Rain or Shine
The weather reports are calling for a wet weekend, but our intrepid leaders are saying the Sac Tweed Ride scheduled for this Sunday will go on, rain or shine. Time to dust off your slickers and waxed cotton!
Streetfilms: NYC Bike Commute
Mapping Your NYC Bike Commute from Streetfilms on Vimeo.
I really enjoyed Clarence Eckerson Jr.’s video featuring his bike commute in New York City. It’s an interesting overview of how a variety of different types of bicycle infrastructure can work together to make a pleasant and safe commute.
An Early Winter Commute
Scott from Civia sent me this video of early winter commuting in Minnesota. Brrr.
Sport, or Transport?
When we were kids, we pretty much lived on our bikes. We rode all over the countryside surrounding our small, rural farm town, jumping through ditches, popping wheelies, and tearing across fields for fun and kicks.
When I was 10 years old, our gang went on our first major expedition, riding from our hometown, all the way to the mall in the next city and back. It was quite an adventure.
We also started early using our bikes for getting places. I first rode my bike to school in 2nd or 3rd grade. When I was 10 years old, our gang went on our first major expedition, riding from our hometown, all the way to the mall in the next city and back. It was quite an adventure. I measured the route on Google Maps this evening; the round trip was 22.4 miles.
From that auspicious start, bicycling for sport and bicycling for transport have been inextricably entwined for me. Over the years I’ve done some racing, lots of club riding, and even more mountain biking. Throughout, I’ve always used a bike for errands, commuting, and just getting around, but it’s only in recent years that a majority of my riding has been for transportation. Interestingly, this shift hasn’t diminished my enjoyment one iota. In fact, a more purposeful approach to riding has made it more rewarding than ever.
How about you? Are you a pure sport rider, or do you mix in some utility riding? Are you a pure transpo rider, or did you start riding for practical reasons, then take up sport riding later on? Has bicycling been a lifelong pursuit, or did you take it up in recent years? We’d love to hear your story.
Loading ... Loading ...The Bicycle is Art
Our buddy Bryan over at Renaissance Bicycles recently created a new Tumblr site titled The Bicycle is Art. The site is just getting rolling, but it looks like it’s going to be a fun project.
The Australian Helmet Debate
A new study published by the Medical Journal of Australia found that bicyclists not wearing helmets were over four times more likely to suffer serious head injuries than their helmeted counterparts. The study was conducted by the Department of Trauma Service at Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred hospital and looked at patients over 16 years of age who suffered head injuries related to bicycle accidents between 1991 and 2009. According to one of the authors, “Three per cent of people who wear a helmet could end up with head injuries, whereas 13 per cent who don’t wear a helmet will end up with severe head injuries.”
This study comes on the heels of Piet De Jong’s Health Impact of Mandatory Bicycle Helmet Laws conducted for the Department of Actuarial Studies, Macquarie University. His article sought to determine whether mandatory helmet laws deliver a net societal health benefit. He weighed reduced head injuries against reduced cycling to come up with a cost. From the abstract:
Using estimates suggested in the literature of the effectiveness of helmets, the health benefits of cycling, head injury rates, and reductions in cycling, leads to the following conclusions. In jurisdictions where cycling is safe, a helmet law is likely to have a large unintended negative health consequence. In jurisdiction where cycling is relatively unsafe, helmets will do little to make it safer and a helmet law, under relatively extreme assumptions may make a small positive contribution to net societal health. As such, helmet legislation appears to be a distraction from the main bicycle related health issue: the safety of the bicycling environment. The model serves to focus the mandatory bicycle helmet law debate on overall health. The methodology developed in this article is can be used in other situations where safety initiatives are proposed for healthy activities.
Another study, The Effects of Bicycle Helmet Legislation on Cycling-related Injury, was conducted by researchers at the University of Sydney earlier this year. According to Associate Professor Chris Rissel, one of the authors of the study, “Findings suggest the greatest reductions in head injuries resulting from cycling accidents come from road improvement safety measures introduced prior to 1991, such as lower speed limits, random breath testing and intensive road safety advertising.
“The case for continued mandatory helmet wearing for adults is questionable although there is a case for it continuing for children under 15, who suffered about half the head injuries reported in this study. Helmet use is likely to prevent some injury, particularly for less experienced younger age groups. However the mandatory bicycle helmet legislation is appears not the main factor behind reduced head injuries among cyclists.”
I’m not sure any new conclusions can be drawn from these studies. The main thing I take away is that helmets continue to be a red herring, distracting us from the what I view as the more important issues of road design, bicycle infrastructure, and rider training and education.
You can view our semi-official stance on bicycle helmet use here.
As always, let’s keep the helmet discussion rational and friendly (view our discussion guidelines if you’re not clear on what I mean by “rational and friendly”). Thanks!
Trends in head injuries and helmet use in cyclists at an inner-city major trauma centre, 1991—2010 →
The Health Impact of Mandatory Bicycle Helmet Laws →
The Effects of Bicycle Helmet Legislation on Cycling-related Injury →
The Problem with Numbers
After growing through their first couple of bikes, most people start looking at specs pretty carefully before making a purchase. This is particularly true of transportational bicyclists who may not have access to a good selection of potential models at their local bike shop. Because of this lack of support at the local level, online comparison shopping takes on an important role in the process of identifying just the right bike for our intended uses. And because bike design in the commuting/transpo realm is still all over the map, and not anywhere near as codified as it is with road and mountain bikes, understanding spec sheets and geometry charts is an important part of the selection process. And yet, while I acknowledge that geometry charts can tell us a fair amount about how a particular bike may ride, I’m rather dubious about putting too much emphasis on one particular number. Let’s look at the seat tube as an example.
After growing through their first couple of bikes, most people start looking at specs pretty carefully before making a purchase. This is particularly true of transportational bicyclists who may not have access to a good selection of potential models at their local bike shop.
In the above diagram, the seat tube length is the same for all three geometries. When looking at numbers in a chart, it would be easy to assume that different bikes with the same seat tube length also have the same standover height. But as is illustrated above, standover height, as well as saddle height, saddle set-back, and top tube length are all affected by seat tube angle. In other words, assuming the other dimensions remain the same, as the seat tube angle slackens, a bike becomes “shorter”, and as the seat tube angle steepens, a bike becomes “taller”¹. Other specifications such as bottom bracket drop and wheel diameter also affect standover.
The same type of thing happens at the front of the bike. Again, assuming the other dimensions remain the same, as the head angle slackens, the top tube becomes shorter and the handlebars move closer to the rider, whereas a steeper head angle results in a longer top tube and more reach to the bars.
Unfortunately, none of this provides a definitive answer to the most important question, “What is best for me?” But, it’s important to remember that isolating a particular number in a geometry chart, and using that number as a benchmark in the selection of a bike or bike size, is not a good idea. It’s better to take a holistic look at frame geometry and try to comprehend how all the numbers work together, which, unfortunately, is not a simple thing to do.
Of course, the best bet is always a real test ride on a real road. Alas, if only we had more widespread support for commuter and transpo bikes at the local level, this problem with numbers would be moot!
1. This is the design element behind Electra’s patented “Flat Foot Technology“.
