Yes, those people in the photo above are wearing disguised helmets. They pretty much look like helmets with hat fabric put on top.
The article is titled “Dweeb Free”,(VIA) but I dunno – those still look kind of dweeby. I like the idea, but I’ll make a bet that when you aren’t being photographed at exactly the right angle, with exactly the right amount of hair, those helmets will look ridiculous.
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NYC cylists repaint bike lane.
Basically what happened was a popular bike route was un-bike-laned. The City of New York painted over them, and some cyclists decided to put them back. Nice job folks! Want to come paint some bike lanes in Boston? I’ll buy you all beers. Seriously.
I like this idea: can we do this here? Why wait until existing bike lanes are taken away? We should just put bike lines wherever we want.
via TreeHugger
UPDATE:
So, the reason that the bike lanes were taken away is because of the Hasidic Jew population in Williamsburg.
The Hasidim were complaining that girls biking through were too scantily clad, and that it became difficult to not-look at them (as mandated by Hasidic Law). Or, so says the Post, but I’m not sure how much stock I’d put in this particular part of the report.
As a secular Jew, I’d like to think that I have the right to complain about the Hasidim …. but I don’t. I’m just going to let that hang…. and never complain about the Hasidim again.
So, in further speculation of a car racing a bicycle, I have graphed out what I know so far.
Assuming the car is going 20 mph, and the bike is going 15 mph, the car will win every time. Obviously, we don’t need any math to figure out that 20 mph > 15mph, but that’s not the question I’m interested in. The real question is “who gets there first?”, so I estimated about 5 extra minutes for parking, walking to the car, and walking from the parked car.
For out race, we’re doing a common city trip, which is typically less than 4 miles.
They y-axis is time, so the faster vehicle is the lower line (bike, in this case). It is obvious that the lines will cross eventually, maybe around 5 miles, but for the majority of city drives, the bicycle is actually faster.
Before anyone gets upset: yes I know that cars can go faster than 20 mph, but this is average speed. So, when you kick it up and drive 60 mph down Broadway, for 10 seconds, and screech to a halt in front of a red light, and wait for 30 seconds, your average speed is 17 mph. Meanwhile, the bicycle is a more steady pace, and doesn’t need to stop as often or for as long. Some might say that I am underestimating the car, but I’d say that I am actually overestimating the car’s speed in a city.
I might be overestimating the bicycle as well. I have overall averages of my cycling down this route, but I wasn’t timing myself with a real test in mind. Then again, I wasn’t racing anyone either.
Personally, I’d like to test this. Maybe someone with resources or social clout could help me out (Shane? Interested? Eh?).
Both the driver and the cyclist would have to start form home, so we can add in the extra time for the driver. The driver would have to walk to his car, drive, then park, then walk from the parking spot. I think that this would provide more external validity, so that we could generalize to the larger population of drivers.
Anyone want to race a car? Anyone was to drive against a cyclist?
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