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Maryland Local takes biking to the extreme

Anapolis Capital has a story about Mr. Sweeney, 70, of Bay Ridge, who has just completed a trip from Montana through Canada and up to Alaska ending in Anchorage with a group of about a dozen other cyclists. He trained for the trip on the Baltimore & Annapolis Trail by lugging 50 pounds of sand with him

Read more at <a href="http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/2006/08_13-53/LIF">http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/2006/08_13-53/LIF</a>;
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Wearing a helmet puts cyclists at risk, suggests research

<img width="134" height="120" align="left" src="http://www.baltimorespokes.org/images/articles/20060912075316388_1.jpg" alt="">Drivers pass closer when overtaking cyclists wearing helmets than when overtaking bare-headed cyclists, increasing the risk of a collision, the research has found.

Dr Ian Walker, a traffic psychologist from the University of Bath in the UK, used a bicycle fitted with a computer and an ultrasonic distance sensor to record data from over 2,500 overtaking motorists in Salisbury and Bristol.

Dr Walker, who was struck by a bus and a truck in the course of the experiment, spent half the time wearing a cycle helmet and half the time bare-headed. He was wearing the helmet both times he was struck.

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One for the road

In the figures released by NHTSA shows that cyclists and pedestrians that had one or two drinks for the road had the lowest fatality numbers.

Source: <a href="http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/ncsa/ppt/2006/810639.pdf">http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/ncsa/ppt/2006/810639.pdf</a>;
Page 83

And yes this is tongue and cheek, most cycling statistics do not provide enough information to draw much if any conclusions from.
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Roadway Deaths Rise to Highest Level in 15 Years

By Sholnn Freeman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 23, 2006; Page A03

<img width="130" height="99" align="left" src="http://www.baltimorespokes.org/images/articles/20060823083806206_1.jpg" alt="">The number of people killed on U.S. roadways in 2005 climbed to the highest level in 15 years, an increase tied to rising deaths among motorcyclists and pedestrians, the federal government reported yesterday.

A total of 43,443 people died in traffic accidents last year, up 1.4 percent from the previous year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said. The agency said the motorcycle death toll rose for the eighth consecutive year. Last year, 4,553 motorcyclists died on the roadways, up 13 percent from the previous year. The agency said 4,881 pedestrians were killed last year, up 4.4 percent.

&quot;The traffic environment is getting more dangerous,&quot; said Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. &quot;People are driving a lot faster. We've lost momentum in reducing alcohol-impaired driving and unprotected road users, like pedestrians, and to some extent motorcyclists are going to suffer from that.&quot;

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Bicycles have too much clout in San Francisco?

San Francisco Chronicle
Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer - [a brief excerpt]

<img width="120" height="116" align="left" src="http://www.baltimorespokes.org/images/articles/20060822040415118_1.gif" alt="">The 2000 U.S. Census found that about 2 percent of the commuters in San Francisco pedal to work or school. City Hall set a goal to push that to 10 percent by 2010.

Advocates say that can't be done without the completion of a citywide bicycle network that likely would mean less room on the city's streets to drive and park cars -- a prospect that adds fuel to the tension in the city between motorists and bicyclists.

Rob Anderson is fed up. An active blogger, he sued the city to stop implementation of the bike plan. Anderson started a group -- he won't say how many members it has, but by all accounts there aren't many -- called &quot;Ninety-Nine Percent.'' The name is intended to highlight the fact that only a sliver of residents rely on bicycles and that the vast majority still drive, use public transit and walk.

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Bike for office

Rod Bryant (Independent) is running for Governor of Arkansas. Besides featuring dueling Hummers on his home page he predominantly displays his bike on his blog

It turns out he was not the only one who ran for office with such a bike Greg Kelly ran for City Council in Cambridge MA last fall.

Hmmm, I wonder if owning such an unusual bike contributes to thinking that a person can change the world's over dependance on cars?
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Fewer Americans like to drive, survey shows

<img width="120" height="66" align="left" src="http://www.baltimorespokes.org/images/articles/20060806151426768_1.gif" alt="">From Pew Research Center:

Today 69% of American drivers say they like to drive, down from 79% in a 1991 Gallup survey. And just 23% say they consider their car &quot;something special -- more than just a way to get around,&quot; barely half of the 43% who felt this way in 1991.

The biggest reason for the cooling of the affair isn't the recent spike in gas prices. Rather, it appears to be the result of a longer term trend -- the growing hassle of traffic congestion, according to a Pew Research Center telephone survey among a nationally representative sample of 1,182 adults (including 1,048 drivers) conducted from June 20 through July 16, 2006.

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Are cyclists heroes?

Posted by Elicia Cardenas on August 1st, 2006

[The following ode was written by new contributor Elicia Cardenas and was originally published to the Shift email list almost one year ago. She wrote it in response to someone who questioned why some cyclists act like heroes or

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