Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater

Thu, 22 May 2008

New Bars

I just finished installing an Origin 8 Space handlebar on my commuter bike:

They're very bendy. I am hopeful they'll help reduce some forearm fatigue I've had lately from my previous, very straight handlebars. Not a bad deal, either, at $25. Stay tuned for updates.

Posted at 20:37 permanent link category: /bicycle

The Ride of Silence

An email came across the bicycle mailing list at work, mentioning the Ride of Silence. I hadn't heard of it before, and looked it up. It's a ride to honor injured and killed cyclists, and to make cyclists more visible to traffic. It would be happening the next evening, when I didn't have any plans.

So, I figured, what the heck. It sounded interesting, and I definitely support the goals of the ride. I read a bunch of ride reports, and read about how moved people were: dozens or hundreds of riders cruising along in silence, wearing armbands and sunglasses (to hide the tears). Cars stopping, apparently in honor of the ride. Goodwill and such, etc.


Some of the early arrivals
I showed up at Gasworks at 5:30, figuring it would be a good opportunity to meet people and maybe get to know some of the other cyclists. The ride wasn't scheduled to depart until 6:30, but they'd urged everyone to show up by 6:10 at the latest. I assumed that was because the organizers wanted to give a speech, at least lay down the rules of the ride.

There were a handful of cyclists gathered by the time I got there, no more than 5 or 6. To my surprise, they were all older, mostly over 60 as far as I could tell. More cyclists arrived, raising the average age one by one. It made sense, in a way -- young people are rarely as aware of their own mortality.


KIRO reporter interviewing two of the early arrivals
It also turned out that the early arrivals were all (except me) volunteers, who would be "working corners:" standing at turning-points on the route and aiming riders in the right direction. KIRO radio sent a young woman to record interviews and the sounds of bicycles riding by, but there was no other obvious news presence. She sounded amazed at the "battle stories," as she put it, of the two or three older riders she interviewed. I wondered what they'd told her, and what her preconceptions had been.

Interviews done, the reporter wandered off, apparently reviewing her recording, and trying to gather environmental sounds as a pair of bikers rode hesitantly by, wondering why she was trying to get in their path of travel.


Volunteers getting their instructions
Around 5:45, a volunteer's meeting started, which lasted a long time. The group of volunteers was surprisingly large, easily the majority of people who were there at that point. I was starting to wonder if the ride would be smaller than I'd expected; I thought there'd be 100+ riders, but so far there were only about 30.

As time rolled on, more people arrived, and the average age started getting closer to the population average. Someone thrust a handful of "cuesheets" (a list of turn instructions) into my hand, and bade me pass them on to newcomers, which I did, eventually feeling like a barker selling programs. "Cuesheets! Getcher cuesheets! Can't tell a corner from a crossing without your cuesheet! Cuesheets! Right here!" I suppose it was a fine way to meet a bunch of new people, although I didn't meet them so much as watch them pass by.


Some of the folks lined up behind me
6:10 came and went, and there was no evidence of a rallying cry from anyone. Finally, around 6:27 (I'd read that the ride would leave at 6:30 sharp), there was general "mounting up" movement, so I pulled on my helmet and gloves, and stowed the remaining handful of cuesheets. I had taken a few pictures of the crowd, and cleverly stashed my camera in my shirtpocket, where I could at least theoretically get it while riding.

We rode off, and there were easily 100 people, probably more. I was disappointed that there'd been no instructions, no rules, no uplifting speeches about why we were gathered. The rules I'd read online were pretty firm: ride single file, follow traffic laws, don't block traffic, 12 MPH max. This wasn't to be a Critical Mass style ride.


Riding down Northlake Way
And yet, as we rode off down Northlake away from the park, bikers ahead of me were taking up the entire lane. As we passed the odd stop-yield intersection in front of Ivar's Salmonhouse, the stopsign was soundly ignored, as was the next stopsign and the next.

People were indeed silent, and the pace was quite sedate, never exceeding about 14 MPH on my little bike computer's screen unless we were coasting down a hill. The route only had three noticeable hill climbs: coming up the hill from Eastlake towards REI, up Queen Anne Ave, and going up Dexter towards Fremont.


Waiting for the stoplight at University and Fuhrman
Fortunately, people were paying attention to stop lights, and the group was quickly broken into chunks of about 30 riders each (or at least I ended up in a group of about 30 riders). I spent much of the time riding behind a woman towing a trailer which apparently contained two very small children. I was unsure of the contents until, at one stop, a rider was waving at the trailer in that strained "I see you!" way of childless adults waving at babies.


Waiting for a light on Stewart
The experience of riding in a silent pack of bicyclists was not as moving as I'd expected/hoped. Most people people seemed to be smiling, which seemed wrong somehow. I passed at least one rider who was wearing headphones. I was annoyed at the beginning of the ride as I hugged the right edge of the road (trying to be single-file) and was rewarded for my effort by being passed until I was nearly at the end of the pack. I didn't care where I was in the pack, but it seemed against the spirit of the ride to be sprinting forward.

The ride wound up back at Gasworks, where half of the riders seemed to be stopping and waiting for something, and half were just riding on, to head on their individual paths. I stopped for a minute, but nothing was happening, and I didn't have anyone to chat with, so I continued on my way back to Fremont and home.

I ended up following a pack of racers (I guess) who were clad in identical uniforms as we crossed 34th. There was some ribbing as one of the riders sprinted ahead of the others, and the group accelerated to keep up. Curious if I could keep up with them on my relatively heavy commuting bike, I joined in. Indeed, I kept up, and didn't particularly notice the strain, which was encouraging.

At the corner of Fremont and 34th, a car driver shouted something out her window and was rewarded for her pains by one of the racers laying his bike carefully in front of her stopped car and leaning over her window: "What did you say?" There ensued a tense conversation in which I only heard the biker, who was trying to explain how that was a bike lane, and asked if the driver's car was endangered, and things along those lines -- typical angry-car-driver vs. self-righteous-biker stuff. And as typically happens with these exchanges, both parties left feeling injured, the bikers purposely crowding the traffic lane so the car driver couldn't pass, and the car driver speeding off in an angry cloud of exhaust once the way was clear.


Riding up Dexter
I was interested to see that the demographic of the ride did change, as the departure time approached: it went from an older crowd to a more evenly-balanced crowd. The youngest person I saw on the ride was perhaps 10, a young man riding with someone who might have been his dad. There was a handful of scruffy 20-something hipsters on fixed-gear bikes (one of whom was gently admonished by the organizer for not wearing a helmet). There were fit riders and fat riders, although the crowd tended toward fit, as you might expect. The gender split was pretty even.

I was pleased, overall, that the pace never got up. The riders were admirably quiet, although with all the traffic noise around us, the difference between a hundred silent riders and no riders was negligible. The silence of the riders didn't appear to excite the stares and interest of pedestrians or drivers as the online reports I'd read suggested. Car drivers didn't seem annoyed in general, although there was at least one honked horn followed by a roaring of engine as an annoyed driver blitzed past in his Jeep during the ride.

I guess I'd call the ride a success, and I'm certain the organizers will. It was an impressive collection of riders, and I can only assume that they showed up because they also believed in the goals of the ride. I was disappointed that to me, it just seemed to be a bunch of riders following each other somewhat willy-nilly down the road, who happened not to be talking. The lack of any other form of unity (for instance, riding single file, wearing sunglasses, wearing armbands, etc.) left me feeling like I'd gone on a lightly paced recreational ride, rather than having made any sort of symbolic contribution, or any connection with anyone.

(The rest of my pictures can be seen in the gallery.)

Posted at 08:46 permanent link category: /bicycle

Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater