Heard from the surgeon’s office today, and the Feed

The earliest date they could schedule a consult was 5/14 because the doctor is “overbooked” through then at the office I can get to and I can’t get to the offices where he’s not overbooked. The thing is this doctor is serving a very large area, his territory extends from Rowlett all the way to Greenville. That used to be sparsely settled until recently when it became the newest outer ring suburb of Hell. This is another symptom of the severe sprawl facing the Metromess, which is now more populated than the entire state of MA and almost the same area.

I thought I would open the links with someone having a much better day than I am, with our Daily Ted. Morning Links: Turning private tragedy into help for others, and a 3-decade old AG opinion on sidewalk riding

Another case of assault with a deadly weapon going undercharged. Syracuse woman drives car into ex-girlfriend riding bicycle, court papers say “Attempted assault“? Sounds to me a whole lot like the attempt was successful as the bike was totalled.

Crap infrastructure in Upstate NY. Kingston man, 57, critically injured in bicycle accident on U.S. Route 209 in Ulster The cyclist hit a patch of bad pavement in the dark under an overpass, the very definition of crap infrastructure.

Still in NY state, another case of bad infrastructure causing injury. Queens Man Seriously Injured By Vehicle While Riding A Bike

This makes 2 cyclists shot within a 7 day span. Gary teen shot while riding bike near home Fortunately this cyclist looks like he will survive. I don’t know about the kid hiding in the bushes though.

The widow of a murdered cyclist asks the killer to reveal where he hid the murder weapon. Widow of cyclist calls on man to reveal hit-and-run vehicle Ran all the way to Oz from Ireland, what did he do with the vehicle? If he sold it there would be some kind of record of the sale, which Irish LEO have been unable to unearth. So, where did he stash it?

A UK driver gets a laughable sentence for killing a cyclist waiting at a stop light. HGV driver receives 12 month jail term after the death of 65-year-old Wistaston man Gee, a whole year in jail, not even prison, and then another year where he will have to mind his p’s and q’s while he drives without a license. For killing a man standing plainly in the street waiting for the light to change and then driving off leaving the crushed corpse in the middle of the street?

And another cyclist is left injured in the street in the Emerald Isle. Omagh cyclist appeals to motorists after being hit by car At least in this wreck the cyclist was left in the street because it wasn’t safe to move him, not because the driver left the scene.

Need something a bit warmer than a tent bike camping this winter? This Well-Insulated $150 DIY Bicycle Camper Is Perfect For Year-Round Solo Trips It needs a fly over it for a TX summer shade, but it looks OK otherwise. I would suggest a welded light steel or Al frame rather than the wooden frame, but that’s just my conservative structural engineer side speaking, I’m sure the wooden frame in the video is adequate. The floor would be more bug tight if the wheels were on the outside of the trailer.

After decades of neglect FL starts building bike/ped infrastructure. Good news abounds for Lee County cyclists, pedestrians Maybe in another decade FL will not lead the country in bike/ped deaths per capita.

Is your infrastructure a disaster area? Are you sure one way or the other? State of Emergency: Two Cities Strategize to Fix Infrastructure Fast I have been to MS, “disaster area” is one of the kinder things you can say about the state of their roads.

When you need to add weight to meet that minimum something that will make your bike faster up a hill might be just the thing. Hidden electric motor for bicycles Change from a straight bevel to a spiral bevel gear and a glass or Kevlar reinforced nylon ring gear and the carbon frame may be enough to deaden the remaining noise from the installation. You could even make a hidden connector in the water bottle cage to swap out the battery so that only an X-ray inspection could find the motor system.

Last link, Bono may never play the guitar again after his bike wreck. U2’s Flight to Now (Turbulence Included) The band is not what they were when they released “Where the Streets Have No Names” or “Sunday, Bloody Sunday”, but they don’t sound too bad, either.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet

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Still no contact from the surgeon, and the Feed

I hate dealing with bureaucracies. Like I wrote earlier, it is a good thing this is not immediately life-threatening, because I wouldn’t be posting this now if it was. We are now officially 9 months into trying to get this useless lump of fat off my neck and not interfering with my life. The first delay was because the PCP I was assigned was not accepting new patients when I started trying to get a surgeon to remove the lump and had to wait until I could get an appointment to see him to get the process rolling, then it was imaging and waiting until I had the $250 co-pay for the MRI, then getting a referral and that takes us up to where we are now, with an “atypical” lipoma the size of Rhode Island on my neck and not knowing if this means I’m already dead and I just haven’t finished falling down, or if it means this is a really ugly GOP presidential candidate sitting on my neck. Whew, punctuation! It is roughly 1400 as I wrote this paragraph with still no contact made.

Up first because there are so many ads on this site that it almost crashed my computer. Woman arrested in S.F. hit and run that hurt 3 cyclists I like that they barely mention the 3 cars damaged in the incident except for the one that was pushed inside a nearby building. People are much more important than property. More SFPD Arrests Driver Who Hit Three Bike Commuters on the Wiggle

More links about the Oz sports commentator who assaulted a cyclist with his car. Bosnich pleads guilty to reckless driving which injured cyclist and Mark Bosnich pleads guilty to charge of reckless driving after cyclist is injured in collision with former Aston Villa and Manchester United keeper

Semi-local activity. DINNER & BIKES DENTON, SATURDAY, MAY 9, 2015, 7-10PM Can’t go, going to be celebrating Mother’s Day early with the wife.

This has become way too common in the last 6 months. Man riding bike shot, killed in Gary I have lost count of how many people have been shot just since the start of the new year. I distinctly remember 2 in CA and one in FL, one that I think was in SC, one maybe in Seattle (not sure if it was this year or last). It used to be a cyclist getting shot was as common as a cyclist killing a pedestrian or driver, now we have all these dead cyclists with bullet holes in them…

This is a combination of bad infrastructure with bad manners. UPDATE: Cyclist Seriously Injured In Williamsburg Bridge Crash Seriously, look at the crash scene: see those fences? The street furniture left in the travel lane? Imagine that as you would a street for cars with big immovable objects left in the lanes of travel. Not gonna happen for cars, is it?

Our Daily Ted. How Did the Chicken Cross the Road? Since when does “direction of traffic” apply to a sidewalk?

I didn’t know the Keystone Kops had emigrated… Suspected thief walks free from court after bungling police officers admit selling the stolen bike that was supposed to be used as evidence against him

And things aren’t any better in Enn Zed. Driving sentence upsets family A NZ$3000 fine and a 9 month suspension of his driving license? For driving off the road and killing a man?

Why our transportation infrastructure is crumbling in one easy graph. The Only Chart You Need to Explain America’s Broken Gas Tax

No, really, tell me about how well Vision Zero is working. NYPD: Drivers Injured 945 Pedestrians and Cyclists in March, and Killed Six Another month without a dead cyclist, but still too many people getting killed on the outside of motor vehicles.

Off-road in Portland. Off-Road Cycling Plan gets Council nod, Bureau of Planning will take the lead This takes the person responsible for getting bikes banned from a site that had been built and maintained by MTB’ers for nearly 2 decades out of the off-road bicycle planning process.

What makes a great city? Among other things the length of the block. The Importance of Block Sizing Portland for example has a 200 foot block size and is very walkable.

The other big local transportation issue, for more than 15 years now. Is there a partisan divide on Trinity Parkway? This was what we got instead of the little lakes and parks we were promised when the vote was taken on the bond issue. Those parks and lakes were not mentioned on the ballot, but they were everywhere in the promotional material about the bond. Turns out it is perfectly legal for the city to lie like a rug in promotional materials.

Good news about a heart-breaking situation. FLEET OF BIKES DONATED TO WOUNDED WARRIORS The stolen bikes had been individually modified to work with the particular rider’s injuries and disabilities. Now the new bikes will have to be likewise modified.

I wear a helmet because it insulates my heirs slightly from blame if I get killed, particularly the kind of helmet I wear. Helmet or No Helmet? It Depends Which Side of the Atlantic You’re On As I have written in this blog many times, a bicycle helmet is basically useless in a wreck with a motor vehicle because it was just not built for that kind of impact. Bicycle helmets are designed and built to prevent skull fracture when falling down when you can’t unclip. The maximum impact they’re built for is 12.5 MPH, as speed increases the energy that needs to be absorbed increases as the square of velocity, which is why the motorcycle helmets made for a 20 MPH impact are so much larger than a bicycle helmet. Reducing impact forces requires reducing the acceleration of the head, which in turn requires distance, this becomes intuitive if you think of your head like a car that is moving at a steady speed when a red light changes. The faster you are going the more time and space it will take you to come to a stop. That space is the thickness of the liner in the helmet. Bicycle helmets have 12.5 MPH worth of space.

And I seem to have run out of links again.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet

Why do we have a for-profit health care system, and the Feed

Contact has been made with my PCP concerning the GOP presidential candidate sitting on the back of my neck (“ugly lump of useless fat” for the people not among my Facebook friends). There was a 3 working day delay caused by my HMO having to approve of the surgery and the surgeon I was getting sent to. Remind me again why we don’t have a single-payer system like the UK, where stuff like this only takes a day? I mean obviously, this thing has been on the back of my neck for almost a decade now so it probably isn’t going to kill me (again), but still the MRI came back as “atypical” so this also isn’t something that can be ignored until it goes away. I will hear back from the surgeon on scheduling later today or early tomorrow.

The Bug Story today is from Oz as a Fox Sports announcer is found guilty of hitting a cyclist. Bosnich pleads guilty to reckless driving which injured cyclist and Mark Bosnich pleads guilty to charge of reckless driving after road rage incident also Bosnich knocked cyclist down: court And of course they got a plea bargain that never mentioned assault with a deadly weapon when the driver turned his vehicle at the cyclist and hit him with it, knocking him to the ground with numerous injuries.

Our Daily Ted, round 1. Morning Links: LAPD ordered to turn over video of bike rider beating, and Redlands riders do the right thing Surprise, surprise, LAPD beat a cyclist half to death and he was not white.

Our Daily Ted, part the second. Guest post: BAC Vice Chair Glenn Bailey reports on efforts to undo the Chase Street road diet and bike lanes This was the meeting that may have had an illegal agenda item added at the last minute. In TX the item would have been illegal to discuss since the agenda had already been published.

In today’s NYC news, the DA actually grew a pair and indicted a killer driver. Driver Charged With Manslaughter For Killing LES Pedestrian The driver was doing 55 in a 25 zone and attempted to flee but hit a fire hydrant on a crowded sidewalk and could not continue driving. The hydrant probably saved having several more victims.

Usually “Take your kid to work day” does not include teaching bicycle theft. Stroller-Pushing Bike Thief Has Allegedly Stolen $16K In Bikes

And a bit Upstate from The City, drunk asshole in a Camaro takes out his and two other vehicles when he’s prevented from excessively speeding. Video: Sociopathic Camaro Driver Causes Terrifying Highway Crash The Camaro driver was tested at more than twice the legal limit for BAC%.

Apparently driving while blind is not a crime in NE. Prosecutor will not charge woman in crash that killed cyclist The cyclist was riding a recumbent tricycle with an 8 foot tall flag on the back. If you can’t see a normal-sized adult human with an 8 foot tall flag in the road, please stop driving immediately and seek medical attention.

Not your average wreck in South Africa. Cyclist trampled to death by giraffe in South Africa Usually the traffic I have to wrangle is more 4-wheel than 4-foot.

More on the Scottish clamor for presumptive liability in civil cases where a cyclist is hit by a motor vehicle. Cyclists call for ‘presumption of liability’ against motorists in civil cases Yeah, we cyclists are just throwing ourselves against light armored vehicles in the hopes of getting a huge lawsuit payout… And I have a bridge in AZ I want to get off my hands. Used to be owned by a nice English lady named Elizabeth…

After the second cyclist is killed by a truck turning across the bike lane at a badly-designed intersection in NOLA legislation to restrict truck traffic is considered. Cyclist’s death spurs bill to ban hazardous material trucks on St. Claude, North Claiborne Note that there was nothing done to change the bad intersection, just to restrict hazardous cargo from using it.

More infrastructure news from Portland. East Portlanders want one mode of transportation prioritized above all others, survey finds They just want to be able to cross the street without having to play “Frogger”.

There has been a paradigm shift in city planning while nobody was looking. End of the car age: how cities are outgrowing the automobile

It’s about that time again. National Bike Month: Hupy and Abraham celebrates safety and awareness and Community encouraged to participate in Bicycle Month Notional Bike Month, or as I see it National This Blog Is Important Month. I’m hoping I can get Blue up and running and be healed up from neck surgery by the Ride of Silence. Last year was terrible for me as I couldn’t see where I was going because my helmet was hitting the lump on the back of my neck.

Speaking of that lump, the surgeon did not call today, but I at least know his last name: Ritter. And thanks to the powers of the Internet I know something about him.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet

Let’s get on with this, and the Feed

OK as I begin filtering the Feed I still haven’t heard from the surgeon, and because I don’t know who that is I can’t call and find out what’s up. So instead of sitting and worrying about it, I’m doing a blog post. Doesn’t everybody sit down and write when they are worried? 😀

OK it’s after 1800, and if this was something to be really worried about I would have had a call already, I’m thinking that the surgeon or another doctor looked at the MRI and decided I lived with it this long, a few more days wouldn’t kill or permanently impair me. [crossing fingers]

Up first, I’m doing another wreck because this is another one of those rare wrecks where the driver takes himself out after killing the cyclist. 2 dead in Hinesburg car vs. bicycle crash Either this was a “punishment pass” that went super bad for both parties, or the cyclist was caught up in the driver’s LOC wreck. Doesn’t matter, there are still two bodies at the morgue…

Today’s Daily Ted shares some links with the Feed today. Morning Links: LA Times picks Ramsay, LA bike plan site pushes rug padding, and how to pass a bike respectfully Still worth the click for the links we don’t share…

Once again proof that NYPD does not know the laws they are enforcing. The NYPD Has Been Ticketing Cyclists for a Totally Legal Activity The statute specifically excludes all vehicles that are not motor vehicles.

Another angle on the story. Cops In Brooklyn’s Most Bike-Friendly Neighborhoods Are Cracking Down On Cyclists Yep, statute still says “motor vehicles” which excludes all vehicles without motors.

Still in NYC, teen criminals have discovered the tactical advantages of bicycles in an urban environment. Central Park Jogger Attacked By Teens On Bicycles

Another “Florida man” story about bikes. Coral Gables cops say man blamed for hit-and-run tried to cover up damaged vehicle

Perception is more about bias than reality. ‘Anti-social’? Cambridge cyclists responsible for just seven out of 4,400 anti-social incidents Either there are things not getting reported, or bias is coloring someone’s perception of reality. My take is bias. Problem is he’s the idiot in charge. And having a biased idiot in charge is almost never good.

A guy in charge of a trucking firm thinks truckers are super dandy neato keen, and cyclists are scum. Lorry drivers the best road users, cyclists the worst, says haulage firm boss Interesting that there were so many violations of driving laws from drivers in his employ. Again, bias coloring perceptions.

And why is it that the phrase “UK bicycle infrastructure” is synonymous with “crap infrastructure”? Family of cyclist killed by tipper truck considers civil action after inquest returns finding of ‘road traffic collision’ Maybe because there is nothing unusual about this intersection except that a cyclist was killed by an HGV and both were using the intersection exactly as intended by the design.

Bike protest in Scotland. Thousands take part in Pedal on Parliament in Edinburgh Excuse me, Massive! bike protest in Scotland.

Bike protest in Hungary. Eyewitness: Budapest, Hungary Again, excuse me, Massive! bike protest in Hungary.

Putting the cart before the horse on this one. Community encouraged to participate in Bicycle Month Infrastructure first, party second, you don’t party in a free-fire zone.

NE TN isn’t bike friendly? Twin Cities not bicycle friendly communities This is not MSP, this is Bristol TN/VA.

How do you rebuild a cyclist’s paradise after it gets overrun by cars? Reinventing the Wheel You make cycling self-expression, not just transportation.

Need something to keep the chill off your face and don’t feel like DIY? Face Shield There is a sale going on for end-of-season savings.

And I appear to be out of links again.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet

Contemplating my options on a Wreck-Free Sunday

At this point I still Haven’t been contacted by the surgeon who will handle my case, so I don’t know when I get cut open. I only know I will get cut open and that ugly hunk of fat removed at some time in the near future. What happens after that depends on the report from the lab. If “atypical” means “funny looking but otherwise normal” that’s where the story ends. I get sewed up and go on about my business. If “atypical” means something else then other things will happen while I’m still out on the table. Exactly what depends on what they find at the lab, but having communicated with other people who have had a similar experience the most likely situation is if “atypical” means “cancer” they will biopsy the lymph nodes in my right armpit (the closest to the lump) to see if the cancer has spread. If that comes back clean then chemo to get anything that escaped during the surgery. If there are cancer cells in the lymph nodes then things get complicated… And I won’t know the options for that until my consult with the surgeon.

So, when faced with possible mortality, what do I do? Well, I go back to working on the Sprint T’s frame design, because there are things I still don’t like about previous iterations. Specifically I didn’t like the overlap between the engine compartment frame rails and the extension of the passenger compartment frame rails. Also I looked up the dimensions of the rear axle I wanted to use and there was no way it would fit in any of the previous versions of the frame without cutting a divot out of the middle of the gas tank or dividing the gas tank into two parts with the protruding part of the rear axle between them. So this version would have to be longer behind the axle centerline than any of the previous versions by a large chunk of frame rail. Now as to why this was important, the passenger compartment frame rails are going to be 0.120″ wall 1.5″ square tubing, while the engine compartment and the trunk/fuel cell compartments are only 0.060″ wall so they are lighter and more importantly will crumple in a wreck and not transfer impact to the passenger compartment. Well in previous versions the 0.120″ wall overlapped the engine compartment frame rails by more than a foot (305mm) which will seriously compromise the crumple of the engine compartment. The desired failure mode is for the engine compartment is for the upper frame rail to buckle and the bottom frame rail to fold up at the firewall and direct the mass of the engine and transmission under the passenger compartment, away from the driver and passenger.

And while I’m talking about impending mortality, I’m reminded that I have been through this death thing once already. There are even categories of how dead you were before you get revived, or in my case reboot. Book 16: Big, Dumb Objects Part I I think I was just at the threshold of “Laz-1”. I didn’t get shot, the projectile was more about massive blunt force trauma, than penetration. But I still died for two minutes before “rebooting” myself.

And I have run out of things to say so I will stop writing.

PSA, Opus the unkillable badass Poet

Good news and bad news, and the Feed

I was awakened this morning with a phone call about my MRI. I have a 7 cm across by 4 cm thick fatty mass on my neck that is “atypical”. I am being scheduled for surgery at the earliest opportunity. Some facts about the case from Wikipedia and WebMD: I have a very large lipoma (LIE-poh-ma) on my neck but not exceptionally large, they can get much larger. Lipomas are mostly benign in nature even when they get quite large, but mine is atypical of the breed. Even then the odds of this one being malignant are about the same as surviving getting hit squarely by a truck doing 60 MPH. Which I have done. Yo! scripts, I need a rewrite on this or I’m not acting in this movie, or appearing in this book, whatever. This lump is not going to be cancer, or invasive, or anything except a GOP candidate for President (useless fatty lump that just gets in the way). I’m getting really tired of you seeing how close you can get me to getting killed. It was funny when I was a kid (well popping up a war around me not so much, some of the stuff that we did was hysterical, particularly having a car and driving legally at 12YO), but now that I’m an adult (stop laughing, I mean I’m way over 21, not the other thing) I just want a nice, calm, semi-sedate, low-stress, life. Not a good story, but a nice life.

Up first I find out that “lawyer lips” are the real cause of the Trek recall. Lessons from Trek’s recall of almost 1 million bikes The QR gets into the disk because the wheel doesn’t fall out when the QR lever is opened. This only happens because of the so-called “lawyer lips” that keep a wheel from falling out of the fork when the QR is open. Yay, lawyers 😛

Dashcam video of a cyclist getting shot 4 seconds after pulling over when he detected a vehicle tailgating him right through someone’s lawn. EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Dashcam video shows unarmed man being shot by PBSO deputy Interesting that the only audio on the stop is the sound of gunshots as the cyclist falls down. No siren, no commands from the LEO, just open the car door and start firing 4 seconds after coming to a stop.

And you can’t get there from here by bike if all you have is bicycle infrastructure. Why Is It So Hard to Get Across U.S. Cities Using Only Bike Lanes? All of those cities have it all over the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell, where we have less than 3 miles of bike lane, even if you count both directions.

Do you harass drivers for driving a surface street next to a freeway? Why not? Bicyclists in roads next to bike paths endure harassment “Get off the street, you got that great big freeway to drive on that took all my tax dollars to pay for!” Then shoot them. /s

Semi-local as a town a couple of counties west and north of WoaB World HQ declares they are partaking in Bike Month. BIKE MONTH PROCLAMATION AT DENTON CITY COUNCIL TUESDAY, MAY 5, 6:30-7:00 PM

Our Daily Ted is less than happy today. BOLO Alert: Bike rider seriously injured in East LA hit-and-run and part 2 Weekend Links: Super-secret discipline for Milt Olin deputy; SD’s Fiesta Island wreck caused by invisible boyfriend

The deputy who killed Milt Olin is punished in total secrecy. L.A. County Sheriff’s deputy disciplined in fatal collision with cyclist in Calabasas Is it really punishment when there is no public knowledge of the punishment?

Whadya gotta do to get a long prison term for a killer driver, when fleeing the scene all the way to Australia from Ireland won’t do it? Drink-driver who killed cyclist dad of four jailed for five years I mean seriously, the guy hit and ran all the way to Oz to escape prosecution, and the most they can give him is 5 years? More Widow ‘will never forget children’s cries’ after father killed

This is only a minor delay, he will get to spend a large amount of time as a guest of the state. Trial surrounding the death of a Hampshire cyclist William Logan set to resume today

I wonder if this mystery woman was the driver of the weapon vehicle in the wreck. Woman rushed to aid of hurt cyclist The thing that made me think this person was the driver was this quote,”She came and spoke to me for a while saying: ‘Do you need my details?’” That is the standard UK phrase for after a wreck.

Still getting political reverberations from a cyclist’s death in Jolly Olde. Cycling safety campaigners join colleagues of Moira Gemmill to mark death of ‘wonderful woman’

This was unexpected. Hit-run driver killed twice in one month Hmm, they don’t know how the second victim died, could he have gotten a taste for killing after “getting away” with killing the cyclist (until he got caught)?

A little Infrastructure from Portland OR. County’s bridges may get $33 million for biking and walking upgrades by 2020

Some good infrastructure news from that town a couple of counties over. RIDE YOUR BIKE TO ARTS & JAZZ FESTIVAL! 54 NEW BIKE RACKS ADDED TO CITY HALL AND CIVIC CENTER

And now I’m all out of links. I will be back Sunday.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the unkillable badass Poet

Grocery Day, and the Feed

I will be stopping the filter and post process to go shopping for comestibles today. I’m mostly recovered from yesterday’s travels and travails, except my neck is hurting more than usual and my arm still feels like a pincushion from trying to find a vein. There is also still a bruise where they nicked a vein but didn’t get a good stick. That spot is more uncomfortable than the other places they stuck needles in my arm. I still have not heard back from the doctor about what they found, if that is a good or a bad thing I don’t know.

Up first we have lots of Ted Rogers after the break yesterday. Morning Links: Upcoming bike events, new sustainability webisode, and a driver beats a bike rider with a bat Yeah, why use a bat when you already have a weapon that you can use with impunity, your car?

Today’s first Ted post. Morning Links: Turns out running a red light is no big deal, and you really can ride with your kid to Dodger Stadium So, they have bike parking at Dodger Stadium?

And the less-happy second post today. Unidentified bike rider killed in Bloomington collision Condolences to the victim’s family and other loved ones.

And the third post today is less fatal but no less happy. Action Alert: Panorama City NC sneaks in agenda item to remove bike lanes on Chase Street at tonight’s meeting I don’t know about CA’s Open Records law, but here in TX you can’t add items to the agenda after it has been posted.

Still in CA, 15 years after the feds said e-assist bikes are bicycles, CA starts to say the same thing, maybe. AB-1096 Vehicles: electric bicycles This bill mostly adopts the Federal standard except the “Class 3” allows EU e-mopeds to be operated as bicycles with certain limitations.

A TN wreck is felt throughout the community. Teen killed in bike crash remembered by loved ones and Loved ones remember teenager killed in bike crash The thing I don’t understand about this wreck is the cyclist was reportedly riding at the right hand edge of the road going the opposite direction from the weapon vehicle. IOW riding with traffic on the opposite side of the road. The driver was reported to have “swerved” to the far side of the road just before he hit the cyclist. So, why haven’t they filed murder charges against the driver?

More on the MI driver getting away with murder. Prosecutor seeks just sentence in bike death Turns out the walking dead man killer drunk driver will only spend 6 months in county jail, not the full year we had been lead to believe earlier and most definitely not the 2-5 years of sentencing guidelines.

After that downer note, here’s something a little more upbeat. People passionate about pedaling discuss the city’s cycling future as part of NOLA Bike to Work Week

NYC still killing pedestrians and cyclists at pretty much the same rate as always. 35-Year-Old Mother Of Three Killed By Hit-And-Run Driver Near Her Brooklyn Home The victim was knocked out of her shoes, indicating a high-energy impact.

And yet another case of gross stupidity on the roads. Drunk Driver Allegedly Caught With Crack, Weed, And Child In The Car Felony Driving While Stupid…

Is your bike on this list? Then get in contact with me so I can understand how a QR can get caught in the brake disk and cause a fall. Trek Bicycles is recalling nearly 1 million bikes for a safety issue that resulted in one rider becoming paralyzed. and Nearly 1 Million Trek Bicycles Recalled After Riders Injured also Trek to recall nearly 1 million bicycles after injury reports I have been riding bikes with QR levers since the mid-’90s, and I have never had a QR lever even get anywhere near the hub, brake disk, or spokes. The only way a traditional QR lever could even get close would be if the QR was completely released and the wheel held on with the “lawyer lips” on the dropouts. So if you have one of these bikes share a picture of the QR in question so we can figure out how this is supposed to work.

Hasn’t this been tried out there at least once already? Ride Solutions ad campaign advocates awareness of bicycle commuters I could almost swear I remember a very similar campaign from a few years back from the same area.

Does anyone know what the deal is over at road.cc? I had three links queued up to post and I’m getting “access denied” on all 3 of them now. And a page just went up explaining what happened. Access denied

More bad infrastructure in the UK. Cyclist injured in crash at Oxford junction criticised by cycling group Just to clarify, it is the junction that was criticised, not the injured cyclist. The infrastructure is crap, the cyclist’s skills maybe yes maybe no.

I know bicycles are relatively low damage and non-lethal, but still DON’T HIT THE PEDESTRIANS! Woman scarred for life after cyclist knocked her over and raced off And don’t leave until the pedestrian has been tended to by emergency responders and details have been exchanged.

I thought there was no such thing as gun crime in the UK. Cyclist stabbed and shot dead in Peckham last night Not sure what triggered this, but the perps really screwed the pooch on this one. Shooting someone in the UK is not taken lightly.

Another link to the drunk driver that killed a cyclist while showing off his unregistered vehicle while driving without a license. ‘Show off’ driver Tykeran Hamilton jailed for 11 years for causing death of cyclist Alan Knight

Bike wrecks can be strange, the victim in this wreck died on the spot, but the bike was in good enough condition to be ridden away from the wreck. Fatal crash bike rolled out for road safety rally It’s almost as if someone decided they needed a prop to display to drum up awareness of bicycle safety.

Wounded Warrior ride in my state. Wounded Warriors bicycle into Keene Friday morning

And a similar ride in the DC area. April 24 26 Face Of America Bicycle Ride Brings Injured Veterans To Dc Region

Can you make people see you if they are not looking? HEADS UP! Then you need to use new “Spray On Meth”! Guaranteed to perk up even the most addled driver out there so they see you and your bike.

Is this ad sexist? If you have to ask, it probably is. Is this thing sexist? Introducing the “Bike Test”

OMG this is so Texas… Cartoon: Bikes and cars

I think I might be out of links. Yep, all done.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet

I’m beat, no links tonight

As you may have figured out, I’m not going to link to anything tonight after the ordeal I went through running around today. First of all was getting up way too early for a guy used to working until 3AM, a 0715 alarm to catch a 0828 bus then the trip to the ATM and the bike shop. All the parts are back in the house now. After the very quick and easy exchange to get the bike parts I stopped of at a C-store to grab a drink to go with the lunch I had to eat on the run, between trains and busses. I had lunch at a normal lunch time, just before noon, than caught the bus that took me to about a mile away from my destination. I walked that mile with no sidewalks and lots of puddles left over from the rain the night before, then spent about an hour filling out paperwork and paying co-pays.

Then the real fun began, as their MRI machine is so loud that they give you earplugs for it. Between the loud noises and the shifting magnetic field I had a bad case of vertigo inside the chamber which made my strategy of remaining completely still by way of meditation tricky. There was some kind of pump that made a “shoop, shoop” noise in the background that I could hear over the MRI machine and through my earplugs that I used as my meditation focus, and thanks to all the training on meditation I have been doing the past few years I was able to remain completely still inside the tunnel.

Then the pain began as I had to have an MRI contrast agent injected to make my blood vessels stand out better so the doctor could determine how vascular this particular lump is. This is important to determine if this is some kind of slow-growing cancer, or just another lipoma. Well the tech tried to use my right arm, the one with the rolling veins and I ended up feeling like a pincushion as he repeatedly stabbed at vein after vein, until he finally got a good one in the back of my hand. Then he injected that contrasting agent. You know they really should think about getting that stuff somewhat close to body temperature, that expression “felt like ice in my veins” was literally true today. Then I got to spend more time meditating, this time trying to ignore how much my arm hurt along with all the noises and wanting to scratch my nose.

Another thing, for a long time after I got out of the MRI machine I had no sense of direction. Near as anyone has been able to tell I am part of that minority who have a magnetic sensory organ located inside the inner ear, which allows me to know which way is north fairly accurately. That won’t be known for sure until they do the autopsy after I die, but given how dizzy having my head inside an MRI machine made me I think they will probably find it.

Finally they got their pictures, and I will hear back from the doctor shortly and find out when and where the lump is going to be removed from my neck, and I will be able to put my helmet on and ride any bike I want from the garage.

PSA, Opus

A slow day, and the Feed

Well there aren’t many links in the Feed today, and there wasn’t much mail in the box at the end of the walk either, just one piece of junk mail advertising cheap orthodontia (been there, done that, lost my teeth in a car wreck). Aside from that it has been dead today. Now tomorrow is another can of worms. Tomorrow I get to go the Plano Cycle and get the repair parts for Blue, and go to the medical imaging center that is a 2 mile round trip walk from the nearest bus stop to get an MRI of the lump in my neck to find out what is making the rest of my neck sore. That’s going to be a lot of walking, both for the bike parts and for the trip for the MRI. That means I will have to get up very early to make the trip to Plano and then walk to the MRI center that afternoon. That means probably carrying or getting my lunch because I’m going to be gone pretty much all day long. WHEEEE!

Up first is Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: LAPD cop charged in beating of bike rider, Biking While Black in FL, and Facebook bike drama

And a Daily Ted Extra. Breaking news: Guilty plea in case of fallen OC cyclist Joseph Robinson This is a sea change in sentencing. In the years I have been doing this blog (since 2006 in all the various service providers) I have seen similar wrecks go from probation or time served to the more than 11 years before eligible for parole of today’s link. Some judges are treating killing a cyclist like we were actual human beings… More O.C. woman admits to killing cyclist while driving high on meth

Portland cyclists are feeling used. Comment of the Week: When ‘bike culture’ bites back When some pol wants a photo-op to show how environmentally conscious they are they go to someplace with lots of bikes because the infrastructure had been decently kinda good at that location for a few years and cyclists use it, but when it comes time to repair or expand infrastructure there’s never any money. Then the get banned from MTB trails that were built by cyclists with their own money and sweat equity.

Just how dirty is the air where you have to ride? Wearable Sensors Will Measure How Much Air Pollution City Cyclists Inhale One trick is to stay below the level of exertion that requires heavy breathing when you can’t avoid riding with cars. Beyond that there are filter masks that make breathing slightly harder and much cleaner.

Not your “normal” road hazard. For the record: Caller said dog bites woman riding bike There is an annoying invisible ad that pops up when you click around that headline, just warning you. Oh, this is a blotter article, you have to scroll down for the dog bite.

A Sidewalk Salmon says to ride defensively. Bike defensively in Anchorage, for your life depends on it A Sidewalk Salmon wants to give advice on riding defensively, but is not going to give up riding salmon on the sidewalk. O. . . . K . . . .

A little Lifestyle from North of the Border. Truro resident to cycle Europe in support of veterans Now if I could just place which province Truro is in… Canadian Geography was so very long ago.

Infrastructure from the Great White North. Vélo Québec sounds alarm over spate of serious cycling accidents

A little UK infrastructure as the heat rises against a city council that vetoed improving an intersection that later killed two cyclists exactly as predicted it would without the improvements. Westminster Council criticised for “mind boggling” road casualty figures after die in for second cyclist killed on its streets this year The junction was redesigned for free by experts in the field back in 2013 since construction money was available to do the job, but the money (and the plans) was rejected by the council. So there was no benefit in rejecting the rebuild for anyone except drivers who continued to drive as they did before.

Is this what it takes to get a seriously stiff sentence in Jolly Olde? Hit & run driver who killed Gloucester cyclist jailed for 11 years after last-minute guilty plea Eleven years when you count the drugs charge that got “stacked” as they say. More Gloucester man jailed over hit-and-run cyclist death

And I’m out of links. There will be an intermission of a sorts tomorrow where I may or may not put up a post. I will be spending all day running around on busses and trains and walking, will probably be in some pain when I get back, possibly severe pain as my lifted shoe will not be ready until Saturday so my back will be hurting after walking almost 4 miles round trip(s). If I don’t hurt too bad I will do a post. If you don’t read anything that means I went to bed after taking a pain pill 😥

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet

You could be costing me money, and the Feed

I have a situation that the blog service provider shares advertising revenue with me when I get enough people reading my blog on a daily basis. The problem is you have to read my blog AT my blog, not in your e-mail, or via your FB app, or RSS feed reader. I have enough subscribers to make some money if you read and click on my blog, but I don’t get a penny if you read someplace else. Love you all, but I can’t emphasise enough that I only get paid for your eyeballs when those eyeballs are at the same URL as this blog is originally published. And now back to our regularly scheduled nonsense and infrastructure news (if there is difference I’ll let you know 😉 )

Up first, I seem to always be near really great things in my life, and I did it again. This is about something that is a short ride on DART away from me. How One Weekend in Dallas Sparked a Movement for Urban Change This was another “I was there” situation for me. I was surprised at how fast some of these installations went from “demonstration” to “permanent”. And now the rest of the world is learning about it.

An exceptional edition of Our Daily Ted. Hundreds turn out in Hollywood for Sunday’s Finish the Ride Lotsa pictures there, Ted.

While we are talking about CA, here’s an article that treats death by motor vehicle as a public health issue. Public Health Menace Grows There were more cyclists killed in just one city last year than people died of Ebola in the US. And which one gets more attention?

And it looks like we have dodged a bullet this time. California mandatory helmet law set back following intensive lobbying from pro-cycling campaigners We are going to have to be careful on this one, it already has a comeback scheduled.

And FL does it again, a driver seriously injures a cyclist on the sidewalk without ever actually hitting the cyclist. Driver, cyclist hospitalized after car strikes pole in NW Miami-Dade So basically the cyclist was collateral damage to the other wreck as damaged infrastructure falls onto the sidewalk. And much like a pinball wreck I have no idea how you avoid getting hit by a chunk of infrastructure dislodged by a speeding driver running into it.

Two links that seem to encourage Stockholm Syndrome for vulnerable road users, first from NOLA. How New Orleans drivers and cyclists can move beyond ‘us v. them’ Look at the difference in the two sets of stories related, cyclists are assaulted, threatened, and nearly killed; drivers are annoyed by cyclist behavior that does not actually cause any harm. Even where cyclists break traffic laws, they are the only ones harmed. But cyclists have to “understand” drivers feelings?

And in this link about NYC. Finding Vision Zero Not taking an “Us vs Them” mentality when Us are dying at the hands of Them strikes me as an “Odd Thing” to do.

And while we are in NYC anyway, here are a few more links about the city. Driving a bus in a crowded city must be super easy. Video: NYC Bus Operator Keeps Busy By Reading While Driving Hey, it’s just a multi-ton killing machine surrounded by squishy pedestrians, no need to pay all that much attention to what you’re doing.

I wonder if this was the same driver caught in the video before they pulled him off the bus. Bus Driver Runs Man Over In The Bronx, No Criminality Suspected Driver hits person standing at bus stop as he was pulling out, was that a passenger who got left behind and was trying to get the bus to stop and let him on?

A memorial for all the pedestrians and cyclists killed in NYC last year. 10th Annual Ghost Bike Ride To Honor Pedestrians And Cyclists Killed Last Year and Photos: NYers Gather At “Ghost Bikes” To Demand Safer Streets And people still don’t understand the biggest cause of death in the city is the motor vehicle. More Ghost ride honors killed cyclists, pedestrians

And part of the memorial weekend was posting silhouettes for every person killed by motor vehicle violence in the city last year. While they were being put up the people doing the installation were almost part of next year’s installation. Tractor Trailer Crashes Into Memorial For Traffic Fatalities This is just so, not ironic, there’s a better word, because this is not irony. Irony would be getting killed by a person riding a bicycle, this is more of another instance of the city not being the place for a huge truck.

More on why it is so hard to keep drivers from killing. Man gets probation for Harlem hit-and-run death of cyclist PROBATION! For killing a person and leaving him to die in the streets. TANJ!

The cyclist injured by another cyclist riding a wheelie through a red light will get some money from the wheelie cyclist. Injured tandem cyclist to be compensated by Gullane teenager This is part of the criminal proceedings, so the kid will pay, or else…

Before and after a UK safety protest. Vigil planned for dead cyclist and after PICTURES: Stop Killing Cyclists vigil for rider killed at Lambeth Bridge The pictures pretty much explain everything…

And why they did it… Building industry ‘must help stop slaughter of cyclists under HGVs’ One contractor is responsible for 3 recent deaths, leading to protests in the streets. All but one fatality in London this year have been the result of collision with an HGV, protests in the streets. If only protests in the streets did any good.

Another wounded vet ride, this one somewhat close to WoaB World HQ in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell. Injured vets prepare for ‘Ride 2 Recovery’

Remembering the first person to ride a bicycle around the world. Happy Thomas Stevens Day!

And I’m out of links, go ride a bike!

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet