Stuff I need to make happen one day...

This might be the coolest thing I've seen since the Human Powered Rollercoaster.

Red Bull Minidrome from Radar Films on Vimeo.

In fact it's cool enough that I might need to make it happen in a "two up elimination" kind of way...

Beautiful things that make me smile.

An idea for a T-shirt

...and the jury says?

More on helmets...

I promised to discuss at greater length my opinions on bicycle helmets. I haven't forgotten, I'm composing my thoughts carefully, and as a part of that process I found the article below. I don't agree with all its points (mostly statistics are presented in a misleading manner) but it's an interesting article and offers contact information to a Vancouver Police Officer who is willing to hear opinions on the matter which is somewhat refreshing.

Here's the article:

Much to ponder over mandatory bike lids

BY MARK TONNER, THE PROVINCE MAY 10, 2009

Police officers become accustomed to being labelled. This month I find I'm
wearing another, square on the forehead.

Apparently I'm a "Liddite." An unthinking proponent of mandatory bicycle helmet
laws.

I'm not sure I'm done with it yet, though I am willing to think. Bicycle helmets
don't offer genuine safety, according to the anti-lid set. Most bike fatalities
involve collisions with cars, not falls onto hard surfaces. Helmets are rated
for simple falls, not collisions at speed.

The natural response, a call for better helmets, is said to be misguided.
Studies on more robust motorcycle helmets show mandatory laws elevate crash
rates, even cause fatalities. Something in a false sense of security is said to
bring trouble, while an elevated sense of danger actually providessafety for the
helmet-free.

Helmet laws are said to cause perceptions of danger, making people afraid to
cycle. Fear-driven preference for auto transport brings congestion, raises the
risk to pedestrians, other drivers, and you guessed it -- cyclists. The fewer
cyclists on the road, the more dangerous it is for those who do ride.

Social engineers would have us trained from childhood, to want to ride, and to
obey the law when we do. They'd have motor vehicles made to slow down and
respect cyclists, rather than impose helmets on riders.

It's no surprise to see anti-liddites pointing to the Netherlands. Drug liberals
have been bowing that way for years, though the bicycling issue may benefit more
clearly from Dutch insight. They restrict auto access to residential and
shopping districts. They support public transit, subsidize cycling, and you
guessed again, they don't insist on helmets.

Almost half of Netherlanders pedal to work without helmets, yet the country has
a uniquely low rider-mortality rate. They've addressed the real problem, as they
see it. The cars.

The extreme side insists that mandated helmets equal legislated fear. Auto
manufacturers sell more cars when people fear cycling. Oil companies sell more
fuel, helmet manufacturers sell to a market held captive by regulation and fear.

Past a certain point, the anti-helmet manifesto reads like a Michael Moore
script. Cigarettes kill 400 times as many people as bicycles, but smokers aren't
made to use filters. Skin cancer kills ten times as many as bikers, but
sunscreen isn't compulsory.

Add an alien and we'd get David Duchovny back. For my part, I'll admit to being
swayed. Police officers aren't lawmakers, but we're being asked to think
carefully about enforcement of helmet laws as weather improves.

The new Burrard bridge bicycle lane will provide some interesting moments,
almost certainly. I can guarantee a major portion of bridge riders will be
helmet-free. It's the same everywhere. A sizeable segment within the cycling
community simply isn't buying into this law.

I think about proposed bicycle exchange programs, with cycles available in
strategic locations around town. Spontaneity would be entirely removed if one
needed a helmet to take advantage.

I think about the will of the community, both riders and drivers, and whether or
not this law expresses majority beliefs. Is it time to reconsider? Let me know,
at the address below.

Sgt. Mark Tonner is a Vancouver police officer, whose column appears biweekly in
the Province. His opinions aren't necessarily those of the city's police
department or board. Mark may be contacted at marcuspt@shaw.ca

This could be one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.



And not a single person wearing a helmet. Oh, how far we have fallen... (I'm not sure if there's a pun in there but I'm aware of the "falling" analogy somehow being relevant to the "no helmet" comment.)

I'll write more shortly on my feelings about helmets.

This isn't right.

I don't even know what to say about this one.

More here.



This is Kylie at the funeral of her parents who were riding a tandem and were run down by some guy. "Investigators say there are no charges on the driver. They believe this was an accident and that somehow the driver lost control of his truck.”

You know, even if it was an "accident" there needs to be some sort of repercussions. No charges? Not even a ticket? I mean, sure, I can believe the guy didn't intentionally run down this poor girl's parents but driving a vehicle is a privilege, not a right, and even if you didn't intend to kill someone if you're not in control of your vehicle enough to prevent running down law abiding cyclists and killing them then at the very least you should lose your license.

I don't know what else to say. I mean, maybe it's the fact that I have a daughter that I'm more sensitive to this image than I should be but I pride myself on being able to see the "big picture." Like I said, yes, it was an accident, but you take on a certain amount of responsibility every time you get behind the wheel. It's up to you to pay attention to the road when you're driving and if you fuck up this badly, if you kill people, there should be, there has to be, some repercussions.

Getting what you pay for

(Paying for what you get)




When I first lived in Toronto I lived with a man named Reg Hartt. Reg was one of those folkloric legends that was loved as much as he was loathed. What Reg did/does is show off center films such as Metropolis or Triumph of the Will out of his house though the films were simply the bread whereas the meat was the talks Reg would give before the films or during intermissions. Technically "uneducated" he was one of the smartest people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. There was no shortage of life lessons and learned experiences he would convey to eager audiences on any given night in the living room of his house on Bathurst Street but one of the ones that stood out and seems relevant today was one that he told about a night when he was "working the door" for a friend who was a musician and putting a show on at some venue or other. (I'm taking some liberty with the details, this story is part of a 15 year old memory) While Reg was working the door a guy came up and tried to push past without paying.

Reg said to him, "hey, there's a cover charge tonight."

The guy replied, "It's okay, I'm friends with the guy playing tonight."

Reg replied, "If you were really his friend you'd pay cover."

His point was, if it's worth having it's worth paying for. Reg is a very smart man.

Which brings me to this courier bag that I have. It's been in my possession for a long time, the better part of 13 years. I've tried other bags in between for short periods of time but have always come back to my Pac bag and the amount of abuse it's taken over the years isn't accurately depicted by it's current state. Don't get me wrong, it's worn, but it should be in tatters by now and I'm having a very difficult time coming to grips with the fact that I'm going to have to take it out behind the barn and shoot it.

I bought the Pac courier bag from Pat (the founder of Pac) at the Toronto Bike Show one year when I was a courier in Toronto. I was also going to school at the time so I didn't have a whole lot of money and the bag wasn't cheap but it looked good and Pat was really nice so I bucked up and invested. That bag got me through almost 4 years on the road as a messenger, daily commutes to school, and 9 years of commuting to work, grocery shopping, beer runs, you name it. I mean, this bag gets used for a lot and I can't make that statement sound exagerated enough to make it come close to how much I've used this bag over the years. In its life it made one trip back to the holy land (Pat's sewing workshop) for a new quick release strap and a new buckle but it hardly missed a beat and no other seams or materials needed to be dealt with.

A few years ago Pat offered to send me a free bag as a sign of appreciation for the number of bags I'd sold for her over the years in my bike stores to which I responded, in the spirit of Reg, "I need to pay you, if it's worth having it's worth paying for." But Pat was too generous and said if I sent her a few bike parts she'd call it even. The bike parts' value totalled some insignificant portion of what the bag was worth and would be long worn out and discarded while the bag would undoubtedly still be doing its job but she insisted it was fair recompense and left me no room to argue. And I was grateful, for sure, and very happy to get this shiny new bag but I kept looking at my old one in the closet and thought about how many places we'd been together, how the cordura had first softened up and then stiffened up again into a shape such that, not unlike a Brooks saddle after years of riding takes the shape of your butt, my old bag fell across my back and shoulders like a preformed security blanket. When I saw the old bag I felt like I was cheating on it with some younger, prettier bag. I couldn't do that so I passed the new bag on to a good friend of mine in need for a fair price and went back to the old faithful model. That was a couple of years ago and now it's finally time to admit I need a new bag. I hate to do it and I'm really tempted to send this one back to Pac again to work her magic but, well, the patches would have to be bigger this time and the repairs shorter lived and at some point the bag will fail (or not, it's gone this long, it may indeed be woundable but unkillable...) Writing this is therapy for me, the first step in admitting I'm about to make that phone call or compose that email and send it off to Pat asking her to work her magic and conjur me up what is likely to be the last cycling bag I ever buy. I won't ever be a bike messenger again so it's likely the break in period and early years won't be nearly as rough on this bag as it was on the first one and I'm not carrying the same dumb things I did when I was younger. Actually, check that, I'm still likely to load this bag with lots of things it wasn't designed to handle though it will probably handle it just fine each time. I'm going to get it custom made in a couple of different colours than what they come standard in though it will be black and red like the first one and the Sinclair Handmade Bicycles logo will feature proudly on the flap. It'll cost a bit more to get it made that way but if it's worth having...