Old School

I couldn't stand riding a mountain bike all winter, so I dug up the old white Cannondale circa 1987 ish if I remember correctly.

I kept tapping the brake levers and nothing happened. Maybe this is why.

Full friction, no index shifting. 50 good miles and a gorgeous day. Only got buzzed once by a Waste Management truck. We'll see how they respond.

Keep riding

Jeff

A Christmas Poem... kind of

Twas 3 days before Christmas
and man it was foggy
I didn't get run off the road,
but I sure did get soggy.

That's all I got, except for this video. It's your present from me.



P.S. cut me some slack on the video, it was cut in about 2 minutes with
windows movie maker. I'll get something more professional soon, maybe.
Thanks to all the drivers in the fog who gave me a wide berth. It was a fun ride.
Merry Christmas everyone

Bikesafer ????

"bikesafer"

What kind of name is that for a blog.

Well I'm on a bit of a mission. The short version is in my profile. I hate getting harassed by cars and trucks.

So I have been doing what I can to make it safer for all cyclists.

The long story goes back a couple summers. The wife and I were biking on Lake Drive when a minivan passed us with about a foot of clearance at the start of the pass and getting closer as he passed. I was fairly certain he was going to hit me so I put my left had out so he would hit my hand before he hit my handlebars and sent me flying. I was right, he hit my hand. Then he swerved over in front of us and started screaming obscenities at us. I decided that was a good time to get the authorities involved.

The Whitefish Bay Police arrived a couple minutes later. They talked to the driver first and told us to wait about a half block away. After they talked to the driver for a couple minutes they let him drive off and came to talk to us. We told them what happened. They told us we were "lucky" they didn't cite me for disorderly conduct for "striking" his car. So I guess in Whitefish Bay WI, if you get hit by a motorist, you are guilty of disorderly conduct.

That is when I decided I'd had enough. I now call the police whenever I have a close call with a driver like this. I know the police are busy fighting crime and all, so I don't call them unless it is a particularly egregious offense or if the driver swears, swerves or throws something, etc.

That hadn't gone very well. I had been told that I wasn't riding in the proper position on the road, or that I should find a different road if I didn't want to be forced off the road. I've even been told by numerous law enforcement officials that I didn't have the right to be on the road in the first place! It's bad enough to hear this from the motoring public, but to get this from law enforcement was too much.

So I read and re-read the state statutes , and then found this little number. Now when I go to the authorities, I have proof of what happened. I still get the same response from most officers, but then I write letters to chiefs of police, or mayors or county executives, explaining the laws and our rights as cyclists. Unfortunately of the 6 or 7 complaints I've made in the last couple months ZERO tickets have been issued.

That's where this site comes in. I am going to begin posting the videos and perhaps the names of those officers and the nonsense they tell me about our rights to be on the road.

I will also welcome comments and discussion from motorists who have horror stories about cyclists who violate the laws and come close to causing accidents. We have right to be out there but we also have responsibility to behave appropriately.

The difference, of course is when cyclists break the law they put their own lives at risk, when motorists violate the laws relating to cyclists they put the cyclists lives at risk.

I'm sick of getting pushed around out there and I'm starting to push back. If you want to help fight for you rights to use the road, keep checking back here for useful links. I'll also have just plain fun biking stuff too.

Thanks for reading, keep riding and bike safe.

"Riding My Bike..."

So I went out for a snow ride Saturday night. It turned out to be the best winter/snow ride I've done. Not even the snow plow who almost hit me could ruin my ride. Same goes for the guy in the pick-up truck that asked me at a light, "what the f@% are you doing?" I just said "riding my bike" and that seemed to completely confuse the driver to the point that he just muttered under his breath and drove off. The snow was perfect for riding on the parkway roads,. and it snowed all night. I love riding in the snow. There's usually no one else on the roads. It was so quiet on the parkway, that at one point I expected the winter warlock or the abomidable snow man to come out of the woods and chase me. I can't wait till it snows again. Except I need to find someone else to shovel the driveway.



If you've arrived here via Velonews.com see the rest of the blog.