Of the new gear I got from Alertshirts.com yesterday I have managed to give 2 items a test ride of sorts. I wore one of the long sleeve Ts on a ride to deposit a check (14.5 miles RT) and was pleased with the balance between keeping the wind off my skin preventing excess cooling and the wicking action pulling sweat away keeping my skin dry and cooling me but not too much. IOW it worked like a long sleeve wicking jersey but at a fraction of the price. The other item I wore was the wicking polo that I wore to a party to see if anyone could tell it was part of my cycling gear. Nobody could tell it was wicking or had any clue that it was actually visibility gear, they just thought it was another of my brightly colored shirts that I sometimes wear to parties to help make them “festive”. I can’t make any judgments about the wicking ability of the polo shirt, the most strenuous thing I did all night was eating a half-pound cheeseburger and walking to the restroom.
Up first a wreck that has not been fully investigated yet in OK. Bike rider dies after being hit As of the posting of this link all that had been released was the fact that the wreck happened, what happened is still up for grabs, so I’ll keep watching this story to see what develops. And develop it has. Altus Police Investigating Fatal Car-On-Bike Collision It seems this is a hit-from-behind wreck of a lighted and reflectorised cyclist and a hit-and-run to boot. Prediction: the driver will claim he “didn’t see” anything when he hit the cyclist and didn’t stop because he has the IQ of a mule and just ignored an impact that tore pieces from his truck and left them scattered in the road.
Lots of links to this UK story about the low value placed on lives not carried inside motor vehicles. Taxi driver fined £35 after cyclist’s death and Taxi driver who killed a cyclist and carried his body on car bonnet for 90 metres before smashing into a tree is fined just £35 also Taxi driver fined £35 after killing Birmingham cyclist Even Daily Mail readers are aghast at this exhibition, normally they are there with the torches and pitchforks at the slightest bicyclist transgression. AFAIK and not being an expert on the UK justice system by any means, much of the problem with this case came from the court it was tried in. Basically the only way that there could have been a stiffer sentence imposed would have been for the magistrate to have refused to hear the case on the grounds that it exceeded his authority. In US terms this was a Justice of the Peace hearing a murder case, and only having limited fines and tiny jail sentences at his disposal.
In contrast to the previous story, a court with real authority can impose significant amounts of prison time when deserved. Drivers have a responsibility to be aware of cyclists, says judge This case resulted in both an admonishment to all drivers to watch what was in front of them on the roads as well as a prison term and loss of driving privileges. Still not appropriate to the crime, but several orders of magnitude greater than the previous story.
And that’s all I have today. After I post this I have to go put some lube on my chain, as it has been too cold to apply my particular brand of chain lube (50°F or warmer required for the carrier oil to take the dissolved solid lubricant inside the links) until recently.
Billed @$0.02, Opus
32.928601
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Witch on a Bicycle 
The new gear gets a test ride, and the Feed
Of the new gear I got from Alertshirts.com yesterday I have managed to give 2 items a test ride of sorts. I wore one of the long sleeve Ts on a ride to deposit a check (14.5 miles RT) and was pleased with the balance between keeping the wind off my skin preventing excess cooling and the wicking action pulling sweat away keeping my skin dry and cooling me but not too much. IOW it worked like a long sleeve wicking jersey but at a fraction of the price. The other item I wore was the wicking polo that I wore to a party to see if anyone could tell it was part of my cycling gear. Nobody could tell it was wicking or had any clue that it was actually visibility gear, they just thought it was another of my brightly colored shirts that I sometimes wear to parties to help make them “festive”. I can’t make any judgments about the wicking ability of the polo shirt, the most strenuous thing I did all night was eating a half-pound cheeseburger and walking to the restroom.
Up first a wreck that has not been fully investigated yet in OK. Bike rider dies after being hit As of the posting of this link all that had been released was the fact that the wreck happened, what happened is still up for grabs, so I’ll keep watching this story to see what develops. And develop it has. Altus Police Investigating Fatal Car-On-Bike Collision It seems this is a hit-from-behind wreck of a lighted and reflectorised cyclist and a hit-and-run to boot. Prediction: the driver will claim he “didn’t see” anything when he hit the cyclist and didn’t stop because he has the IQ of a mule and just ignored an impact that tore pieces from his truck and left them scattered in the road.
Lots of links to this UK story about the low value placed on lives not carried inside motor vehicles. Taxi driver fined £35 after cyclist’s death and Taxi driver who killed a cyclist and carried his body on car bonnet for 90 metres before smashing into a tree is fined just £35 also Taxi driver fined £35 after killing Birmingham cyclist Even Daily Mail readers are aghast at this exhibition, normally they are there with the torches and pitchforks at the slightest bicyclist transgression. AFAIK and not being an expert on the UK justice system by any means, much of the problem with this case came from the court it was tried in. Basically the only way that there could have been a stiffer sentence imposed would have been for the magistrate to have refused to hear the case on the grounds that it exceeded his authority. In US terms this was a Justice of the Peace hearing a murder case, and only having limited fines and tiny jail sentences at his disposal.
In contrast to the previous story, a court with real authority can impose significant amounts of prison time when deserved. Drivers have a responsibility to be aware of cyclists, says judge This case resulted in both an admonishment to all drivers to watch what was in front of them on the roads as well as a prison term and loss of driving privileges. Still not appropriate to the crime, but several orders of magnitude greater than the previous story.
And that’s all I have today. After I post this I have to go put some lube on my chain, as it has been too cold to apply my particular brand of chain lube (50°F or warmer required for the carrier oil to take the dissolved solid lubricant inside the links) until recently.
Billed @$0.02, Opus
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Tagged anti-bike blatherings, can you top this, cycling life, cyclist killed, Dead cyclists, Don't read the comments, hit from behind, hit-and-run, Jolly Olde, lawyer blatherings, signs of the apocolypse, Something smells, stupid drivers, stupid LEO, UK media wreck articles suck, updates, waste of human skin