An all-update Feed

Everything in the Feed today was and update of some kind to other reports.

First up is a really old argument. Can cycling affect men’s sexual health? This one has been hashed over since the late 1980s. I ride a bike that has a seat that doesn’t put pressure on the perinium (sp?) so I have no such issues. Now keeping the skin over my coccyx intact is another story altogether, but that doesn’t effect my ability to enjoy sex.

The big story for today is the Glenda Rumsey sentencing. Fate tragically brought boy, drunken driver together and Drunk driver to spend 14 years in prison This is one of those stories that while I’m glad the perp is going to spend some time in prison, I would prefer that the crime had never happened, that a brilliant young man had been allowed to grow up and achieve his potential. Unless and until drunk driving is treated with the seriousness it deserves this will continue to happen because people will continue to treat it as a minor offense, instead of the reality of a person in control of a WMD but not in control of themselves when driving drunk.

An update on the UK cyclist hit in SoCal. Injured professional cyclist Rachel Atherton: Helmet broke before ride started I still stand by my comment from a previous blog post on this subject.

And more than a month later Seattle cyclists are still dealing with treacherous piles of sand in the bike lanes that was applied to melt snow and provide some traction for cars. December’s snow remedy wreaking havoc on cyclists What amuses me are the comments accusing the cyclists of being crybabies because of the sand when it doesn’t bother cars.

A Louisiana community expresses concern about a bike wreck. Community concerned on Meagan Stanley’s death The ironic thing is the concern is not on how to prevent cars from hitting kids on bikes, it’s that the kid in this case was not wearing a helmet. I have said this before but in a blog that was not visible to search engines or readable to people that were not members of the site: Bike helmets will not prevent wrecks. Never have and never will, no how no way. The best you can hope for from a bike helmet in a wreck is that the head injury you get will be less than the injury you would have gotten without it. Given that 80% of bicyclist deaths include head injury you would think that helmet use should be a priority, but bicyclists are not dieing from head trauma so much as they are dieing from car crashes. Head trauma is a symptom, the real disease is the car crash.

And that’s all I have for you this morning.

Billed @$.02, Opus

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Glenda Rumsey gets 14 years in prison!

Yes, I’m happy. It could be better, but we don’t have a perfect system. I wish I knew what the potential sentence could have been. Woman who killed young bicyclist gets 14 years in prison RIP Jose Rincon. May your stay in the Summerlands be peaceful, and as long as you need.

From my hometown paper is an article on bike commuting. Bike commuters brave the elements to stay in shape The Metromess is a bad place to commute by bicycle, but some of us do (or did) it every day. My wreck was when I was commuting back in 2001, riding 5000 miles a year. Now I ride along the lines of 1000 to 3000 miles a year just riding around.

Intelligence does not seem to be a requirement for residing in the Great White North. Vandals trash ghost bike I equate this to trashing a cemetery.

A story from Enn Zed has a driver charged in the death of a cyclist. Charges in death of cyclist This is why cars running red lights is so much more dangerous than bicycles. I don’t mean to suggest that you run a red light on your bike, just that a car running a red light is a deadly weapon. Idaho law allows bicycles to procede through a red light as if it was a stop sign, and was passed because they didn’t want to spend the money to change the sensor loops to detect bicycles. From what I have heard the law has had zilch effect on bicycle safety, as the benefits of not having to sit in the crosshairs at intersections was countered by drivers that hate.

Finally is a report from Jolly Olde on infrastructure in London. Great West Road danger petition launched Oh, to live in a country where you can file a petition when a couple people get killed on bicycles on the same street in a couple of years…

That’s it for tonight, I’m shutting down the computer and celebrating. Barack Obama becoming the 44th President and Glenda Rumsey getting 14 years in prison, all on the same day, whoda thunk it?

Billed @$.02, Opus