labyrinths of asphalt, more than
driveways but not quite roads, that connect the giant boulevards to the scattered buildings within the bloated office parks dotting your sprawling landscape. Even Google Maps can’t
really make sense of these little connectors. Once you’ve parked your car, you have to cross first the giant parking lot, then these twisty quasi-roads, and this is far, far more
dangerous than what I did, which was merely crossing a straight road at a
perpendicular.When drivers try to
navigate these rats’ nests of tarmac, they get very confused, and end up paying
more attention to their GPS screens than to what’s in front of their cars.
You want proof? I took three Ubers during my brief visit to Irvine. The
first Uber driver had to crane her neck quite a bit, and stopped dead in the
roadway at various intervals, but nonetheless managed to find her way around.
But the next two Uber drivers, despite their navigation systems, managed to get
very lost indeed. I submit to you Exhibits A and B.
In both cases I watched their groping progress on my phone.
That first guy found himself navigating a loop to nowhere. The second guy
missed a turn and ended up driving a long way in one direction, making a
90-degree left, driving another long distance—trapped by a little road to
nowhere and having to make a U-turn at the end and backtrack both long
stretches before getting back on track. Now consider that all these little
roads are eclipsed by parked cars, and that you’ve got people walking
diagonally across these vague unmarked spaces, without a sidewalk to be seen
anywhere. It’s like Frogger on LSD! For you to pretend that you’ve figured out
not just a safe way, but the safe way
for a person on foot to navigate this automotive nightmare, and that anybody
who strays from this safe scheme deserves to be heavily fined—well, it’s like
something out of a darkly satirical work of dystopian fiction.
If real justice were to be served, it would involve
evacuating your irreparably screwed up county, bulldozing everything in it, and
then bringing in intelligent, learned city planners from a properly functioning
city—I’m thinking perhaps San Francisco or Amsterdam—and just starting over.
Then you could have a place where people aren’t driving fifteen minutes or more
to every destination, putting up with constantly bad traffic, and voicelessly
accepting an asphalt tyranny that leaves no room for responsible transit like
walking and bicycling. By starting over from scratch, you might actually develop
a community where people can enjoy
getting around. But instead, what do you do? You put in surveillance cameras so
you can punish pedestrians for not complying with your absurdist, half-baked,
ultimately utterly benighted “safety” principles! You should be ashamed of
yourselves.
Obviously there’s
nothing practical for the Superior Court of California, County of Orange, to do
about a massive civic problem that has been steadily building for decades. You
could, however, admit the farcical error inherent in punishing me for your community’s sins, by
dismissing my case and striking it from the record. Thank you for your
consideration.
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For a complete index of albertnet
posts, clickhere.
There has been a debate raging over whether or not to allow hydraulic disc brakes in professional road racing. (Yes, bike race fans can get all heated up over just about anything.) I never much cared about this issue, and neither should you, really. That said, current events—first the decision to allow these brakes, then a gnarly injury, and then a decision to ban them again—are making it hard to stay on the fence. You don’t want to be the cycling equivalent of an undecided voter, do you? Read on for new ways to argue about this, whether it’s because a) you care, or b) you like to provoke people.
What’s good about disc brakes
First of all, let’s not pretend there’s any clear need to replace the caliper brakes on road bikes. I weigh more than 90% of the riders in the World Tour peloton, and I can descend a 20-percent grade with one finger on each lever of my caliper brakes. But that doesn’t mean disc brakes don’t have advantages.
First of all, they let you ride wheels that aren’t very true. Now, this isn’t a huge deal, because we all like our wheels true anyway, and no rider worth his salt keeps his brakes super-tight. To my mind, having super-tight brakes is like wearing a belt and suspenders at the same time, perhaps over an elastic waistband. You can safely run your caliper brakes really loose. This is actually better because your grip is stronger when your fingers are less outstretched. Imagine a tennis ball the size of a softball: could you squeeze it as hard? Nope.
(When I was racing, my bike tended to flunk the pre-race tech inspection if I didn’t temporarily set my brakes tighter via the barrel adjusters. Once I got my inspection sticker I’d loosen them back up. And how many races did I crash in because I couldn’t brake hard enough? ZERO.)
Still, there are instances where it would be handy not to have to worry about a wobbly wheel rim rubbing on the brakes. Say you crash in a race, and you’re the so-called protected rider on Team Sky, but your teammates are nowhere to be found, and you’ve knocked your wheel out a fair bit: you’d be glad if there were no brake pads for the rim to hit. You can go pretty damn fast on a wobbly wheel if the brakes aren’t rubbing.
Then, there’s the practical matter of having to keep your wheels clean. I love having disc brakes on my mountain bike because I can have thick smear of mud all over my rim and it affects my braking not a whit. But does this benefit carry over to the road bike? Generally not. I will say that I once blew through two entire sets of brake pads in one rainy month. So disc brakes would be nice for wet climates—at least for us consumers. But racers? These guys have professional mechanics. They don’t have to worry about picking little metal flecks out of their pads and/or replacing them all the time.
Maintenance aside, do caliper brakes perform well enough in the rain? In a protracted e-mail debate among my bike club, one rider—whose road racing chops are well established—wrote, “There have only been a few times I wish I had road disc brakes. In the rain and while descending Trinity Rd, I honestly couldn’t grab enough brake. Trinity in the rain would be an absolute nightmare.” (Actually, I did once descend Trinity Grade in the rain, and though I don’t remember braking problems, that’s probably because I got so cold that day I probably did permanent damage to my brain.) Disc brakes do have the advantage in this realm … they’re really not affected by rain or mud.
Now, there’s one more significant benefit conferred by disc brakes: your rims won’t overheat. Overheating is a problem with carbon fiber rims, and is sufficiently prevalent that carbon rims are banned in Levi’s Granfondo, a local cyclosportif. (Here is one rider’s horror story.) Even if you’re a skilled enough rider to avoid this pitfall (i.e., you don’t need to brake that much), you do have to pay a lot of attention to what brake pads you use on carbon rims. I would guess that a fair number of World Tour mechanics are drunks, and that riders have crashed due to having the wrong pads installed. Is this a conspiracy theory? No, I’m suggesting haplessness, not evil intent. Is this a stretch? Yeah, I guess it is. But I’m just trying to give disc brakes a fair shake here.
What’s bad about disc brakes
Check out this photo:
This was Exhibit A in a debate among pro riders about the dangers of disc brakes, which have the reputation of being like blades in a crash situation. According to Cycling Weekly, the above photo was tweeted by a rider with the caption, “why we probs don’t need disc brakes.” The problem with this tweet, beyond the use of the silly non-word “probs,” is that the injury was caused by a good old fashioned chainring, not a disc brake.
The idea of discs being like blades resurfaced recently when pro racer Francisco Ventoso crashed in the Paris-Roubaix classic and cut his shin open very badly. “It was so bad you could see the tibia,” his directeur sportif said. Ventoso wrote an angry open letter calling for a ban on disc brakes, and shortly thereafter the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) did ban them, having decided there’s something to this “discs are blades” notion.
(Is the track record of disc brakes in road racing poor enough to warrant this ban? I don’t know, and I honestly can’t be bothered to research the matter. But disc brakes have been used in mountain biking for many years without causing enough injury to make the news. Mountain bikes have a long history of accepting innovations sooner than road bikes, often for no good reason. Consider the threadless fork steerer: this appeared on mountain bikes during the 1980s, but wasn’t widely adopted for road bikes until around 2000. This design is unequivocally superior to its predecessor in every way … why the delay?)
Another problem with disc brakes is that the rotors can get dangerously hot, as pointed out by no less a cycling authority than Eddy Merckx. (Can you burn yourself on a rim heated by caliper brakes? Yes, but probably not as easily.) On the plus side, getting cut by a red-hot brake disc, rather than a chainring, might have a silver lining: all that heat might just cauterize the wound. (Yes, I’m being facetious, to stave off boredom.)
Some contend that disc brakes are too powerful and cause riders to slow or stop too abruptly. This is nonsense. I have top-end Dura-Ace caliper brakes on my road bike, and their power is no easier to modulate than the lower-end Deore hydraulic disc brakes on my mountain bike. The big difference is that I ride the brakes a lot more on the mountain bike, and thanks to the hydraulics my hands don’t get as tired as they used to. That’s a real benefit, and I’d never go back to cantilevers (or “cantaloupe-squeezers” as we used to call them)—but I’m not yearning for disc brakes on my road bike. Road conditions are seldom so demanding as rocky, sometimes muddy single-track trails.
Do pro racers need better brakes?
Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that disc brakes really do stop better, and really do solve real-world problems like braking in the rain and safely achieving minimum rim weight. Does that mean racers need them, or even ought to have them?
I’ve been following this sport for decades and it’s never seemed like a lot of crashes had to do with poor braking. Meanwhile, the bikes—and moreover the riders—are getting lighter all the time, which I think actually lessens the need for powerful brakes. (The physics is a bit complicated, but empirically speaking, heavy riders descend faster.)
My pet theory about the increase in crashes is that race radios are turning riders into mere drones, and directeur sportifs are always yelling at them to go to the front, so they’re all fighting to get up there without (apparently) deciding for themselves if it’s safe to do so. Also, I think doping helps racers get fast much more quickly—look at Chris Froome’s overnight transformation from a middling Continental rider to Tour de France champion—and their growth in skill can’t keep pace. (So far there’s no drug for improving bike handling.)
Meanwhile, there’s reason to believe that better brakes might lead to less careful riding. I’m thinking here of Malcolm Gladwell’s article “Blowup” in The New Yorker in which he describes an early trial of antilock brake systems (A.B.S.) in cars. A fleet of taxis in Munich was outfitted with A.B.S. and compared to a control group with regular brakes. Oddly, A.B.S. didn’t reduce the number of accidents, because many A.B.S.-equipped drivers became more reckless and took bigger risks. Gladwell explains, “As economists would say, [the cab drivers] ‘consumed’ the risk reduction, they didn’t save it.”
This effect could be more pronounced in bike races, because the racers have even more incentive than a taxi driver to “consume” risk reduction. After all, a few seconds on a descent could be the difference between winning and losing, whereas a cab driver shaving a few seconds here and there isn’t likely to make very much more money in a day.
Then there’s the matter of the riders’ opinion. Frankly, I have a reflexive aversion to riders being coddled by the UCI. Remember, in the early Tour de France, riders had to make all their own roadside repairs, which was pretty badass if you ask me. Reading Francisco Ventoso’s whiny letter, I didn’t come to admire the guy:
“All of this happens because the international riders’ association—the CPA—national riders’ associations, international and national feds, teams and, above all of them, OURSELVES, PROFESSIONAL RIDERS, are not doing anything.”
What is “all of this”? He hurt his leg on a disc. He contends that another rider was injured by a disc as well, but this hasn’t been corroborated. Disc brake injuries aren’t exactly an epidemic. So why is Ventoso sounding like a 1900s-era slaughterhouse worker who has seen half a dozen colleagues fall into the hopper and become sausage? Whatever happened to being stoic and shrugging it off? Whatever happened to riders using whatever equipment they were given and keeping their mouths shut? (Granted, most of them are, but the few exceptions rankle.)
Whom are bicycles for, anyway?
The worldwide bicycle industry is worth roughly $50 billion. It does not exist to serve pro bike racers. To some degree, these racers have jobs because they serve the bicycle industry. The pro peloton is like a giant laboratory for bicycle technology innovations, along with a way to market these innovative products (because after all, everybody wants what the pros ride). This isn’t a sport where the riders tell the industry what they need; it’s a sport where the industry figures out what it can probably sell, and uses the riders to help do it.
Electronic shifting is a perfect example. As a concept, it’s kind of nifty, but utterly needless—a solution looking for a problem. Actually, that’s not quite right. There is a problem: consumers need an excuse to replace their existing (perfectly good) stuff with new (perfectly good) stuff. This is what makes the economy go. The bicycle industry (like most industries) is constantly asking the question, “How can we improve this product sufficiently that people will buy it right away?”
From that perspective, it totally matters what ought to appeal to everyday cyclists. I would appreciate a braking system that allows me to use whatever fancy carbon rims I want, without needing to keep them clean or true. I don’t personally seek the pros’ seal of approval on what I buy—but so many riders do. And that, more than anything, is why electronic shifting is used in the pro peloton.
Speaking of which, Ventoso totally undermines his own argument when he (needlessly) writes about electronic shifting in his anti-disc manifesto:
“We could also talk about the revolution that has brought the electronic shifting. When it was first shown and used, we all were surprised and made early judgments: it’s not necessary, it might not work well, carrying batteries seems wrong, having to connect your bike to AC is bonkers… And now, we can’t imagine our bikes without it.”
Look at this whiner! If he’d had some safety-related excuse to get out of using electronic shifting systems, he’d have made it. And yet look what happened: the electronic shifting technology evolved, and/or he got used to it, and he now loves it and promotes it like a good little marketing foot soldier. With regard to disc brakes, I think he’d be a far more responsible professional if he provided feedback to the industry—“Uh, guys, these brakes are great but it’d be nice if they didn’t slice us up”—rather than trying to put the kibosh on the whole innovation.
Where do we go from here?
My final thought on this anti-disc issue is that there’s a widespread assumption being made that they’re intrinsically hazardous in a crash situation. Well, they don’t have to be. The current rotors are totally flat disks, so the edges are somewhat sharp compared to most bicycle parts (notable exceptions being chainring teeth, which are much sharper, and bladed spokes, which are copious and have a tendency to be part of a spinning wheel). A manufacturer could pretty easily curl the edge of the rotor around so that its profile, instead of resembling a lowercase L, would resemble a 9 (or more accurately the Hebrew letter ףּ). Perhaps this would be harder to do when the rotor isn’t perfectly round (frankly, I don’t know why so many of them have a wavy edge). In that instance, why not just run a nice bit of silicone rubber trim along that edge? Make it out of the same heat-resistant stuff “rubber” spatulas are made of. Secure it by making it wrap around the edge of the rotor on both sides, with some nice adhesive within.
(Yes, I realize neither of these proposed rotors would clear the brake pistons during wheel changes. The brake mechanism would need to be modified, too: put a quick-release mechanism in there that would move the pistons out of the way during wheel changes. This modification would be child’s play for the bicycle industry.)
Perhaps the inevitable resolution of this issue is best summed up by a stirring proclamation from René Takens, President of the Confederation of the European Bicycle Industry (CONEBI): “We will not allow technical innovation to be halted in its tracks by racers’ complaints. We will stand up to that handful of whiny little bitches in the peloton, and we will prevail.”
(No, of course he didn’t really say that. But maybe he should.)
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For a complete index of albertnet posts,
click here.
