Category: Biking Elsewhere

By Charles Stuart Platkin | For Active.com
Biking is one of most efficient calorie burners around. Riding at a leisurely 10 to 12 mph, you can burn up to 423 calories per hour. Up that to 14 to 15.9 mph, and you’ll burn about 700 calories. Biking is fun, builds muscle, and is a great way to get exercise while you’re running errands. It’s also environmentally friendly. Here are a few tips to get you started.
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https://beta.active.com/nutrition/articles/diet-detective-lose-weight-and-stay-fit-by-riding-your-bike

THE MAN WHO LIVED ON HIS BIKE from Guillaume Blanchet on Vimeo.

By jtitus, WABA
The federal government is withdrawing its long-standing claim that bicycle helmets prevent 85% of head injuries, in response to a petition filed by WABA under the federal Data Quality Act.
In 1989, a study in Seattle estimated that helmets prevent 85% of head injuries. Efforts to replicate those results during the 1990s confirmed that helmets reduce injuries, but not nearly as much as the Seattle study suggested. Yet public health advocates, government web sites, and the news media have continued to repeat the 85% factoid to the point that it has become a mantra.
Bad information can cause problems, even when it is promoted with the best intentions. If people think that helmets stop almost all head injuries, consumers will not demand better helmets, and legislators may think it makes sense to require everyone to wear one. So we asked two federal agencies to correct the misinformation, and they recently agreed to do so.
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https://www.waba.org/blog/2013/06/feds-withdraw-claim-that-bike-helmets-are-85-percent-effective/

– Sir Charles Bressey, 1937: “remarkable manner in which new roads create new traffic.”
[B’ Spokes: While we have such modern proofs that more roads cause more traffic delays such as Braess’s paradox and the Downs–Thomson paradox but what strikes me about this article is how long we have adopted the philosophy of “Building more roads to prevent congestion is like a fat man loosening his belt to prevent obesity.”
Why am I sharing this? Think about it, Maryland just raised the gas tax to build more roads while miles traveled by automobile has leveled off and is on the decline. I think it’s about time we rethought our transportation goals to be less car centric.]
https://www.roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/induceddemand/

by Tanya Snyder, Streets Blog
His claim to fame is that he retired at age 30. He swears that you can achieve greater financial freedom too, if you follow his example by eliminating unnecessary expenses and investing wisely. He calls himself Mr. Money Mustache. And he says nothing is more essential to his philosophy and wealth-building strategy than riding a bike.
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https://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/05/22/mr-money-mustache-on-retiring-at-30-by-riding-a-bike/

[B’ Spokes: There are a lot of surprising results in non traditional road engineering vs the old car-centric with emphasis on speed approach to roads and this is one of them. One thing that needs to be emphasized here: “We need to experiment on what works and what does not work rather than rely on some so called expert whose calculation (using out dated standards) says we can’t accommodate bikes or pedestrians on some road because of the adverse effect on traffic.” There are a lot of options open to us that have little to no adverse effect and in some cases traffic flow is improved and general road safety is improved as well.]

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By Mike Leiby, The Independent
SHOW LOW — The dean of science at the University of Notre Dame not only wants a way to treat Niemann-Pick Disease (NP-C) to be found posthaste, he is riding across country to help make it happen.
Niemann-Pick Type C is a genetic, cholesterol storage disorder that primarily strikes children with death occurring before or during adolescence. There is also an adult onset form of the disease.
Gregory Crawford rode through Show Low July 3 on his way to Baltimore as part of the Road to Discovery ride.
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https://www.wmicentral.com/news/show_low/notre-dame-dean-rides-for-disease-awareness/article_8a0f1538-e829-11e2-b0b7-0019bb2963f4.html

Ref: https://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/06/04/guerrilla-crosswalk-painter-arrested-by-vallejo-police-cheered-by-neighbors/
[B’ Spokes: We so need people to do something like this here. I have never seen so many skimpy minimalistic faded out crosswalks as I have here in Maryland and that’s where they do exist, so many more places were they should exist but don’t. You would think a state that has been consistently in the top ten highest pedestrian fatality rate would do more to make pedestrians safer, like maybe more crosswalks and HAWK beacons (High-Intensity Activated crossWalK beacon) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAWK_beacon )
Oh and speaking of guerrilla efforts to make a positive change, this effort to call out owners of Baltimore’s vacant properties is cool. https://www.abc2news.com//dpp/news/local_news/investigations/illegal-street-art-calls-out-owners-of-baltimores-vacant-properties ]

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[B’ Spokes: I thought even on trails where bikes and peds share the same space you’ll find some peds walking on the left, walking on the right or just down the middle. So this this little ditty just might help you cope. 😉 ]

By David Alpert, Washington Post
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These are indeed the main criticisms. Let’s tackle them.
While most of us break traffic laws some, or even much, of the time, it’s not a good thing. I do it, too, sometimes. I shouldn’t. In some places, nearly everyone is exceeding the speed limit, which creates peer pressure. Most of us also think we’re above-average drivers. Unlike the children in Lake Wobegon, everyone can’t be above-average. Research shows that most drivers believe they are more skilled than they are.
We need to break this cycle. We need to find a way to change a culture in which otherwise law-abiding people consider posted maximum speeds to be suggestions or, at best, assume that the “real” limit is 10 mph above what’s posted. In a residential neighborhood where the limit is 25 mph, 36 is quite fast. Every 10 mph faster a car is moving equates to a 40 percent greater chance that a pedestrian who is hit will die.
Those who watch “Mad Men” know that at one time our society considered drinking and driving perfectly reasonable. It took many years and concerted public information campaigns to persuade people otherwise.
Unfortunately, our discourse about this issue has veered far, far away from safety.
That’s in part because our leaders have gotten used to using cameras to plug holes in government budgets. As taxes go, this is like a “sin tax,” similar to high taxes on cigarettes. But it’s not ideal public policy. Anne McCartt of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety recently pointed out to The Post’s Ashley Halsey III that if people stop speeding, the revenue will vanish, as it should, since the goal is to stop speeding.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/complacency-in-the-face-of-a-rising-dc-death-toll/2013/05/31/5ff9ff14-c953-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story.html