If I can ride Francis/es on doubletrack I should be able to ride to church, and the Feed

If I can ride a loaded cargo bike on doubletrack, I should be able to ride the same bike to church for a social or a service, right? I mean controlling more than 200 pounds of bike and cargo on a dusty slippery, rutted path used mostly by cars and ATVs at 5 MPH should be lots harder than riding 8 feet of bike in light traffic, right? Well I’m going to find out tonight when I ride Francis/es to Heathens and drum jam tonight at Sacred Journey Fellowship. The only bad thing I see about this is I will have to leave my helmet at home because I can’t tilt my head back far enough to see past the visor, which means I will have to use my ears much more than I usually need to because I have “West Coast” mirrors on the helmet to give me a panoramic view of what’s behind me. I am building a new stem that will allow me to ride more upright and see what’s in front without having to kink my neck and force my head against the lipoma on the back of my neck. I know it’s a terrible thing to have to build something that will let you ride the way you’re most comfortable when you drop 11 benjamins and change on a new bike, but that’s reality. The fact that I was able to get a Dutch-style cargo bike for so little is solely because they aren’t custom made to fit. That option would raise the price by 50% or more.

Up first because idiots won’t let me ignore it is a letter from a concern troll about that wreck in the RGV of extreme south TX where the perps in a hit-and-run left with the cyclist’s body in the back of the truck and dumped that body in a ditch on the side of the road several miles from the scene of the wreck. LETTER: Cyclist killed The level of “entitled” evident in this letter is disgusting. Using bicycles as your only source of transportation is a “want” but driving your fat ass with your fat ass kids in the SUV to Burger King to load up on Big Kings and double bacon cheeseburgers is a “need”? Please, spare me.

Update on another wreck where the victim was hauled away from the scene of the crime and dumped elsewhere. Bond denied for man accused of leaving injured bicyclist behind dumpster This was the FL wreck where the cyclist got stuck between the rear window and the rear spoiler on a Fox body Mustang and the drunk driver dumped him by the dumpsters at his girlfriend’s apartment. Said GF is now an XGF if what I read otherwhere is true, which I hope it is because it means the XGF is more human than the animal that dumped the body. At least they are keeping this animal in a cage for the time being.

Update on the cyclist left-crossed by a school bus in IN. Bicyclist killed by school bus on Indy’s north side The investigator for this one needs to be fired yesterday. “It was unclear who was at fault, police said.” The cyclist was through traffic, the bus was turning, and traffic making a turning movement across through lanes must yield to through traffic. The bus failed to yield to through traffic, where is the ambiguity in that?

Moving to OH trial has been set for the drunk driver who killed a cyclist and then abandoned the weapon vehicle in a nearby parking lot to go drink in another bar after the wreck. Trial set for man charged with killing cyclist I’m really glad I have some funny links to post later in this blog or I would turn into one of those mass murderers you see on TV and read about in the newspapers. Fortunately I don’t own any weapons of mass destruction needed to do that, the closest thing I have to a WMD is Francis/es which is only slightly more deadly than your average CF road bike.

Because there was a second vehicle that ran over a cyclist involved in a hit-and-run, the driver of the first vehicle gets a free pass over killing him? Barnstable woman convicted of lesser charge in bicyclist’s death

A CO cyclist killer may never get to trial after having a stroke while in custody. Competency review rescheduled for Patrick Ward in Lyons DUI crash that killed cyclist AFAIK he’s more sentient than a rutabega, but less than your average tree.

Report from Ted Rogers that another SoCal cyclist has been hit-and-run. Bike rider killed in San Bernardino County hit-and-run This must be terrible for Ted as much of the SoCal cyclist scene is less than 4 degrees of separation from Mr. Rogers. It looks like there was a witness to the wreck and the weapon vehicle was running a red light as the cyclist crossed the intersection where he was killed. There is exactly nothing a cyclist can do to avoid a wreck like this and even Dutch style infrastructure is helpless against a driver that ignores traffic controls when a cyclist is crossing the street. Speaking of Dutch infrastructure I will have a link to bad Dutch infrastructure that US cyclists would hold hostages to get later in my blog post.

Another wreck in Oz, with minimal information. Cyclist killed on highway outside Naracoorte, driver suffers critical head injuries in ute rollover Once again we know more about an injury car wreck than a fatal bike wreck.

And a wreck in Jolly Olde faces the dock over civil compensation for the victim. Metropolitan Police Sued by Family of Injured Cyclist They can’t directly sue the driver because he was supposedly on official business at the time of the wreck, so they have to sue the employer.

The rest of your Daily Ted. Morning Links: An inspiring and horrifying interview, outrageous bike news, and send a guy on Climate Ride Go Ted!

A combination of infrastructure and lifestyle news. Flipping anti-bike arguments on their heads (+funny video)

Using all the facts to get good infrastructure. HOW MONTREAL BUILT A BIKE LANE BY DEBUNKING THE AUTOPARKOLYPSE Don’t let antis keep the focus on just that one small stretch of street, widen it out to the entire area and count all the parking spots.

And after you get all those separated bike lanes you have to keep them clean or people will stop using them. TECH TALK: THE BEST STREET SWEEPERS FOR CLEARING PROTECTED BIKE LANES

Bad Dutch infrastructure that is still orders of magnitude better than anything in Texas. On-road cycle-lanes. The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (mostly bad and ugly) Where he sees “ugly” and “bad” Dutch infrastructure I see stuff I wish we had here. I have seen pictures of what they consider “passable, but could be better” and I just want to cry…

A bit of cycling lifestyle courtesy of Traffic author Tom Vanderbilt. The Ride on Chicago

Where do people ride their bikes? Where there are people and bikes. Peep popular bike routes in this hella-detailed national map

Riding a bike heals broken souls. Injured Veterans to Cycle 450 Miles from Covington, Ky., to Nashville, Tenn., for the 2014 UnitedHealthcare Ride 2 Recovery Bluegrass Challenge

Last link is a video that shows you don’t know how to ride a bike, while it shows riding a bike burns a ton of Calories. Calories See the guy with the beard? Yes, he rides a bike better than you. (No spoilers)

And those are all the links that gave me fits and giggles today. Still more fits than giggles, but the ratio was a bit better today.

Billed @€0.02, Opus