The Story

You heard me right. I loathe to even think about watching myself blither incoherently on television, but that’s what’s going to happen tonight on WBZ-TV, channel 4 in Somerville. The 11pm news will be running a special report about the MBTA’s neglect of traffic laws, among other things, and they’re using excerpts from my interview last Friday. Yikes!

At least we’re getting the issue out there, YAAAAY!

…what beautiful music they make! This morning I passed a road bike that was making a noise like a jackhammer. I suddenly realized, now that my ears had perked up, that I was not being followed by a flock of Starlings, but that my chain was making the most horrific squeaking noises I’d ever heard NOT coming from a bird. Luckily I’ve already got a neon green replacement chain for poor, salty Krankenberry to wear once the winter is over. We’re not that lucky yet – apparently two storms are on the way for this week, with a mixture of snow and rain… my favorite! Hopefully these fronts flop like that last ‘Noreaster’, and I won’t have to pull out my Gore-tex.

In other news:  All this PR work is making a dent in the MBTA!

I had an interview last night with Kathy Curran and Elsie Nolan, from WBZ-TV & TV38 about the rash of reckless driving by employees of the MBTA, and specifically buses along Route 66. It was a short interview, so I didn’t have time to cover much more than I’ve already delved into with Zero Combustion, but I did demand accountability, transparency and visible action by the MBTA. In interesting news, apparently Kathy and Elsie were privy to information that I was not – namely that the driver of one of the buses involved in my complaints was suspended for three days – this is the information John Houghton of Cabot Garage gave WBZ-TV anyway. It’s a far more satisfying reaction than ‘will be disciplined for his actions’, or ‘will seek retraining’, which is what I was repeatedly told.

No matter what, this means we are making headway! Keep calling the MBTA! Keep dialing 911 and reporting the Speedy Parasite! Ride tall and damn it, ride safely!

Seems that in silicon valley UPS is doing bike delivery for Christmas, Dear Boston UPS, DO THIS! I bet the people at Metro Pedal Power would be happy to take some of your overflow.

Stay out of the door zone kids, also send this to anyone you know who drives. If we move over, and they pay attention perhaps we will never hear about someone getting doored ever again. For tips on door zone bike lanes see here.

I agree with just about everything this guy says…

Thirty Seconds To Mars – Kings + Queens – HD

30 Seconds to Mars | MySpace Video

against all better judgment I actually like this…

We Are Traffic from Bank Tangjaitrong on Vimeo.

People have strong opinions about critical mass. Hate it or love it I thought this video was interesting. My personal point of view is that the more bike friendly a place is the smaller the critical mass is. Critical mass’ seem to be an outpouring of solidarity based on mutual repression. The nicer a place is to cyclists the less they feel the need to engage in these large protest/fun/whatever rides to raise their status. Basically in places where bikes are seen as just another way to get around there is a critical mass every day.

What do you think?

A Reason to Bike from Brighter Planet on Vimeo.

Thought provoking, the real reason that gets me every time is that it is just so damn fun!

I would love love love to see something like this from the city, it would be great.

Also did you notice, they talk about door zones in bike lanes? A little education goes a long way toward safety.

Also how not to cross the street (this video is completely unrelated to the above, but o..m..g..)

Last year this got….insane. Like people told me “this is the most drunk I have ever been in my life…ever” insane. You should for sure check it out, because as I mentioned before, it was pretty crazy last year. Press release below.

———

CYCLISTS TO TAKE HALLOWEEN-THEMED RIDE FROM BOSTON TO SALEM DURING RED BULL
WITCH HUNT

2nd Annual Costumed Ride Concludes at Secret Location Party in Salem

Red Bull is giving Boston-area cyclists the opportunity to celebrate
Halloween early by taking a spirited bike ride from Boston to Salem, Mass.,
as part of the second annual Red Bull Witch Hunt event on Oct. 28, 2009.

During the evening, tricked-out bikes will soar through the Boston streets,
serving as riders’ “broomsticks” as they trek to the home of the
infamous Salem Witch Trials of 1692. The ride will conclude with a private
costume party at a secret location in Salem.

The Halloween-themed ride will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the Fourth Wall
Project Gas Station, located at 1301 Boylston St. in Boston. Once cyclists
arrive in Salem, they will be directed to the costume party’s secret
location.

To participate in the free Red Bull Witch Hunt event, cyclists must be 18
years of age or older, be dressed in a Halloween costume, and abide by
proper bicycle safety. Refreshments will be provided at stops along the
ride. Red Bull will take riders’ “broomsticks” back to the Fourth
Wall Project Gas Station, and all participants will be given bus
transportation back to the station to pick up their bikes at the end of the
night.

Red Bull Witch Hunt info

Date: Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009

Time: Meet-up at 6:30 p.m.; ride from Boston to Salem 7:00 – 9:00
p.m.; party is from 9:00 p.m. – 12:00 a.m. (Note: Only those who take the
bike ride will be allowed into the party)

First Chicago, and now Portland, ummm Boston we need one of these…

Drive Thru Mayhem from Joe Biel on Vimeo.

So awesome, would love to see this, but I guess honestly there are not that many of these kind of resturants in Boston…but still cool.

Traffic Enforcement for Bicyclist Safety from Chicago Bicycle Program on Vimeo.

Seems that this guy tried to steal the wrong bike and the wrong time. They rough him up a bit but then let him go. Frankly I am not sure I would have been so nice, but it is clear that he got the message “don’t steal bikes bro”

This is simply amazing…amazing…love it. It has that force of truth that you will only realize if you do right a bike every day.

I read David Filipov’s newest article at the Globe with some amount of disgust this morning. For those who have yet to glance upon this masterwork of investigative journalism let me serve up some tasty snippets.

Boston has launched a high-profile campaign to become a friendlier city for cyclists. Now the question is whether bicyclists will become friendlier to Boston. On any hour of any day, Boston bicyclists routinely run red lights, ride the wrong way on one-way streets, zip along sidewalks, and cut off pedestrians crossing streets legally – even though bike riders are supposed to obey the same traffic laws as motorists. Sometimes, a bicyclist will do all of these things in one two-wheeled swoop. The city seems unable to stop it.

(emphasis mine)

Ahh yes, Boston cyclists scourge of the streets. I don’t actually disagree with the authors claims of wrong doing by cyclists. In fact I am just as annoyed and pissed off when I see cyclists running red lights (news flash, running red lights doesn’t make you faster…being faster makes you faster), mostly because I then have to pass their stupid asses as I take off after waiting at the red light, but also because I see them regularly muck up traffic, almost get run over, or fail to yield to pedestrians. In short the same numskulls who run red lights on their bikes, are the same people I worry about when in cars. So why might you ask was I so disgusted with this article?

In short the article is guilty of two things. One, it insinuated that only cyclists are breaking the law, and two, it tries very hard to neglect that different user groups produce different consequences when they break the law.

So to the first point, ‘only cyclists are bad’, lets take a look at some of the crack statistics work that the author did.

At that particular intersection, 12 out of 28 cyclists were observed ignoring the red light over the course of 45 minutes. Some cruised right through; others paused and then went forward. A dozen more rode along the narrow sidewalk, weaving their ways among joggers, people walking to work, and students toting instruments toward the Berklee College of Music. Four more cyclists rode the wrong way on Newbury Street, dodging oncoming vehicles.

…

On Wednesday, over the course of 40 minutes, 20 cyclists ran the light at Charles and Beacon streets; only one did not. Monday morning, over the course of 35 minutes at Copley Square, 12 cyclists sailed through red lights (five waited for green). Monday, during a half-hour at lunch time, 10 out of 23 cyclists ran the red light on Tremont Street at the beginning of Beacon Street, where tourists commingled with hurried business people. Ten more rode the wrong way on Tremont. Dozens more took the sidewalk, scattering walkers.

Nice, random sampling times, no methodology, no sampling of other user groups, tiny samples, in short these numbers mean nothing. They also fail to capture the entire picture. How many pedestrians walked out against the signal, how many cars failed to yield, how many cars failed to use turn signals, how many were speeding? I feel that a detailed multi-user group study of any intersection would show that every user group in Boston has a problem, and that problem is that they simply don’t give a fuck about anyone else.

If you are a pedestrian and you want to be “over there” and the little walk man isn’t showing what do you do? You look both ways (sometimes), if no one is coming (or often even if they are, cause ‘hey fuck it’ they will stop) and you step out into the street. You don’t care if you force the cyclist to move into heavy traffic to avoid you, you also don’t care if a bunch of cars have to suddenly stop to let you cross when you have absolutely no business being in the road at that time.

If you are a cyclist and you want to go through a red light, well ‘hey fuck it’, off you go. You have no regard for the fact that you might get run over, that you might hold up traffic, that you might strike a pedestrian that is crossing the street, that you might hit another cyclist that is following the law, that you might then cause a headache for the cyclists behind you who then have to deal with you when the light does turn green.

If you are a motorist and you feel like getting from point A to point B as fast as possible and you don’t feel like signaling, checking your mirrors, obeying the speed limit, looking before you open your door, yielding to pedestrians, giving cyclists room on the road, well ‘hey fuck it’ it’s your car and you will do what you want.

In short no user group is any more or less lawful than any other. They each break different laws in different frequency, but they are ALL breaking the law with great regularity and mostly because of the “hey fuck it” attitude that so many have in this city.

That brings me to point two. The consequences for different user groups breaking the law are not the same. When a car decides to run a red light, it carries a much greater risk than when a bike does. Similarly the danger to pedestrians who cross against the light are predominantly to themselves, with cyclists a close second, most motorists will not be physically harmed if they strike a pedestrian. All of these actions are illegal, and stupid, but the risk vs reward for each is different. If you are going to write an entire article about how unruly cyclists are, well then you should have lots of facts about how this behavior is dangerous to the public. Statistics showing the hundreds of deaths caused each year by cyclists running red lights, and the carnage caused by sidewalk riding. Don’t get me wrong, I think running red lights and riding on the side walk are stupid and shouldn’t be done, but in all honestly they don’t pose a major threat to public safety. However literally thousands of people are killed each year by or in cars. When a 4000 pound box of metal and glass gets going fast and doesn’t signal it’s turns, people die.

Publishing an entire article about one user group without putting it in context is disingenuous, and dishonest. There is already a strong pubic opinion that you “have to be crazy to ride a bike in Boston” or “bike riders are assholes.” Which is a horrible thing, biking in Boston can be a fun and relaxing activity. Bikers are not crazy, and biking doesn’t have to be a war of US v Them. The car lifestyle has brought us a lot of things, but the most obvious is obesity, congestion, pollution, sprawl , global warming, wars for oil, and as of late an economic crisis. People could do a fair amount of good by simply leaving the car in the driveway and taking the bike out for a spin.

This article was a simple attempt to get some ad revenue for the Globe, shallow sensational journalism lacking context or good research. But the fact still remains: Cyclists break the law, a lot. What can we do about that? The article itself, and the user comments are long on “this is the problem” and lacking completely the “this is the solution.” The solution seems to be two fold.

Education: You need to know what the laws are. This goes for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists. You should have a deep understanding of what exactly you are supposed to be doing out there (check out MassBike’s website for a good run down of cycling laws if you are rusty, they just passed some new laws so it might be time for a refresher).

Attitude: Boston must put aside it’s “hey fuck it” (or even worse “hey fuck you”) attitude. What really keeps us all safe and happy out there is not the law, but the social trust. That little white line, or that little red/green/yellow light, isn’t what keeps you from getting run over by that truck. The trust you put into that truck driver to treat that light like it means something, or stay on one side of that white line is what keeps you safe. When you break the law what you are really doing is breaking the social trust that someone else put in you. You are saying to them “everything is chaotic you can’t count on anything” and that makes them mad, afraid and unsafe. If you are a cyclist you count on cars coming to a stop at red lights, otherwise you would never cross an intersection (imagine if cars ran reds with the frequency that bikes do). The entire system is based from the ground up on trust of strangers. Every time a cyclist runs a red light they are eroding that trust.

If each use group continues to erode the trust (by doing all the things mentioned above and more) then eventually the streets will be nothing more than a war zone, and whoever is fastest and toughest will get around, and everyone else will be road kill. Not a happy scenario, but also far from a likely one if some simple things are changed. But hey, at least we can count on the Boston Globe to provide us with poorly thought out, and poorly researched articles so that we can scape goat one group while ignoring the bigger problem. Thanks Boston Globe.

Way back in 2003, Hal Ruzal of Bicycle Habitat in NYC released a video for BikeTV where he grades how well people lock their bike up around New York:

Then he did it again in 2007:

And most recently, again in 2009.

I’m sure these videos are old news to many of you, but if not, after watching them, seeing locked bikes will never be the same.

Great little video from elsewhere (non-Boston) but still liked it.

So this video is shooting around the bike webs as fast as anything ever does.

I have several things to say about this video.

1. Violence is never an answer to anything, it only causes more problems.
2. Be careful who you get into a screaming match with, you never know who will pull out a weapon, just because you are in a car/on a bike/on foot, doesn’t mean that the other person wont have a knife/U-lock/gun/etc.
3. This video has enough missing information that you really can’t tell who is at fault, or what is going on.
4. As violent as this looks, I don’t really think the man on foot was too badly hurt.
5. Agree or disagree with his actions, the biker seemed to be defending himself, as he only hit the man on foot until he backed off, not continuing the attack or attempting to harm him too badly.
6. Again, lets all try to be nice to each other out there, violence never solves anything.

What do you think?

EDIT: From the youtube comments:
1. seems this whole thing started when the biker and pedestrian collided, from the video it is almost impossible to tell who is at fault there, but it doesn’t look like they collided with any kind of speed because everyone is still standing when the video starts.
2. seems the guy was hurt badly, goes to show, don’t hit people with heavy chunks of metal, it isn’t nice and potentially will get you thrown in jail
3. seems the bike guy gave the walking guy many verbal warnings to back off, and go away before the video starts, goes to show you, don’t pick fights with random people in public you never know when they will haul off and go crazy on you.

I sure hope so, hey everyone the tour starts tomorrow! Good luck lance.

Lanes from Matthew Hashiguchi on Vimeo.

Via BuBikes

Emerson student, Matthew Hashiguchi, made this documentary on bike lanes in Boston. It was for his class on Filmmaking in the Sustainable City.

I was in San Jose last week and got to be part of their monthly bike party. Some strange things about bike party…

1. 1500 people, no joke this thing is huge
2. people stop at stop signs and red lights (mostly)
3. people in cars are nice to the party members
4. all ages (family, child, old, college, high school etc)
5. people love their cruisers/low riders/choppers/old shitty mountain bikes out there.
6. it is done at night
7. music is provided by several bike trailers, and a musical couch
8. BIKE PARTY!!!!
9. seriously…BIKE PARTY!!!!!

The nice thing about this, and I am not sure it would work here, is that everyone (cars/bikers/pedestrians) seem to be having a great time. No one was yelling, or screaming, and it was a nice experience. The critical mass in Boston should try doing it a couple hours later some month and see if there are less conflicts, they might be happy with the results.

Harvard Square to Boston Medical from Ron Adams on Vimeo.

Ron here does some pretty fancy riding. Once again if you want to get around quickly….get on your bike!

You all know you have seen him, he is an icon, a tradition, a force. I have seen this guy plowing through some steep hills on that tricycle.

Louie from Brian Moore on Vimeo.

I for one want him to be around for a long long time. When you hear the “move” get out this guys way, cause well he seems to have earned his place on the road.

It Ain’t That Serious. from open bicycle on Vimeo.

As advertised these videos are full of win. Enjoy.

Untitled from Seamus on Vimeo.

I am sure you will all know a bunch of people in this video. Jacob seems to have found himself a nice dutch girl and then runs her through the scumbag cup 07…watch the fun that ensues.

And of course Peter wins…fast motherfucker that he is.

Ohh yes my friends, the good people over at BoldSprints have now integrated video into their bag of tricks.

Could this be me getting beaten by a good 2 seconds…yes it could be.

Could this be me rocking the pants of Greg from Suffolk bikes…I think it could be.

Is this me whoopin his ass a second time? Snap!

Whats this? Jacob nearly falls over on that tiny little bike he is riding, watch the end, he makes a hard right…on rollers. Amazing considering these guys had already had a good amount to drink before they got up to do this.

More videos here.

more awesome pictures here (Natasha is the best photog ever!)

You so need to come check the next one of these out. Next Sunday the 29th at the All Asia bar on Mass Ave near Central Square T-stop. Come race, come watch, just come!

Pretty sweet. Way to go MassBike, Livable Streets, MBTA, and everyone else who was part of making these happen. Lets hope for many more.

The good folks over at That Hotness have produced this fantastic video.

Boldcrits Bike Racing – Boston from thathottness on Vimeo.

More info here.

It is a damn shame that I missed this…maybe next Monday.

Seems Lance is coming back… Could we see some more of this?

I remember watching this, and seeing him look back, you could almost see the will being crushed out of the men behind him. He was an unstoppable force and the poor bastards never had a chance.

It’s that time again, time to get all the video’s the internet has to offer to you the loyal readers.

Cambridge Bicycle Cyclocross – 2007 Season from C B on Vimeo.

Find more from these guys here.

Many more below the jump…many more. You have been warned…

(more…)

These guys are absolutely nuts, certifiable.

Got this fun video in my email last week. Looks like there are a lot of really nice places to ride your bike in this city. Not that we all didn’t already know that.

It’s time once again to clean out my feed reader of all the fun videos I have found all over the tubes, internets, webs, webertubes and even some I found on the internet. Again I will start with the most awesome video. This is just great. Everything you think you came up with first, you didn’t….

More below.

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This is just wonderful, driven down many of the same roads myself, via the awesome Bostonist blog.

I have been having all these fun video’s clutter up my video in-box. So without further adu here they are in no apparent order (except the best one is first).

Sprint Night from Panda Face on Vimeo.

much much more below…try not to wast an hour watching these all at work…

(more…)

Seriously, this sounds awesome. Bike thieves be warned you could get a very nasty surprise next time you steal a bicycle.

I have zero sympathy for bicycle thieves, I say we all install these things on our bicycles.

HIDDEN LAKES OF MOONSHINE from SHOW UP on Vimeo.

Now get off the internet and go ride your bike!

Here is a little bit of fun to get your Friday going.

trailer for FUMIKIRI from JAN on Vimeo.

Untitled from james newman on Vimeo.

Untitled from james newman on Vimeo.

more below

(more…)

Dear internets, keep em coming.

Amazing camera work on this one.

SF Track/Fixed Night Edit from Fonsecafilms on Vimeo.

This man is not un-small, his wheels are impressive in their toughness.

A Slow Wednesday Jam from Bootleg Sessions on Vimeo.

…crap this guy is fast.