The mainstream media seems to be piling on in the wake of the death of a fixed gear rider. This article, from Seattle's Stranger, is a surprisingly in-depth analysis of the situation. A newbie FG rider, who may or may not have been hotdogging, was run over by a dump truck. Even if he were hotdogging, he still didn't deserve to die, but because the community perpetrates this meme that having a brake on a FG dilutes the purity of the experience, he was riding a bike that significantly contributed to his death.
Unfortunately, the article misses some key opportunities to set a few things straight. The author, an experienced cyclist, tries out a brakeless fixed gear and finds it to be more or less the most dangerous and terrifying experience he's known on two wheels. OK, that's fine...but there's no real attempt to clarify the skillset involved. It's either "you have quads of steel and you can track skid" or "you'll get thrown into traffic." It just ought to be pointed out that it's possible to ride fixed gear bikes in traffic, and do so extremely safely, but two things are critical: a front brake and some experience.
The lessons to be learned, before another sheep is slaughtered at the altar of hipster transportation: Put a front brake on it. Learn the principles of a nose wheelie. Even if you never pull a nose wheelie day to day, if you panic brake, you will instinctively learn to soak up the bike's inertial efforts to rotate around the front wheel. If you stiffen up your legs in that panic, the entire bike will rotate around the front wheel and all of those lovely foot*pounds (that could be used to hold your front wheel down, multiply the friction coefficient and therefore shorten stopping distance) will instead be translated into an "endo" or a "faceplant."
However, the real asshat proves to be Lloyd Tamura of Velo Bicycles, who sells a lot of fixed gear bikes but doesn't "advise one way or another" about a front brake, adding "you can't tell people 'You're not experienced enough to ride this.'"
You can't, huh? You just take their money and what they do with the product is their problem? Great idea, why don't you sell motorcycles and loaded weapons while you're at it, Lloyd? If you were clever, you'd have a FG clinic every week where skilled riders could demonstrate how stopping quickly can save your life. You could hire a hipster and I to ride down the street at the same speed, and when someone opens a door/steps into traffic/cuts us off, the flavor of the month will be looking for fragments of his teeth, and I will be 20 feet back, well out of harm's way, maybe doing a one-hander.
I keep trying to let this go, but when I read about some kid on an FG who got run over because it's not "cool" to use a front brake, I have a hard time shutting up about it.
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Friday, October 05, 2007
Thursday, October 04, 2007
fight the gearmonkey urge
I thought it was a bit absurd when gear manufacturers made a big deal of going from 7 to 8 speed rear cogs, then 8 to 9. Yes, you increase your range, but the fact is, you have to be a pretty accomplished rider to use the full range, and you have to really be in some odd spots to need most of them. One of the reasons I originally went to single speed is because as I got stronger, I started using three gears tops...then two. I got tired of dropping my chain and it seemed silly to drag around a bunch of parts to shift every once in a while, so I dropped to one. I can understand a granny gear on the front is critical on say, a loaded touring bike, but if you can't close your ride on 14 gears, and you think you need 21, 24, 27...well, guess what, you're probably just a gearmonkey and the bike industry loves you.
As a matter of fact, this is one of the ways the bike industry has moved backwards. In the 1970's, even amateur European cyclists could show up at a race and assemble their rear cog out of the trunk, based on the scouting information about the day's route. Next year, Campy expects to release wireless shifters. I'm not saying we have to go back to cobbled parts and sketchy builds, but can't they just make it strong, light, and aero (or some combination of that at a couple price points)?
Instead we have the gearmonkey machine. The gearmonkey comes home sore, possibly beaten, and rather than think "I got beat today - I need to train" they think..."I got beat by a guy with a thumb-activated carbon fiber seat post height adjuster...I need to find one of those." OK, maybe I'm being a little snarky, but the fact is, it's hard to be an accomplished athlete, and it's usually easier to buy better equipment.
The gearmonkey machine certainly isn't limited to the bike industry, just check out the last ten pages of any sport magazine. A runner buys a pair of shoes. A gearmonkey buys a pair of shoes, performance socks, a couple of coolmax jerseys (short and longsleeve), running tights with built-in circulation-promoting knee supports, and a bandolier full of tiny bottles and pockets for gu. I'm not saying there aren't advantages to be had from advanced gear, but you need to be an advanced athlete to maximize those advantages.
But wait, you say, your bike costs $200 a pound, and is loaded with carbon fiber bling...how can you take the high road? Well, I don't have a bulletproof response for that, except to say that I wanted to build my dream bike, and once I did, I haven't changed much on it. I am in the process of beating the tar out of it. When it breaks, I'll replace something. In the meantime, I have about 20+ patches on those tubes. It may look like a million bucks, but it's built to last a million miles, not to show it off until the next flavor of the month part comes out.
I'm not saying you can't buy the best gear for your bike, but if you find that you spend more time searching for parts than you do riding them, you might be a gearmonkey. If you love trying new sports, but immediately identify a slew of "must haves" before you've accomplished much, you might be a gearmonkey. (As an aside, I realize I'm a bit of a guitar gearmonkey...but I'm buying cheap, often crap gear, to learn on, which is something else altogether.)
So this brings me to today's link: the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (and a host of other blogs, I'm sure) report that the Chequamegon Mountain Bike Festival 40 Mile race was won by a guy on a single speed. This is pretty significant, in that it's no Sunday afternoon race. It's one of the grand-daddies of the mountain bike movement, especially if you're stuck living 600 miles from a proper mountain range.
This guy shows up and races a bunch of gearmonkeys, but more importantly, a bunch of athletes to boot, and kicks the field on one speed. Even his sponsor, ole grand dad Gary Fisher himself, reacted somewhere along the lines of "groovy man, but how are we supposed to sell geared bikes?"
Amen brother. Stop the gearmonkey machine.
As a matter of fact, this is one of the ways the bike industry has moved backwards. In the 1970's, even amateur European cyclists could show up at a race and assemble their rear cog out of the trunk, based on the scouting information about the day's route. Next year, Campy expects to release wireless shifters. I'm not saying we have to go back to cobbled parts and sketchy builds, but can't they just make it strong, light, and aero (or some combination of that at a couple price points)?
Instead we have the gearmonkey machine. The gearmonkey comes home sore, possibly beaten, and rather than think "I got beat today - I need to train" they think..."I got beat by a guy with a thumb-activated carbon fiber seat post height adjuster...I need to find one of those." OK, maybe I'm being a little snarky, but the fact is, it's hard to be an accomplished athlete, and it's usually easier to buy better equipment.
The gearmonkey machine certainly isn't limited to the bike industry, just check out the last ten pages of any sport magazine. A runner buys a pair of shoes. A gearmonkey buys a pair of shoes, performance socks, a couple of coolmax jerseys (short and longsleeve), running tights with built-in circulation-promoting knee supports, and a bandolier full of tiny bottles and pockets for gu. I'm not saying there aren't advantages to be had from advanced gear, but you need to be an advanced athlete to maximize those advantages.
But wait, you say, your bike costs $200 a pound, and is loaded with carbon fiber bling...how can you take the high road? Well, I don't have a bulletproof response for that, except to say that I wanted to build my dream bike, and once I did, I haven't changed much on it. I am in the process of beating the tar out of it. When it breaks, I'll replace something. In the meantime, I have about 20+ patches on those tubes. It may look like a million bucks, but it's built to last a million miles, not to show it off until the next flavor of the month part comes out.
I'm not saying you can't buy the best gear for your bike, but if you find that you spend more time searching for parts than you do riding them, you might be a gearmonkey. If you love trying new sports, but immediately identify a slew of "must haves" before you've accomplished much, you might be a gearmonkey. (As an aside, I realize I'm a bit of a guitar gearmonkey...but I'm buying cheap, often crap gear, to learn on, which is something else altogether.)
So this brings me to today's link: the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (and a host of other blogs, I'm sure) report that the Chequamegon Mountain Bike Festival 40 Mile race was won by a guy on a single speed. This is pretty significant, in that it's no Sunday afternoon race. It's one of the grand-daddies of the mountain bike movement, especially if you're stuck living 600 miles from a proper mountain range.
This guy shows up and races a bunch of gearmonkeys, but more importantly, a bunch of athletes to boot, and kicks the field on one speed. Even his sponsor, ole grand dad Gary Fisher himself, reacted somewhere along the lines of "groovy man, but how are we supposed to sell geared bikes?"
Amen brother. Stop the gearmonkey machine.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
geezer files, part I
I was riding in today thinking about tricks. I'm not much for tricks, myself. I can trackstand all day on a fixed or free, 1-handed most of the time, and if I have a good bank, I can no-handed for a while, but I've never really done the one-footer; my style just isn't suited to it.
The only real trick I can do is a high-speed nose wheelie, which is nice in that it can potentially save your life, and as I've mentioned before, allow you ride hot into tricky spots with the confidence that you stop quicker. I guess I can catch a mean tow; either by flat-out grabbing a vehicle (pickups are easiest), though more accessible are wheel-wells. The best are those bars used on swing-out spare tires on SUVs, or after-market whale tails on hondas. Though I've gotten mini-tows from leaning on car trunks, digging my fingernails into a seam on a body panel, or simply palming a bus. Ah, good times. I don't do that much anymore. About 6 years ago I caught a 45 mph tow on Clark...from what turned out to be an off-duty cop. He flashed a badge, I split, played cat and mouse, eventually got caught, and got off only by mentioning I was on my way home to see my baby before she went to bed for the night. I was rather amused by the whole thing, however, my wife was not, and insisted that activity be put in the "can't live like that anymore now that you have kids" list. I grumbled, but generally gave it up, since I really don't want my kids to grow up knowing dad got whacked pulling a tow....unless it was pulling a tow to deliver a heart transplant or nuclear secrets or something.
I've always believed that if you make sort of a spectacle of yourself, you're less likely to get hit. Unless you're being a hotdog, and you make people want to run you over. But generally, I feel like, even though I may look a little "posenger," as long as I'm laying it down hard, cars will generally give me some slack.
But anyway, it got me thinking about tricks, and a couple in particular. I knew a trials master in Boston who, according to rumor, when he got disrespected in traffic, would ride up on to the hood of an offending car. I saw him do this to a parked car (even up to the roof, bouncing on one wheel the whole time), though I always suspected it was an urban legend that he did it in traffic. I knew a couple guys who could ride a track bike backwards for a ways, but that's not too tough. But I knew a couple guys who were in another class.
Clay was simply a sick athlete. In his 20's, he looked like a high school football player, and you'd never expect him to be able to pull off such massive airs, but he had some sick skills. He had a 24 inch cruiser (sort of an oversized bmx bike), like a PK ripper or an OM flyer, and he really knew how to work it. I can pull maybe a 8-10 inch bunny hop with clipless pedals, and I thought I was the bomb, but I saw Clay do a 360 bunny hop over a fire hydrant with flat pedals. Between him and his bike, that was about 200+ pounds, spinning 3 feet off the ground. Sick. Bunny hopping up 3-4 steps at speed, and when eventually getting a flat, riding 3 miles home while sitting on the bars and pedaling backwards, as not to punish his back rim.
His racing stories were equally legendary: with another early-90's Atlanta messenger, coming in first and second at an elite mtb race, and celebrating at the finish line with one or both of them puking, draining a Budweiser, and lighting a cigarette. Good times. Also, back when downhill racing was in its infancy, and there were literally a dozen guys in the Southeast competing on $5k rigs, he showed up on his OM flyer, flat pedals, no shocks, single speed, and took the top spot. The rest of the guys were pissed, and they had him disqualified from the points race because technically, your bike had to have 7 speeds. So of course, he dug up a 7 speed internal hub and came back the next time and repeated the feat.
Truly a freak on any bike. He eventually didn't feel like the OM flyer was suited for the abuse, so he built up an old Schwinn cruiser (the kind with twin top rods, and another "swooping" top tube for good measure). He added a front shock, the 7 speed rear hub, flat pedals, and preceded to cream everyone in DH slaloms.
The other trickster, Chris, wasn't quite so accomplished in his racing career, but he certainly took the cake for having big brass ones. When the Olympics were about to come to Atlanta, the PD started having roaming cops on bikes. They would creep up and down Peachtree at the slowest pace imaginable, in a pack two riders wide, taking up an entire lane, thinking they were the bomb. As a messenger, if you so much as passed them too fast, they would take offense and flag you down. One day Chris passed a pack of them, only he did so riding a wheelie half a block long. With his front wheel fully crossed at a 90 degree angle. With one hand. I would get locked up for rolling through a crosswalk, but somehow they just let him slide on that one. This is the same guy that starting catching tows off cars, but again...in a wheelie. Christ, I've done nearly 100k miles, I can barely ride a wheelie for 10 feet, nevermind putting one up next to pickup and casually 1-handing it and grabbing a tow. WTF.
I'm down with trackskids half a block long, but they aren't even in the same league. Anyway, that's my flashback of the day. I'll get back to my Metamucil and shuffleboard now. and you kids get offa my lawn!
The only real trick I can do is a high-speed nose wheelie, which is nice in that it can potentially save your life, and as I've mentioned before, allow you ride hot into tricky spots with the confidence that you stop quicker. I guess I can catch a mean tow; either by flat-out grabbing a vehicle (pickups are easiest), though more accessible are wheel-wells. The best are those bars used on swing-out spare tires on SUVs, or after-market whale tails on hondas. Though I've gotten mini-tows from leaning on car trunks, digging my fingernails into a seam on a body panel, or simply palming a bus. Ah, good times. I don't do that much anymore. About 6 years ago I caught a 45 mph tow on Clark...from what turned out to be an off-duty cop. He flashed a badge, I split, played cat and mouse, eventually got caught, and got off only by mentioning I was on my way home to see my baby before she went to bed for the night. I was rather amused by the whole thing, however, my wife was not, and insisted that activity be put in the "can't live like that anymore now that you have kids" list. I grumbled, but generally gave it up, since I really don't want my kids to grow up knowing dad got whacked pulling a tow....unless it was pulling a tow to deliver a heart transplant or nuclear secrets or something.
I've always believed that if you make sort of a spectacle of yourself, you're less likely to get hit. Unless you're being a hotdog, and you make people want to run you over. But generally, I feel like, even though I may look a little "posenger," as long as I'm laying it down hard, cars will generally give me some slack.
But anyway, it got me thinking about tricks, and a couple in particular. I knew a trials master in Boston who, according to rumor, when he got disrespected in traffic, would ride up on to the hood of an offending car. I saw him do this to a parked car (even up to the roof, bouncing on one wheel the whole time), though I always suspected it was an urban legend that he did it in traffic. I knew a couple guys who could ride a track bike backwards for a ways, but that's not too tough. But I knew a couple guys who were in another class.
Clay was simply a sick athlete. In his 20's, he looked like a high school football player, and you'd never expect him to be able to pull off such massive airs, but he had some sick skills. He had a 24 inch cruiser (sort of an oversized bmx bike), like a PK ripper or an OM flyer, and he really knew how to work it. I can pull maybe a 8-10 inch bunny hop with clipless pedals, and I thought I was the bomb, but I saw Clay do a 360 bunny hop over a fire hydrant with flat pedals. Between him and his bike, that was about 200+ pounds, spinning 3 feet off the ground. Sick. Bunny hopping up 3-4 steps at speed, and when eventually getting a flat, riding 3 miles home while sitting on the bars and pedaling backwards, as not to punish his back rim.
His racing stories were equally legendary: with another early-90's Atlanta messenger, coming in first and second at an elite mtb race, and celebrating at the finish line with one or both of them puking, draining a Budweiser, and lighting a cigarette. Good times. Also, back when downhill racing was in its infancy, and there were literally a dozen guys in the Southeast competing on $5k rigs, he showed up on his OM flyer, flat pedals, no shocks, single speed, and took the top spot. The rest of the guys were pissed, and they had him disqualified from the points race because technically, your bike had to have 7 speeds. So of course, he dug up a 7 speed internal hub and came back the next time and repeated the feat.
Truly a freak on any bike. He eventually didn't feel like the OM flyer was suited for the abuse, so he built up an old Schwinn cruiser (the kind with twin top rods, and another "swooping" top tube for good measure). He added a front shock, the 7 speed rear hub, flat pedals, and preceded to cream everyone in DH slaloms.
The other trickster, Chris, wasn't quite so accomplished in his racing career, but he certainly took the cake for having big brass ones. When the Olympics were about to come to Atlanta, the PD started having roaming cops on bikes. They would creep up and down Peachtree at the slowest pace imaginable, in a pack two riders wide, taking up an entire lane, thinking they were the bomb. As a messenger, if you so much as passed them too fast, they would take offense and flag you down. One day Chris passed a pack of them, only he did so riding a wheelie half a block long. With his front wheel fully crossed at a 90 degree angle. With one hand. I would get locked up for rolling through a crosswalk, but somehow they just let him slide on that one. This is the same guy that starting catching tows off cars, but again...in a wheelie. Christ, I've done nearly 100k miles, I can barely ride a wheelie for 10 feet, nevermind putting one up next to pickup and casually 1-handing it and grabbing a tow. WTF.
I'm down with trackskids half a block long, but they aren't even in the same league. Anyway, that's my flashback of the day. I'll get back to my Metamucil and shuffleboard now. and you kids get offa my lawn!
Friday, June 01, 2007
Once we were brothers (and a few sisters)
Maybe it's just me, but what is up with the tribe these days?
A little rivalry is always fun, and I've witnessed various factions:
mountain vs. roadie
biker vs. blader
messenger vs. roadie
messenger vs. wannabe
...and then, within these groups (mostly messengers), you had some playful debates:
lifer vs. summerboy
single speeder vs. geared
fixed vs. free
straight bars vs. bullhorns
one brake vs. two
clips vs. cages
...but the fact is, most messengers I've known liked to swap out bars, go back and forth between fixed, free, no dérailleurs, rear dérailleur only, commuter tires, crit tires, one or two brakes, what have you. Eventually you found your groove, the rig that worked for you. Over the last few years, I've finally reached a point where I have that mythical "pile of parts" in the basement, and I can swap as needed, not based on what I can afford, or what I have to borrow from a friend's junkpile until payday. My last conversion was from a single speed 'cross bike to a below-the-radar messenger ride, and the best part? I didn't even have to go to the bike shop for a single thing! I had it all laying around. Ahhh...it only took me 17 years of modding to get there.
While I love the simplicity of a FG with straight bar and one brake, but I keep coming back to homemade bullhorns. Fact is, I even feel a little bourgeoisie on my CF rig these days, like I've finally become that old dude with money to blow on gratuitous bike parts. Maybe I have. Maybe that's why I've been spending all my time on my 72-spoke, ancient phil wood hubbed, platform/clip pedaled, 12 year old saddle with a 15 year old flipped and chopped handlebar, stickerless, freewheeled SS. It's very strong, very dependable, a little heavy, totally filthy, and I think the tubes have at least ten patches in each of them. The best part is, I leave it locked up outside in downtown Chicago every day for about 9 hours, and I don't really worry about having it stripped or nicked, unlike the Velocity rim crowd.
Ah, the Velocity rim crew. Now heavily documented in the NY Times (subscription required to read it now), as well as the Wall Street Journal, SFist (cool photo but it spawned a bit of a flame war), as well as the Independant Florida Alligator, LA City Beat (profiling the Wolfpack, who sound like a bunch of clowns), the Guardian (FG bike polo), the Maryland Gazette (old dude commutes on a FG), and the Philadelphia Enquirer.
This last one is particularly entertaining to me, because it's accompanied by a picture of a grinning "messenger" with a six inch handlebar. I'm down with the "less is more" thing, especially when you're splitting lanes and you have side view mirrors to contend with, but I (and probably a number of other messengers) have cut down a straight bar just a little too much, and discovered the complete lack of control it leads to. Nevermind the fact that you still have to squeeze your ass through those side mirror gaps, you give up little things like stability, power, and control, in favor of....style.
Which really cuts to the heart of it. It's all about style now. Every city has roving packs of skinny boys with retro cycling/army caps, italiano steel, neon Velocity rims, and skin-tight jeans (don't forget to fold the cuffs up to just below the knees, boys!). A friend of mine was riding on a junkpile bike through his neighborhood, which is part barrio, part Ratbike haven, and part fixie-boy crew. He encountered a pack of about a half dozen of these guys, and one of them made some comment about his bike. He's always quick with a witty reply, and he didn't disappoint: "Do you guys all shop at the same store? Do you swap girlfriends too?" Point is, the biker tribe has gone from "freaks of a feather" to being co-opted and marketed into little clones.
I was riding the other day, and a fixie rider said, with a bit of attitude, "nice bike, but why don't you go fixed?" I responded "because freewheel's faster." What I meant to say was "more aggressive" but whatever. Anyway, that's all it took. The light changed, and he charged, and though he was fast, he couldn't drop me, and I eventually got the best of him, though I pulled a tow off a passing car to really put the nail in the coffin. (Oddly, I saw him two days later on a road bike :) but neither of us raced hard that time.)
There has always been a messenger style, and a crowd that borrowed heavily from it. It just seems to have reached a tipping point.
For the record, I'm not down on fixed gears. I love them, and I have ridden one off and on for years. However, if you're riding one in the city and you don't have a front brake on it, you are a either a poser or an idiot. Not because of your look per se, but you're a poser if you are probably GOING SO GODDAMNED SLOW that pregnant women overtake you. You're an idiot if you're flying along, apparently not concerned about the fact that it will take you twice as much time and distance to stop. If a car were flying at you, and the driver had only installed half as much stopping power on it because "it was cool" I think you might have a problem with that.
Granted, back when I was a messenger, it was difficult and expensive to put together these rides (mostly through mail order parts), but the few guys that had them rode them only occasionally, mostly to do tricks like backwards figure-8s or riding while sitting on the bars. They didn't really work on pure fixed gears, any more than the guy who was a trials star worked on his super-granny gear bike. Because EVERYONE ELSE WAS MUCH FASTER ON BRAKED BIKES.
I have passed about a thousand fixies this season, and only one guy truly dropped me (though it was on the lakefront path, where he didn't have to worry about intersections). For the record, I had already swum 1000 meters and run 4 miles that day, but I'm not making excuses, I was properly dropped. I guess I've just never noticed so much attitude from any block of riders before, save the roadie packs on $5k rigs, but let me tell you, if you go on a group ride with those guys, and you can hang with the top fifth, even they'll lighten up.
I'm not saying I'm a star, far from it. I'm a 36-year-old dad who sits in a cubicle all day. The point is this: ride your own ride, but ride it with at least ONE freaking brake. To brake it down one last time (sic :)...using a front brake, you can go from (any speed) to zero in about HALF the time and distance than a rear-wheel skid. The math is explained in excruciating detail in Bicycling Science, and I'd dare to say that those numbers can be drastically improved upon with true mastery of a nose wheelie stop.
Ergo....you can come into an intersection/split lane/sketchy line twice as fast, and still be able to stop in time. If you don't have to stop after all, you have more momentum conserved (vs. the fixie rider who started backpedaling half a block earlier). More aggressive riding = faster riding. For those of you messengering: faster riding = more money (unless runs pay based on "oneness with your bike" these days?). For the rest: stopping faster = less likely to get creamed. As a bonus, you won't look like such a FG poser creeping down the block at 3 miles an hour.
I don't mean to be so caustic, but my passion has been co-opted into an aisle at urban outfitters, so maybe I am just a little bitter. Just ride a little smarter people, and don't be afraid to step out of uniform, and stop ranting to the papers about how you're "one with your bike." You can still be one with it with a brake, and you get to be one with your brain too.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
more messenger fashion and ranting
From SFGate, more messenger vs. hipster ranting with a slew of fashion pix.
I'm all over the board on this one. The goofiest thing I ever wore was in the rain/snow, a set of 'pep boys' coveralls. Totally warm and waterproof, not exactly aero, but I looked like a ditchdigger. I would not have made anyone's messenger fashion article. Also, in Boston winters, I wore a vintage 60's high school 'letterman' jacket. The leather sleeves were great for the accidental pavement slide, and the felt body kept me as warm I needed to be. Other than that, I've been basically form over fashion, mostly depending on the weather. Cargo pants if I'm riding the ss 'cross bike in the city, because what's the point of dressing aero if you're spinning out at 15 mph, maybe a couple of layered shirts if it's cold. Cutoff spandex (hate those grippy cuffs) and a homecut wifebeater if I'm riding the fastbike in the heat, mostly because I hate biker tan lines. I generally skip gloves unless it's cold, though the 'cross bike gets gloves offroad regardless of temp, because a hard hit riding on the hoods can scalp your palms.
This article points out the inherent silliness in messenger vs. non-messenger fashion. Lots of things reflect authenticity (if it matters), but in my opinion, you prove it with your legs and your line, not your threads. The funny thing is, a bunch of these messengers unload on the 'hipsters' and their trendy bikes, but judging from the pictures, half of them ride brakeless, which is just as trendy and comes up short in the performance department imho. But I've ranted on that elsewhere.
Friday, September 22, 2006
write your elected officials: bike lanes are safer for everyone
It seems intuitive, but even obvious things ought to be measured.
The Center for Transportation Research at UT Austin discovered that bike lanes are safer for bikers. You might be saying "it took $114,00 of research money to figure that out?"
What's interesting is that it's safer for the cars as well. Without bike lanes, cars swerved out of their own lanes nine out of ten times. With bike lanes, they did so only six out of ten times, and they encroached only 40% as far. And to think it didn't even measure the number of drivers who yelled "get on the sidewalk."
So write your local elected officials asking for bike lanes, and back it up with a study. It's not just safer for cyclists, but safer for drivers as well. If you can work the phrase "think of the children" in there, you get bonus points.
The Center for Transportation Research at UT Austin discovered that bike lanes are safer for bikers. You might be saying "it took $114,00 of research money to figure that out?"
What's interesting is that it's safer for the cars as well. Without bike lanes, cars swerved out of their own lanes nine out of ten times. With bike lanes, they did so only six out of ten times, and they encroached only 40% as far. And to think it didn't even measure the number of drivers who yelled "get on the sidewalk."
So write your local elected officials asking for bike lanes, and back it up with a study. It's not just safer for cyclists, but safer for drivers as well. If you can work the phrase "think of the children" in there, you get bonus points.
Friday, September 08, 2006
fixed gear cluetrain: update
Stop the presses. I just read the section in Bicycling Science again, and while the previous post is a generally accurate estimate, math don't like to generalize. As a matter of fact, the page is question is a little vague. Suffice it to say that force = mass times acceleration. Mass is the weight of the rider, duh, and acceleration, on this planet, at least, is 1g, or 9.8 m/sec. However, the author decides that deceleration is about .5g. I don't dispute this, but it may have proven pages earlier. Another point of contention is that Force is calculated according to distribution...that is, the COM is slightly closer to the back wheels, so at a fixed speed 40% of the force (measured in Newtons) would be on the front wheel, and 60% on the back wheel. I certainly don't dispute this, but it gets a little muddy on exactly why this transfers when braking the front wheel. Not only that, but the calculations put 90% of the resulting N on the front wheel...lifting the back wheel ever so slightly and making it very easy to skid the back tire if both brakes are locked up simultaneously. What's unclear is how this 90% figure is derived, and exactly how he achieves the "twice as much downforce" on the front wheel. Apparently, the correlation between stopping time and stopping distance is fairly linear, so "half the time" equals "half the stopping distance" so that's one less thing to clear up. I will transcribe the pages soon (it requires all sorts of annoying markup like fV,r) and get a certified Mathematical opinion to help sort it out in English.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
hey clueless fixed riders, use a front brake. here's why:
I just can't let this pass anymore. Someone has to stop the madness. If you believe what you read, fixed gear riders (at least the ones that give a rat's) were all in a tizzy over the fact that a couple of Portland riders (and a Milwaukee one) got ticketed for not having a brake. It seems that one of the Portland riders had the ticket dismissed on appeal, so we can all go back to debating whether steel is real.
Except, nobody learned anything. How can I put this delicately? If you ride a brakeless fixed gear and you believe that you can stop as quickly as a rider with a front brake, you are a fool. A damned fool if you squawk about it to a reporter, because that shit's on the Internet and you can't take it back.
Before the young fixerati rise up and protest, I'm going to break this down so many ways that you will need to travel to another universe with alternate laws of gravity to disprove it. But first, I need to take issue with the legal definition that the Judge was trying to enforce. (I couldn't totally side with the Man.)
According to the statute in question: A bicycle must be equipped with a brake that enables the operator to make the braked wheels skid on dry, level, clean pavement. strong enough to skid tire.
I would just like to make two points:
So, in otherwords, to comply with this law, you'd have to put a back brake on a fixie, which, in the hands of a competent rider, is probably only safer by a negligible amount. If you were to put a front brake on a fixie, technically, you would be able to stop twice as fast, in half the time and distance (again, to be covered below), though you would be in violation of the law, since you'd be unable to prove the skid factor. Sure you could skid the front wheel if you stop the back one simultaneously, but that's splitting hairs, so let's get to the nut of the argument.
I had planned to get out the book and the calculator and have some supporting illustrations, but there are fixie kids out there that need to be schooled and I can't waste another moment.
I discovered the effectiveness of a front brake by accident...a couple times in traffic, a car in front of me stopped unexpectedly, and I locked up the back wheel, skidded up the bumper of the car, jammed the front brake in a panic, and immediately ended up in a nose wheelie. Out of control, almost over the bars, but STOPPED. I soon witnessed a couple badass messengers hurtling into impassable intersections at top speed, standing up off the saddle, doing a nose wheelie, and going from 25 mph to zero in about 5 feet. I now do it all the time...I find that if you make a spectacle of yourself riding (but you're not a total ass) you tend to get a little more space.
If you want to get technical, there's a book called Bicycling Science that does a decent job of discussing the math and physics. Basically (and again, forgive me for generalizing here) friction between the tire and the road stops the bike. If you put say, 100 pounds of force on a rear tire, and lock it up, you're just waiting around through a skid for friction to do its job. However, if you put say, 200 pounds of force on the front tire, the additional force keeps the tire from skidding, but it has the benefit of stopping you more quickly.
How is it that you can put 100 (theoretical) pounds of force on the back tire, but 200 on the front? It's because the downforce your tire exerts on the road is a component (cosine, sine, tan?) of your center of gravity (technically, center of momentum, since your weight has a rotational velocity). To totally water it down mathematically: some portion of your weight times the rotational force is transferred to your tire's contact patch, where the coefficient of friction does its job.
I'll take a step back from the math (since I'm doing a piss-poor job of it anyway) and illustrate. You're flying along and you want to skid your back wheel. Your center of gravity is somewhere between your cranks and saddle. You're generating a force that equals (a component of) weight times distance. Your center of momentum is ahead of the rear wheel, so the "component" factor is fairly low. That's why messenger comps have 500 foot track skids...they move the center of momentum waaaaay out ahead of the bike, so that component (which I really need to look up) is minimized. Still with me?
It's the equivalent of riding down the road and dropping a sandbag tied to a rope off the back off your bike. It will stop you, eventually. Imagine taking a stick, tying that sandbag onto it, and jamming it into the ground out in front of your bike. That rotational force is behind the point of force, making this goddamned nameless component much higher. It will make you want to flip over the bars, BUT lifting your bike off the ground will drive even more force down into the ground, slowing you down more quickly. Something to the tune of twice as fast, in half the time and distance.
Sorry I butchered it so, but Bicycling Science does a better job of explaining the numbers...so if you have a problem with it, take it up with the author (who's incidentally an MIT professor). I would also add that by throwing your center of gravity up and back BEFORE the move increases the effect, so I think you could get even better results with some skills. The book deals with the mathematics of keeping the back wheel from coming off the ground, but my gut tells me that if you can really ride your rotational center of momentum like a rodeo cowboy, you can magnify the effects. I have also noticed that by kicking the wheel out to the side, you get even MORE force and control, though I'm not sure why, perhaps because you can keep your center of gravity/momentum further back/down without feeling like you're going to endo. There's a whole other "dimension of components" there.
If you still don't believe me...go to youtube and look up 'nose wheelie' - you'll see motorcycles going from 80 mph to zero in a fraction of what you'd expect. Or watch indoor motocross and see how these guys keep from flying into the barriers after their tricks...skidding the back tire on loose dirt for 50 feet, or standing it up in a nose wheelie for 10?
Or go figure it out for yourself. Find a moderately skilled ten-year-old bmx kid and ask him to go as fast as he can, and stop asap in a nose wheelie. Ride alongside him wit yo badass fixie self and see if you can jam up the back wheel and stop as quickly. Now imagine someone's opening a door in front of you both, and see which skill you'd rather have.
Note: before trying to master this skill, remember that you should have your ass waaaay off the saddle before trying it the first time, and your legs should be reeeeally loose - I can't stress this enough. Your legs should be the shock absorbers that let your bike rotate up off the ground, and not eject you over the bars. Do it at your own risk, and start small, with quick little jabs on the brake, almost throwing the back wheel up, so you won't be surprised when it happens. It's possible to do it around corners (it can actually help you drive the front wheel into the ground forcefully and not skid out, bmx-style) but it's an extremely sketchy feel, to say the least. Not recommended for the inexperienced, though it can save your life, which is nice. It does give you nice feel on the back wheel when used with a fixed gear, you can easily unweight the back wheel and track skid with far less effort.
Insert scary anecdote here: I once knew a guy with unsurpassed skills, like riding a one-handed wheelie, fully crossing up the front wheel, for 50+ yards...often passing roadies and cops on bikes. Anyway, he was learning the nose wheelie thing, and was trying to master it on several levels: stopping as quickly as possible, riding it, in control, downhill for 40+ feet, etc. He was extremely inebriated one night and goofing off in front the messenger bar...he ended up going over and getting stitched up right on the sidewalk by the EMTs. If it could happen to him...
As an aside, there are serious legal implications of riding a brakeless FG, such as the legal definitions of negligence. There are several components of legal negligence that I won't get into, but one of them is "did the participant do all that could be reasonably expected" to prevent something from happening. How would you like to be paralyzed as a result of a bike accident, and instead of getting $10 million, the opposing lawyers said "According to the MIT professor who wrote this book, you could have stopped twice as fast...so technically you were partly negligent when that drunk driver flattened you running a red light. Here's $10 grand." I doubt insurance company lawyers are that savvy yet, but with the rise in FG riders, it's just a matter of time before someone tries it as a defense. I got hit, and I certainly didn't volunteer that I was on a FG, for just that reason (I didn't hide it either, but they were obviously sniffing around for signs that I "contributed" to the accident).
Besides, what if someone ran you over, and even though their car was "legal" it only had half as many brakes (and weaker ones) as it could have. Wouldn't you go after them for negligence?
ok, kids, school's out. There may be a pop quiz.
Except, nobody learned anything. How can I put this delicately? If you ride a brakeless fixed gear and you believe that you can stop as quickly as a rider with a front brake, you are a fool. A damned fool if you squawk about it to a reporter, because that shit's on the Internet and you can't take it back.
Before the young fixerati rise up and protest, I'm going to break this down so many ways that you will need to travel to another universe with alternate laws of gravity to disprove it. But first, I need to take issue with the legal definition that the Judge was trying to enforce. (I couldn't totally side with the Man.)
According to the statute in question: A bicycle must be equipped with a brake that enables the operator to make the braked wheels skid on dry, level, clean pavement. strong enough to skid tire.
I would just like to make two points:
- A front brake is twice as effective as a rear brake (to be discussed below)
- It's damn near impossible to make a front wheel (alone) skid on dry, level, clean, pavement. (This is part of what makes it so effective.)
So, in otherwords, to comply with this law, you'd have to put a back brake on a fixie, which, in the hands of a competent rider, is probably only safer by a negligible amount. If you were to put a front brake on a fixie, technically, you would be able to stop twice as fast, in half the time and distance (again, to be covered below), though you would be in violation of the law, since you'd be unable to prove the skid factor. Sure you could skid the front wheel if you stop the back one simultaneously, but that's splitting hairs, so let's get to the nut of the argument.
I had planned to get out the book and the calculator and have some supporting illustrations, but there are fixie kids out there that need to be schooled and I can't waste another moment.
I discovered the effectiveness of a front brake by accident...a couple times in traffic, a car in front of me stopped unexpectedly, and I locked up the back wheel, skidded up the bumper of the car, jammed the front brake in a panic, and immediately ended up in a nose wheelie. Out of control, almost over the bars, but STOPPED. I soon witnessed a couple badass messengers hurtling into impassable intersections at top speed, standing up off the saddle, doing a nose wheelie, and going from 25 mph to zero in about 5 feet. I now do it all the time...I find that if you make a spectacle of yourself riding (but you're not a total ass) you tend to get a little more space.
If you want to get technical, there's a book called Bicycling Science that does a decent job of discussing the math and physics. Basically (and again, forgive me for generalizing here) friction between the tire and the road stops the bike. If you put say, 100 pounds of force on a rear tire, and lock it up, you're just waiting around through a skid for friction to do its job. However, if you put say, 200 pounds of force on the front tire, the additional force keeps the tire from skidding, but it has the benefit of stopping you more quickly.
How is it that you can put 100 (theoretical) pounds of force on the back tire, but 200 on the front? It's because the downforce your tire exerts on the road is a component (cosine, sine, tan?) of your center of gravity (technically, center of momentum, since your weight has a rotational velocity). To totally water it down mathematically: some portion of your weight times the rotational force is transferred to your tire's contact patch, where the coefficient of friction does its job.
I'll take a step back from the math (since I'm doing a piss-poor job of it anyway) and illustrate. You're flying along and you want to skid your back wheel. Your center of gravity is somewhere between your cranks and saddle. You're generating a force that equals (a component of) weight times distance. Your center of momentum is ahead of the rear wheel, so the "component" factor is fairly low. That's why messenger comps have 500 foot track skids...they move the center of momentum waaaaay out ahead of the bike, so that component (which I really need to look up) is minimized. Still with me?
It's the equivalent of riding down the road and dropping a sandbag tied to a rope off the back off your bike. It will stop you, eventually. Imagine taking a stick, tying that sandbag onto it, and jamming it into the ground out in front of your bike. That rotational force is behind the point of force, making this goddamned nameless component much higher. It will make you want to flip over the bars, BUT lifting your bike off the ground will drive even more force down into the ground, slowing you down more quickly. Something to the tune of twice as fast, in half the time and distance.
Sorry I butchered it so, but Bicycling Science does a better job of explaining the numbers...so if you have a problem with it, take it up with the author (who's incidentally an MIT professor). I would also add that by throwing your center of gravity up and back BEFORE the move increases the effect, so I think you could get even better results with some skills. The book deals with the mathematics of keeping the back wheel from coming off the ground, but my gut tells me that if you can really ride your rotational center of momentum like a rodeo cowboy, you can magnify the effects. I have also noticed that by kicking the wheel out to the side, you get even MORE force and control, though I'm not sure why, perhaps because you can keep your center of gravity/momentum further back/down without feeling like you're going to endo. There's a whole other "dimension of components" there.
If you still don't believe me...go to youtube and look up 'nose wheelie' - you'll see motorcycles going from 80 mph to zero in a fraction of what you'd expect. Or watch indoor motocross and see how these guys keep from flying into the barriers after their tricks...skidding the back tire on loose dirt for 50 feet, or standing it up in a nose wheelie for 10?
Or go figure it out for yourself. Find a moderately skilled ten-year-old bmx kid and ask him to go as fast as he can, and stop asap in a nose wheelie. Ride alongside him wit yo badass fixie self and see if you can jam up the back wheel and stop as quickly. Now imagine someone's opening a door in front of you both, and see which skill you'd rather have.
Note: before trying to master this skill, remember that you should have your ass waaaay off the saddle before trying it the first time, and your legs should be reeeeally loose - I can't stress this enough. Your legs should be the shock absorbers that let your bike rotate up off the ground, and not eject you over the bars. Do it at your own risk, and start small, with quick little jabs on the brake, almost throwing the back wheel up, so you won't be surprised when it happens. It's possible to do it around corners (it can actually help you drive the front wheel into the ground forcefully and not skid out, bmx-style) but it's an extremely sketchy feel, to say the least. Not recommended for the inexperienced, though it can save your life, which is nice. It does give you nice feel on the back wheel when used with a fixed gear, you can easily unweight the back wheel and track skid with far less effort.
Insert scary anecdote here: I once knew a guy with unsurpassed skills, like riding a one-handed wheelie, fully crossing up the front wheel, for 50+ yards...often passing roadies and cops on bikes. Anyway, he was learning the nose wheelie thing, and was trying to master it on several levels: stopping as quickly as possible, riding it, in control, downhill for 40+ feet, etc. He was extremely inebriated one night and goofing off in front the messenger bar...he ended up going over and getting stitched up right on the sidewalk by the EMTs. If it could happen to him...
As an aside, there are serious legal implications of riding a brakeless FG, such as the legal definitions of negligence. There are several components of legal negligence that I won't get into, but one of them is "did the participant do all that could be reasonably expected" to prevent something from happening. How would you like to be paralyzed as a result of a bike accident, and instead of getting $10 million, the opposing lawyers said "According to the MIT professor who wrote this book, you could have stopped twice as fast...so technically you were partly negligent when that drunk driver flattened you running a red light. Here's $10 grand." I doubt insurance company lawyers are that savvy yet, but with the rise in FG riders, it's just a matter of time before someone tries it as a defense. I got hit, and I certainly didn't volunteer that I was on a FG, for just that reason (I didn't hide it either, but they were obviously sniffing around for signs that I "contributed" to the accident).
Besides, what if someone ran you over, and even though their car was "legal" it only had half as many brakes (and weaker ones) as it could have. Wouldn't you go after them for negligence?
ok, kids, school's out. There may be a pop quiz.
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