Feeling a bit Giddy

Cross season is coming.

Starting soon I will be doing my best to have fun every weekend until Capital Cross Classic. I wonder if USA Cycling has rules regarding cargo bikes and cross races?

Speech

I'm giving a speech in my communications class. I'm going to persuade people to ride bikes, or to at least not run over me and my dirtbag friends with their cars. What follows is a visual aid:





Gwadzilla's photo stream on Flickr. Bike culture in DC.

Fatalities per Million Exposure Hours
Skydiving	128.71						Snowmobiling	.88
General Flying	15.58						Motoring	.47
Motorcycling	8.80						Water skiing	.28
Scuba Diving	1.98						Bicycling	.26
Living	1.53						Airline Flying	.15
Swimming	1.07						Hunting	.08
Data compiled by Failure Analysis Associates, Inc.

Average Miles Ridden per Capita in One Year
The Netherlands	633
Denmark	595
Belgium	203
Germany	186
Sweden	186
Finland	175
Ireland	142
Italy	104
Austria	96
Greece	57
France	54
UK	50
Luxembourg	30
Portugal	22
Spain	15
USA/Canada	43

(Compiled by Eurobarometer http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/index_en.htm)

Cycleliciousness, a blog about bike culture in Copenhagen, Denmark.

“Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.” –H.G. Wells

Attention Team Talentless!

Headquarters is now assembling orders for team uniforms. Please take a look this year's design and dispatch a carrier pigeon with your measurements.

Roads Don't Kill People, Cars Kill People.

Every time I tell someone my route home from work the reaction is the same: "Oh my God, you ride those roads at night? Aren't those roads dangerous?" I usually just shrug and say some thing like, "Meh... with my HID light everybody can see me coming. No biggie."

No. The roads aren't dangerous. The cars are dangerous. The people driving the cars are dangerous. How is that not blindingly obvious?

Me on my bike riding down a road? Safe!
Me on my bike riding down the road with some Starsky & Hutch wannabe blasting his shitbox around corners? Not so safe!

So how should I make myself safe? I'm thinking guerrilla. Maybe plaster stickers on every sign from my house to my work that say something clever about not running over cyclists. Paint something on the roadway. Anything that will make toolboxes think twice about rolling out like The Fast and the Furious on my roads.

What the fuck are you doing, Asshole?!

I assume this was a rhetorical question. However, in the interest of addressing the deeper issues implied by your Doppler affected screeching, I'll respond to your query as if it were not.

The simple answer would, of course, be, "I'm riding my bike home from work. Thanks for asking!" But that answer would obviously fail to address the aforementioned deeper issues belied by your use of expletives. It would appear that you are not just interested in what it is that I am doing; you are implying that what I am doing is inappropriate. Well, I suspect that you are probably one of the overprivileged children of an owner of one of the many McMansions blighting the area I was riding through, so I can forgive you for not being acquainted with the realities of the world. I know it seems crazy, but owning a car does not imply ownership of the road. Even if your parents bought you a really nice car the asphalt it rolls on still belongs to the taxpayers- even the fucking assholes that ride their bikes home from work at 9pm in the evening.

So, in closing I'd just like you to take away this one important point:

Its my fucking road.

Avant Garde Dancing

To the tune of Justice - "D.A.N.C.E. (Les Rythmes Digitales)" (MP3).