Dumbassery in London.. and elsewhere

Today nearly had the ubiquitous pedestrian step in front of me without looking. Fortunately was able to stop without falling.  But it was funny because the same day a friend of mine sent me this:   http://imgur.com/gallery/jZvpbwY

The IMGUR page shows a video clip of a English  cyclist approaching a street crossing, with various pedestrians here and there.  The cyclist goes behind one of the peds and is going to mske it through ok, but the ped sees him and turns around and then steps in front of him.

The title of the video is that once a ped is crossing you have to stop by UK law. However, others responding to the post pointed out if the ped is out of the way you can go behind him.  That makes sense.  Either way, 

Union county gov't claims to work with them for trail access, then reposts

Union county claims to work with cyclists for trail access, then reposts "no bike" signs

 

8-14-16: When the no bike signs came down in Winter of 2015, it was a relief.  The extralegal "ban" on mt biking in Watchung Reservation, enacted in a backroom deal by unelected gov't employees in 1995, seemed over.

 

Shortly, riders began riding there more frequently -- including yours truly.

 

I rode there just last week.

 

Then, today, driving on the road thru the Res I see new "no bike" signs.

 

It was a surprise, to say the least, but also does not reflect well on the county government.  At the February meeting with riders, JORBA, and consultant CME Associates, riders were assured Union county intended to open the park to mountainbiking.  There was precious little communication since; but after my Dec. 2015 OPRA request about the ban, the signs did come down.

 

Why are they back?  Was the county lying all along?  Or is this some last ditch stalling attempt to keep riders out even while a new trail plan including cycling is drawn up?  What happened to the 43,000 dollars paid to CME for said trail plan?  Why was it never presented, the vote mysteriously cancelled?  Why is the county, which promised to work with riders and in particular the Jersey Offroad Bicycling Association, not returning communications?

Under what "law" are these signs posted?  The signs quote at the bottom a county ordinance, part of the public safety code regulating bicycle riding on roads and sidewalks.  This never had anything to do with mountainbiking or offroad trails, which is why it took an OPRA request in the beginning to find out if and why mt. biking was "banned" -- there is no law or ordinance on the books because as the gov't admitted in its OPRA response, "The freeholders did not act to exclude mountain biking".  So what is going on?

 

Hopefully citizens will protest this.  I encourage all local riders to write the freeholders and demand fair park access and that the county cease trying to pretend an ordinance that says one thing means another.   I have filed another OPRA request – we’ll see what happens.

Watch "London has fallen"
A while ago I posted a piece praising "Premium Rush" -- not because it was destined to be some classic of film-making magic, but because it was simply a fun action movie with a cyclist as the action hero, and that is something that as a cyclist I could appreciate. It is also something obviously rare these days.

By the same token, one could say the same about "London has fallen".

An action movie set against the backdrop of international terrorism, the movie tells the take of a U.S. Secret Service agent and his President, who must escape a series of terror attacks in London.

At first blush this seems hardly unusual; every other Tom Clancy novel seems to have had a similar plot, right?

Yes.

Except, when Hollywood made Tom Clancy's novel "The sun of all fears" into a movie, it took the Islamic terrorists who were the villains and exchanged them for neo-Nazis, in order to be more politically correct.

Don't get me wrong, it was a good movie, and who doesn't dislike Nazis? They make almost as good a bad guy as Darth Vader. That said, however, it seemed a bit of as stretch -- and it ultimately removed from the story the villain the author had chosen. Let's assume that he had in fact chosen that villain for a reason. What is lost then in changing it? You still get an entertaining story and conflict, but not the conflict the author intended, and that is saying something, because political correctness has become so rampant these days that even though we are at war with Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, finding a film where they are the bad guys is as rare as a traffic free day on the turnpike. Worse, finding a movie with an unflinchingly patriotic action hero is as rare as one where the action hero is a cyclist!

In short, anything that doesn't conform to political orthodoxy has a hard time these days. As a cyclist -- a member of a group who is constantly denounced, called names, and even threatened with death in the streets on a regular basis -- I can sympathize (cyclists are one of the few groups it is politically correct to denounce and talk about murdering, incidentally). So as a U.s. cyclist, under cultural siege, I feel a kindred spirit with the action hero of yesteryear, the kind that might have shot or blown up a bad guy while shouting "yippie kiyay" to the cheering of fans (see any Bruce Willis film) but who is now deemed a cultural dinosaur.

And that is what seems to upset so many about London Has Fallen. It isn't that the movie shows us a good guy vs. terrorists -- that subject has been shown in films for decades. Rather, its that the hero -- and the other characters -- are so goshdarned proud about it. One gets the impression that, in addition to their objection to the villains being modeled on real life bad guys (Islamic terrorists) this is what really pisses the far left off.

Indeed, "London" is replete with examples that make it a "feel good" movie for these troubled times. When the news plays video of a real life terror attack, and politicians who do nothing in response but mouth bromides, the film shows one guy standing up to the terrorists. While real life good guys seem to cede the moral high ground to terrorists, as if their excuses or beefs with the west entitle them to murder, saying we bring violence on ourselves, the film's characters, including a vice president portrayed by Morgan Freeman, enthusiastically and explicitly reject this narrative.

While present-day politicians seem to have morals which drift with the wind, the President in the movie responds to his imminent killing by terrorists with defiantly reciting his oath of office -- even though he is repeatedly interrupted by physical blows.

And finally, the hero of the film, Secret Service agent Banning, in the final fight with one of the terrorists, grunts out a line many patriotic Americans could agree with "we are not a building, we are not a piece of paper, we are not one man... **** like you have been trying to kill us for a long time. And in a thousand years, we'll still be here!" (this last bit uttered as he had the villain in a headlock).

Yet while regular Americans watched this movie and in some cases cheered at the theatre, the far left and the so called "intellectuals" (was there ever a greater misnomer?) have been hating on it. They literally cannot say enough terrible things. It has been called racist, xenophobic, bigoted, small-minded, and perhaps worst of all, insensitive!

For instance, the following are from actual search results: "Rolling Stone Mar 4, 2016 - There are bad sequels, and then there's this Islamophobic, Trumptastic mess 'London has Fallen' — read Peter Travers' zero-star review.'" while MTV said, "London Has Fallen: Bigger, Dumber, And Even More Offensive - MTV" and the NY Post wrote, "Racist, idiotic 'London Has Fallen' is a revenge dud".

Someone should tell these people it is no less racist to oppose terrorists than any other nasty people out to kill you. Islamism, like any other terrorist ideology, is not a race your are born with but a choice you pursue, hence opposing to cannot be "racist" (someone please get these gentlemen a f*^#ing dictionary!)

Meanwhile, back on planet earth, regular people who were not racists or bigots enjoyed the movie -- largely for the same reasons the leftists hated it. Much in the was in Premium Rush, the cyclist in me felt like cheering when the narrator said, "one time or another we all get hit...sometimes, you gotta hit back," the American in me had the same reaction to "London", for the same reason.

Logically, action movies are not necessarily a practical guide to life's trials an tribulations. One man couldn't realistically take down a hundred terrorists -- just like the stunt riding or smashing of jerk driver's mirror in Premium Rush is not how to go about dealing with your next bike ride.

That said, however, there is something to be said for the emotional appeal of such stories, as what they are -- simplified and idealized fiction.

And in that simplification, we get to a real truth that the far left, in their rush to politicize everything on behalf of everyone but everyday Americans, forgets: There are indeed good guys and bad guys in the world, even if the solution to dealing with them isn't accomplished in 90 minutes as it is on film.

And, of course,m most Americans -- those who haven't drank the politically correct kool-aid -- want the good guys to win, and be damned proud of it.

So go rent "London has fallen". It's not Shakespeare, but it is an entertaining action flick with a moral certitude not seen since John McClane shot a bad guy off the roof back in the 1980's.

Self driving cars: a menace to cyclists and road users everywhere!

Google self driving cars to be equipped with “people catching” hoods?

Yeh, self-driving cars no boon for safety

 

According to a tiny article in Investor’s Business Daily, Google just patented a sticky hood for their self driving cars.  The purpose is that when the car hits a person, they will stick to the hood and not be thrown, hopefully minimizing any injury beyond the initial impact.

 

What no one seems to have picked up on here is that this is a tacit admission that, not only will self-driving cars probably not be the perfect vehicles their promoters say, but those promoters themselves actually know they will be much more dangerous than regular, person-operated automobiles to pedestrians or even bicyclists.

We already knew this - outside of AI (artificial intelligence) there is no way for a computer to do what a alert road user does.  Self driving cars don't really drive in the sense of a thinking road user -- they cheat, reacting to sensors and a set of commands.  If it ain't on the commands, forget it.  This is why Google's cars were flummoxed by a trackstand in one famous example of their inability to deal with cyclists in real world situations -- and why their claim, recently, of being able to interact with a cyclist alongside (with no other traffic or variables around or between them, hardly a realistic assessment) doesn't convince me. 

Heck, if you want to talk safety, recallt he google car famously pulled over for driving too slow? Google said it capped their car's speeds at 25 mph.  Good, makes sense.  But then they let them drive of roads with much higher posted speeds, where the cars might actually cause an accident!  Why not truck them out to residential neighborhoods?  It costs more but it would at least show a concern for others and the rules while using the public as your personal lab rats [something they probably shouldn't be doing anyway]. 

Now you have this "sticky hood" thing.  The very fact that the company has patented what is essentially a cow-catcher for people implies they expect their cars to be colliding with them.  You do not go to the trouble to design, research, develop, and patent a device to make human beings stick to the hood of a car, unless you foresee that car actually hitting said human beings.

Consider that, then consider this: In all the major news articles I've read ove rthe last few years, from the NY Times to the New Jersey Star-Ledger, on self-driving cars, no one mentioned how they would interact with cyclists as part fo traffic.  In fact, cyclists were not mentioned AT ALL, not even in one article that specifically about a test area constructed to see how the cars reacted to things around them!!!

Bjut just now, after google and others have been working ont his for years, they are now saying "oh, we can react safety to cyclists".  Is there any way this could be more obvious that these companies (and the gov't) are treating cyclists as an afterthought and not a legitimate part of the traffic dynamic?

There may --- may -- be some minor merits to driverless cars versus a drunk or texter, but they cannot think, cannot make moral judgements, and are no substitute for an alert human.  With this new reveal, it is clear that it is not just critics of the self-driving cars like myself that conclude this, but even the companies promoting the cars themselves.  A cow-catcher for human beings hood is something you design only if you see your car colliding with human beings.  This says volumes about the implications of self-driving cars for cyclists and other road users not enclosed in cars.  But the self-driving boosters still swear their vehicles are safe.   

Sure.  Whatever you say.  
So why the “human target” hood?

I didn't even touch on the privacy issues.  Let's just say if Windows 10 is like Skynet for your PC or laptop, then self-driving cars, with their necessity to track your movements and location, and  the multitude of cameras they will have pointed at streets all over the U.S., are like Skynet for the roads.

 

 

Riding the Rez

Signs are down, trails open

Noticed this December that the no bike signs at Watchung Reservation were down for the first time I can recall in two decades.  This coincided with another OPRA request to the county for information on the Rez, as well as some other measures I took.  Since the county is not talking to myself or anyone else involved in efforts to end their extra-legal, never authorized by legislative action "ban", which was created by a handful of unelected employees in a secret meeting in 1995, no one knows why the signs are down.  I would argue it may simply be they got tired of answering the darn OPRA requests.  Or maybe it was the producer from a local news station I contacted.  Who knows.

Of course, the park was never actually "closed" -- the gov'ts policy was to exclude bikers, but it was never authorized by passing a law or ordinance... But the fact that the signs were essentially bogus and had no authority is beside the point; it is still nice to see them gone, and minimizes the likelihood of the ignorant hassling any bikers who mountain bike there.  Which is good news as The Rez is right nearby, way closer than parks in other counties.

I rode there twice the week I noticed the signs gone, and as soon as the trails dry from the past week's rain plan to go back for more.  Ride safe and have fun.  After after 20 years we've earned it!

 

Drillium - its back!
Topic: Bike gear

Back in the day.... probably a few years before I was being born -- a strange craze swept cycling.  People were taking perfectly good arts and drilling holes in them. 

The idea was to save some weight -- but also create a pleasing design in the process.  Some guys did professional quality work, but many more were the shop employees or racers or just plain garage mechanics who tinkered.

Some drillium made enough of an impact that mass-produced parts started being sold with the holes already in them (of course, even back then, liability was an apparent concern; I've read that the holy parts weighed more than the unholed ones, indicating they were probably beefed up first, which sort of defeated the "hole"  purpose.  Be that as it may, however, note that the Campagnolo Nuovo Record brake levers were undrilled from the factory.  Super Record, which came later, had factory-drilled levers.

In short, drillium was big enough to influence the industry.  Even today, the popularity of drilled parts among "retro" riders enables companies like Velo Orange to offer "drillium" chainrings and cranks.  Of course, this is a niche market.  The truth is, Drillium hasn't been big for years.  Why?  One might as well ponder the nature of gravity.  Some say excessively drilled parts broke; others that as Super Record supplanted Nuovo Record there was less market for drilling; and of course, then parts started being made of carbon and stuff and this trend passed into history.

Sort of.

The truth is, there is always someone out there who tinkers.  I did this back in the 1990s to the shift levers on my old Gitane, because they were old enough to be "period" and i wanted to see how to do it, but except for the odd chainring, or sometimes chainrings made into home-made bash guards fro mountain bike use, those Suntour shift levers were all I ever drilled out before.  So after stumbling on some pics onlien that remonded me of my long-deceased Gitane, I decided to follow in the footsteps of the 70's, and drilled out a pair of dia-compe brakes.  Not bad, so I did the 105 group on my Trek 470... front and rear derailliuers, downtube shifters, brakes, and lastly, the brake levers.  My friend who runs a bike shop told me brake levers are hard to do and in the olden days guys built special jigs.  I did it freehand with a cordless drill while listening to oldies radio.

Now... if only I had more parts to practice on...!

First kill all the lawyers (or at least keep em under control -- lawmakers too)

Shakespeare's immortal quote about what to do with lawyers is perhaps more timely now than ever before.  Everyone has them, like it or not, and they -- and the other lawyers, who work for the government, and make the laws they work with -- are now affecting how everything gets done.

it was funny when fear of lawsuits -- or prohibition resulting from some horrible bad press and a bloody accident -- led to things like lawnmowers that said "keep hands out of blade". 

 It became more ironic when you started seeing fire logs for sale whose packaging read: "Caution, flammable".

But it's downright disraceful when you have a track bike -- even an entry level one -- being sold with a hodgepodged back brake, clamped on with metal clips sure to damage the paint before it is even sold -- all in a seeming effort to make the bike company (in this case Bianchi) seem more "responsible".

I'll be clear: I have a pista ... an old one.  It's not drilled for a back brake and it certainly didn't come with fugly metal cable clamps scraping the paint.  So, why the change?  Simple.  A back brake a day keeps the lawyers away.

Myself and most everyone else who ride a fixed gear use only a front brake -- unless offroad or with a freehweel or flip flop.  And if they had to equip the new Pista with a back brake, why not use plastic zip ties?  They're cheaper, cost nothing, and won't gauge the paint.

But they also won't stand out.  The shiny metal cable clips say to all:  Look at me, I got a back brake.

Which is saying to all, look at me, the lawyer's got my balls in his briefcase.

There's nothing wrong with putting a rear brake on a fixed gear but let's try to make sense.  If you went into a bike shop and bought that bike, then went to take the cable for the rear brake off and found the point gauged or chipped under the clips... what do you do?  You could return it, but the next one would be spec'd the same.  And what for?  Because of concern about bad press.  Or busybodies.  Or lawyers.

I am very disappointed with Bianchi. They used to be bold; now they jerry-rig a deliberately ugly bike in order to ward off the laywers and busybodies.

Ol' Billy Shakespeare was right about them.

  

20-year prohibition to end!

Progress? Maybe.  As of November 18, 2014, after constituent communication to the Board of Freeholders on the issue, Union County has said it will be ending its nearly 20-year ban on mountain biking in Watchung Reservation.  The ban, first begun in 1995, was enacted without passing any law or ordinance, and without public input.  This time the Freeholders are heeding the voice of the citizens. Spokesman Sebastian Delia, speaking with the authority of the Board of Freeholders, said on Nov. 18^th that mountain biking WILL be included in the upcoming “trail master plan” Union County is developing for Watchung Reservation’s trails.  Hope they actually follow through on it.

Klunker Project...so far so good!

building a "Klunker"

If you don't know what a Klunker is, or think it's an old car that Obama wanted to pay you cash to get off the road, never mind.  But if you're an avid bicyclist you probably hear the term Klunker and think more along the lines of this; an old cruiser bike with a cantilever or other reinforced frame, curvy stays, and a mishmash of old bmx style and road parts, sporting dirt-covered, knobby tires.

The term Klunker was sort of the agreed-upon description for the early proto mountainbikes of the late 1970's.  Many were built out of old frames, using whatever parts were available, which wasn't much.  The bikes were masterpieces of improvisation -- or deathtraps, depending on your philosophy.  I lean towards the former, which is why I decided to build one.

Sure, I have a modern mountainbike, as well as a vintage old one... two, okay.  But there is a general rule, referred to in some fo the biek forums as "N+1", which roughly translated to English from the Psuedo algibraic shorthand means, "you can never have enough bikes".  And, not for nothing, building a Klunker is a learning experience, because just like all those radical dudes back when, you have to improvise.

Area of Improvisation Numero Uno: The bb.  The frame I got was an old Schwinn Typhoon, accordign to similar images i found on the net.  It had been repainted and then in storage at my LBS for years (thanks Steve).  Apparently it was fairly rare as it two thin bars under the top tube, but unlike a traditional Schwinn "cantilever frame" they were not curved, nor attached to the stays.  Anyhow, I found pictures of bieks witht he same style frame online; they said they were typhoons.  Several had even been built into Klunkers.

Regardless fo what kind it is, a Schwinn style frame has what's called an "American Bottom Bracket".  It's a big hole in the bottom bracket shell, larger than a road or modern mountainbike bb, and completely unthreaded.  Early BMX bikes had the same; some kids bikes and beach cruisers still do.  This style bb, also called Ashtabula,  used a one-piece crank with pressed-in bearing cups.

To use modern cransk you need an adapter.

I got lucky; my friend's LBS had one.  Yay! 

Now I had to work with the headset.

The early bmx stuff copied a lot of Schwinn sizing, so I picked out a threaded 1" bmx headset.  The bearing cups fit the frame.  Great!  Except... oh, drat.  I need to get a fork in there.  The bearing race that fit on the fork race crown is the wrong size.

I fidn a second one that fits and use that, putting the other back in the box.  In goes the fork and... oh no! It's too #^%&*ing short!  I forgot "stack height!"

I take the thing home from the LBS. The two mtb forks i wanted to use for their front cantilever brake mounts are too tall; the threaded portion starts way above where the headset nuts have to be.  I cast around and find an old overbuilt road fork.  It's fork that fits but I'll need to use a long reach bmx sidepull.  No prob.  I set that up, and one of the old moto-style diacompe's that looks like it was taken of a motorcycle.  

But!  Wait!  Okay, the fork height is correct, the fork, although a road fork, is sturdy and will take mtb tires up to 1.6" wide, even semi-knobbies.  It can fit a brake.  And it happens to already have a crown race that works, or seems to.

But... I put it in, put on the brake, and went to get the stem in and--- it won't fit?

Yeh, bmx stems are narrower, so the top nut on an old style 1" threaded bmx headset has an overhanging lip that narrows the opening into the inside fo the steerer tube. Crud.  i dug aroudn in old boxes of parts and found a 1" threaded top nut from a road or moutnainbike.  It matched the silver color of the rest fo the headset but allowed me to fit a "nornal" 1" threaded quill stem.  Success!

Back to the bottom bracket... Now I had to find cranks to put on it.  The cransk had to fit two things; the frame and the chainline.  Since without some kind of bolt on bracket, or brazing on cantilever brake posts, i wasn't able to run a rear rim brake, I had to plan on a rear coaster brake.  That meant I probably wasn't going to be tweaking the chainline by shuffling spacers and a single cog, as you can do with a cassette hub set up as a singlespeed.  So the crank had to line up with where a coaster brake wheel would have the cog.  Problem.  Had no coaster brake wheel yet.  D'oh! as Homer Simpson would say, eloquently.

I found a wheel, pulled off an old Columbia that's probably older than the Schwinn.  It's 26" and coaster brake, and it's old ratty tire still holds air and the brake works.  Fine.  I go to put it in and it's too narrow!  i put some spaces on the axles and then fit it into the bike. Alright, i can tighten it without quishing the rear triangle.  I cinch it down.  Then I attach the cranks I had in mind, a pair of old "RoadVX" 170mm taken off an old ten speed roadbike, with a 110mm bolt pattern.  I run a chain.  Viola!  It works!  A pair of old style "bear trap" pedals, and all that's missing is the seat, seatpost, and clamp.  Standing on the seatless bike, I pedal it across the floor of the garage then stop.  Only a shot distance, but the coaster brake, almost twice my age, worked.  So did the front brake.

Now I just have to find a seatpost and seatclamp.  Of course it's a narrow size uncommon on modern bikes; I'm told it's 13/16".  I looked in my parts bin.  All the seatposts are metric.  Go figure.