Get Wednesday!

(Do what the sign says, kids!)

As we all know, "Riding a bike in NYC with your kid on the back is basically child abuse"--which is why I've been portaging mine on the front:

(Child has already disembarked.)

Indeed, we've both been enjoying the kiddie seat on the WorkCycles FR8, for the following reasons:

--The kiddies love having their noses in the wind, especially on the descents;
--When you need to text or tweet, you just let your child steer for you (I always drive with a kid on my lap for the same reason);
--If you lose the kid you know right away, whereas if you hit a speed bump and they fall of the back it could be miles before you notice.

In all seriousness, the front seat is great.  My eldest human child is getting pretty sizable, so shifting that weight from the stern to the bow has made the schlepping much easier, and we're both quite comfortable.  If you have school-age offspring you wish to transport smugly I highly recommend it.

Anyway, after I dropped mine off at the brainwashing factory I returned a book to the liberry:

Here's the book I borrowed, in case you care:

I checked it out to read on my summer vacation, yet I only just finished it owing to my hectic type A lifestyle, and if you'd like my complete review of the book you can find it here.

And yes, in case you were wondering, I do fully embrace the fact that I've become the sort of old fuddy-duddy who rides around town on a utility bike returning liberry books.

Don't laugh, it could happen to you, too.

Hey, it's best to age gracefully as a cyclist, because if you're not careful you could wind up with a camera on your head chasing kids half your age:

Anything but that.

Speaking of the supposed "dangers" of schlepping a kid on your bike, the truth is they're probably a lot safer there then they are simply standing on the sidewalk minding their own business:

See, at least on the bike you're a moving target:

At least four pedestrians, including multiple children, were struck by a livery cab driver early this morning on a Bronx sidewalk. There are currently no reported casualties, although two children are in critical condition.

Hmmm, judging from the condition of that car it's clearly safe to assume the driver was following all traffic rules and was driving at the new citywide 25mph speed limit.

Or, maybe the driver is just one of the hundreds of people in New York City who have tragically fallen victim to a defective accelerator:

(NYPD Motor Vehicle Collisions data.)

I'm still waiting for someone to address this epidemic of supposedly defective accelerators.

It's almost as though every single one of these drivers is lying.

By the way, at least one of those "accelerator defective" collisions says there was also a "failure to yield the right of way" on the part of the other driver.  This is raises an interesting question:

So if an out-of-control driver is hurtling towards you is it still your responsibility to yield?

The answer to this--and any question regarding motor-vehicular mayhem in New York City--is of course "no criminality suspected."

Oh yes, things can get pretty crazy out there on the mean streets of New York City:

(Uh-oh.)

Which is why one "journalist" wants to remind you that "New York isn't a bike city:"

Journalism isn’t typically considered among the riskier of professions—at least if you confine your reporting to the five boroughs. But I undertook an assignment on Wednesday afternoon that put me in imminent physical peril: I rode a Citi Bike for the first time.

Firstly, it seems to me if you're not taking risks as a journalist you're doing it wrong.  I mean, at least lie about it, like Brian Williams.

Secondly, Citi Bike isn't dangerous.  In June alone there were 941,117 Citi Bike trips--and since the system debuted in May 2013 not one of these trips has ended in death.

Anyway, this particular risk-averse journalist learned there was a Citi Bike station near him when his neighbors started kvetching about it:

I learned of this ostensibly felicitous development while walking my dog one night and running into a couple who live on that block. They moaned about the number of automobile parking spaces the docking station would consume.

I’ve since heard from others encouraging me to investigate journalistically the arrival of Citi Bike in our neighborhood. Some suggested nefarious motives; others conspiracy theories.

“Why here? Why east of Park Avenue? Why so many?” one wrote.

You have to be a psychopath to live in Manhattan and expect street parking.  This is like moving to the country and complaining to your neighbors, "WON'T SOMEBODY COME AND BUILD SOME SKYSCRAPERS???"

To his credit, our "journalist" seems to have more common sense:

Maybe I’m just naïve, but I tend to think of a bike-share program as a good thing. Bikes don’t pollute. They provide exercise. And they offer a sensible alternative to sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic while your blood pressure rises in direct correlation to the soaring fare on the taxicab meter.

No, you're not naïve, that's exactly true.

Yet for some reason he can't seem to come to grips with the idea of riding a bike here:

But one reason I wasn’t tempted to mount the sturdy-looking bikes earlier is because they would seem to pose risks even more pressing than those of a cardiovascular nature.

Namely, that you could get thrown head over heels by a car door opening unexpectedly in your path, or crushed under the wheels of a tractor-trailer.

I don’t care what anybody says, New York isn’t a bike city.

I certainly believe that this whole "America's Most Bike-Friendly City" thing is bullshit, but that doesn't mean bikes don't make sense here, since they most certainly do.  By his metric New York really isn't an anything city.  And it's certainly not a car city.

For one thing, there's no place to park.

Anyway, after all this, he finally checks out a Citi Bike, rides it for 20 minutes, and has no problems whatsoever:

I also managed to complete the entire odyssey within 20 minutes, and without any wounds.

Which the person responsible for Citi Bike summed up thusly:

Breaking, from WSJ: Citi Bikes exist, New York City not Amsterdam. In other news, water found wet, the sky, blue. http://t.co/0kSaBCvGpY

— Janette Sadik-Khan (@JSadikKhan) September 29, 2015

Oh snap.

He just got Sadik-Khan-ed.

But while our intrepid journalist may have an irrational fear of bikes, he's not too timid to go swimming in the pond of his country home:

His own pond, huh?

He must live over on Breyer.



Meanwhile, in our nation's capitol capitle city where all the monuments are, public school students will now learn how to ride a bike in second grade:

This is great:

The students are among the first to take part in a new D.C. Public Schools program to teach every second-grader how to ride a bicycle. The school system, with help from the District Department of Transportation and private donors, purchased 1,000 bikes that will rotate to every elementary school by the end of the school year.

Wow, building bike infrastructure and encouraging people to use it?  Who'd have thunk it?

Kenyon said the District wants to make sure that students in all parts of the city know how to ride a bike, a skill that many people take for granted. In wards 7 and 8, with high concentrations of low-income families, officials are concerned that less access to bicycles, fewer bike lanes and no bike shops means that fewer children there are learning how to ride.

That concern comes as bicycle riding in the District and its suburbs is growing quickly, with a rapid expansion in popularity of bike sharing and miles of new bike lanes installed in recent years.

I can only imagine what Old Man Milloy thinks of all this:

("It's got my bib shorts in a twist.")

Unfortunately the stupid plastic hats are getting in the way:

“My friends know how to do it, but I don’t know how,” said 7-year-old Lachae Taylor as she began to learn at Walker-Jones on Wednesday. After a few minutes of wobbling, her helmet was pitched to the side of her head and both shoelaces on her sparkly high-tops were untied. Every time she lifted them to the pedals, the bike tilted to one side.

“I wish I had training wheels,” she said.

But I suppose I shouldn't be too picky.

Lastly, have you ever struggled to figure out a place to put your glasses when you're not wearing them?  Well, this guy has invented something anyway:


All else aside, I was amazed by this claim:

"One afternoon I went up on old San Marcos Pass and I probably found six or seven pair of glasses lying on the side of the road."

So are Santa Barbara Freds so concerned with their Strava times that they don't bother to pick up their glasses when they drop them?

I think we may have reached Peak Fred.