Ride your…soccer ball to work?

I was listening to a Vancouver based radio station on-line today and was stunned at what BC’s finance minister equated bikes to.

Your average sporting equipment such as soccer balls, hockey sticks, skies etc. are the same as a bicycle.

This was brought up because in BC and Ontario, the new HST tax will be put in place July 1 (Happy Canada’s Day, here’s a tax hike).
Currently bicycles and some accessories are exempt from the Provincial Sales Tax.
Come July 1 bikes will cost 7% or 8% more.

Toronto Bicycle Police (G20)

Picture by nouspique
As many may know, the G20 is currently going on in Toronto. The G8 just finished in Huntsville, Ontario.

Peaceful protests, whether I agree with the protesters or not I support. When you get these morons (black block) who simply come to a city to destroy things for fun, I have no time for them. Especially when they then act like cowards and hide within the real protesters. Apparently the majority of these anarchists have come from England and the USA.

Politics aside, I give a lot of credit to the Toronto bicycle police force. I do believe Toronto’s bicycle police force is the largest in North America.
It appeared as if all of the police in downtown Toronto are all on bikes, including the riot squad.

Some people may recall when the Tamil tiger supporters took over the Gardiner expressway last year, a group of about ten bicycle cops held off hundreds of Tamils for a while until they started to throw the bicycles aside and storm the highway.

Should be interesting to see how much more damage will happen today.

Oh, and just who in their right mind would actually want to host a “G” event? It’s a given that these riots will occur.

Bike friendly Vancouver?

So just how bike friendly is Vancouver? From everything I’ve ever read or seen on the internet or TV, I had a vision of a paradise (by Canadian standards) for cyclists. Lately the more I read or see the more I think it may be the opposite. At least from an attitude perspective.

I have no issue with cracking down on cyclists, however cracking down on cyclists without a bell, helmet, lights (not reflectors) and not putting both your feet down at a stop light?

I’ve never heard of that? Both feet must touch the ground? Over the years I’ve learnt to keep balance at stop lights with both feet still on the pedals. When I have to plant my feet it’s usually only one.

From what I understand, where she crossed it’s a pedestrian/bicycle cross light.

Bike on Bus

Other than the GO bus that comes to St Catharines (to Hamilton or Toronto), I’ve yet to see a bike on one of our city buses.

Cycling to the pitch

With nearly 90% of the population of St Catharines being either from or having roots from Europe, you see a lot of football (soccer) this time of year.
What better way to get to the pitch (school field actually) then by bike.
Hard to say whether he was in mourning or not over Italy’s loss. We have a large Italian, German, Dutch, English, French population here.

Do Bike Helmets Save Lives? Or Do They Hurt Cycling?

Great post today on Planet Green related to helmets.

That looks pretty convincing. But here is the problem: Head injuries are the major cause of death for pedestrians, either hitting their heads on pavement or into the windshields when they are hit by cars. Many of the injuries to people in cars come from head injuries. So why aren't pedestrians encouraged to wear helmets? Or drivers?
Because that might make people think that cars are dangerous! Or that walking isn't safe!

I, along with many others have always said that pedestrians and motorists are the ones that should wear helmets.
Somehow people usually shrugs those ideas off.
Like my previous post, there’s a perception of danger.

Roger Geffen of the National Cyclists Organization in the UK put it well:
The idea that it is somehow 'dangerous' and 'irresponsible' to cycle without a helmet is a total myth. It merely puts people off cycling and contributes to the increase in the level of obesity and other inactivity-related illnesses, which kill tens of thousands of people every year. If we are to encourage people to take up cycling - with all its benefits for our health, our streets, our environment and our wallets - then we need to promote it as a safe and enjoyable way to get around for day-to-day travel, wearing normal clothes.

Then of course you have an article from three years back posted on Scientific American. Ian Walker did a study that showed motorists passed helmeted cyclists closer then bare headed cyclists.
After I read this three years ago, I gave it a try. I went down our busy streets with a helmet on and without.
My results came out the same.
When I had a helmet on cars passed me much closer and at greater speeds.
When I didn’t have a helmet on, cars slowed down and gave me plenty of space with nearly everyone moving into the other lane.
In my time cycling, I only wore a helmet for a few weeks and that was only occasionally when I started out (what a waste of $30 that was).
I’ve only encountered an issue with people passing once. I was in Welland (this past April) and a van past me doing 70km within inches. In the position I was in I would have been a goner either way. I would have been thrown into the Welland Canal or pinned against the concrete barrier.
I chalk this up as another reason helmets should not be forced upon us. Sadly some governments just won’t listen.

Perception

Here in Canada (and the United States), we need to change the perception of what it means to ride a bike.
Of course with all the cycle chic blogs I check daily, you’d think that perception would already have changed.
I bring this up because I read a great post at Over the Bars in Milwaukee yesterday.
Here are some of the negative perceptions that people think of when it comes to cycling that I have found ;

1. You have to dress a certain way. I personally don’t think I dress chicly, at least in the sense I don’t spend a lot of money on fashion. I just wear casual clothing. No special lyrca or reflective vests. With all the chic blogs out there and chic cyclists on the roads already, you would think people would understand this by now.
   I’m actually not even going to mention helmets in a negative light, yet a positive one. Some people choose to wear them some have to by law. Wearing a helmet shouldn’t make you think you have to wear lycra. The traditional helmets everyone thinks of defiantly are not chic or appealing to look at. There are however much more chic helmets around now. If I end up having to wear one, this is what I’d wear.
2. We are not hippies. I read this quite often and I’m not sure where it comes from. When I think of hippies and transportation, I think of those ‘hippie vans’. I don’t know of many traditional hippies who even ride bikes.
3. We’re not all activists. Although most of us advocate for more bicycle usage and better bike lanes, we are not all social activists.
   The perception I get from many in Canada is that if your into biking, you must be a far-left socialist.
   Biking should cross the political spectrum, although this is not always the case.
4. We sweat too much therefore we stink. A reason often cited in North America for not riding to work is lack of a shower. Yes during the summer we sweat more often. I have found though we sweat no more then those walking or taking transit and in many cases those driving. Many of those who push for workplace showers are those on road bikes and in lycra. At most, the average person simply needs a damp washcloth.
5. It’s too dangerous. I’m not sure when or where this started, however cycling is extremely safe. Of course there are certain cities or areas in cities that I wouldn’t even think of going to, but overall cycling is much safer then driving a car.
   Two keys to safety? Ride defensively and obey the traffic laws.
6. *Alexwarrior said...For me, it's the perception that people on bikes all disobey all traffic laws that bugs me the most.

Regrettably the media has played a roll in the current perception of what a cyclist is. Hopefully we can sway things back to a more positive look on what a cyclist actually is.
If you have anymore perceptions that drive you nuts, leave them in the comment and I’ll post them later.

Earthquake in Ontario

Appears a 5.5 quake hit us here in Ontario, along with Quebec, NY, Pennsylvania.

Didn't realize it, however a 5+ magnitude quake is not uncommon in Ontario. Happens every 10 years or so.

I thought it was my dog trying to get settled behind my computer chair. Then realized she wasn't even near me.

Is car-culture really dying?

According to a Toronto Star article, today’s youth are steering clear of cars.

The days of North America’s car culture seem to be numbered.
You wouldn’t think so stuck in traffic at rush hour, or navigating a congested parking lot at Canadian Tire. But a large portion of the latest generation of young people are not embracing the car culture that largely defined the 20th century.

You really wouldn’t think this is the case. Here where I am I still believe most of the youth view car ownership as a necessity.
I do see many who cycle to school, though the number still seems low. Walking is another thing many don’t seem to do.
When I was in grade 8, I walked about 3km (one-way) to school everyday. I would walk to school, home for lunch, back to school and then at the end of the day walk home again.
Of course had I ridden a bike back then, I would have saved myself a fair amount of time.
When I started high school I lived in rural northern Ontario. It was a 30km bus ride one-way. Possible to bike or walk? No. The only way was on a dangerous Highway 11, plus I lived there during the winter months.
After the first semester I did come back to the city. I ended up walking everyday to school (and home for lunch), though this time it was more like 50 metres I had to walk.
Except for my brief time in northern Ontario, I never gave much thought into owning a car or getting my license. Living in St Catharines I almost always walked everywhere. It’s about 10km from the north-western part of the to the south-eastern corner.
Of course the auto-industry has to step in to reassure people this is not the case.

The auto industry is putting a brave face on this. “Driving is more likely ‘delayed than denied’,” argues Paul Taylor, chief economist at the U.S. National Automobile Dealers Association.
“That cohort may eventually get married and have children,” Taylor says. “Living near work is something you do when you’re young and single, and when you start picking out schools and amenities you want for your children’s development, people are less willing to live near the office.”
True. But what’s delayed often is denied, as with non-smoking adults who didn’t get hooked in youth. If you make it to 30 by cycling, public transit use, and innovations like Zip Car rentals, vehicle ownership may strike you as an expensive superfluity.

I have six more years to wait until I’m 30, however I already view car ownership as a waste of money.
Hopefully the youth of today will continue on with avoiding car-culture, and continue using bikes, transit or walking.

OT: What! No orange?

Since the start of the world cup, I’ve worn an orange shirt everyday while out in support of Oranje!
Actually, as it stands now the Netherlands are the only team I’m going for that is doing anything worth while.
France is gone, who knows what to expect from Germany, Italy and Spain who are all under performing.

Ride to Port Dalhousie

Made a new camera mount last night. My other one kind of crapped out on me. Decided to head to Port Dalhousie to make sure everything was ok.
Video is about 16 minutes, all at normal speed. Video was taken around 9pm. Very busy, although not uncommon this time of year.

Port Dalhousie (6/21/2010) from Ryan on Vimeo.

Finally parking!

Food Basics at the Fairview mall has added a bike rack. Not sure exactly when it was added seeing as I park on the opposite door to where they are.
Either way it is nice to see!

This Food Basics there are quite a few areas to park, however at times there can be so many bikes there that they can block pedestrians.

It’s the other Food Basics in the city that really needs secure bike parking. Anytime I’m down that way I end up locking my bike up to shopping carts, with three locks.

A few weeks ago after I did some shopping at the Hatzel road FB, at the bottom of the receipt there was a contest you could enter if you gave your opinion on the store.
In the comment section of it I did indicate there is no safe/secure place for cyclists to park at the store.

So either the Fairview FB received a lot of complaints from pedestrians trying to get in, or from cyclists looking for a place to park…Of course they could very well have realized they get a fair amount of cyclists who shop there, myself included.

 

NRP to crack down on young cyclists…

The Niagara Regional Police plan to crack down young cyclists today. So if your heading out today will you have to worry?
Most likely no as they are only targeting young cyclists.

According to the radio, police will be pulling over young cyclists and handing out “tickets” to those obeying the laws and those wearing helmets.
Of the young cyclists I see it’s a 50/50 split on those who wear helmets.

So what do you get if your a young cyclist and are following the rules of the road and wearing a helmet? A coupon to McDonalds.

Doesn’t seem to promote a healthy lifestyle does it?

Drunk driving…little to close to home

When I first moved in to the place I’m currently living in, it was a nice quiet area with low to medium traffic.
Each year car traffic has increased, to the point the road I live on is now considered a major road in the city.
Anytime there is a split second where cars are not going by you really notice and appreciate the quietness.

One of the reasons for increased traffic? Many people, especially in the summer head to Port Dalhousie to drink. Bars litter the little seaside port.

This is nothing new to people who live in the area, however drunk driving is an epidemic here. One reason I have limits on how late (or early) I’ll go out on the roads here.

Quebec has it right!

For some reason, helmets seem to be a fairly big issue this year compared to the past few.
The province of Quebec as it stands now does not have a helmet law. I also personally don’t see them ever having a helmet law.
Although car-culture is quite prevalent there and they don’t have the highest number of cyclists, the government has created quite the system.
Throughout Quebec cities, towns and villages are connected by La Route Verte which has marked rural roads bikes and cars share or completely separated bike ways.
According to the Montreal Gazette, 59% of Québécois do not wear helmets!

The bike free city…WTF?

To my knowledge the following story is not a joke. I got it from Take the Lane.
Here is the link to The AP article: Casino city bans riding bikes through town

Vancouver’s “BIXI” system

It appears Vancouver is making way for it’s own bike share system, similar to that of Montreal.
In the coming months the city will request proposals from Bixi and others to build and run a system in Vancouver with 2000 bikes in 2011.
Of course like my past few posts have dealt with helmets, this will be no different. Nearly every city with a successful bike share program, helmets are not mandatory. In BC of course they are.

La Rochelle has it right

La Rochelle - Ville Cyclable/Cycling City from Copenhagenize on Vimeo.

You may or may not have seen this video already from Mikael at Copenhaginze.com, however I figured I’d post it seeing as many people think  you must have bike lanes in order to be safe.
Going back to the whole helmet issue in Canada, many (mostly cyclists) say you need to wear helmets because of how we share roads with cars.
From this video, it appears to me that La Rochelle has a good number of cyclists that are riding right along with motorists. How many helmeted riders did you spot?
La Rochelle isn’t the only European city like this.
Bordeaux has bike lanes similar to Canada (aka painted lines), although I found theirs quite narrow compared to ours. Of course Bordeaux also has some beautiful two way, separate bike lanes as well.
Berlin has thousands of cyclists that share the road with cars.
Every where throughout Europe, at some point bikes and cars share the road.
So what is the issue in Canada (and US)? A culture of cars & speed.
Major roadways MUST have some form of a bike lane.
Secondary/residential roads should have speed limits of 30kph and no more.
Will this ever happen? Perhaps in a handful of cities with resistant. Vancouver & Montreal are the only two cities in Canada that I know of that have separate bike lanes in the downtown core. Of course they are not throughout the downtowns.
Both of those cities also have lower speed limits in residential areas.
Will it happen in my life time? Nope. All I can ever hope for is a massive lottery win, like this Friday’s $50 million so I can head to Europe!

Losing cause…

That losing cause is helmet laws.
New ‘study’ shows that 60% of British Columbians wear a helmet while cycling. Of course this number isn’t all that high seeing as they are one of few areas in the world that have a mandatory helmet law.
What’s the losing cause? Attitude of people. Yeah I did it again…I read the comments after the story.
So just what are people who ride without a helmet?

• A scofflaw
• Idiot
• Organ donor
• Misinformed
• A burden on our health care

There were many more things said about people who ride without helmets, however I decided to post the slightly more positive ones.
So my question is, (and I posted it on that story as well);
Who is right?
-BC, Maritimes, Australia, New Zealand
OR
-The rest of the world that has no helmet law for adults?
Many people in Canada like to make fun of Saskatchewan (I’ve never truly understood why).
However city council in Saskatoon in 2007 unanimously voted against a mandatory helmet law.
“largely because such a law discourages recreational exercise during an era of record obesity”
Another “backwards” province (to most, not me) Manitoba, recently (June 2009) voted against a mandatory helmet law.
I said in the past that if you choose to wear a helmet that is fine. I’m starting to get quite annoyed though with the helmet lobby group (usually made up of people who haven’t been on bikes since they were kids) dictating, demanding and fear mongering people into wearing a helmet.
I’ve stated before that I’m going to be moving to BC. I suppose any hopes of seeing the law repealed with never happen. If I go by the comments I’m in the minority in BC when it comes to helmet laws.
However if I go by the comments, I’m defiantly going to be hit by a car one day there. People with their “helmet saved me” stories were in full force. Not only did they put fear into people by saying you MUST wear a helmet, they put the fear into people because they made it seem as if British Columbians are some of the worst drivers around and that you will get hit eventually. Wonder how true this is?
Oh, and before people ever use the “our health care pays for you” excuse…target those who drive everywhere, eat crap food, smoke, drink, do extreme sports and a whole list of other, more costly things to our health care system.
http://www.makevictoriabetter.com/2010/05/bike-helmet-laws-stoopid.html

Vancouver Police putting the fear into people

Can’t embed the video, however here is the link:

http://watch.ctv.ca/news/clip312167#clip312167

Yeah, I’m sure a helmet would really help out that cyclist hit by that van.

It’s just too bad that for every positive step Vancouver is making by creating more dedicated space for cyclists, they are taking five steps back with their helmet law.

Brad Kilburn, my new hero?

I’ve made it pretty clear on how I feel about helmet laws in the past. I simply do not support them.
Having said that, if people choose to wear helmets I have no issue what so ever.

The only thing that has been proven to succeed with helmet laws is that the number of people cycling drops.

Across Canada there are not too many Provinces that force people to wear helmets. British Columbia would be the largest province to have such a law.

Brad Kilburn, a Richmond resident no longer wears a helmet while riding his bike.
There was even an interesting piece on MetroNews written about him a couple of months ago as to why.

“The Richmond resident, who has commuted to work by bicycle for the last 26 years, has come to the realization that mandatory helmet laws are actually bad for cyclists and Metro Vancouver’s cycling environment.

“It’s too bad well-intentioned individuals have harmed cycling advocacy by forcing riders to wear helmets,” he told me. Kilburn also maintains the same law is hampering Vancouver’s attempt to set up a bike sharing program.

He’s not alone in his assessment of helmet laws as more hindrance than help. In 2007, Saskatoon’s city council rejected a bylaw that would require bikers to wear helmets. One councillor wisely cited Canada’s obesity epidemic as a reason to distance the city from punitive measures that would discourage folks to get on a two-wheeler.”
Nanny-state helmet law hurts cycling efforts

He even wrote a column to the Richmond News last year.

Use your head: Bike helmet laws don’t work

Then over at The Vehicular Cyclist, an article about an Austin, Texas helmet law advocate stated that the advocate couldn’t find any significant difference in the risk between helmet users and bareheaded cyclists.

Many people like to claim that since motorists have to wear seatbelts, cyclists should have to wear helmets.
I find this argument as flawed as the “cyclists don’t pay for the road” argument.

Motorists getting into accidents are the number one cause in Ontario for head injuries. A seatbelt is designed to prevent you from flying all over the car or getting flung out of it when in an accident.
Even if you wear a seatbelt, your odds of getting a head injury are still greater than those of a cyclist. It’s quite possible even when wearing a seatbelt, you can hit your head on the windshield, steering wheel or even the head rest, all resulting in a head injury.
So why do we keep assuming cycling is this dangerous activity, when in fact it is one of the safest ways of getting around. The more people you add to the roads on bikes the safer it becomes.

With any luck, BC will eventually reverse this helmet law, so even more people can start riding, Vancouver can actually get a bike share program like Montreal and those of us who know helmets do more harm than good, can ride without being made to look like criminals.

Facebook’s love of cars?

I personally can’t stand Facebook. Why I even bother to keep my account is beyond me.
However I was reading something about anti-bike groups on Facebook. It suggested to type in anything that sounds anti-bike.
So I decided to type in “bikes suck”. Yep, the search result came out with quite a few hits. Many of which promoted violence against cyclists.