Category: Bicycle Safety and Advocacy

Cyclists come in all sizes

Scores of youngsters showed up at the Lake Worth Bike Rodeo held May 30. The event was sponsored by the Lake Worth Community Redevelopment Agency and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

Free helmets

Youngsters who didn’t bring a bike could use loaner bikes. The PBSO gave away Bell helmets to everyone who needed one.

The volunteers helped the children (and a few adults) pick out the right size helmet, fitted it for them and explained how to wear it safely.

One little girl had stopping down pat

Now it was time to hit the safety course.

Check out the little girl in the video. When she sees STOP, she’s gonna STOP until it says GO.

Unfortunately, stop signs aren’t traffic signals. They don’t change.

Volunteers taught basic signals

Cyclists in Florida, like in many states, have the option of signalling a right turn by extending their right arm instead of doing that funky left-arm-bent-at-the-elbow-and-pointing-to-the-sky thing, by the way.

I’d have taught it slightly differently

The volunteers had a challenge teaching signaling to kids who barely knew their left from their right and who, in some cases, didn’t speak English.

If I had been setting up the course, I’d have stationed helpers about 20 feet in advance of the stops and turns so the riders could have gotten the concept of signaling BEFORE you stopped or turned.

Taking your hands off the bars to signal when you’ve slowed to wobble speed is NOT a good idea.

I always signal turns, but I rarely signal stopping or slowing, particularly at a stop sign or traffic signal. It says STOP. What does someone following me think I’m going to do?

Free food and six free bikes

The high point of the morning for many youngsters was free pizza and a chance to win one of six bicycles that were raffled off.

If was fun watching the kids clutching their raffle tickets and following along as a sheriff’s deputy read off the winning numbers in English and Spanish.

It was a good morning for bike awareness in Lake Worth

A buddy of mine had a heart attack last week. (We’ll call him Bill to protect his privacy.) A friend gave me the details. (We’ll call her Sally to protect her. You’ll see why she NEEDS protection later.)

Bill, 47, complained of being tired, feeling lousy and having some minor chest pains on Monday and Tuesday. The pain wasn’t radiating down his arms in the classic symptom of a heart attack, so he went to a regular doc instead of the emergency room.

His doctor sent him to a cardiologist for more tests.

During the test he had a full-blown heart attack

By the time everything was done, it was discovered that Bill’s left descending artery had a 99% blockage and another was at 80%. The next day more tests found that he’d had a “silent” heart attack in the past two months and that two more arteries were blocked and there might be problems with two others. He ended up with six stents.

All in all, things turned out OK.

“I’m running around with a six-pack, legally,” Bill quipped. “I feel great — a little tired, but it’s good to be alive.” He was released a day early and is up and around, already driving short distances and eating low-fat foods.

Heart attack and stroke good advice

Sally passed on these good pieces of advice from her son, who is a paramedic-firefighter:

• Even if you think it’s “just indigestion or heartburn,” get it checked out! Insurance covers ER!
• Heart attacks don’t just hit old men. Bill is 47.
• Chest pains MEAN something and a heart attack doesn’t always follow the classic symptoms: persistent fatigue, tightness in chest, radiating pain in jaw or shoulder or down the arm and sweating or flushing. If someone around you is rubbing or grabbing at their chest and sweating, or suddenly acts dazed and confused and out of character, get busy. Acting quickly means someone might live because of you.
• Call 911 (know your street address if you’re using a cell phone) – then give the person aspirin. Two crushed, NONCOATED, full-strength aspirin under the tongue can save someone’s life. Stick two in your wallet and you’ll always have them at hand.
• This works for stroke victims, too. (Symptoms for stroke: victim can’t smile, lift an arm over their head, or speak in a complete sentence.) The aspirin won’t do any harm if it’s not a heart attack or stroke. And don’t try to get them to swallow them with water; this can cause choking. Remember: noncoated generic aspirin.

Toilet plungers and CPR

In another message (and this will show you why we’re calling her Sally instead of her real name) she added,  “I have read that an old-fashioned toilet plunger also works very well as a chest massage especially on large people on whom chest compression is difficult….but who the hell has those except restaurants — and maybe private homes?”

I have quite the reputation for carrying the kitchen sink on my bike, so I replied, “You’ve never seen my folding toilet plunger? It works like my Click-Stand. I don’t carry it anymore since I found a portable defib unit on ebay cheap.

If you want it, I’ll dig it out for you.”

Are you serious?

“Are you serious? And did you have it for that reason?” she asked.

Of course I was serious

When a fish is nibbling this hard, every fisherman knows to be patient.

“Sure. The mechanical advantage the handle gives makes it much easier to do chest compressions, which means you could perform CPR for a much longer time,” I responded. 

Well, it SOUNDED like it would make sense.

Now she wanted to know about the defibrillator

“Does the portable defib have to be plugged in or does it run on batteries?” she wondered.

“Batteries,” I replied. (I thought she’d finally get wise when I sent her this link to a REAL wet cell battery.)

How about solar batteries or your bike generator?

Nope, even with the link she still had not a clue I was pulling her leg, based on these follow-up questions:

“…but 10 hours to charge. (guess you could plan for the emergency and charge it up night before.)

“Or, just have a real live battery aboard when you’re out in the field.   Wonder about solar batteries — or what about putting your bike on a kickstand and pedaling to run the generator? (Cables needed, of course.)”

You’d be better off pedaling for help

I treated her suggestions seriously: “The wet cell is for emergency backup only. Solar chargers are too slow. Ditto bike generators. If you were going to pedal your bike to generate that kind of power, you’d have to pedal so hard and so fast that your energy would be better spent riding for help.”

I’m waiting for her next question.

And people wonder how spammers and Nigerian scammers make any money…

Chicago Closes Lake Shore Drive for Cyclists

Chicago’s Bike the Drive 2009 on Vimeo – Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

18,000 riders show up

Two women in Chicago have a great blog Let’s Go Ride a Bike – City Cycling with Style Since 2008 – that’s on my daily must-read list.

Dottie posted an account of Chicago’s annual Bike the Drive event held May 24. The city closes Lake Shore Drive, the main scenic highway that parallels Lake Michigan, to motorized vehicles and opens it up to cyclists.

An estimated 18,000 riders showed up. That’s about half the population of my home town.

You can read the whole story here.

A major highway covered with bikes

At first I thought, whoopity zoopity. Big deal. Then I watched the video. Several times.

It blew me away to see a major highway covered in bikes.

It just goes to prove the old Fields of Dreams adage: build it and they will come.

If bikes had even a fraction of the infrastucture devoted to motorized vehicles, can you imagine the impact it would make?

Bike beats train and cab in NY

Oh, yeah, and for the fifth consecutive year, cycling beat out the subway and taxi in the Transportation Alternative’s annual commuter race.

This year the race took off from Sunnyside, Queens and ended in Columbus Circle.

It took librarian Rachel Myers 20 minutes and 15 seconds to pedal the 4.2 miles during the morning rush.

Subway rider Dan Hendrick – who hopped the No. 7 in Sunnyside and transferred to the No. 1 at Times Square – arrived 15 minutes after the biker.

A yellow cab rolled up to the finish line with a finishing time of about 47 minutes – nearly half an hour after the cyclist — and costing passenger Willie Thompson $30