Put A Helmet On It

This past weekend saw the [?]th annual running of the World's Whitest Awards Ceremony.

No, I'm not talking about the Academy Awards.

I'm talking about the North American Handmade Bicycle Show:

(White men can't jump, but apparently they can do layups.)

Yes, NAHBS is the whitest thing this side of a black metal concert:

(Sad clowns are sad.)

This is not to impugn the art of custom bike building by any means, for what cyclist does not look longingly upon the fruit of the velocipedal artisan's labor?  Furthermore, the fearless innovators who exhibit at NAHBS come up with the sorts of fresh new ideas that ultimately become mainstream...or not:

I imagine you would stand for a long time after riding it too, since it would be a good two weeks before you'd be able to sit down again.  In fact, you'd probably look exactly like this:

That bike is laterally stiff and anally intrusive.

But NAHBS isn't only about white people building sexual torture devices.  It's also about really cool bikes you'd actually want to ride, like this one that one "Best Gravel Bike:"

So what makes this a "gravel bike" as opposed to just a cyclocross bike or a road bike with some extra tire clearance?

The answer of course is keep your mouth shut and pretend it matters, this is the bike industry we're talking about.*

*[Pssst: it's only the tires and the pedals, don't tell anybody.]

Meanwhile, today is February 29th, which means our brethren and sistren down in New South Wales, Australia get an extra day before cycling is as close to illegal as it's possible to be without an outright ban:

One wonders what an overseas visitor will think of Sydney. A Dutch backpacker in Kings Cross will struggle to find a late-night drink and when he or she wakes early – having gone to bed uncomfortably sober the night before – and fancies borrowing a friend’s bicycle to ride to Bondi, find they’re targeted with a $319 fine for not wearing a helmet; a $109 slug for not carrying their passport; and if they should ‘ride dangerously’ they’ll be up for a nasty levy of $425 – a combined total of $853 for a morning swim.

This overseas visitor thinks it's fucking stupid.

Just kidding, there's no way I'd visit Sydney now.

Indeed, in anticipation of the big day the police have already launched "Operation Pedro 5:"

(Via @EvanDunn)

“Last year, 61 pedestrians and seven cyclists died on NSW roads,” Assistant Commissioner Hartley said.

“Cyclists and pedestrians are road users too: All too often police are seeing pedestrians tuned into electronic devices, oblivious to traffic conditions, stepping out onto the road, while cyclists are undertaking risky behaviours putting them at danger of being injured or killed.

Wow.  What about motorists tuned into electronic devices and oblivious to traffic conditions?

Oh, right, police can't see them because they're inside their cars.

As for cyclists and the "risky behaviours putting them at danger of being injured or killed," those behaviors include riding a bicycle, not driving a car, and an egregious failure to be encased inside two tons of glass and steel.

So what do the cyclists of New South Wales get in return for having to carry ID and increased fines for violating the already moronic helmet law?  Well, motorists will have to give them more space, which I'm sure will be diligently enforced:


The video begins by explaining how riding a bicycle is JUST LIKE riding a motorcycle or driving a car:

"Bicycle riders are like drivers and motorcycle riders."

Yeah, no they're not.  How is accelerating effortlessly to 60+mph on a motorized vehicle that weights hundreds or thousands of pounds anything like not ever getting anywhere close to that speed on a vehicle that weighs maybe dozens of pounds at most and has no motor at all?

Femke's bike excluded, of course:

(Vroom, vroom.)

The video even acknowledges this by then being all about how riding a bike is nothing like doing those other things:

"Bicycle riders need plenty of space, because they are more vulnerable than drivers, and are more likely to be injured or killed in the event of a crash"

Wait, they're more vulnerable?

Even when they're wearing helmets?

How can that be???

In any event, the upshot of this is that drivers must now give cyclists a whole meter of space:

But to make this easier for motorists, who are the real victims here, you're allowed to cross painted lines or basically do whatever the fuck you want:

I take this to mean that while you must give at least one meter when you're passing a cyclist, you're well within your rights to mow down another cyclist heading in the opposite direction.

It's robbing Fred to kill Paul, which seems fair to me.

And they all lived happily ever after.

(Menacing cyclist intimidating more vulnerable road user.)

Of course, none of this is to say we've got it much better here in New York City, where this past weekend we had three (3) hit-and-run deaths in one night:

And the police are hard at work looking for the drivers responsible so that they can exonerate them:

Just before 1:30 a.m. the NYPD says they responded to a pedestrian collision in the Bronx. Pedestrian Jose Contreras was struck near the corner of East 175th Street and Webster Avenue, suffering severe bodily trauma. Contreras was rushed to nearby Saint Barnabas Hospital, where he was declared dead. A police investigation determined that the man had been standing near an entrance ramp to the Cross Bronx Expressway and had attempted to cross Webster Avenue when he was struck by a black SUV.

"The man had been standing near an entrance ramp" is the pedestrian equivalent of "the cyclist was not wearing a helmet."  (Notwithstanding the fact that in that part of the Bronx it's pretty much impossible not to stand near an entrance ramp, just as in Midtown it's impossible not to be more than half a block away from a Starbucks.)

It was also disappointing to see Gothamist make repeated use of the word "accident," both in the URL:

As well as here:

I'm sure they didn't mean anything by it as this particular publication has a fair amount of smugness cred, but I'm not sure how you type "the driver fled the scene" and then type "the accident" in the very next paragraph.

(And yes, one of the intentionals (I'm calling anything that involves a driver killing somebody else an "intentional" from now on) involved a cyclist.)

Perhaps the most infuriating aspect of all these intentionals is just how preventable they are.  For example, advocates have long pointed out that deploying license plate scanners could help identify these hit-and-run drivers.  Sadly though there appears to be little interest in using them beyond toll collection.  If "Vision Zero" were more than just a catchy slogan every intersection in the city would be wired to scan license plates and drivers would be fined for infractions just as assiduously as they are tolled for using the bridges.

Then, if you didn't pay your fines they'd tow your piece of piece of shit Altima away, crush it into a cube, and mail it back to you:

By the way, that's just if you don't pay your fine.  If you actually hit anybody they should crush your car with you inside it.

Lastly, apparently Garmin are using "Fred woo-hoo-hoo-hoo" speed as a selling point for their goofy space glasses:

(Via @nimo202)

Once Strava changes its logo to a wanking monkey my work will be complete.