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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Oregon
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edit: still wondering if any good apps for urban biking routes?
That probably depends on wher you are. I typed "portland bike" and got 9 Apps in the App Store.
A couple appear to be for other cities as well. Notice the one partially in the picture center top shows a NYC map.
That isn't everything, though.
The official transit App, PDX Bus , has not only the bus and light rail maps, but maps of trails to transit stops and also the bike trails and traffic on the bike routes. Buss have racks and you can bring your bike on the trains. Not well organized, though.
Even Google Maps now has travel by bike as a route option. Includes traffic and travel times.
I haven't used it a lot, but sample routes I try keep you pretty much on good bike paths and in the better bike lanes. The one above is a pretty safe way through the heart of the city. It was the longest of three routes offered.
Edit> I see several transit apps nationwide include bike routes.
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Oregon
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Interesting points he raises, but he clearly has agendas he's spinning.
Here are just a couple
1) you should be wearing helmets in cars.
( yeas, probably you should. Nobody will . Nothing to do with bikes. For one thing cars have gone the airbag route. There are more debilitating injuries but fewer deaths per incident. Good or bad?)
( you can see the same trend in Combat injuries with modern helmets and armour. Nobody is saying soldiers shouldn't use them)
2) he shows pictures of families biking in Amsterdam without helmets.
( show me pictures of towheads on tandems on third avenue in NYC) traffic is different. The key is isolating 40 mph cars from 13 mph bikes. They don't mix and bike riders always lose in that comparison)
3) just as many people get hurt with helmets as without
( OK, here in portland compliance is over 90%. That means far fewer bicyclists per trip are getting head injuries. Plus, an ER surgeon friend tells me head trauma tends to be much more serious without a helmet. There is also that riders here tend to be young adults, also a risk population. Just as in climbing, twenty something's are invincible)
4) there are fewer bike riders than in 1990 in his city
( I'll wager the demographics is older than 1990. They ride less and can afford cars more. Helmets might not be the factor)
5) helmets are only tested for top impact.
( patently false in the usa. The Snell test has a rim component of testing.
http://www.helmets.org/standard.htm
Also, in the usa a helmet is tested for crashes at higher speeds than Europe ( 17 mph vs 20 kph( 12.43 mph) and this better reflects usa traffic. They tend towards lighter, thinner helmets. None of his data might be pertinent)
Those are just a few. I'd love to see more than a bullet point Ted talk, and with a Q&A
As an aside, when I started climbing NOBODY wore helmets rock climbing ( well, maybe one of the Longs). This summer I put one on at Cathedral Peak on a Saturday for the first time in my life on rock because of the crowds above me. I was grumbling the whole approach that Saturday was a bad idea, but we only get to Yosemite once a year. There are still a couple of the 50 crowded climbs I'd like to tick off before pampers.
I also took the route less(never?) travelled because all the ones on the topos were full and what I tried looked pretty moderate. It was only maybe 5.8.
I broke a loose hold, opened up my knee on a flake below, , and spun head first onto another flake. Broke the helmet. I hit hard enough I know I would have had serious head trauma. As it was, I finished the pitch, limped out and took myself to the hospital. It was probably the third lead fall in 40 years that wasn't with a piece at my chest.
His accounting would call that an injury with a helmet on.
There are things still in flux with bikes in Urban areas. We spent 100 years tailoring the traffic environment to cars. Some changes cost money. Here in Portland the trend is to bike streets that make driving a car a PIA, and isolated lanes with barriers to traffic. Sometimes that divider is the parked car lane or planters. But it often isn't possible, and I'm always amazed bikers still choose the arterials.
I'll bet Amsterdam has a lot more biking separated from cars.
Helmets have to be seen in the context of the riding environment.
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Oregon
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Climbers pour though that kind of data all the time. I'm always surprised Bikers don't. I am always amazed to see the fastest cyclists wearing the lightest helmets.
Which leads to the reverse phenomenon than his "cycle of fear" hypothesis. It is just as likely that wearing a helmet enables riskier behavior on a bike, both in speed and in the amount of other activities you might do while riding...ie running lights, texting, or darting through traffic.
That's not the helmets fault, it is learning to manage risk, just like in climbing.
( saw a car driver reading a newspaper in traffic today. It's not just bikers)
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cowpoke
climber
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Thanks, Lorenzo! Definitely feel guilty that I didn't find 2/3 of the apps you knew of, so thanks for all of that. Will see if there is one designed for Boston, specifically.
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Oregon
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Good luck.
Boston Bike returns seven APPs , four of which might be useful.
Boston Transit returns 11 APPs, but I don't know if Boston is set up to take bikes on transit or coordinates transit with bike commuting.
. I know a guy in NYC who gets away with a folder bike for commuting.
And don't forget Google maps.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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I'll bet Amsterdam has a lot more biking separated from cars.
Amsterdam just has way more bikes. At a guess, I'd say it's close to an order of magnitude more than any big North American city. I don't specifically remember the layout of bike lanes vs just riding in traffic, but there are so many cyclists that they are a big part of the traffic flow.
And yes, I know what "an order of magnitude" means.
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Oregon
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Wikipedia tells us 38% of trips in Amsterdam are by bike. Portland bicycle alliance claims 8% of commuter trips in Portland are by bike in 2014. The U.S. census, which polls at major employers, says 6.1%.
Not exactly equivalent, because there are many more trips than commuter trips. The Hawthorne bridge has monitors for every crossing into the city, and about 20% of trip traffic is bike.
But even given those first numbers, the order of magnitude is under 1 x 10^ .7 , so not one full order of magnitude more bike traffic in Amsterdam.
To give you an idea what kind of traffic is in the downtown Amsterdam, watch this.
http://vimeo.com/77084110
It appears they multitask also.
What I see is dedicated streets, bridges, and paths, slow riding, and very little car traffic in those areas. portland isn't there yet, but the downtown is getting there. It gets better each time there is an infrastructure improvement at bottlenecks.
For comparison, here is commuting across the Hawthorne Bridge in Portland - bridge lift and all.
http://youtu.be/CrwHWnJzFbc
Traffic is more combined, both cars and bikes are faster.bikes aren't alway separated from cars on busy streets with 35 mph speed limits. There aren't curbs separating bike lanes everywhere yet
Most bridges have had bike lanes added, and this year a new bridge across the Willamette is being built that is transit and bike only, so it is happening. I can get downtown with only about 1/2 mile of street traffic that isn't controlled for bikes.
But some of that might just be scale. Amsterdam is 84 sq. mi.. And Portland is 375 sq. mi. - Just about the inverse of the order of magnitude in bike traffic.
What is happening here is that people are choosing to live in neighborhoods on bike paths. The Sellwood corridor district, which is along the Springwater bike path, has about 25% of commuter trips into downtown by bike.
There is a similar trend heading North into St Johns, which has two streets where bikes get entire lanes of traffic to themselves.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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As to bikes in Europe - European drivers are much better drivers than yer average Yank or
Canuck PLUS they're not in a 5000 pound Urban Assault Vehicle.
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Tobia
Social climber
Denial
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I've only read the first and last post of this thread; but get the general jist.
I'm a runner that had to convert to biking. I don't feel near as safe riding as I did running, for a couple of reasons most people are aware of; but I will mention anyway.
Running against traffic you see impending doom if it is coming and you can avoid it by either stepping or jumping off the road. This isn't possible on a bicycle.
The safest place to ride in my area is on the military base located here. Bicyclists (as well as marching soldiers) have the right of way and are not seen as a nuisance as motorists. If they are the motorists keep it to themselves. The speed limit posted on 90% of the roads is 25 mph and is strictly enforced. It is a very large base with many miles of roads to pedal on.
To get there there is a running and biking trail that winds along the river 13 miles before you the base. It is a great place to ride, especially the 5 miles around the 800 acre airfield.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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you have never been in Italy
Well, you're right, except for most of October and a week of November.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Not Amsterdam
BwaHaHaHa! Gots relatives there, bra, keep tryin'!
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Reilly...You got relatives in Benton....?
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Bill Czajkowski
Sport climber
New Mexico
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And ride your bike in the middle of the lane.
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Degaine
climber
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Dec 11, 2014 - 01:35am PT
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Nice posts Lorenzo.
Lorenzo wrote:
Which leads to the reverse phenomenon than his "cycle of fear" hypothesis. It is just as likely that wearing a helmet enables riskier behavior on a bike, both in speed and in the amount of other activities you might do while riding...ie running lights, texting, or darting through traffic.
When it comes to helmet wearing (biking, skiing, climbing), or seatbelt wearing for that matter, I would differentiate between the risks one takes as an individual and the risks posed by others using the same road/runs/etc.
While I decided to don a ski helmet long ago due to the risks I was already taking, I understand the existing stats apparently indicate otherwise, that for skiing or mountain biking, people are taking more risks now that they wear helmets. That is what I would very clumsily label "individual, my own ass" risk.
But I wear a seatbelt as much due to the unpredictability of other drivers as to the risks involved in my own manner of driving.
Ditto for a bike helmet: I ride pretty mellow through town and am not too worried about falling, but drivers are unpredictable, and it's worthwhile to wear a helmet in that regard. I have not taken greater risks since putting on a bike helmet for urban purposes.
There are people who text while riding? Clearly I'm less talented than I thought, but then again I have a hard time walking and chewing gum at the same time...
Cheers.
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wilbeer
Mountain climber
Terence Wilson greeneck alleghenys,ny,
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Feb 20, 2015 - 05:33pm PT
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What ,Left Coasters do not ride in winter?
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