Did the year's first century yesterday.  102 miles, 7 hrs 15 min ride time, which means I'm real thirsty. 

The trashy logic of a power mad government:

“Berkeley Heights township residents should report to police if people are scavenging though their garbage during the annual spring cleanup this year,” begins the front page article in the May 9, 2012 Independent Press, a local paper (“Cleanup ban on scavenging”).

Actually, the only thing illegal might be Mayor Bruno’s insistence that citizens be ticketed for not breaking the law.

It has long been accepted that if someone puts an item curbside for disposal, it is open to any citizen who sees it and takes it.

And, after all, isn't it common sense that if someone can use an item, whether it's a table or a television, that it's better to have someone use it and get use out of it, than have it end up in the garbage? 

But the town governemnt seems to lack common sense.  They, through the person of a police Lt. Fortunado, claim “scavengers must have permission from the township to legally pick scraps from garbage piles, he said” – according to the article.

What?  You need permission to find something on the roadside?

Since when?

After all, if a citizen is walking down the street and finds his neighbor throwing out a television set, livingroom couch, or a bicycle, it is between him and his neighbor if he takes it.  His neighbor decided to throw it away.  It is up to him if he decides to take it.

Of would the government have us believe that if you are walking down the street and find a discarded object you must get the government’s permission to pick it up?  In what sort of bizarre, third-world discount dictatorship is the Mayor of Berkeley Heights living, where a citizen must get government’s permission to find something on the ground?  Hugo Chavez would be proud of him.

The article continues, with mayor Bruno arguing that :”allowing scavengers to pick garbage is a safety issue, Bruno said, and it is imperative for residents to report offenders”. Continuing this bizarre theme, as if someone saving a usable item from going into a landfill hurts anyone, the article said “Families should feel safe in Berkeley Heights and the pickers compromise that safety, Bruno said.”

Has anyone ever been hurt because joe citizen found a stereo by the side of the road and took it home?  Whose family has this harmed?  Families in Berkeley Heights should indeed feel safe, but it should be hard for them to do so when the Mayor of the town wants to punish people for doing things that do not hurt anyone or break any laws.  Any safety risk here comes from abusive government seeking power. And, in actuality, if the Mayor was so concerned about safety, he could detail officers to deal with numerous things in town that occur daily and are a menace.  As a cyclist and driver I am constantly endangered by people cutting me off, running stopsigns or red lights, or talking on the phone, all things that are against the law and actually pose a danger and could kill someone.  But the Mayor cannot be bothered to make an issue of these things.  Instead he wants to ticket some poor schmoe who saves an easy chair or a lawnmower from becoming landfill.  Why not instead ticket cars illegally parked in the traffic lane of the shopping center downtown, where the narrow the lane dangerously and pose a hazard to vehicular road users as well as crossing pedestrians, who have a hard time seeing or being seen around them?  Or ticket people who go in the exit (mostly folks in Mercedes-Benz who cannot pay attention)?  Perhaps also they could attempt some effort at minimum road maintenance, so no one is involved in a needless accident on the way home.  Just one location, the intersection of Snyder and Ferndale, is riddled with potholes, crumbling substandard patching, and a pile of gravel that would fill a large backpack!

Instead, the Mayor claims that it is a risk to safety if you find someone throwing out a usable item and take it home.  In a bizarre attempt to put fear into people who tied finding that free stereo by the roadside to the risk of burglaries: “Fortunado agreed out of town scavengers may present security concerns in town but said the majority of pickers are just looking for a quick buck. ‘It’s something to be concerned about.  We have had an increase in burglaries this year, but in general the majority of it is people looking to pick up some extra stuff.’”

Of course it is.  Most people who might pass through looking to see if there is anything they can use being discarded are not robbers.  But having admitted this, the point is the damage, in terms of the connection, has been done; though the policeman’s statement denied the risk, he raised the concern of it, which was obviously his intent.  But why should there be any such connection?  Why would one have anything to do with the other?  One gathers the attempted connection is the fact that is people are driving through a street to find free stuff maybe a burglar could drive through the street too.  But this ignores that a burglar could drive through the street any time anyway, and that if the town is really concerned about burglars, they should spend less time trying to criminalize law abiding citizens for finding free stuff and more time cracking down on burglars.

One is hard pressed to find out why the Mayor wishes to criminalize people who are simply giving new life to something old.  I myself got a couch that was very comfortable – for free.  I got several bikes, one of which was a regular ride for years.  I even found a working lawnmower, and yes, an old style transistor radio, which is currently downstairs on my workbench.  All of these things would have simply gone into a dump or landfill somewhere.  It is sad that the government would rather see them in a landfill than see someone get use out of them.  It is amazing that in a day and age where the government is pushing all kinds of environmentalist and green agendas – many of which are simply leftist propaganda – this most basic act of recycling by citizens is being denounced. 

Perhaps the answer is there for all to see.  Early on in the article, Mayor Bruno argues  -- before digressing to talk hysterically of “safety” – that the reason he doesn’t want people “scavenging’ is that “Mayor Bruno says the haulers have ‘first right’ to any materials brought out to the curb – including scrap metal.”

So it isn’t about safety after all, it’s about the greed of contractors.  Except, there is no legal precedent saying that anyone has any claim on discarded items once they are discarded – save for whoever find them first.

The fact is, at the end of the day, it is better if someone can listen to that old radio, ride that discarded bicycle, or use that old lawnmower to mow a lawn, than have it be melted down for scrap so some contractor can profit.   Or, just as bad, end up in a landfill.

I saw the backwards fork and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.  I knew it wasn’t just that the handlebars were turned, because the handlebar with its brake levers and shifters was right there, facing front.  But from the backside of the fork the brake calipers were staring at me.

Some bikes have been designed with odd brake locations.  This can include the brake on the back of the fork.  I have never seen an entry level mountain bike like that though, and not with standard “v-brakes”.

The bike was in an ad on craigslist, described as “Brand new Schwinn mountain bike, straight out of the box.” 

Yes, and straight into an accident, by the looks of it.  Really, the fork on *backwards*?

I am not entirely sure, but this is probably the reason bike shops aren’t allowed to sell bikes in boxes – though department stores are.  The reason I believe goes back to this sort of thing – people not putting the bikes together right, so they get hurt.  The result was a rule that bikes have to be sold assembled.  The department stores, however, many of whom are big chain stores and wield more clout than a local independent bicycle shop, got themselves exempt from the rule that was largely intended to deal with a problem the department stores created.

Which brings to mind another thing; the bike question is likely not a “name brand” bike, but a department store product.  They look alike at a glance, until you look close – except for the backwards fork.   Yet the gentleman in the ad never said that it was a department store bike.  He said it was “Brand new Schwinn mountain bike, straight out of the box.”

Given the vast difference in the quality of manufacture, parts spec, durability of said parts, etc., this is a concern.  Some “mountain bikes” from department stores even come with stickers warning not to ride them offroad.  Well then why else would they be aggressively styled with knobby tires and shocks?  The answer is obvious, they are marketed to the unsuspecting, who will then hurt themselves, or could.  Everything about the bike itself says it’s for offroad riding.  It is, after all, a “mountain bike.”  But then there’s that tiny sticker saying not for offroad use.  Why?  They are covering themselves legally.  But the whole question is:  Why sell a mountain bike that can’t be ridden like a mountain bike, or at least contains a warning not to?  And how can they do it?  You’d think it would be tantamount to fraud.  Imagine a set of gold clubs – with a warning tag that said don’t use them to golf.  Fraud is putting it kindly.  Yes, it is a bicycle.  But not a well made one.  And that’s the thing.  To keep cost down, they have the bike made cheaper.  The result is it won’t stand up to hard offroad riding.

 Actually, many of them can’t handle even mild around town riding.  I got a department store bike years ago when I was in college and ended up putting to the test their durability.  I had used, but good quality, name-brand, “real” bikes for the road, and a “real” rigid mountainbike.  I wanted to try rear shocks and not spend a fortune. I was also curious if department store bikes were as bad as I heard.

I was surprised, but not totally shocked, when after a few weeks of riding, the then slim me broke the bike in half at the pivot when part of the mechanism cracked off.

I wasn’t riding if off four foot drops or down stairs or over gnarly singletrack in the woods.  I was riding home from the corner store after having a cup of coffee, and hopped a curb to dodge a truck making a left out of a driveway at me.  On a rigid mtb this should have probably been okay, if jarring.  Maybe even on a hardtail with front shocks.  But the department store full-sus bike broke in half!. 

If a bike shop sold you something like this, you’d go back and give them grief.  But for some strange reason, with the department store, this doesn’t happen.  One local shop I know if often tells the people who bring in poorly adjusted department store rides to take them back to where they got them.  Of course, the department store won’t service the bike, all they will do is either refund your money or exchange it for another of the same poorly built bike.  Or bike in a box, which you them assemble poorly yourself, with a backwards fork.   There may be many reasons for this. But the biggest one is the nature of the deal.  What you get at a department store is not the same as a bike shop.  We can start with the fact that a bike shop *is* a *bike* shop.  The department store, by comparison, handles all and sundry products and has no special training or regard for the bicycle section, either in terms of care devoted to helping the people chose the right bike or in terms of the knowledge and/or skill of the people who assemble the bikes.  Many do not have any particular knowledge of bicycle mechanical mechanisms, often they do not use the right tools, sometimes they even use power tools that damage or overtighten bolts.  This is no big deal to the department store, since they won’t be servicing the bike, or ever see it again.  But it is a big deal to the garage mechanic, or bike shop mechanic, who attempts to take the cranks off to, let’s say, work on the bottom bracket. And at the end of the day that’s the biggest difference between bike shops and department stores.  Some bike shops do crappy assembly too, but even they won’t sell bikes beyond a certain quality limit. No bike shop I ever heard of stocks $69.99 department store specials.  And there is a reason for that.  The bike shop doesn’t just want to sell you something and never see you again.

The department stores want your money and after that they don’t care what happens to you.  Contrast this with a good bike shop.  This is seen in how they treat the bike as merchandise and you as customer.  Although many such stores, the better ones, have begun putting bicycles in the sporting goods section, many still have them in the toy department, a location that should send a clear message of their priorities and the care taken.  But if they think the bicycle is a toy, it’s the only “toy” that can kill you if it breaks during use.  Depending on what goes and when, you could fall on the road and break your arm, fall and get hit by a car, or fall off your mountain bike  in the woods and stop a tree or boulder with your face.  Also, unlike other consumer products, from television sets to kids toys, a bicycle needs a lot of labor by the seller before it is ready for use by the consumer.  This labor must be skilled and the person doing it trained to do so in a skilled manor.   Or you get things like backwards forks.  And in this way the department stores are perhaps responsible even if they don’t assemble the bike as a floor model, but sell it boxed for the buyer to put together.  Most department stores don’t sell a lot of the proper tools needed to assemble or work on a bike, many of which are metric and will not be found readily in the average American joe’s toolbox.   So although they did not put the fork on backwards if the bike is “new out of the box”, the point is, they sold it to you knowing you probably didn’t have the proper tools or knowledge to assemble it correctly.

Which is why I get mad, or sad, when I see biker with backwards forks, or department stores sold to the unsuspecting public by owners who don’t identify them as what they are, namely substandard.  But for that matter, why aren’t the original owners – who bought the bike new – aware of this?  Lack of knowledge – and to some degree perspective.  Many Americans do a great deal more research before buying a car, washing machine, digital camera.  This last example is mirrored in the department stores, which have lavish electronic sections – and a friendly employee there to ask you how they can help you and explain the technology, and help you choose what to get and how to use it.

 It is telling, then, that a department store spends more time assisting and explaining to the customer the operation of a camera than a bicycle upon which they will be riding on the street alongside a bus?  But that’s just it, the customer has the same attitude.  If he didn’t, he’d do research, learn characteristics and features, durability, etc. – and  wouldn’t shop there.  He’d choose a bike shop bike – even a used one.  A fifteen year old Schwinn originally sold at a bike shop is probably going to last longer than a “Schwinn” sold at a department store.  And a new bike, sold at a shop that does decent assembly, should last even longer.

Again, the department store taken your money and gives you a bike that will break before you wear out the brake pads, providing no service and a sketchy, even dangerous, product.  Contrast this with a decent bicycle shop.  A good bike shop not only wants to make the sale, but wants you to come back, later, for repairs, replacement or upgrade parts, etc.  With the good bicycle shop, you have a relationship, as a consumer.  With the department store, you just have a sale.

It is clear which is better for the bicycle, bicycling in general, and, ultimately, the world.  And it isn’t bicycles with the works put on backwards!

Although I mostly ride on the road, I sometimes take a mountainbike offroad.  Lately I've been riding in Lewis-Morris park near Mendham, NJ.  The trails there are legall open to bicyclists, hikers, even horses.

I saw horses there once, but not up close; they turned off the trail.  Yesterday I say one other biker; he was ascending a winding trail so I pulled over to let him by.  Today I literally saw no one. I had the woods to myself.

Although Lewis-Morris hasn't been closed to offroad biking by the ignorant, I saw a few things today that made me think of trails that have, and hopefully, should make mountain bike opponents stop and think before they try to close any more trails to bicyclists, if they are honest with themselves.

The first observation was, though more like damp from the last rain (the park drains well) there were some muddy spots.  I avoided them.  I saw that many others had, some didn't.  However, I didn't see huge chunks taken out of the trail by bike tires.  Tire tracks, yes, in the softer dirt, but no huge damage.  The irony is that "trail erosion" by cyclists is one of the excuses often used to close mountainbike trails.

There is some wear over time, there has to be, but more noticeable is the wear inflicted by horses.

Horses? Yes.  You see, the horse is fitted with a metal "shoe" on its hoof.  This tears up trails a lot worse than a soft rubber bike tire.  Also, the horse weighs much more, so not only do you have a sharper contact point, you have more weight on it.  Horse footprints can appear as gouge marks, and any medium size rocks near the hoofprints are like as not to be displaced.  This, 1, leaves a hole, though usually not big enough to sink a tire or foot into, but rainwater could enlarge it.... and, 2, it leaves a loose rock in the trail, often where a cyclist will hit it.  It is one thing if these were small stones, but when they are the size of baseballs or bigger it becomes dangerous.  No one wants to ride over a large or medium size rock and have it move.

Today, I saw hoofprints where i saw rocks knocked out of the trail and left loose.  I do not think it's a coincidence.  On the other hand, i saw tire tracks, but no sign of biycles savaging the trail.  They certainly wearen't taking gouges out of it.

So, myth no. 1: Mountainbikers shred trails and erode them to ruin.  False.

Second, is the waste products.  I nearly hit horse droppings a couple times, not fun.  Also a large fresh one left by a dog in the middle of a downhill section of rocky trail.  Picture swerving to avoid the dogpoop at the last minute and piling your bike into a tree on the side and you give a whole new meanign to the phrase "in deep s**t." 

I've never been much of a horse person, I think they're neat, in a way, and real pretty in the distance, like when riding my roadbike past farms, but I don't particularly have strong feelings for or about horses.  When I do seldom meet one, I'm impressed, they'e huge up close, and mostly very gentle. But it's not like dogs; I love dogs.

 However, when mountainbiking I am perfectly willing to share with the horse and its rider and not unduly disturb either.  This is why the day I saw those two horse riders coming towards me, I pulled over to the side, so I wouldn't startled them.  It turned out they turned off a side trail before they got to me, but the point is, I have no trouble sharing the trail with horses.  Similarly, with hikers.  I do not mind. My second or third day in the park I even gave one hiker my spare map because he was lost!  And I am just as willing to share the park with hikers who have their dogs with them as digless hikers.  Again, I like dogs.  I think they're awesome.

But I don't think it's awesome to hit a huge pile of dog excrement while riding.  I don't know about you, but I have to touch my tires.  You know, the things that will run through your dog's excrement if it's left on the trail.  I have to touch them if clearing a leaf that gets stuck in the brake bridge, changing a flat, removing a wheel to adjust some other mechanical issue, or simply when loading the bike back in my car to leave the park.   So my question to you, dog walker, is why don't you consider that?  Or you, Mr. horse rider? I mean, how would you like it if a cyclist came and went to the bathroom on your car? 

Unlike horses or dogs, cyclists are people, so that's not as likely.  But the point is, the dog walker and the horse rider are human, right?  Why not restrain their anuimals from s**tting all over the trail?  Don't they know other people are going to use it? Tellingly, when the opponents of cycling come to try and close a particular trail, it's the cyclists, who don't take gouges out of the trail or go to the toilet in the middle of it, who are denounced and whom people want to exclude.  Again, one must ask: Why? It's not like I'm hurting anyone.

So there's the second argument against the people who want to exclude mountainbikers.  Hey, maybe you don't like bikes.  But at least we don't go to the bathroom right in the middle of the trail!

Have you ever searched want ads, craigslist, ebay, etcetera, for bicycle related items?  Whether you're looking for whole bikes, frames, wheels, cycling caps, whatever, it's out there.  There is a whole world of items literally waiting for you to stumble onto them.

But stumble is what the somewhat educated cyclist has to do.  He knows, for example, the basics fo the sport; the types of bikes; the different materials of frame construction and styles.  He also knows a few big names and particular models produced by them; PX-10. Paramount. Super Course.

Okay, so what happens when a misnomer enters the fray?  That's the joke.

Take today.  I saw an ad for a "Schwinn racer".  Assuming it wasn't a Varsity or Continental roadbike from the bike boom years, it could easily be soemthing really awesome (and even Varsities and Continentals can be real cool, they just aren't my thing.)

In this case, I saw "Schwinn racer" and was eagerly lookign forward to a picture of, perhaps, a vitnage track frame from the 1940's, or perhaps a Schwinn Paramount road racing bike.

Imagine my shock when an image of a 3 speed roadster leaped out at me.

The same happened with an ad saying "English racer".  I was expecting a Bob Jackson, maybe a vintage Raleigh roadie.  I was shocked -- shocked I tell you -- when an image of a Raleigh Sports roadster appeared.

Let's all use the right words for the right things and we'll all be happier.  These bikes aren't racers, they are not raced, have nothing to do with racing, and that's that.  To continue calling them such is ignorant, stupid, and misleading.  It confuses people who do know a little bit about bikes, and further screws with the heads of the novices just getting into the sport.

Don't get me wrong. I love old three speeds.  I don't currently own one but I have in the past and they are awesome.   But awesome or not, they are not racing bikes. 

No matter what the caption on your ad says.

___________

"AAA: Inadequate guardrails at NY site where 7 died," screams the headlines of a news article featured prominently on comcast's home page (http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-national/20120429/US.Highway.Plunge.NYC/?cid=hero_media). The news refers to a crash where an SUV, or sport utility vehicle -- what we used to call in this country a truck -- went off the road, fell into a ravine, and seven people in the family were killed.

The American Automobile Association says the guardrails at this section of the road were inadequate and blamed them for the crash.  So too, did Juan Gonzalez, the husband of the slain driver, Maria Gonzalez: "'He says it's very careless of the state to let that happen,' a relative said, translating Gonzalez's Spanish at a funeral home. "There's been several accidents before this. Accidents such as this, and they haven't done anything to prevent this."

Notice two things:

One, he blames the state for now keeping his wife from driving off a cliff, not his wife for driving off the cliff.  While they cauld always have had a taller wall, at some point you have to understand what operator error is.  And, as a road user, take responsibility for the fact you screwed up. This is harder of course when you are dead, and your grieving relatives are unlikely to just shrug and say, "oh, she make an error."  Of course they want someone to blame.  But at the end of the day, whether the guard rail or wall was 4 feet high or forty feet high, it was still the driver who went off the road.

Two, the husband said -- through a translator -- that the state hadn't done anything to try and make that section of the highway, which is older and narrow, safer.

Admittedly, the road probably needs widening; the "Bronx River Parkway  'lacks modern transportation engineering features,' said Robert Sinclair, a spokesman for the american Automobile Association."  The list of complaints is telling:  It is, to quote the news article's first paragraph, full of: "Narrow lanes, steep hills, tight turns, inadequate guardrails and no breakdwon lane."

Again, guardrails don't cause you to crash -- though they might have helped minimize the damage after impact, there is still the question of why the driver went off the road. We can argue why she went off the road - even careful people have accidents.  But we have a person in a large truck, who probably has had no commercial training for driving a truck, doing 68 in a 50mph zone, with six other people in the vehicle, from elderly relatives to a three year old.   It is quite possible she could not handle a truck on the narrow, steep, curvy road, at high speed.  It is quite possible she was distracted by her passengers.  A truck is wider than a car; peerhaos had she been driving a station wagon she would not have lost control and killed herself and six people.

Make no mistake, this case is a tragedy, and yes, a road buiilt int he 1920's is porobably in need of modernization.  But let's not forget the role the drier played here.  On the other hand, it is six lanes wide.  So why is it described as narrow?  Well they say the lanes are narrow not the road width as a total.  Perhaps also they mean there is no shoulder, another flaw specifically mentioned.

Ther article, in quoting the husband via a translater, says he accused the state of doing nothing to try and improve safety on the road.

The road may not have been widened or taller guardrails built, but there have been measures taken to mitigate danger by essentially warning drivers of road consitions.  Two of these measures are that the road had a 50 mph speed limit, and second, there was a sign "just before the accident site is a sign that warns of "limited sight distance".

 So whay didn't the driver's husband acknowledge these measures?  The lower speed limit, and the warning sign?  At least one, possibly both, were rendered ineffective by the driver herself, or her disregard; she was doing almost twenty miles over the posted speed limit, and given the fact that her husband needs a translater, one is left to wonder if she scould even read, or comprehend at traffic speed, the sign warning "limited sight distance"?.  This by the way, isn't to say we should put up road signs in languages other than english, from Urdu to Spanish; rather, the opposite.  It's to say that if you can't or won't read a warning sign, and crash, you have no one to blame but yourself for the crash. Likewise, if you are doing nearly 70 in a 50 mph zone, especially in a wide truck that doesn't handle as well as a regular car and might be more prone to flipping; some early SUV's had horrible centers of gravity; many still do. 

And keep in mind the risk of rollovers became known early on in the SUV's invasion of American roads not because it was the car companies' fault, but because people were driving these things like cars when they are really trucks!  Well if you drive a truck like a car and flip it whose fault is that?  But like the case of the seven dead people in the SUV in the Bronx, back when SUV's first hit the market, the rollover crashes were blamed on the carmakers rather than the drivers who didn't know how to drive the vehicles, or refused to learn and respect their nature, what Aristotle called the law of identity: A is A.  A thing has a definite nature and is defined by it.  To deal with or relate to that thing effectively, you must recognize that nature.  A truck will not handle like a sports car.  A winding road is not the place to speed. And so on.

Many speed limits are artificially low, related more to revenue gathering by ticket hungry police patrols than actual road safety.  The speed limit on a road should be based on the road itself, its features, or conditions. So yes, simply the fact that they were "speeding" doesn't necessarily make it unsafe, per se.  It makes it illegal, but not necessarily unsafe.  As a rule, speeding is usually both, but in some cases is clearly is not.  In this case, however, it was unsafe enough to lead to the deaths of seven people!

A winding road with sharp turns and steep drop offs, which is described as having narrow lanes, is probably the best example of a road that *should* have a lower speed limit.

In other words, part of the driver's responsibility to himself and others is not just to read and comprehend the signs, and obey the rules, but to also be able to judge when road conditons mean he or she needs to be extra sharp and aware of potential dangers.  A harrow lane, the fact that one is driving an SUV, which is bigger than the narrower cars the lanes were designed for, a surve in the road, a hill, a drop off, a 50 mph speed limit sign, a sign warning "limited sight distance" -- all of these things by themselves might by regarded as less than cause for alarm.  The speed limit could be lower because it's a speed trap.  Or they forgot to raise it in 1946.  Or whatever.  Etc., etcetera.  But combine these things together and the average competant road user should be able to say, the road is telling me to be careful.  The low speed limit sign on a winding road with a sign warning of limited sight distance isn't the same as the one in a speed trap, this one is here for a reason -- there's physical danger of losing control if I go too fast, which is also the same justification for the signs. 

In other words, the driver's job is to integrate all the messages they get from the world around them; if they fail to do this the fault is not someoen else's.  if you are going 20 miles per hour over the speed limit on a road with a sign warning of limited sightlines over dangerous curves, and crash, well, the first thing to ask is why were you speeding on a street with a warning signs for limited sight around dangerous curves?  Not, oh, the road is old so it's the government's fault for not keeping you from driving off a cliff by building a bigger wall.   Many roads in the US could stand improvements, and some of those improvements are urgently needed, either because the roads are indeed old, or because the improvements are needed to correct design errors that create hazards.  But at the end of the day, look, the road might have been capable of being improved.   But hey, it can't have been that dangerous if you felt comfortable doing nearly 70 in a 50mph zone.  And, while doing that, if you drive off a cliff, don;'t blame someone else!

The messages it's the driver's job to process fromt he world around him are not just road conditions itself, but other road users, which on a highway are other motor vehicle operators, but on a regular road could also include pedestrains, people crossing the sreet, non motorized vehicles like bicycles, and automobiles parking, stopping, starting, etc, which you do not see on a highway.  Thus a highway, in the modern sense, should be easier to traverse safely than a downtown street or country road.  Why? Yes, you are in greater danger of harm if you actually do crash, since you are usually going faster on a highway.  However, unlike a regular street, the highway has fewer variables; nobody curbside parking, walking their dog, bicycling, makign a left turn.  All there is on a highway are other motor vehicles, traveling in a straight line -- and if it's a divided highway they are all going in the same direction, at least on your side of the divider.

Since the lack of other variables on the highway should make it easier to focus on the conditon of the road, such as a dangerous curve coming up, since your attention isn't as distracted by varying traffic patterns around you, when one loses control and just drives over a 4-foot wall and down a cliff, one can only conclude it was because the driver just wasn't paying attention.  Had the driver been paying attention, some combination of the hills, her big truck in a narrow lane, the curves of the road, the lower speed limit, or the warning sign for "limited sight distance" would have made her realize she had to slow down!

The husband says the state didn't do anything to keep his wife from driving off a cliff.  This is not true; they did plenty. They had a four foot guardrail, a lower speed limit, and a warning sign saying you couldn't see around the curves. <P>What should the government  have done?  Put bumpers along the side of the road like they do at a bowling alley when kids don't have the skill to keep from getting gutterballs?

Driving a vehicle on the road is dangerous.  And unlike a bicycle, the driver of a motor vehicle can easily kill others or even himself, in large quantities, which is why operators of motorized vehicles, unlike cyclists who have had a legal right to the road since the 1890s, have to be licensed and insured.  They are more dangerous. If a driver fails to consider this danger, it is his or her fault.

It is also the driver's fault if he/she fails to acknowledge how their vehicle handles and drives beyond it's limits, or that of their ability.  A behavior dangerous in one vehicle may be quite safe in the next, and vice versa; a sports car driven by a competant driver may take a sharp corner safely, while an SUV or truck driven by a distracted driver is liable to go off the road -- or over a cliff. 

No one knows if this woman was distracted per se but it is an even chance she could have been, and it is more than likely -- almost a certainty -- she had no training in driving a truck. Look, an SUV is not a small car, it is a truck, whether you call it that or not, and will nto handle like a normal car.  But so many people buy what are essentually trucks for their everyday personal vehicles without ever learning how to drive a truck, and then drive them like regular sedans. 

 A truck is more dangerous than a car, and just as the operator of a motor vehicle is required to get a license to use it on a public street, perhaps those buying SUVs or trucks should have to take some special drivign course so they know the vehicle's limits and advantaged and how to use it. For instance, they should take care on narrow lanes because it's wider, or around curves, at it could tip, being higher than a car.

And maybe that's all it was, at the end of the day; this woman was driving a truck like a family station wagon, with no real training on driving a truck.   And the sad thing is that this type of driving is actually a frighteningly common occurance - though going over a cliff may not be.  The fact is, less spectacular but still horrible crashes occur every day, due to the oldest cause in the book -- operator error.

What's frightening is when you go out on the road and see all the people in their SUV's, some of whom have the bumpers at head level to a normal car's driver, whio are chattering mindlessly on their cellular phone, talking to passengers, not looking where they are going.  Many don't use turn signals. Few stop at stopsigns.

In short, these people are driving just as carelessly in that big truck as they would in a tiny Volkswagen.  Except, unlike the Volkswagen, they can do a lot more harm.  And even that tiny Volkswagen can be a two ton guided missile, compared to, let's say, a relatively harmless bicycle. Given how many drivers act as if they are exempt from physics, it is a surprise more of them haven't gone off the road over cliffs!

One wonders, sadly, when the next one will leap suddenly off the page of life, and who they will take with them in the process.  America currently has between 40-60 thousand automobile deaths per year. 

The guardrails may or may not have been inadequate.  But it is clear the skills of many of our nation's drivers are.

from 4-16-12, lewis morris park

WTF? This thing doesn't work.

Ted Nugent, the rock singer and gun-rights activist who was recently subjected to suspicion by authorities and the press over his comments regarding Obama, should take heart and realize that millions of American share his view of the man in the Oval Office.

One I read on a bicycle forum discussion that touched on politics, was "Obama should grow a pair," meaning a pair of .... you know.  That comment came from a citizen who had voted for Obama and was disgusted with his performance thus far, claiming, "I had no idea he'd be such an ineffectual milqtoast."

Wow.  If that's how a confessed liberal thinks, what about the rest of us?

One of my non-biking friends told me he had a dream where he took the time machine from the film "Back to The Future" back in time and stopped Obama by proving all the things he'd do wrong.

Another guy I know, seeing a headline about Obama and an economic plain, opined, "what's he gonna do, quit" -- the implication being that the best thing Obama could do to help the economy was step aside. 

When Obama was elected I threatened to move to Canada.  I decided not to for several reasons, first, our country is bigger and better than Obama and I honestly believe it will be able to survive his administration and when it's over undo a lot of the wrong he's committed.  Secondly, it's damn cold up there for biking, eh?

Seriously, though, I can distinctly remember one newscast on the issue of islamic fanatics arming -- it was either the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as they co-opted an allegedly pro-democracy overthrow of the regime, or it was about a nuclear Iran, I'm honestly not sure which.  (It may even have been both.)  But I do remember turning away from the TV in revulsion and shouting "this guy (meaning Obama) is going to get us all f%^*ing killed!"

How then is that any different than Nugent opining that, if Obama is re-elected, he'd probably end up dead or in jail?   Keep in mind the "he" there is Nugent himself.  He wasn't threatening to jail or harm the President, he was saying he feared the President's regime might jail or harm people of his views.  Given that in  lame attempt to drum up support for gun control, Obama adminsitration cronies gave guns to Mexican cartels, one of which was used to kill a border patrol officer, is Nugent's fear that outlandish? 

More to the point, perhaps Nugent wasn't talking about Obama ordering him locked up or shot, but simply referring to the risk of Obama's policies, many of which could indeed send large swaths of the citizenry to jail or get them killed.  If you think that's farfetched look at Obam Care.  The Obama Administration wants to make it against the law to refuse to buy insurance just to breathe and walk around.  they want to force people to cover services they don't need -- and establish government review panels to deny them those they do! Maybe some of this is about a spread the risk philosophy of doing business.  If that's the case we can expect a law forcing people living in the desert to buy flood insurance any day now!

When Nugent said what he said, I'm sure he meant it.  I'm also sure the media has tried it's best to ignore it's context or any thing else that makes it seem reasonable.

Why?  Because when I turned away from the TV in discust and yelled that Obama was going to get us all killed, I didn't mean it as some wild crazy conspiracy, I simply meant it as a fact about his policies.  They are shaping up like they are going to cause something very bad. And not just one kind of bad, all kinds of bad.  Again, if Obama's administration can force you to buy insurance just to breathe and walk around (currently under review by the supreme court) it can force you to do anything!

His foriegn policy may embolden another terrorist attack. The attack could be nuclear if Iran gets an operational nuclear weapon, since it has numerous terrorist arms and ties to sundry terrorists who'd love to kill Americans. That's you or me.  His health care plan will end up denying care, forcing a one size fits all plan on America, and maybe even finish bankrupting the nation. His economic policy is about blame capitalism, not solving problems, and could have been scripted by Hugo Chavez or some raving guy with no shoes from Occupy Wallstreet -- and if you don't think there's anything wrong with that, I am very afraid for this country, because being a president is an awesome responsbility.  Just to take one issue, do you want a hopped up nuevo-hippe with no shoes and a scraggly beard holding his finger on a nuclear launch button? 

Ok, unlike the occupy wallstreeters, Obama has cloaked his similar beleifs under a guise of a respectful front, but let's face it, his policies, with the possible exception of his crony capitalism, which makes New Jersey pay-to-play politics look like a penny ante card game for grade schoolers, could be right from the far left playbook.  You know, the kind that wear Che Guavera t-shirts and think money is the root of evil, provided it's not government money.

One comment on a Washington Post* online version of an article ont he subject from a reader summed up the typical liberal view, calling Nugent a "hate-filled embaressment" It said: "He was a skilled guitarist, but something's just not right when it comes to Ted Nugent and he just keeps showing himself to be a hate-filled embarrassment." 

Uh, what's hate filled about saying you are concerned about a president's policies hurting you? Nugent is a firearm enthusiast.  Obama's administration belives in strict gun restriction. It is natural he would feel threatened by that, something you must admit whether or not you belive in gun control, because believing in gun control isn't the point.  Even if you belive gun control is both effective at preventing crimes and that this justifies infringing on people's rights, the fact remains it does infringe on people's rights, it has to, to be implemented.  The only question for the strict gun prohibitionist to answer in that regard is is the infringement justified by the pragmatic benefits anticipated. I would argue it is not, but the point is, even if it was, you;d still be left with the fact that gun laws, to be inforced, must infrionge on citizens who own guns! So who can fail to understand why Nugent objects to Obama?  On gun control alone he could say he is afraid of being arrested in the future -- and under a governemnt of expanding powers that wishes for new and more restrictive laws, a citizen ownign a gun, Nugent or not, could easily say that and be telling the truth:  If the government wants to outlaw my property, well, naturally, I'd be afraid of going to jail or gettign in some kind of trouble.

it is also just as it is natural that Nugent, or any thinking American, would feel threatened in other ways by Obama's policies in other matters. Is that "hate"?

I had liberal friends who during Bush's term felt he was going to be the death of the country. I didn't consider them hateful, I simply thought they were wrong. As to Obama, I can't help but think he's going to get a lot fo folks killed in a terrorist attack because he's been appeasing radical religious nuts like Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt -- even giving them government money.  

Why is objecting to giving money to terrorists hateful?

I find it incredibly offensive that when people have nothing better to say, they simply accuse you of "hate".  

Maybe this will brand me as a paranoid loco needing to be interviewed by the secret service, but I must confess that I harbor some of the same opinions as Nugent probably does.  I see Obama engaged in a systematic process to do everything he can to hurt America, in an attempt to reshape it into something it was never meant to be, and might not survive as.  Bush did a lot of things that were bad for this country -- example, the first bailout.  Obama's conduct since had made Bush look like a chiorboy.  And if it keeps up it will onyl get worse. Look at GAO and CBO (Gov't accoutning office and congressional budget office) figures for the cost of new programs, and when old ones, like social security, run out. it isn't pretty. For clues to that future, look at bankrupt Greece.  It's gone from the wishful thinking of a welfare state to wishful rioting and flipped over busses.

So, if the cops are going to question Nugent (and they decided not to charge him) maybe they should question me.  Or my friend who wanted to go back in time to prevent the bailouts and Obama Care. Or any number of other thousands, perhaps millions, of Americans, who looking around them, are saying, "something is wrong here." 

Mayeb that's the type of thing Nugent meant when he said under a term two Obama he's be dead or in jail.  After all, he wasn't threatening Obama, he was saying he felt threatened by him. Big difference, and one shared by many Americans, who do not believe the governemnt knows best about everything and do not belive it should overstep it's constitutional bounds.  And speaking of the constitution,  a citizen -- even a rock singer -- has a right to say he feels threatened by a government adminsitration or policy.

In short, if Ted Nugent rode a bike, he might sound something like me.  It is for that reason the leftists agitating for him to be arrested worry me.  Maybe I should put the snow tires on my bike and grrab a map of Canada.

________________

*- http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/reliable-source/post/ted-nugents-meeting-with-secret-service-unfolds-without-incident/2012/04/19/gIQALXFnTT_blog.html

Saturday, April 21, 2012 - arrived at the shop expecting a short ride; 40 miles or so.  I didn't take any food with me.

The other guys trickle in.  I ride off to use the john.  Ride back.  More guys show up.  We ride out.

We're a few miles into the ride when someone tells me we're heading for Round Valley.

Take a map on NJ and you'll see that round valley is about two-thirds of the way across the state from where the bike shop is in Scotch Plains.

 I was sorely wishing I'd brought food as we headed out to the Watchung circle, up Stirling Rd., looped through a nieghborhood and came out at a 4-way.  We rode across and then it happened, first flat of the season.  I remembered I carried 3 spare tubes instead of two.  While the punctured rider changed his flat i gave a spare to another guy, who hadn't brought one. 

On we go.  We're heading out past "devil tree", a conspicuous landmark and site of an unfortunate accident last year during a hasty sprint that downed a few riders.  The road is newly paved now, and I wonder idly if that had anything to do with it.  We crest the rise by Devil Tree, then bear left around a corner.  Long largely straight road, mostly flat, goes between woods and houses so big the rooms should each have their own zip codes.  This is it, I think.  We're coming to a t intersection.  The group is going left, downhill, then making a right.  It will take us to Bedminster.  If I don't want to do all 70-odd miles, this the last place I can turn off.  A left at top of the hill will take me to Liberty Corner, then Gillette and rom there back to the shop one of several ways. After the downhill, I can still cutout there, if I go left instead of right.  A left turn at the bottom, and I'd just follow the road back to the watchung circle. But...

I hesitated, partly not wanting to just yell over my shoulder, "bye!" and part of it not wanting to stop, either.  Yet a windign downhill isn't the best time to try and catch up to someone and ride alongside chatting! Besides, I was having a good time.  But I also hadn't done a ride this long since last year so maybe it was the smart thing to do to abbreviate it?  After all, getting all the way out past Lebanon made no sense if I couldn't get back.

And then there was the fact that, life being what it is, who knows?  i could get hit by a bus tomorrow, or be clobbered by a fallign piece of the international space station.  The point is, if that happened, would I say to myself as they packed me into an ambulance, "gosh, I really regret going on that long ride!"  Probably not.  And while I'm probably not going to get nailed by a bus, or a piece of falling space debris either, the point is, it's a theoretical possibility.  And the point of that, is that no one (or very very few, at any rate) regrets what they did do.  Most people regret what they don't do.  I am not most people, thankfully, but even I have that in common with the rest of the human race.  Think about it.  Who have you ever heard say, "damn, I wish I hadn't tried so hard?" 

So I stalled and debated with myself and ultimately missed the chance to pull off -- going uphill, then downhill, then catchign up to the group at the stoplight.  We rode through farmland, fields on either side, and then stopped for a break. Then onward and upward, through some woods, across Rattlesnake Bridge Rd, a right turn and then a left.  We went through some more farmlands, passed a lovely creek right out of a painting, some cows.  A food plant of some kind with big tall processing towers and trucks. 

Then we were out across Rt. 22 and riding on a road along the train tracks.  Some short steep hills, a warnign from a fellow rider for me "not to go inrto the red," but damnit, my rear shifter feels like crap and the squeaking is drivign me crazy.  Is it my knee? My shoulder? Both leg and should had been injured in roadway accidents, the knee in a fall from a bike, the shoulder ditto.   and the leg was broken when a hit and run driver clocked me at 40mph or so one night when i was out walking me dog, many years ago.  It's been a tad shorter ever since.   But no, the squeak isn't coming from my body, however much it feels like it mightbe, it's the damn real gear cluster. 

Is it the cassette, or rear shifter?  Maybe the pulleys.  Only happens in the middle ring -- the bike's a triple, my Raleigh Grand Sport I got at the Bike Stand.  Aluminum, Carbon fork, updated to a 9 speed rear cassette when I wore out what it came with.  Maybe this is worn out? Damnit, I thought I recently lubed the f#%*ing thing? 

Oh well.  If I can stand the extra resistance it creates, maybe the noise won't be so bad. After all, look around.  Across the road are honest to gawd mountains.  okay, large hilly things, people from Colorodo or Arizona would not call them mountains, but shoot, from here they look bad*ss. 

 As we move along, flowers of all sorts are in bloom, red, white, purple.  I think how when I was a kid I used to know the names of various plants and animals, all that outdoors stuff you pick up hiking or hanging out in the woods, especially when your folks have a science background and teach you all the botony names.  I could barely remember any now, but I remembered the feeling, it was  a feeling of much greater connection to the world around me, because, even with my legs burning from that last short but steep hill, and my mouth dry from water I don't have time to drink now if I wanna keep up with all the riders,  I appreciate my surroundings much more than I ever have in a car. 

 And then it hits me.  This is what cycling can do for me, can make me consider.  I have thoughts like this alot while biking, or after biking, or when considering biking, but they are especially vivid at times when riding.  And I'm not the only one; one guy said as we crested the hill, something to the effect that it was good more people didn't know about this part of the state. Why? The implication, clear as day, was that it is nice just the way it is.

In comparison, I have never had such a thought in my car.  sometimes I might have come close, while looking up at a roadside cliff of a quarry or a wooded hillside or some other spectacular view, but mostly my time in my car is spent being anxious to get where I am going and get out.  Contrast this with the experience of the cyclist, especially when riding on the weekends.  I wasn't going to the store, or to work, or any other place, I was just riding.  The trip was it's own reward and own destination.

That reward was expensive, though -- most things that are worthwile usually are.  In this case I was tired and lagging after Round Valley, but eventually caught up to the group, and when we split to pass a pickup sdtopped dead on the road to the watchung circle I somehow found myself in front as we regrouped, and ketp it aroudn 20mph.  Sometimes i inadvertantly got it up higher, enough so that the rest of the group, now pacelining, dropped back.  This resulted in one guy saying to me if I wanted to pull keep a steady speed.  Okay, that's the way to do it, but I didn't even realize at the time how fast I was going, and lord knows where I got the energy.   It was like when after ridign through Round Valley I hit 40 on a swooping downhill. Or how, on the approach to Round Valley, when we came in and saw the lake off to the left, and I finally realized where we were, I let out a shout of joy and sped up the hill as fast as me legs would carry me, prompting another rider to warn me, "take it easy, don't burn out."

The advice, from an athletic standpoint, was sound.  I should have listened, especially since we we only halfway through a 70 mile ride.  But the thing is, all of a sudden when I saw that lake I was hit by a really good vibe. That is why I ride. 

Thinking about it later, over a brew, I told myself that there's nothing more satisfying than a good bike ride. And then I thought about it and realized, all those people in cars that sometimes give cyclists grief -- and this ride there weren't any -- it's not cause they hate cyclists, per say (although some of them may) -- it's cause they're grumpy from being cooped up in their cars!  Think about it.