I’m giving hard consideration to the Patreon process, specifically what kind of incentives to offer. The $1,000,000/yr incentive was easy, you get a bike named after you and your name goes above the blog title as in (your name here) Presents Witch on a Bicycle. And your picture would be bigger than Ms. Gulch in the banner. But the lesser (ha!) levels of support are somewhat more troubling. $10/month, $120/an should get something nice, a physical token of some kind that you can display your support of a wacky, off-beat blog that you supported before it got famous, like an annual t-shirt or something (I have a t-shirt for Witchstock 2, as an example I think last year they had something like 16 or so). The problem is my graphic design chops are pretty much non-existent. I did the banner with a graphics program that came with the Winspire computer I got in 2004 and pretty much just used stock pictures and the fonts loaded with the program. I mean seriously, I just shrank some pictures to fit the banner and typed in the name sort of centered in the banner with the pre-Gigi left picture, then used GIMP to replace the original picture with me and Gigi and the same font in GIMP to label the pictures. I’m pretty sure that won’t fly for an incentive graphic. So that means I need to pay for a graphic artist to design me something that will be of enough intrinsic value that you would support the blog to get it. I’m open to suggestion here. What do you guys want besides lots of blog posts in exchange for monetarily supporting the blogger?
Up first is another video on that hit-and-run in San Antonio. Cyclist injured in Broadway hit-and-run No new information, just a slightly different video.
Moving a bit west, we find two CA cyclists injured after one flatted on a rock, taking them both down. Two bicyclists injured in San Dimas bike crash Not much to go by on this one, were they practicing drafting or riding side-by-side and the “lead” bike was just the one that went down first? at any rate this link shows the benefits of making sure your equipment is up to snuff before a ride, “ABC Quick” check and all that.
Our Daily Ted is pretty good today, in spite of the delay. Morning Links: California leaps to top 10 bike friendly state; opposition withdrawn to MyFigueroa project “Morning” links didn’t post until this afternoon, but who cares? It’s good stuff today.
Ted reports on a cyclist that may have died as the delayed reaction to getting doored. Bike rider reportedly dies weeks after South Bay dooring
A cyclist is killed in Far West Canuckistan and LEO are sitting very tight on the story. Vancouver Island cyclist killed in collision Besides the facts of a dead cyclist and he was hit by something there’s nothing here. He was “in collision with a vehicle” at roughly 4PM. And they gave a town name, Campbell River. whoopee. Normally when I see this much secrecy in a media report I suspect the driver of the weapon vehicle was a local bigwig, definitely not one of the proles.
Things have been nasty this week in Oz. Cyclist killed in collision with bus latest in long list of accidents and Shocking footage shows last decisions that cost cyclist his life Shocking indeed Cyclist killed on main Sydney road and also Sydney transport chaos after two road fatalities, light rail outage and this one too Police appeal for witnesses after cyclist injured – Hamilton The “shocking video” shows the cyclist leaving the sidewalk via the crosswalk because there is a railing blocking any other exit, just as the bus turns the corner. No actual blood is seen, but several customers in the store can be seen reacting to the wreck as it happens and just after. I have already commented on how to avoid wrecks like these, but with the new information about the bus wreck from the video I have to add that even in a crosswalk you need to enter the street the same way you enter the street from mid-block, cautiously and looking in all directions that a motor vehicle could come from.
Infrastructure! news from the Great White North. Road safety starts with cyclists and ERIC DUHAIME Road safety starts with cyclists It took me a while to figure out what the author was trying to say, but if I’m reading this right, when a pedestrian or driver gets killed people just yawn, but when cyclist riding exactly as directed by the laws gets killed, action gets taken, or at least people look busy. I would prefer that every death be treated as a chance to improve the infrastructure, even when caused by a drunk driver. After all keeping drunk drivers off the roads is part of infrastructure, too. And making sure the streets are safe is a multi-disciplinary task, with parts being done by engineers, some by legislators, some by teachers at all levels of education, and some by law-enforcement. There’s no “Magic Pill” that fixes everything in one swell foop, it takes time and a lot of different people each doing their jobs. The fact that they treat cyclists as indicator species or “canary in the coal mine” situations is just an indication of how bad their infrastructure has been allowed to get.
Same wreck, different reaction to it. Mathilde Blais cycling death spurs calls for safer crossings Not the picture where the sidewalk that had been blocked earlier in the week is now a designated Shared Space for cyclists and pedestrians. Not ideal by any stretch of the imagination, but an improvement over the state of the infrastructure when the cyclist was killed trying to use it as designed.
Infrastructure in the UK is so insane you have to act insane to use it safely. The only way to survive as a cyclist is to behave like you’re suicidal Assume every driver is trying to kill you and ride appropriately has been common advice for a while now, but this is a bit beyond the pale.
And another case of windshield bias rears its ugly head in Oz. Duncan Gay considers cyclist licences Since 90% of Aussie cyclists already have driver’s licenses this is just an obstacle and a money grab rather than an actual way to improve cyclist safety. There is one way I think this will work: require everyone who gets a driver’s license to have a cyclist’s license, or no go. If you’re not fit to ride a bike then most likely you are not fit to drive a car for the same reasons. The overall health of drivers will go up and everyone will get used to being on a bicycle in traffic, making drivers more aware of cyclists when they are not on their bikes.
And lifestyle from one of the institutions of higher learning I attended growing up. Family of USU cyclist killed in slackline accident files lawsuit Old Main Hill is the place where I turned my tailbone into tiny bits of gravel one winter’s day in 1977. That injury bothered me for years after.
And those are all the links that gave me fits today,
Billed @€0.02, Opus
Witch on a Bicycle 
What kind of incentives would you like to see from my Patreon, and the Feed
I’m giving hard consideration to the Patreon process, specifically what kind of incentives to offer. The $1,000,000/yr incentive was easy, you get a bike named after you and your name goes above the blog title as in (your name here) Presents Witch on a Bicycle. And your picture would be bigger than Ms. Gulch in the banner. But the lesser (ha!) levels of support are somewhat more troubling. $10/month, $120/an should get something nice, a physical token of some kind that you can display your support of a wacky, off-beat blog that you supported before it got famous, like an annual t-shirt or something (I have a t-shirt for Witchstock 2, as an example I think last year they had something like 16 or so). The problem is my graphic design chops are pretty much non-existent. I did the banner with a graphics program that came with the Winspire computer I got in 2004 and pretty much just used stock pictures and the fonts loaded with the program. I mean seriously, I just shrank some pictures to fit the banner and typed in the name sort of centered in the banner with the pre-Gigi left picture, then used GIMP to replace the original picture with me and Gigi and the same font in GIMP to label the pictures. I’m pretty sure that won’t fly for an incentive graphic. So that means I need to pay for a graphic artist to design me something that will be of enough intrinsic value that you would support the blog to get it. I’m open to suggestion here. What do you guys want besides lots of blog posts in exchange for monetarily supporting the blogger?
Up first is another video on that hit-and-run in San Antonio. Cyclist injured in Broadway hit-and-run No new information, just a slightly different video.
Moving a bit west, we find two CA cyclists injured after one flatted on a rock, taking them both down. Two bicyclists injured in San Dimas bike crash Not much to go by on this one, were they practicing drafting or riding side-by-side and the “lead” bike was just the one that went down first? at any rate this link shows the benefits of making sure your equipment is up to snuff before a ride, “ABC Quick” check and all that.
Our Daily Ted is pretty good today, in spite of the delay. Morning Links: California leaps to top 10 bike friendly state; opposition withdrawn to MyFigueroa project “Morning” links didn’t post until this afternoon, but who cares? It’s good stuff today.
Ted reports on a cyclist that may have died as the delayed reaction to getting doored. Bike rider reportedly dies weeks after South Bay dooring
A cyclist is killed in Far West Canuckistan and LEO are sitting very tight on the story. Vancouver Island cyclist killed in collision Besides the facts of a dead cyclist and he was hit by something there’s nothing here. He was “in collision with a vehicle” at roughly 4PM. And they gave a town name, Campbell River. whoopee. Normally when I see this much secrecy in a media report I suspect the driver of the weapon vehicle was a local bigwig, definitely not one of the proles.
Things have been nasty this week in Oz. Cyclist killed in collision with bus latest in long list of accidents and Shocking footage shows last decisions that cost cyclist his life Shocking indeed Cyclist killed on main Sydney road and also Sydney transport chaos after two road fatalities, light rail outage and this one too Police appeal for witnesses after cyclist injured – Hamilton The “shocking video” shows the cyclist leaving the sidewalk via the crosswalk because there is a railing blocking any other exit, just as the bus turns the corner. No actual blood is seen, but several customers in the store can be seen reacting to the wreck as it happens and just after. I have already commented on how to avoid wrecks like these, but with the new information about the bus wreck from the video I have to add that even in a crosswalk you need to enter the street the same way you enter the street from mid-block, cautiously and looking in all directions that a motor vehicle could come from.
Infrastructure! news from the Great White North. Road safety starts with cyclists and ERIC DUHAIME Road safety starts with cyclists It took me a while to figure out what the author was trying to say, but if I’m reading this right, when a pedestrian or driver gets killed people just yawn, but when cyclist riding exactly as directed by the laws gets killed, action gets taken, or at least people look busy. I would prefer that every death be treated as a chance to improve the infrastructure, even when caused by a drunk driver. After all keeping drunk drivers off the roads is part of infrastructure, too. And making sure the streets are safe is a multi-disciplinary task, with parts being done by engineers, some by legislators, some by teachers at all levels of education, and some by law-enforcement. There’s no “Magic Pill” that fixes everything in one swell foop, it takes time and a lot of different people each doing their jobs. The fact that they treat cyclists as indicator species or “canary in the coal mine” situations is just an indication of how bad their infrastructure has been allowed to get.
Same wreck, different reaction to it. Mathilde Blais cycling death spurs calls for safer crossings Not the picture where the sidewalk that had been blocked earlier in the week is now a designated Shared Space for cyclists and pedestrians. Not ideal by any stretch of the imagination, but an improvement over the state of the infrastructure when the cyclist was killed trying to use it as designed.
Infrastructure in the UK is so insane you have to act insane to use it safely. The only way to survive as a cyclist is to behave like you’re suicidal Assume every driver is trying to kill you and ride appropriately has been common advice for a while now, but this is a bit beyond the pale.
And another case of windshield bias rears its ugly head in Oz. Duncan Gay considers cyclist licences Since 90% of Aussie cyclists already have driver’s licenses this is just an obstacle and a money grab rather than an actual way to improve cyclist safety. There is one way I think this will work: require everyone who gets a driver’s license to have a cyclist’s license, or no go. If you’re not fit to ride a bike then most likely you are not fit to drive a car for the same reasons. The overall health of drivers will go up and everyone will get used to being on a bicycle in traffic, making drivers more aware of cyclists when they are not on their bikes.
And lifestyle from one of the institutions of higher learning I attended growing up. Family of USU cyclist killed in slackline accident files lawsuit Old Main Hill is the place where I turned my tailbone into tiny bits of gravel one winter’s day in 1977. That injury bothered me for years after.
And those are all the links that gave me fits today,
Billed @€0.02, Opus
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Tagged anti-bike blatherings, bicycle license, blind driver syndrome, blind drivers, cyclist injured, cyclist killed, Don't read the comments, graphic design, hit from behind, hit-and-run, infrastructure, Jolly Olde, Left cross/right hook, Oz, signs of the apocolypse, Something smells, stupid cyclist, stupid drivers, stupid LEO, stupid politicians, updates