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Strife posted:Riding a bicycle seems like the scariest loving thing someone could do on the road. No mirrors, no safety equipment, just a thin layer of lycra and a plastic hat. The cost of a stationary bike is stupid, but at least it won't ever result in blood in my rear end crack. I tell myself that because the bike weighs nothing, I'm far more likely to just be thrown clear and get lucky (I'm also slow as gently caress cause trusting 28mm tires is difficult for me). Kinda like how putting a seatbelt in a model t would make it more dangerous I reckon.
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Jul 14, 2022 19:50
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I put ~25k miles on bicycles over the last ten years and had only two very minor low speed crashes. Despite the low speed, one still hosed up one of my tattoos slightly. 
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Jul 14, 2022 19:51
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LimaBiker posted:Depends on where you cycle. I would feel incredibly uncomfortable going downhill at normal traffic speeds without any protection at all. Another thing that cycling infrastructure promotes is ordinary people on ordinary bikes using them to commute. Upright bikes with grippy tires and fenders and people wearing normal clothes. When cycling is largely the realm of entitled middle aged men doing Tour-de-France cosplay and coked/methed up suicidal bike couriers, crashes and injuries are going to be a lot more frequent. When it's largely sensible people riding sensibly on dedicated paths, it works pretty well.
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Jul 14, 2022 20:06
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Why yes, I WILL take this corner that is so known for crashes that it has a dedicated camera crew, at high speed on my bicycle that has tires with one ångström of contact patch between both of them Why do you ask?
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Jul 14, 2022 21:00
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TotalLossBrain posted:I put ~25k miles on bicycles over the last ten years and had only two very minor low speed crashes. Despite the low speed, one still hosed up one of my tattoos slightly. An avid cyclist friend-of-a-friend had an improperly tightened front wheel come off at a bad time, the guy graduated from a multi-week coma to permanent and fairly pervasive brain damage, really shocked everyone in his orbit. And I still won't wear a helmet on a bike because it looks stupid. Risk acceptance is a funny thing. I could say my thing against bicycle helmets is pure vanity and be right, but vanity doesn't keep me from being the only person wearing an N95 in a group, doesn't keep me from doing terrible things to my motorcycle in the name of usefulness, I knowingly do all kinds of things that make me look stupid. That particular vanity really only squeaks by because of a visceral overconfidence developed by decades of bicycle use that included plenty of childhood crashes where I tumbled and didn't get more than a mild concussion or chipped tooth and some very dubious city bicycling in my 20's where I only crashed when blind drunk. So yeah, decades of luck and soft flexible bones I no longer have, a false confidence in which my gut is completely confident. The order in which people shed motorcycle gear is similar voodoo I think, and probably why we see such random arrangements. My own stack of idiocy goes Pants>Gloves>Jacket>Helmet with Jaw Protection. The boots are safe because I don't like shifting without a hard toe. I could give my bad rationalizations for this order, but the truth is that when I'm going 2 blocks on residential streets to pick up a sandwich on a familiar motorcycle in maximum vigilance mode, I count the odds of a get-off as very close to zero, and the odds of enjoying not strapping in like an astronaut every once in a while to be 100%. Changing in and out of motorcycling pants was enough hassle for what is a daily activity for me that I told myself I'd rather take a small** risk of awful road rash for the ongoing convenience and comfort. ** Source of this quantity is my rear end.
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Jul 14, 2022 21:22
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There are so many different styles of bicycle helmet that can fit any aesthetic you want, except for "heightened risk of brain damage." I wore cheap standard-look bicycle helmets for years, and hated them, until I wised up and just dropped the money on a nice helmet that imho looks much better.
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Jul 14, 2022 21:32
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You should probably wear a helmet when riding a bicycle if you're not just going to the shop or something. 99.9%* of scooter and motorbike riders in mid/southern Europe don't wear full protective gear for just like doing local trips. It does sound like driving in the US is more hosed up, I don't have any hangups about riding gently to the beach in shorts and a t-shirt. Helmet on ofc and u do wear gloves. Discussing this with my girlfriend and her bike racing friends at the weekend it would be weird to totally accept the risk of descending mountain roads at 60kph in lycra but then put on a heavy leather suit to trundle down to the lake. * made up stat
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Jul 14, 2022 21:42
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Nicky Hayden, arguably one of the best riders on earth at the time was killed on a bicycle after being hit by a car. Doesn’t matter how good you are.
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Jul 14, 2022 22:33
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Angel Nieto was killed by a car too. Of all the ways you can be killed I think being killed by a car is the #1 way to be blamed for your own death.
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Jul 14, 2022 23:04
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To me that shows where the hard part is. You can have a reasonably fair assessment of your skills, know when you're within the boundaries of them and err on the side of caution, and hopefully have a fair idea of how likely your motorcycle is to fail catastrophically. In a sea of terrible drivers who are trying to kill you, for which you are continually trying to account, exactly how big are the [nonzero] odds of the freak events and lapses of judgement that can still gently caress you? And how hard will you work to mitigate that? One of my sketchiest riding moments was on a 2-lane highway watching an oncoming car lose control as they crested a hill and went into a series of fishtails and overcorrections while I approached. I shaved off my speed (in hindsight I should've slowed to a crawl), I briefly thought I might be better off aiming for the ditch, but ultimately my fate was decided by where I happened to land in the sine wave that this person's car was cutting before they went off the road. Was I glad I had all my gear on at that moment? Absolutely. Did I stop using roads recreationally, or stick to a vehicle that would've fared better in that collision? Nah. Don't get me wrong, wearing gear is relatively easy and it seems to be way, way easier to wear it all the time if you just suck it up and get so used to it that it doesn't bother you. For example I've never felt too hot in gauntlets because I haven't worn the short gloves.
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Jul 14, 2022 23:20
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One of the things that people constantly overlook as being safe is the freeway. It tends to scare new and inexperienced riders because of the speed, but honestly it’s the safest place outside of a track basically. All of the traffic goes in one direction and oncoming traffic is separated by a barrier All of the traffic (basically) goes the same speed No single vehicle ever stops. Either everyone slows and stops together, or no one does. There is no cross traffic There are no stoplights There are no intersections There are no pedestrians or bicyclists All of those things are big accident generators, and are completely absent on the freeway. The freeway is boring, yeah, but it’s also safer
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Jul 14, 2022 23:30
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Not wearing a helmet on a bike actually looks really stupid. Making yourself a burden on your family for the rest of your life because you have silly ideas about fashion is stupid too.
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Jul 15, 2022 01:54
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When I’m going to crash I wear gear. If I’m not going to crash it’s not necessary. Also, what’s a good bike helmet for not-tour de France cosplay?
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Jul 15, 2022 02:18
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A beret stuffed with Gauloises
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Jul 15, 2022 02:22
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builds character posted:When I’m going to crash I wear gear. If I’m not going to crash it’s not necessary.
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Jul 15, 2022 02:26
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:The freeway is boring, yeah, but it’s also safer I've always felt the freeways were far more predictable and vehicles tend to either have a general body language where you can sort of predict what they're going to do or they're just completely erratic in which case you know to keep your distance. Having said that I daily drove a 30 year old tiny hatch back for 5 years which has left me with the absolute assumption that nobody else on the road at any time knows I'm there, which I have to say has kept me in good stead and kept me safe so far.
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Jul 15, 2022 02:27
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builds character posted:When I’m going to crash I wear gear. If I’m not going to crash it’s not necessary. I like my Giro Fixture and Smith Express. They’re both MIPS. I wear the Smith in colder weather (fewer vents) and on the skateboards. Both very comfy and casual but not department store in quality or appearance.
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Jul 15, 2022 02:58
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The freeway near me has literal patches of black pavement where cars were on fire, tire tracks veering over three lanes into the dividing wall, and pieces of clapped out rusted Michigan cars strewn all over. Also everyone is going 85mph while loving with their phones. I guess it’s marginally better than everyone in town doing the same thing, slightly slower, while also high.
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Jul 15, 2022 03:43
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HenryJLittlefinger posted:I like my Giro Fixture and Smith Express. They’re both MIPS. I wear the Smith in colder weather (fewer vents) and on the skateboards. Both very comfy and casual but not department store in quality or appearance. Guess I'm going helmet shopping soon!
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Jul 15, 2022 15:25
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Please just wear a helmet, personally I'd also recoomend gloves because you will almost certainly try to catch yourself in a bicycle crash and having your hands grated is absolutely terrible. Your noggin is the absolutely most valuable piece of your body and should be your absolute priority at all times. Even very slow speed falls and crashes that involve head trauma can be fatal or worse. If you do nothing else, just always wear a helmet, no matter how goofy you think it makes you look. Having a tube sticking out of you will always be far more goofy.
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Jul 15, 2022 15:52
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SEKCobra posted:Your noggin is the absolutely most valuable piece of your body and should be your absolute priority at all times. don't bother with a helmet but never leave the house without a cup
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Jul 15, 2022 16:35
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SEKCobra posted:Your noggin is the absolutely most valuable piece of your body and should be your absolute priority at all times. Current bicycle helmet is OK, but now I wanna go shopping for a lighter one lol
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Jul 15, 2022 17:24
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Goons can also rest assured that I traded in my bicycle for patio space a year or two ago, so my skull is statistically very safe. Speaking of bicycle danger, I feel like a worry-wart watching the huge uptick in E-bikes zooming around here. The bicycle crowd's already traditionally bad about observing street signals, there's no licensing or training requirements, and most are in minimal or no gear. Overall their speeds seem higher and there's less and less compunction about being under power on the sidewalks, seems like a matter of time till there's a high-profile accident.
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Jul 15, 2022 18:29
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Remy Marathe posted:Goons can also rest assured that I traded in my bicycle for patio space a year or two ago, so my skull is statistically very safe. I doubt it. Deadly and crippling regular bike accidents have been an occurrence in cities forever, and all that happens is someone paints an old bike white and chains it to a nearby post. Nobody is making the distinction between "cyclist killed" and "e-cyclist killed". Lime scooters (etc.) are an even bigger menace, and drunk tourists get hit by cars on them fairly regularly.
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Jul 15, 2022 18:51
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Not only in the cities, but off-road e-bikes are a menace as well. People with no skill racing around dirt roads and rocks like they know their poo poo. I'm less worried about them, and more about them hitting a hiker or another cyclist.
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Jul 15, 2022 18:54
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I'm less worried about the ebikes than I am the escooters. I'm surprised those things haven't killed more people
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Jul 15, 2022 19:16
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I have had a literal head on collision with a guy on an e scooter on the cycleways. I came around a bend and he was full steam toward me, I pulled over till I was touching the wall and came to a total stop, he proceeded to target fixate directly towards me, clipped my arm with his bar and highsided himself about six meters into the bushes. It obliterated his scooter so my bruising was a small price to pay. I will never stop throwing those things into ditches, trees and streams at every opportunity.
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Jul 15, 2022 19:26
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Pedal assist bicycles are extremely popular with older people here. Those folks are getting in LOTS of accidents on them. They were used to trundling along at 10 to 15km/h. Now they're going 20-25km/h, but never got used to actually using their brakes and taking a corner at such 'high' speeds. It is a genuine problem with many retirement age people ending up in hospital because of it. I don't know about accident rates for the rest of the population.
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Jul 15, 2022 20:02
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Ebikes were statistically OK last time I got an ipdate, eScooters on the other hand are terrible from a medical perspective, primarily because people use them opportunistically at the worst possible times. Also 50% of people i see using the rideshare ones in my city are riding with a passenger, which is not only prohibited but also immensly dangerous.
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Jul 15, 2022 23:18
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Ebicycles and escooters are really starting to overlap with the slower end of the motorcycle spectrum and I’d imagine they’ll eventually get regulated similarly
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Jul 15, 2022 23:29
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:Ebicycles I cannot help pronouncing this in my head like you have a head cold and are talking about the pre-copernican theory of planetary motion
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Jul 15, 2022 23:38
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Phy posted:I cannot help pronouncing this in my head like you have a head cold and are talking about the pre-copernican theory of planetary motion 
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Jul 16, 2022 00:19
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Always assume I’m talking about the Ptolemaic system
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Jul 16, 2022 00:41
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Blew off work this morning for a few hours before the heat really set in, nice morning for a ride.
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Jul 16, 2022 01:07
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Phy posted:I cannot help pronouncing this in my head like you have a head cold and are talking about the pre-copernican theory of planetary motion Shrimp sushi cycles.
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Jul 16, 2022 05:56
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:Ebicycles and escooters are really starting to overlap with the slower end of the motorcycle spectrum and I’d imagine they’ll eventually get regulated similarly It all depends a bit on how your vehicles are classed and how people have progressed with breaking the rules. Here's a little something about the history of pedal assist bicycles in the Netherlands, 1945 to 2022. At first, just post WW2, we had the Solex  This was the original pedal assist bike. It could do about 20km/h without pedaling, 30 if you're pedaling furiously. Because they were essentially almost as slow as bicycles, helmets weren't required. They were extremely popular because they were cheap, but allowed the post war folks to get around a lot quicker than on the traditional single speed dutch bicycle of those days. A slightly more modern take on this is the spartamet, though these have almost completely disappeared already:  These 25km/h max things were the 'Snorfiets' category, literal translation 'Purring bike'. Yes, they do indeed make a quiet purring sound. Yes, that's the legal name of the category. Then came the traditional 50cc moped. They were allowed to go 45km/h max. Legally they were still bicycles with helper motors, so until the mid 70s they were legally required to have pedals.  Note the lack of foot rests, there are only pedals. No, they are not useful. If you ran out of gas you were about as quick when pedaling, as just you were pushing the thing. But since those were pretty quick (lots of 16 year olds got them up to speeds that are highly illegal, even today) helmets were mandated and they were in a separate moped category. This now also meant you had to have some kind of license. Either a car license, a motorcycle license, or the new bromfiets certificate. The certificate you could get fairly easily, only having to do a written test. For these, helmets were and are required. These are called the Bromfiets (buzzing bike). Yeah, that's their legal name! Though a 50cc two stroke from those days is more like a screaming bike than a buzzing bike i gotta say. This includes everything from Vespas to Zundapps to Ape cars. In the late 2000s, the written test was expanded with several hours of puttering around town with an instructor, and the moped certificate became a real moped license. Eventually people felt those Solexes and Spartamets were old fashioned, and they wanted a more proper moped, but they didn't want to go overly fast or wear a helmet. So the manufacturers started to deliver Vespas and such, but with a restrictor so they couldn't go faster than 25km/h to meet the regulations for the snorfiets. And for a few decades everything remained like that. Until people started to remove their restrictors from their 25km/h snorfietsen (the ones that were just restricted bromfietsen, not the pedal assist Solex or Spartamet). So your snorfiets would have the blue number plate indicating you can ride it without a helmet, but go much faster! This made several cities ban them from cycle paths, because they feel like there were too many of them going at too high speeds with the slower cyclists. So now you have helmetless snorfiets riders, riding at moped speeds, together with the cars on the car road (who hate them because they still typically are slower than cars) With that being a very obvious safety issue, helmet laws have just been introduced for the snorfiets category because now car and snorfiets traffic are being mixed. Everywhere where you share the road with cars on a snorfiets, you gotta wear a helmet. In several cities this just means that you always gotta have a helmet with you. Because a snorfiets rider with a helmet is essentially the same as a bromfiets rider, you now can also get your snorfiets formally registered as a bromfiets without legal repercussions from having the restrictor removed. Now, the faster category of E-bikes (the 45km/h speed pedelec) has always been classified as a moped, requiring a helmet and a moped or car licence With the difference that you were allowed to use a bicycle helmet to use it. It still requires some physical work to get it up to speed so a standard moped helmet would not 'work'. Here comes the jumping through hoops bit. Because there are many snorfiets riders who *didn't* remove the restrictor, and are barely going faster than the traditional pedal assist bikes (whether electric or gasoline) the govt decided you can ride a snorfiets with a speed pedelec rated helmet. But you have to keep adhering to snorfiets speed rules and not go above 25km/h. This de facto means you can do 29 before you get ticketed. The slower electric bicycle category (25km/h)... Well, time will tell. I am occasionally overtaken by them, when i'm already doing over 25km/h on my non pedal assist bicycle. I have a hunch they will go the same way as the Snorfiets. For now, you can ride them on cycle paths, even when the snorfiets has to go share the road with cars. And for now you can ride them without a helmet, but again, because i'm seeing more and more of them with a clearly removed limiter, eventually things will change again. Change is slow but unrelenting. LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 09:09 on Jul 16, 2022 |
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Jul 16, 2022 08:55
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Odd way to handle illegal restriction removal, our approach to that is to levy fines or add repercussions, not legalize it. eBikes are limited to 25 kph and will remain that way, I can't see that changing. Legal mandates for bicycle helmets are discussed regularly anyway, because it doesn't actually matter how you reached that speed. Old people are more likely to die on bicycles regardless of power assist.
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Jul 16, 2022 09:59
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Formally there are fines and repercussions. My local police force has a roadside dyno setup to test mopeds for illegally high power output. Many have. But the cops are mostly just dealing with cars breaking the rules, because cars are inherently more dangerous to other road users than mopeds and cyclists. So if the cops chase a moped, it's only when they are truly being a danger to those around them, or when it's an easy opportunity. Cyclists don't have number plates and don't always have a license of any kind, so they are less strict to those. They also don't have mirrors so giving a stop sign from behind is pointless, and chasing them with a big vehicle on typical cycle infra is just super dangerous by itself. One thing they do really give out a lot of fines for to cyclists, is non working lights at night. It's easy (just put a squad car next to some traffic lights and wait, and rake in the fines) and it increases safety because even in NL there are situations in which car and cycle traffic are mixed. You can't really expect a car to see a cyclist without lights crossing the road. For a while, in the early 2000s, there were moped dyno tests in the same way you sometimes have massive alcohol tests for all road users on a certain road. This did work for a while, but it requires a LOT of resources so eventually they just stopped. I gotta say with the disappereance of two stroke mopeds, the number of idiotically fast ones has dwindled because the four stroke ones aren't as easy to make go super fast. By now it's been 10 years since the last time i saw them get out the mobile dyno. One issue is that when a moped rider sees the dyno setup, they'll just sneak away. The squad car isn't gonna chase the moped rider because they have no chance of catching up as soon as the moped dives into a residential area, and also because probably because they don't want to let one officer alone with the dyno rig and a bunch of annoyed teenagers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FsAd5da7JY&t=4s A video of some guy getting caught with a rickety, way too fast moped. It is subtitled because it's spoken in a weird dialect of dutch. In the end the guy explains that he's encountered a road side dyno test before, and escaped by getting into the forest which is fine for a dirtbike-ish thing, but not for the heavy BMW K series bikes the cops have over here, so he just went for it. In this video specifically, he knew the cops had his number plate so he didn't bother trying to get away. He did for a moment doubt if he shouldn't try... As a side note, the cops are chasing him with 65km/h on a cycle path which in itself is a pretty lovely thing to do. When i see cars on the cycle path my most primal instincts to play dare with them come bubbling up. LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 13:26 on Jul 16, 2022 |
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Jul 16, 2022 11:08
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E-bikes in Canada are typically restricted to ~32km/h, which is 20mph, because that way they meet any US restrictions (where they have them) and Canadian ones. Ours you can get to an indicated 35ish pedalling down a fairly steep hill, but you can feel the bike fighting it, like heavy regen. Home builds don't have to have the restriction, so you do sometimes see faster ones around, but for use in the city and on bike paths, it seems like a fairly reasonable limit. Where they have a posted limit, bike paths tend to be around 25km/h, but it's not difficult to get a regular bike exceed that.
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Jul 16, 2022 13:49
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| # ? Jun 1, 2024 23:31 |
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Thanks for the helmet recs! Any reason to go with the Troy Lee designs a2 over the half-as-expensive-but-still-mips Giro? We don’t have lime scooters but we have revel which is an electric scooter scooter and they had to stop for like six months while they figured out people dying after a couple of accidents but they’re back in full force. People ride them with extraordinarily little skill or attention to safety. On the other hand, more two wheel electric vehicles isn’t bad.
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Jul 16, 2022 16:29
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