:Cyclostat

Bike shop in the UK, around 1949. Photograph by William Sumits for Life magazine. Can anyone tell what type of bike that is? I’m assuming Raleigh, but I can’t see any markings or head badges. By the way, I like the brooks.

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I WANT this T-shirt. VIA

For the uninitiated, the FFFFUUUUuuuu guy is the punctuation to every MS-painted mishap on the bike forums and bostonfixed forums.

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The Time published an article yesterday about the problems that Paris is having with their Velib’ program. For those of you who don’t know Velib’ is a bike-share program initiated in Paris around 2007. You pay 1 Euro a day to rent a bike, or you can buy a 30 Euro annual pass. The Chic Cyclist has a few articles on the program, one of which I will link to.

Velib’ is a portmanteau word for Velo (bicycle) and Libre (Free), and it seems that periParisian youth are taking this a little too literally: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/world/europe/31bikes.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

Apparently they are stealing and vandalizing the bicycles, which cost around $3,500 each, which is a whole fucking lot for a free bicycle.

So, why should we, as Bostonians, care? Because we’re basing our new Bike sharing system off of the Velib system. We have just as many teenagers as the Parisians, although perhaps there isn’t as much to be resentful about in Boston. I don’t think suburban teenagers from Marblehead are going to feel disconnected from the glamor of Boston proper, but they might still just do it for standard teen age reasons (because they can).

But there is a bright side to this.

If you are a mechanic, this could mean a whole shit-ton of work for you and your bike shop. The Parisian vendor for the Velib program has had to hire a fleet of mechanics to combat the neglect, abuse, and vandalism of the bicycles. Since spending anything less than $3,500 would technically be considered saving money, I would anticipate this to be as a fresh source of income for Boston’s bike shops.

And by the way, I think the liberty Hotel has had a bike-share program going for a while now. I wonder how they avoid vandalism and neglect and whatnot. Anyone know>

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I’m coming to terms with my cyclist persecution complex, and I’ve realized that I may be playing a fear-mongering-type role by posting about psychotic drivers, and my secret plans to seek revenge.

But this one really tops all of the asshole-driver stories. I’ll give you the highlights.

I’m glad that people are threatening him, but it’s too bad he has such a generic name, so that the other people named Dr. Christopher Thompson are being threatened. VIA

Some cyclists are riding two abreast, they yield to a single file to let a driver pass. The driver yells at them, cuts in front, and stops short. The driver is a doctor, and reported to a police officer that he stopped short to “teach them a lesson”.

The aftermath wasn’t pretty, but both of them survived.

This accident is in the news, because during the trial, the doctor is trying to deny that he tried to kill two people with his car. If anyone comes across a Dr. Chris Thompson, you should probably ask to see another doctor.

So, I apologize for my fear mongering, but Fucking Jesus, this just makes me so angry.

Via and VIA and via

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I will donate money to this person’s cause. VIA

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I found a video of David Byrne riding his bike all over Manhattan, which is pretty awesome. Thanks NY times!

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/10/13/nyregion/1247465140390/david-byrne-live-on-two-wheels.html

I guess he’s become a cycling advocate after the last few years. How could you not love David Byrne?

He’s been writing a lot over the last few years, one that’s pretty cool is The New Sins, which is basically a catalog of things that David Byrne finds to be gauche. I read a chunk of it in college and really liked it.

He recently wrote a book called the Bicycle Diaries, which I’m sure would be interesting to read.

Looks like Byrne has STARTED to make sense. Right? eh?

I’m a terrible writer.

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I’ve been looking into the Boston Globe recently,  trying to figure out how they reported on bicycles in the past, and since my Lexis Nexis subscription only goes to the late eighties, that’s where my grasp on history has ended.

I uncovered this one (article below), which starts by using a young man’s death as a hook to talk about couriers, and how bikers don’t wear helmets, but know where stuff is.

The topic of a David Reuter’s death is slowly phased out, and the author finishes the story a discussion of Bike Messenger companies, and how they came into existence.

I’ve come to think that, embedded in the discussion of helmets and law breaking cyclists is, at best, a somewhat crass lesson that obscures the real tragedy of a person dying. At worst it is a sort of implicit blame, where the guiding thought is: He died. He should have worn a helmet. Although I highly endorse the use of helmets, and most cycling laws, I don’t like how they are the focus of cyclist deaths.

I think that this article embodies that. This doesn’t seem deliberate, but rather indicative of how some writers at the Boston Globe views these situations.

In any case, other than the morbid slant to the article, it is fun to read. Does anyone know the people interviewed in the article?

For fair use reference:

November 27, 1988, Sunday, City Edition

THE BIKE COURIER BUSINESS;

Fatality delivers message: It’s not all freewheeling

BYLINE: By Susan Bickelhaupt, Globe Staff

SECTION: METRO/REGION; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 1217 words

David Reuter, a 22-year-old student at Northeastern, started working as a bike messenger at 8:30 a.m. on Aug. 19. At 8:35 his bicycle collided with a small pickup truck on Beacon Hill. After lying in a coma in Massachusetts General Hospital for six weeks, he died.

Reuter, like many area college students, was attracted to the bike messenger business for the independence it offers, the chance to be outside, the flexible hours.

But his death was a sobering reminder that riding a bike in the city – whether for commuting, recreation or doing business – is more often than not a challenge. It also sent chills through the Boston bike messenger industry, most of which were felt by Reuter’s employer of five minutes.

“His death was really the first serious accident for the company,” said Neal Stone, owner of Boston Bicycle Couriers. Stone has always encouraged his messengers to wear helmets, but since Reuter’s death he has taken even stronger action. He now offers a loan program where the messenger can borrow money for a helmet over the course of four weeks’ pay. Reuter was not wearing a helmet at the time of the accident.

“It’s not the law, so you can’t force messengers to wear helmets, but we don’t want them to have any excuse not to wear them,” he said. “It’s just too bad it takes something like this to spur you into action.”

“David had phoned us the night before and told us he was going to start working,” said his father, Jerry Reuter, from his home in Plattsburgh, N.Y. “We were not really thrilled because we thought it would interfere with his studying. David was a political science major on his way to law school; he would have graduated in December. But he was an independent character and said this would fit into his program.”

The approximately dozen messenger services in Boston today attract new cyclists such as David each year and keep members of the business community in quick touch with each other.

Bike messengers dart through the city and into Cambridge, finding squares that aren’t squares, centers that aren’t centers and places that just don’t exist on any map.

Easily identifiable by the large canvas bags slung over their backs and the look of purpose in their eyes, messengers are at work as long as Boston businesses are open.

Greg Luce, of Brookline, remembers vividly his first day on the job.  “My last pickup of the day was eight packages from MGH that were going everywhere,” he says now, two years later. “When I got home, I threw up. It was so stressful.”

“Now I can see how really unnecessary that is,” said Luce, 22, now on leave from Boston University for a semester and working full time. “I know the city so I can see all the streets in my mind.” Which is a good thing, because as he and other messengers will readily point out, there are some addresses in Boston that elude even the most careful mapmaker.

One Boston Place is not on any map; neither is One Financial Center. But if you’re a bike messenger in Boston, you’d better know how to find them, “because it means the more money you make,” according to messenger Doug Sargeant.

Sargeant assesses the driving, walking and bike riding in Boston as “a totally outlaw situation.”

“I mean, I’ve seen pedestrians run into each other; there is no ordered process,” he said.

Boston police said that in 1986, there were two fatalities of bicyclists that involved motor vehicles; in 1987, there was one, and so far this year Reuter’s is the only death. The statistics kept, however, do not differentiate between messengers and commuters or recreational bikers.

While David Reuter lay in a coma, his father took walks around Boston and saw a lot of people on bicycles. “I would stop and ask them, ‘If you had a helmet, would you wear one?’ Everyone said yes, whether they were a youngster or middle-aged man. And I can’t tell you how many I asked – my wife says I’ve become the helmet missionary.”

Since Reuter’s death, his father and mother have started a fund that will go toward the distribution of free bicycle helmets.

Eric Trurin, who with his wife, Diana, runs one of the smaller bike courier companies, mostly attracts the Cambridge-to-Boston business.

Trurin, 29, worked as a courier himself when he was a post-college songwriter. “It fit my lifestyle,” he said.

Now the business he started three years ago serves 200 clients and grosses about $ 200,000 a year. “But it all goes back into the business,” Trurin said, rattling off expenses that include insurance, workers’ compensation and bookkeeping.

Stone, whose company is about 10 times as big as Trurin’s, said he grosses about $ 1 million a year. “But of course half of that goes to the riders,” he noted.

Depending on the company, messengers take home 50 to 60 percent of the delivery charge. A survey of several companies shows that a bike delivery from Harvard Square to Kenmore Square costs about $ 9, and from Kenmore Square to downtown about $ 5.

The key to making more money, though, is not just being a fast rider, but being able to change a flat tire quickly and knowing where all the streets and alleys are. “If you know what you’re doing, you can make $ 400 to $ 500 a week,” Stone said.

Trurin said he resents the image many people have of bike messengers as renegades, and in part blames the movie “Quicksilver,” which shows messengers bombing up and down the hills of San Francisco.  “It turned this job into Flashdance,” he said.

Sargeant, who has been riding for Cambridge Couriers for three years, agrees. “I went to MIT for two years, I’m not in a rock band and I have a computer,” he said.

Stuart Tabakin, who owns the oldest messenger service in Boston, Marathon Messengers, can recall the rocky start of his business 12 years ago.

Tabakin started with two others out of an apartment on Beacon Hill in 1977. “I told them, when we get 10 orders a day, I’ll take you out to Steve’s” for ice cream, he said.  It was August until they were able to collect.

But slowly, through word of mouth, the business grew, and he can now dispatch about 70 couriers a day to make about 1,000 deliveries.

Now there are several computers in Tabakin’s Back Bay office, telephones with a dozen lines to take incoming and outgoing calls, and shelves filled with computer printouts of bookkeeping records.

Now Tabakin’s biggest competition is not so much other courier services as it is technology; namely, the facsimile machine.

“Fax machines are our biggest competition right now,” Tabakin said. “They took the gravy away; there are no little jobs across the street anymore.”

But, he added, “you still can’t fax airplane tickets, legal documents or photographs that need to be reproduced.”

Stone, of Boston Bicycle Couriers, also pointed out that “when the refrigerator came into being, all the icemen thought they would go out of business, but there are still trucks that deliver ice.”

In addition, he said, “We’re a service industry.” Messengers, after all, don’t just deliver things, but wait in line for people, too.  “No one wants to stand in line at the Registry, so we do it for them.”

“What we’re doing is a throwback to the 1890s, when everyone used bike messengers. We’re just completing the circle,” Stone said. “I can only thank God the post office is so inefficient,” said Stone.

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

GRAPHIC: PHOTO, 1. Globe staff photo / David L. Ryan / A bicycle messenger rides through traffic on Federal Street downtown.  2. Globe staff photo / Barry Chin / Messenger Greg Luce of Brookline: “I know the city . . . .”

Copyright 1988 Globe Newspaper Company

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So I saw this on Boston.com (apparently) two hours after they published it…. I really need to stop scanning news sites for bike-related stories. In any case:

On Boston.com today there was a little guide to three bike paths around Boston, in case the readers were from New Jersey, and hadn’t had time to Google “Bike Paths in Boston”.

On the one hand I’m glad to see the globe posting something other than Monique Doyle Spencer’s incendiary op-eds, on the other hand, it would be nice if the News was new.

The Bike paths are:

1) The Southwest Corridor

http://www.boston.com/thingstodo/special/bikeforests/

2) The Storrow Drive “Bike path” (Read: Park)

http://www.boston.com/thingstodo/special/bikeriver/

3) The Sidewalk around Southie’s Beach

http://www.boston.com/thingstodo/special/bikeharborwalk/

Maybe next week they can publish about all the things Drivers can do on Mass Ave, or a map of where the Red Line goes, I think people would really like a photo guide of that.

Luckily, Boston.com has given us the option of suggesting any other good Bike rides.

Here is the link.

Personally, I’d love to see something more original up there, so I’d encourage all fourteen people who read this blog to make a suggestion. Any suggestion, really. Double points for sarcasm.

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I’d like to suggest a good way of determining if you spend too much time posting on the boston fixed forums. Specifically the Fixed Connections discussion page.

One would be if your username appears in the graphic below. Deadbolt, Conor, (E)stratton. You all made the top 3.

How this works:

Basically, Wordle.net allows you to visualize the frequency of a word’s use by the size of it’s font. I just figured out how to use Automator to steal texts from websites, and so after I had cleared out the repeated headings with search and replace, I pasted my result into Wordle. The text log of the discussion page started on December 30th because I was aiming for January 1st, but had to choose the nearest whole page.

For those who spend too much time on the fixed forums (bostonfixed.us), this graphic may come as no surprise.

For those of you whose names are above, I have to say that I am impressed. Especially for deadbolt and conor whose usernames were used/mentioned as many times as the word “man” and “night”, more than “harvard”, but slightly less than “go”.

Kudos.

Click the icon above for the original Wordle.

After doing the original, I went back and got rid of month abbreviations and “saw” and “bike”.

Same pattern, but now we see some other people as well, once the noise is reduced.

I also really like how Motherfucker is one of the more common terms. Ah, awesome. I hope everyone enjoys this as much as I do.

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I’ve always waved at people hailing cabs, because I don’t want to get close to them.

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