I have sorta recovered, and I don’t stink anymore, and the Feed

Yesterday’s gig to repair an adult tricycle damaged in transit was lots bigger than what I posted in the haze of exhaustion and body funk I came home with. There were 2 wheels that needed truing that I couldn’t put on the truing jig because they didn’t have axles after removing them from the back of the trike, so I had to do the best I could on the trike, there was a persistent noise from one side that would not go away no matter what I did, that I traced down to the outer bearing on the left side (I think it no longer has any lubricant in it but I can’t get to it without taking it to a shop with more tools than I have). There is also an intermittent banging from the drum brake on the drive side wheel that nothing I do will make go away for more than a block or two, but goes away on its own after a mile or so. I think that is the brake drum hitting the brake band, because I don’t see any other sign of contact in the brake. And of course there was the dented fender that had to be repaired without damaging the powdercoat because the entire trike would have to be repainted it match the color if I damaged the coating enough to require a re-paint. That meant the dent could only be mostly taken out because there was nothing I could do to shrink the metal that was stretched in the original incident. As I posted yesterday the normal way to do that is to apply heat to a dull cherry color, then hammer and dolly smooth and quench to complete the shrinking process. I was just lucky that the back of my extra-large Crescent™ wrench was the right contour and had sufficient mass to work out that dent leaving minimal wrinkles behind.

Today we are having beans and rice, which means I’m cooking dinner. I so enjoy this particular vegan entrée that I taught myself how to cook it because nobody else would make it. I don’t know why, it’s tasty, completely nutritious (you could live on it and some leafy greens indefinitely) and aside from being time-consuming to make is not hard to cook (I mean I’m making it, how hard could it be?). People who eat it and don’t have to be nice to me say they like it, so why is it that I’m the only one making it? I guess that is just one of those mysteries. I know I’m going to get lots of chances to eat beans and rice when Mrs. the Poet goes to see her relatives in Upstate NY without me this year…

Up first is a link to the Wales edition of the World Naked Bike Ride (WNBR). Naked cyclists were a shock on the street – but all in a good cause

The “Big Story” is the Oz sportscaster getting a gentle caress on the wrist for deliberately running down a cyclist during a road rage dispute. Mark Bosnich handed 12 month good behaviour bond after ‘clipping’ cyclist’s back wheel with his BMW in road rage collision also Premier League – Mark Bosnich escapes conviction for running down cyclist in his BMW I mean really, what amounts to deferred adjudication for an assault with a deadly weapon, with injury? TANJ!

A little happy infrastructure news from NYC as a 167 YO bridge is reopened to pedestrian and bicycle traffic. Photos: Hurrah, The High Bridge Reopens After 45 Years I’m glad it wasn’t torn down during the time it was unused, because any street space in NYC that isn’t overrun with cars is a blessing, a bridge triply so.

Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: Completing deadly Rosemead Blvd; Times seeks video of police shooting in Gardena bike theft

And Part numero dos. Breaking news: no sentencing in Eric Billings case today; driver found with narcotic drug behind bars

And also in L.A. Driver Sought in Hit-and-Run Crash That Killed Cyclist in South L.A.

A little good bike news from the city next to WoaB. Richardson Texas Gets Recognized As A Bronze Bicycle Friendly Community The Beautiful Suburbs of Hell are not even on the list for “Nice Try”.

Down the road a day’s ride from WoaB. Teen cyclist killed after colliding with car in East Austin The road is described as “narrow” yet the cyclist was blamed for “swerving” in front of the weapon vehicle. You can’t have both, either the road is narrow and the cyclist controls the full width of the lane, or it’s more than 14 feet wide and there is (barely) room to pass with 3 feet of clearance.

Next state over a pedestrian pushing a broken bicycle is hit at the side of the road. LSU professor, struck and killed while walking her broken bicycle, described as a distinguished, beloved faculty member

And I can’t tell if this person is trying to get more people on bikes, or warn those already riding to stop. Letter: Cyclists encouraged to be safe

One of the problems (as always) is infrastructure that varies in quality from crap to lethal. Cyclists urge drivers to share the road

Another academic is killed riding a bike, this one in KS. Washburn grad: Glenda Taylor was ‘a champion of students’ and Area art, academic community, cyclists mourn fatal accident

Many questions but few answers for the survivors of an AL hit-and-run victim. Family of woman killed while riding bicycle looking for answers And Stoopid comments about why she got hit.

UK cyclists are pretty steamed about the (lack of) quality in their infrastructure. ‘Die-in’ staged for cyclist killed in Camberwell and Cyclists hold ‘die-in’ vigil for Esther Hartsilver after fatal crash in Camberwell That was a very loud, very eloquent protest with very few words used.

Not every driver in the UK is a homicidal maniac all the time. Injured cyclist thanks Good Samaritan who came to his aid in Trowbridge Most are not (homicidal maniacs) som are for a small amount of time, and a tiny minority are full-on raving batshit crazy 24/7. The one that stopped to help was in the majority that is the first category.

And someone wrote a book about bicycle couriers in today’s London. On Your Bike Life expectancy slightly better than a soldier in a war zone, with crappy pay that sometimes gets stolen by the company you work for to pay the “rent” on required equipment.

It’s a good bet that the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell will never see any of this money. 7 Cities Get $375,000 to Work on Bike-Share Equity In order to study bike share, one must have a bike share to study.

Update on a WI bike wreck. Bicyclists killed in crash were longtime Northwestern Mutual employees What got left out was they were also extremely experienced and safe cyclists, but they still got killed.

Update on a MA bike wreck, as the victim gets buried. More than 1,000 mourn Mansfield teen killed in bike crash

Last link, a FL media outlet asks if cycling over the age of 70 was worth the risks. Biking over 70: Do the rewards outweigh the risks? Well if you live outside of the most deadliest state in the US to ride a bike (and also walk) maybe…

And I’m (finally) out of links. This has been a terribly long day.

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