Share the road – http://www.argusleader.com/article/20091114/NEWS/911140302/1001/news

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An effort to improve bicycle safety in South Dakota probably will land in Pierre for lawmakers to decide during the 2010 Legislative session.

The effort began after a Harrisburg man’s father was killed in a collision with a van while he was bicycling in Iowa in August.

State Sen. Sandy Jerstad, D-Sioux Falls, a dedicated cyclist herself, agreed to introduce a bill in the Legislature after meeting with Tony Anderson.

“When Tony brought me his story, it was heartwrenching. I thought this was the right thing to do,” Jerstad said.

She has forwarded to the Legislative Research Council her suggestions for a bill that would require motorists to give cyclists and pedestrians a 3-foot cushion when passing them.

The proposal is similar to laws in about 14 other states, Anderson and Jerstad said.

“Hopefully, this will be well received. It’s not a difficult bill,” Jerstad said.

She favors provisions she has seen in other states’ laws that would make a first offense a misdemeanor and a repeat offense a felony. She anticipates there would be relatively few citations.

“I see it almost as more of an education bill,” Jerstad said.

Anderson and Jerstad are asking people who have been involved in accidents where vehicles came too close to cyclists or pedestrians and struck them to come forward with their stories. They also are looking for people who have lost friends or family members in such accidents, and people who have had near misses.

“Sandy and I are inviting them to come to Pierre in January to help drive this bill home,” Anderson said.

Before the legislative session opens in January, Jerstad also hopes to find a Republican co-sponsor to carry the bill in the House.

Anderson’s father was killed on a rural highway. Minnehaha County Sheriff Mike Milstead said he thinks that because many of those roads don’t have wide shoulders, the potential for bicycles and pedestrians to be struck by vehicles is high.

Milstead also said the number of riders using such roads seems to be growing.

“They’re becoming a more common sight on the rural roads,” he said. “As such, drivers are becoming more accustomed to them and routinely give them safe passage.”

At the same time, the sheriff applauds the proposed 3-foot passing bill.

Like Jerstad, he thinks much of the value of such a law would be the increased attention it draws to the issue.

“A law alone would do little to improve safety without a good educational and awareness campaign,” he said.

Anderson and Jerstad have another ally in the Falls Area Bicyclists. Nick Anderson, incoming president of the cycling club of about 100 members, said those members are ready to take on an activist role in promoting a safe cushion law for cyclists and pedestrians.

He also has recent personal experience with the issue after a vehicle nearly clipped riders on a FAB- sponsored ride this summer.

Korea is very bike friendly — http://www.koreaittimes.com/story/5377/go-bicycle-green-rfidusn-korea-2009

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Many companies have participated in the RFID/USN Korea 2009 to show their innovative technology related to RFID. Energy savings and a clean environment are two key issues that most industries are focusing on. One of the solutions is to use more bicycles instead of gasoline-powered cars.

Currently, the government is building more bicycle roads to encourage people to use bicycles and new policies will also improve the conditions. The RFID/USN Korea 2009 introduced a few public bicycle rental systems.

Victek Company’s ubiquitous public bike system offers a bike rental service to the public. The system consists of a kiosk, a bike holding fixture, and a bike with a rental device built in. After registration, a renter can use a credit card, mobile phone, or member id card to rent a bicycle. An electricity generator is installed on the front wheel of the bicycle and charges the built-in monitoring device. The monitor displays various information including distance traveled, traveling time, and amount of calories burned. Currently, 200 bicycles are running in the City of Daejeon, and expansion will follow after next month.

Initus is another company that offers a public bicycle rental system. The biggest problem of the current system is that each bicycle needs a holding fixture, and crowded places such as near subway stations and bus stops do not have enough holding fixtures available. Initus’ patented technology uses a cable to hold the bicycle, which does not require holding fixtures for each bicycle. Since the monitoring system is built in to the bicycle, the renters can use a cable to connect to the base station or to other bicycles when they return. It is easy to expand the base station without a high cost of construction and space.

Currently, there are no standards for bicycle rental systems in Korea. When the government sets new policies and standards, the companies will improve the system and make it more convenient for people to use. The future of the environmentally-friendly bicycle industry is bright.

Cycle 2009, from road.cc. http://road.cc/content/news/10062-cycle-show-2009-enigma-basso-swobo-garmin-kcnc-and-more

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Well we’re back from the show now – thanks to everyone that came and said hello, it was great to put a few faces to names. And sell some T shirts. When we weren’t sitting on our inflatable sofas drinking the wine that the Belveder girls had brought to the party there was plenty of time to have a snoop round the stands, and there was plenty to see.

Normally after Eurobike we’re a bit showed out but This year’s Cycle Show had plenty of stuff we hadn’t seen in Germany, and seemed a lot busier than last year. Just goes to show that recsession or no, we all still love our bikes. Here’s another quick run through some of the new, or interesting, or both, stuff that we stumbled across.

Enigma

Enigma have built up a big following for their top-end Titanium over the past few years but last year’s Cycle Show marked a turning point for the company when they unveiled their first steel frame, handmade in the UK like the Ti units. Since then the company has seen unprecedented demand for steel, and now half the bikes the Sussex-based outfit produce are made from Cromoly or stainless tubesets. The star of the steel range is the Elite XCR, a £1500 stainless-tubed road beauty that’s superbly finished. Enigma head honcho Jim Walker is passionate about reviving the UK as a producer of bikes and there’s no better advert for British craftmanship than one of his immaculate frames; we try not to spend too long on the Enigma stand because we’re afraid we’ll end up buying one. Or another one, in Jo’s case…

Garmin Edge 500

Garmin were showing off their new Edge, the 500, which is a much more compact unit aimed at riders who don’t need a whole host of complicated mapping functions. It still uses GPS location to get your ride stats, and you can still upload your ride data to Garmin Connect, but most of the time it looks like a fairly standard, well-featured bike computer. You get a fully customisable interface so you can look at the data you want, and it’s pretty straightfoward to use: something that can’t really be said of the more expensive edge units. You can upload a route to the 500 and follow it but there’s no real mapping capabaility, you just have to follow a crumbtrail on the screen. The retail price is around £200, expect to see a review on road.cc soon.

KCNC

There’s plenty of shiny things to look at when you visit a cycle show, but among the shiniest at Earl’s Court were on the KCNC stand. KCNC are a Taiwanese engineering firm that specialise in lightweight Aluminium and Titanium accessories, and when we say lightweight we really mean it. A single bar end that weighs less than a packet of crisps? Now that’s light. They were also showing off their tiny knife pedals aimed at road riders who don’t want to go clipless. At 150g a pair they’re absurdly light too, as was pretty much everything else in their cabinet. Standout products for us were the brakes, both the dual pivot callipers and the skeletal V-brakes. They’re not cheap, but they’re a lot cheaper than most stuff you’ll find that’s as light.

Swobo bikes

Not a name you might associate with bikes but Swobo had some interesting machines on display at Cycle 2009. Best of the bunch was the Crosby, a singlespeed ‘cross bike with a SRAM Torpedo rear hub – free to fixed in just a few turns of a screwdriver. Fixed cyclocross, anyone? The bike’s much more versatile than just a ‘cross iron though, it’d look the part about town too with its semi-deep orange rims and muted blue-grey paintjob. The Baxter was an interesting bike too, with an Alfine drivetrain and swept back bars for less extreme urban adventuring.

Corima Wheels

Corima were showing off their MCC wheelset at the show, and a very nice looking set of hoops it is too. We didn’t get to speak to anyone technical at Corima (they were hiding) so we’re still in the dark about quite how the rear wheel works. Normally on a rear wheel you’ll get crossed spokes on the drive side, the forward facing ones transmitting the torque from the hub and the backward-facing ones dealing with the braking forces which twist the wheel in the opposite direction. The MCC real wheel has the torque spokes but no opposing spokes, so won’t it just fold up under braking? We’re assuming it doesn’t, but can’t work out why. any ideas? Answers on a postcard…

Basso

Basso were showing off their road range as it is in the UK, which is a fraction of their total output. They are bringing over the range-topping Diamante though, a very purposeful looking Carbon road machine. Basso make all their bikes by hand in Italy, so you really are getting European chic for your (significant) outlay. Basso have, like Trek, gone along the integrated bottom bracket route which allows them to use a much wider BB moulding, 86mm in Basso’s case, for a stiffer pedalling platform. It certainly works on the Madones so we’d expect it to on the Basso too, though we haven’t ridden it. They were also showing the new Astra which is a good looking machine too. Mr Basso is very passionate about his bikes: “He calls me every other day and he’s usually shouting”, Adam at UK distributors Moore Large told us. The original Diamante prototype frame was nicked from its box on the way over to Britain; “When I told him”, say Adam, “I’m pretty sure he was crying”

Paper Bicycle

We reported on the Paper Bicycle last year, a very classy step through machine that’s designed for fuss-free daily use. Well, now it’s nearly in production and it’s still a great looking utility machine. There’s a clever new kick stand that extends from the rear of the frame (it looks a bit like an exhaust when it’s raised!) and a few refinements to the design. Orders have already been taken for hire fleets in other European countries and UK production is just a case of crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s. Oh, and clearing up the warehouse…

Pushing hard on long distance bicycle rides – from the Wyoming News @ http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2009/10/12/news/20local_10-12-09.txt

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Editor’s note: On Thursday, Cheyenne author Mark Junge will begin his fifth long-distance bicycle ride. Junge, who is oxygen-dependent, is sponsored by Invacare Corporation, a manufacturer of home medical equipment; Cryolife, a biomedical company specializing in tissue preservation and biological implants; Cheyenne Regional Medical Center; and Rock on Wheels.

“You look at where you’re going and where you are, and it never makes sense. But then you look back at where you’ve been and a pattern seems to emerge. And if you project forward from that pattern, then sometimes you can come up with something.” — Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

At the age of 66, the patterns of my life have become fairly obvious, though I’m not sure of their relative importance to Cheyenne or Wyoming history.

One of those has emerged during the past five years, during which my wife, Ardath, and I have made four long-distance trips, she driving our van and I riding a bicycle while breathing supplementary oxygen. The geographic pattern of those trips nearly forms the letter “H” draped across a map of the U.S.A.

In 2004, we followed the Lincoln Highway 3,500 miles from San Francisco to New York City.

In 2006, we picked up the trail in Times Square, squiggling north along the Atlantic coastline for 1,785 miles to Cape Spear, Newfoundland.

Two years ago, we followed U.S. Highway 1 north along the Pacific coastline for 1,200 miles from San Francisco to Vancouver, B.C. And last year, we turned south from San Francisco and followed the same road 650 miles to the Mexican border.

Another pattern that seems to be emerging is the trips are getting shorter. That will change some this week when we leave Times Square and begin an 800-mile Atlantic coastline tour south to Charleston, S.C. — or until the money runs out, whichever comes first.

Next year, we hope to finish the last leg of the “H” from Charleston to Key West, Fla. Thus, we will have traveled from coast to coast and border to border. That claim and a nickel, as they say, might get us a cup of coffee at Wall Drug. Is that all? Are there no other patterns in this odyssey?

Some of our cynical friends might reply, “Yes, the obvious one is insanity.” Maybe, but it depends upon your point of view.

These trips are not such a big deal, logistically. Keep in mind that following the Trojan War, Odysseus wandered around the Mediterranean for 10 years before he found his way back to Ithaca. On the other hand, it has taken Ardath and me less than a year to travel 7,000 miles, and each of our adventures has ended

See Junge, page A8

in Cheyenne, sitting in our recliners.

All Odysseus wanted was get home to Penelope; Ardath travels with me. Furthermore, we don’t just wander. We have a purpose. Our mission is to alert the public to the problem of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, a catch-all term for lung ailments that many people do not recognize.

Ever since that first transcontinental trip, I have noticed another pattern: The number of COPD victims is increasing.

New York pulmonologist Dr. Neil Schachter writes that in little more than a decade, COPD will be the third-deadliest disease in the world behind circulatory problems and cancer. He estimates that COPD already affects 35 million Americans.

In 2002, I was rudely thrown into the COPD mélange with a diagnosis of blood clots in the lungs. For the rest of my life, those scarred lungs would require supplementary oxygen. My God-given right to breathe freely was compromised.

The good news is that oxygen has become portable. In the life of an oxygen-dependent person, that can mean the difference between normalcy or depression and productive or unproductive living.

Not that every day is happy and productive, of course. But the days that aren’t so productive for oxygen-dependent people are made better by portable oxygen. For me, portability is necessary for exercise, like riding a bike.

Beginning Thursday at Times Square, I’ll field test Invacare’s XPO2 Portable Oxygen Concentrator. My heart will pump blood through a Cryolife homographic, or human, aortic valve that has kept me alive for the past 16 years.

Another pattern that I have noticed since 2004 is one that is hard to perceive unless you are oxygen-dependent and you travel. By that I mean: Most of the time you won’t see oxygen-dependent people.

Awareness of COPD comes when you see older men and women walking around with canulas attached to their noses, carrying oxygen bottles in backpacks or pushing carts with metal tanks. Some are not so obvious because they have transtracheal tubes implanted in their necks. Others camouflage their oxygen-dependency with custom eyeglasses.

But I suspect that most oxygen-dependent folks are hidden from public view in homes or healthcare facilities. They are a segment of the population that is out of sight and out of mind, except to those who care for them.

Mobile or not, members of the COPD underclass do not take breathing for granted. For them, it is an effort, and for some the breath they have is a technological blessing.

It’s pretty obvious that people who would benefit from portable oxygen do not get enough encouragement to be mobile in their lives. But that is not due to a lack of human kindness. It is a problem of profitability and national policy.

Home health-care providers struggle to make a living. There is little profit incentive for providing portable oxygen to those who would benefit by it.

A glance at Medicare law reveals that federal policy discourages these healthcare workers from promoting oxygen portability.

These are the patterns and issues that have become obvious to me as I bicycle around the country.

It’s no longer surprising when I stop to talk to people about oxygen portability that they have parents, relatives or friends with lung problems. It’s also no surprise that many of these people are not aware of these latest technological improvements.

Mobility means freedom. Freedom means improved physical and mental health that lead to productivity. Individual productivity leads to societal productivity and so forth and so on.

Next week, we’ll share some of the places and people that an oxygen-dependent person discovers as he pokes through this Fibber McGee closet called America.

More anon.

From the Economic Times – http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/features/the-sunday-et/backpage/Mountain-biking-Only-the-strongest-will-survive/articleshow/5111247.cms

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Nine days of adventure racing through the Himalayas, 700 kms of bike ride (read Mountain Bicycle), total elevation gain of over 12,000 meters,

covering the most rugged and inhospitable terrain. Are you game? If yes, then go for it. Hercules MTB Himachal, billed as the worlds third toughest mountain biking event, next only to the Trans-Alps Challenge (Europe) and Trans Rockies (Canada) is where you should be.

It for sure is a test of strength and determination. And, by no means a child’s play. As you pedal through the western Himalayas and pass through bumpier, dustier and slippery roads a little carelessness can leave you with anything from minor scratches to serious injuries. It’s an adventure, limitless and as rustic as it can get and only those who are mentally tough survive the task. It is about passion, it is about mountains and is about the love for mother nature.

TI Cycles of India, one of the leading bicycle manufacturers in India and makers of Hercules cycles, being the sponsors of the event have been promoting it in India. Rajesh Mani, general manager (marketing), TI Cycles says, “This year we organized ‘Hercules Ryders City Challenge’ and sponsored an all expenses paid trip for three winners to bike down the Himalayan terrain for the first two days of Himachal MTB.” Mountain biking in India is catching up fast as ever, and more and more youngsters are getting into this sport.

Vikas Kannav, for whom it was the first such experience this year says, “This time my aim was to at least complete the event, which I did. Now, I’m planning to participate next year for which I have already started preparations. Also, I’m planning to buy a better bike for next year so that I can improve my performance and score better than others”.

Camping by the high-altitude lakeside or a stream, covered with mountains on all sides, events like these also give biking enthusiasts a chance to experience nature as close as it can get.

Himachal MTB gives you a chance to ride through uncharted interiors, hike through deep forests, hear the music of the rivers and soak in the Himalayan autumn sunshine, as you get your set of wheels ride worthy through Single-track, Village back roads, jeep tracks and as what mountain biking is all about, a lot of ups and downs.
Having completed five years, HASTPA (Himalayan Adventure Sports And Tourism Promotion Association) is now eying international accreditation and plans to rope in more foreign participation.

Mohit Sood, president HASTPA—organizers of Himachal MTB—says, “We are now planning to get international accreditation for the event next year so that we can have more participants and create more awareness about the sport in India.” Though last year there were 33 international participants in Himachal MTB, this time it slipped to just seven this year. Much of that could be attributed to travel advisories issued by various countries as a majority of international participants cancelled their entries for the expedition. Mr Sood says, “Almost 50% of foreign participants cancelled their entries. Most of them cited swine flu as one of the major reason for not participating in the expedition this time”.

One can also participate in Sikkim Mountain Biking, which started only last year and is also a 9-day race. The race route covers the foothills of Mt. Khanchendzonga (world third tallest mountain), passing through some unexplored tourist spots unveiling Sikkim’s age old folk culture, religion, art to the participants.

Ashok Mehta, a participant in this year’s senior’s category in Himachal MTB, says there is still lot to be done to promote biking in the country. “For example, Belgium may sell more bikes in a week than what India may sell in a year. But, the biking fever is catching up fast in India as more and more biking enthusiasts are coming forward to enter into this comparatively new territory in India,” he says. So, all you bikers out there, nature’s calling you. Where art thou??

Ghost bike? – http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/brookline/2009/10/ghost_bike_appears_at_fatality.html

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While Brookline Police continue to investigate the cause of a fatal bicycle accident that killed a 22-year-old Emmanuel College graduate last month, a “ghost bike” has mysteriously been placed at the scene of crash.
The all-white bicycle, adorned with flowers and a memorial placard for Holbrook, NY, native Tracy Milillo is latched to a street sign near 29 Longwood Avenue—where Milillo crashed her bicycle on Sept. 9.

Brookline Police Captain Michael Gropman said this week that police are not filing charges against a Brookline motorist who had apparently thought he hit Milillo on the night of the crash.

Forensic tests have shown that the man’s vehicle did not collide with Milillo’s bicycle, Gropman said.

“We know it did not,” Gropman said. “We’re not sure why the bike fell.”

Milillo was found unconscious at the scene of the crash about 7 p.m. that night along with the motorist, who had stopped, Gropman said. Milillo was taken to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where she died from her injuries within 48 hours.

She suffered blunt trauma to her head, and police are awaiting the results of a toxicology exam on Milillo to help determine the cause of the crash. Gropman said Milillo was wearing a heavy backpack and he speculated that she may have lost her balance, or she may have had a mechanical problem.

He said the day Milillo was struck was supposed to be her last in Boston. Her parents were coming up to take her back to her home in Holbrook, NY.

David Watson, executive director of the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition, said the bicycle placed at the scene of the crash on Longwood Avenue is known as a “ghost bike” and similar memorials have been placed at the sites of fatal bicycle accidents around the country.

Traditionally, Watson said ghost bikes “mysteriously appear” at crash scenes, and the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition had nothing to do with putting up the bike for Milillo. But Watson said the memorials are effective tools to bringing attention to fatal bicycle accidents.

“They definitely get everyone’s attention,” Watson said.

Gropman said Brookline Police have seen flowers at fatal crashes and homicides before, but this is the first time he’s seen a ghost bike.

Milillo’s death comes as Brookline is considering multiple changes for bicyclists in the town.

In September, Brookline’s Transportation Board approved a network of bicycle lanes and facilities that are designed to help bicyclists maneuver from Longwood Avenue to the BU Bridge. The route follows portions of Chapel, Carlton, Ivy, Essex and Montford streets , and Brookline Transportation Administrator Todd Kirrane said it was designed to help make Brookline more bicycle friendly.

Brookline’s Town Meeting will also be considering an article in November that would require all bicycles to be registered with the town. Kirrane said similar proposals have been presented to Town Meeting before, in an effort help recover stolen bicycles and to hold bicyclists more accountable on the roads.

Kirrane said the idea has been referred to Brookline’s Transportation Board before, and it was determined that the program would be too costly.

Watson said the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition is opposed to rules requiring bicycle registration.

“We see it as an obstacle to get more people to ride bikes,” Watson said.

Help end Breast Cancer – saturday in Mount Dora. http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports_thechaingang/2009/10/pair-of-saturday-rides-will-battle-breast-cancer.html
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MOUNT DORA — Not all the cyclists on the road this weekend will be riding for endurance or fun. If numbers on their bicycles are pink, they are riding for breast-cancer awareness.

Sponsored by Sun Cycle Center of Tavares and Trek Bicycle Corp., two rides will leave Mount Dora at 10.a.m. Saturday — one easy and one more challenging — to show support for cancer patients and survivors and to celebrate victories in research, treatment and prevention of the disease.

More than 100 Trek dealers across the country are joining in hopes of putting 10,000 riders — men, women and children — on the road.

“It is not a race or a competition,” said Gena Swartz, an owner of Sun Cycle Center. “It is just a ride. It fits our mission — we want people to love bicycling, to use it for fitness and for fun.”

The easier ride is a 10-mile round trip to Trimble Park on flat, quiet back roads. The more difficult ride is 26 miles long and includes hills on the way to Mount Plymouth and back.

“This is for riders more comfortable riding with traffic,” said Pam Hunt, ride coordinator.

Both rides have support, and both have SAG stops for refreshment.

Participation is $25, and 100 percent of the fee goes to the foundation. Riders will wear pink bracelets and can wear pink if they wish.

People can sign up online at suncyclecenter.com or before the race in front of the Mount Dora Chamber of Commerce, 341 N. Alexander St.

Checks should be made out to Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

New Brunswick Urban Voice article – the dangers of biking to work — http://desmoines.injuryboard.com/automobile-accidents/dangers-of-bicycle-riding-to-work.aspx?googleid=271998

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In an article in Here New Brunswick Urban Voice, called “Overcoming the fear of cycling”, Andrea Laltoo discusses being a bicycling commuter and the dangers often linked to habitual biking on the road with motor vehicles. Laltoo brings up the most asked question, “But isn’t it dangerous?” which she answers “yes” but not for the obvious reasons most people assume. An obvious fact that bicyclists are not as protected as motor vehicles by seatbelts, airbags, and metal frame coverings, does cause bicycling to have a higher danger factor. Laltoo also considers:

“Cycling can even result in death (then again, so can eating a sandwich, if you choke). But is cycling along with traffic really as dangerous as our imaginations tell us “…” or is the fear of cycling an irrational phobia of stepping outside of our comfort zones?”

Laltoo then mentions another bicyclist advocate, Ken Kifer who has a website devoted to facts and details of bicyclist safety and lifestyles, as well as tips on bike safety in traffic, (see http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/traffic/index.htm). One of Kifer’s ideas is interesting to Laltoo, “most people are aware that flying is statistically safer than driving (when analyzing risk of fatality per passenger and per distance). Why, then, do we drive without giving a second thought to our safety and yet flinch at flying?” This idea of flying as more dangerous than driving may be described as what “Nancy S. Blum, a social worker with University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, cites lack of control over the situation as the number one reason her patients fear flying.”

When it comes to car transportation, drivers are given many, many hours of training to be allowed to drive, as well as have direct control over the vehicle. As for biking, one has control over the moving object, but people are not given specific and detailed training on how to operate the bike and navigate the roads on the bike.

The real facts on bicyclist injuries on the road are not necessarily due to traffic, Laltoo cites “John Forester (founder of the Effective Cycling program)” who says, “50 per cent of cycling injuries and deaths were caused by cyclist error, compared with only 8 per cent caused by motorist error”. Though this does not take away the fact bicycling is still a safety risk, it is mostly through the control of the individual biker themselves. Laltoo promotes biking as a main form of transportation as it being safe, if one takes control over their biking skills and knowledge.

With more people wanting to save money and the environment, the bike becomes a good option for transportation. But with less than adequate skills, knowledge, and experience on a two-wheeled contraption, bikers may cause more harm to themselves than they realize if proper steps are not taken.

Keep this in mind the next time you hit the road on your bike. Where your helmet and if necessary a rear view mirror. I’ve been hit by a truck when training for a triathlon. Believe me it’s not a pleasant experience. It was about mid-morning, time for the donut break when the approaching truck suddenly turned left right into my path. The rear duals didn’t look all that appealing, the passenger side of the cab uninviting so off I went trying to skirt along the front. He hit me directly in the center of the grill, sending me head-over-heels attempting a full gainer. I landed squarely on the high side of my butt. Days later it looked like I was carrying around a baseball in my back pocket. I broke no bones, chipped some teeth when I kissed the grill, and was plenty sore for weeks. The funniest part was when the cemetery manager straddled and asked if he could call someone for me. I gave him the law firm telephone number. On the way to the hospital I asked the ambulance attendant if I could use the phone. Calling my office, the secretary Julie told me the insurance company called in less than five minutes after the cemetery manager hung up. Never hit a guy who makes living as a personal injury lawyer. So now I get to honestly say I’m not an ambulance chaser, I’m always there before the ambulance.

Hits me close to home, being from Toronto, and knowing how hard and unsafe it is on Toronto streets on a bike. From CBC News, http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2009/10/07/bicycle-environment.html

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Toronto’s cycling enthusiasts celebrated a small victory this week after the province’s environmental commissioner released a report criticizing the city over its lack of bike lanes.

In his annual report, this year entitled Building Resilience, commissioner Gord Miller criticized Toronto’s handling over the Bloor Street revitalization project.

The report said that the city didn’t have to consult the public because of the way the project was classified.

“It was classified as an ‘A’ which means there was very little opportunity for public consultation and discussion that some proponents of cycling wanted to see,” Miller said after tabling his report in the provincial legislature on Tuesday.

Miller said the classification resulted in the loss of bikes lanes in the area of Bloor, between Church Street and Avenue Road.

He said the province needs to do more to ensure bicycles are taken into consideration when municipalities seek provincial approval.

“There should be a mandatory requirement,” said Miller “[that] in future in these kinds of projects that cycling and pedestrians — as legitimate forms of transportation — be included in the consideration and the alternatives in discussion and design.”

Eventually the Bloor Street Transformation Project plan ended up in court. The city got what it wanted and cyclists ended up with ’sharrows’ — a shared lane with traffic — instead of bicycle-only lanes.

Miller’s recommendations are a small victory for Albert Koehl, the lawyer who represented cycling advocacy groups on the Bloor Street project.

“We have now the environmental commissioner pointing the finger at the province and saying you’ve got to do quite a bit more,” he said.

Koehl says the report isn’t going to change the situation overnight, but will be a weapon in the bigger battle towards having safe streets for cyclists and pedestrians.

From the Arizona Herald, but good advice for this time of year when biking. Safety first! http://www.azcentral.com/community/chandler/articles/2009/10/07/20091007cr-bikes1007asfc.html

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By October, as the weather cools, Chandler police see an uptick in the number of bicyclists on the road, and not all of them know the rules. Officer Dan McQuillin, who is assigned to the department’s bike unit, said new riders often don’t educate themselves before taking to the road, and that can lead to dangerous results.

WHAT ARE THE MOST COMMON MISTAKES THAT LEAD TO ACCIDENTS?

Riding on the wrong side of road on the sidewalk, when you’re crossing a private drive. Someone will pull up to sidewalk, look for traffic in the direction traffic would be coming, only to encounter a cyclist coming from the opposite direction. Riders could risk anything from getting knocked off the bicycle, to bumps and bruises, to fatalities.

WHAT SHOULD BICYCLISTS DO TO PROTECT THEMSELVES?

Always wear your helmet. That’s probably the one safety piece that is going to have the most benefit for you because as long as you protect your head, you can survive a lot of trauma. Also, use eyewear because if you get something in your eye, you still have to ride the bicycle. . . . Also, for kids, it’s highly recommend to have shin guards, helmet, gloves. For the commuter, always wear eyewear and a helmet. . . . The other thing they can do is follow traffic laws and know traffic laws.

WHAT SHOULD MOTORISTS DO TO PREVENT ACCIDENTS?

Pay attention. Turn your head to look in blind spots because bicyclists can sneak right up next to you in the curb lane. On most major streets, there are bicycle lanes, so another common accident is caused by making a right turn with the cyclist is in the bike lane next to you. It’s the same as watching for motorcyclists; they have every right to be there.

WHAT ARE THE RULES FOR RIDING AT NIGHT?

At nighttime, when riding, state law requires a white light in the front visible for 100 feet and at least a red reflector on rear, but it’s recommended to have a red light. Bike stores and big-box stores like Walmart and Target usually have a package deal for $10 to $20 for both. It’s very affordable.