Mrs. the Poet is gone to NY to meddle visit with her family while I stay here in TX and keep the roommates from killing each other, or at least be on hand to hide the bodies if they do. So far everybody has fought with everybody else (except me) at least once, and in some cases they are on their second or third go-around. I really need to win the lottery so I can give them all a nice check or bag of $$, pat them on the head and wave bye-bye. Individually I manage to not do too badly interacting with them, but the homophobe just is not physically capable of interacting with either of the two transgenders without eventually going into blasphemy mode, and the transgenders’ sexual orientations are changing as they transition, so their relationship is getting a bit rocky as well. I can generally get along with just about anybody, but 2 of the 3 are starting to get on my nerves, and one got on my nerves a long time ago.
In better news I got some more parts for the Sprint T yesterday after I had already put the post to bed, a steering wheel and the brackets that attach the windshield frame to the body of the car.
The silver color of the wheel is because it is clear anodized aluminum at about 1/3 the weight of the same size steel wheel, and the other 2 parts are made from cast stainless steel, because that was the only metal that part was offered in. The vertical windshield posts are only offered in cast brass with or without chrome plating, so it’s not like there was any lighter alternative. And as I pointed out in an earlier post, the 30° layback of the posts I bought combined with windwings will lead to a relatively draft-free cockpit.
Up first, an OR rider discovers that sometimes the trees are your allies, and sometimes they are your enemies. Falling tree hits car, woman riding bike in downtown Portland More Cyclist struck by falling tree in downtown Portland From looking at the pictures, and not being any kind of horticulturist or anything but a half-trained structural engineer, it looks like something killed the root structure of the tree, because there is almost nothing attached to the tree below ground level.
Infrastructure! news from NYC. NYPD: 1,236 Pedestrians and Cyclists Injured, 14 Killed in September Vision Zero, or zero vision? That’s 13 dead pedestrians and one cyclist in just one average month…
Still in NYC… Treyger’s Texting-and-Biking Bill — a Big Distraction From Vision Zero Read the previous paragraph and see how many cyclists killed or injured someone while using a cell phone.
Some people can’t understand riding a bicycle in anything less than perfect weather, hence this drivel. Bike lanes in winter a waste of space Imagine banning cars in the winter because they take up too much space and people don’t know how to drive.
Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: SaMo approves bike share, SMPD targets bike & ped safety, and a blast from the BikinginLA past good links again today.
Why ride alone? Why cycle alone, when you can do it together? Well aside from the fact that I’m as likely to see another cyclist here in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell going the same direction as I am as I am to see Bigfoot again (and he or she will probably be on a bicycle going the other direction).
Oz weighs in on the infrastructure question. Cycling injuries prompt calls for councils to boost road safety When an area with as small a population as NSW has an average of one cyclist hit hard enough to go to one particular hospital every other day on average, then you have an infrastructure problem. And as pointed out in the article, they have no real way of determining the safety of the built environment other than tracking ER admissions.
A bit of LifeStyle from PA. Memorial ride to honor bicycle enthusiast who was killed in hit-and-run And yes I know my feed is still rather heavy on the guts-and-gore I had with the old Feed, plus it takes way longer to filter out the chaff. But it still has less dead and injured cyclists than the old Feed.
A local UK bike ride raises money for bicycle charities after raising lots of money for the survivors of a drunk driver the first time. Charity bike ride in memory of Sheffield cyclist killed by drink driver set to return Isn’t that what I just said?
Last link, I’m not sure that this is a bicycle despite what the caption says. Watch this rocket-powered bike outrun a Ferrari F430 Scuderia Well it’s from Fox, and the bike does appear to have working pedals (and brakes!)
And that’s all the stuff that didn’t raise my BP or anything.
Billed @€0.02, Opus the unkillable badass Poet
Witch on a Bicycle 