Month: October 2009

Safety in numbers

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments

Gretchen Reynolds at The New York Times notes a study by surgeons and ER docs at the Rocky Mountain Regional Trauma Center in Denver that concluded a staggering increase in the number and severity of injuries sustained by cyclists may have its roots in an uptick in bicycle commuting.

“What we concluded was that a lot of these people were commuters,” Dr. (Jeffry) Kashuk said, adding, “If we keep promoting cycling without other actions to make it safer, we may face a perfect storm of injuries in the near future.”

The “perfect storm” cliché aside, the piece makes interesting reading. In Europe, Reynolds writes, the “safety in numbers” effect has led to a decline in cyclist injuries, and a California study suggests that “adaptation in motorist behavior” in response to an increase in walking and cycling contributes to a decreased likelihood of injury.

“In other words,” writes Reynolds, “when more cyclists show up on the roads, car drivers become used to them and respond appropriately.”

Reynolds notes the obvious Catch-22: If cycling is perceived as dangerous, then fewer people will take it up, even though more putting cyclists on the road — in time — will mean fewer accidents. While we await that happy day, she urges “individual responsibility,” saying cyclists must obey traffic laws, though I can find no similar admonition for motorists.

So there you have it. Get out there and make the streets safe for cycling. Just don’t expect to see me on a two-wheeler today. It’s 10 a.m. and still below freezing.

Pick right target when shooting off mouth

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments

Journalists, like cops, get to see people at their worst. This holds true even in sporting journalism, as I am reminded all too frequently.

Case in point: The boys at VeloNews forward me a letter to the editor from a Denver reader who is beside himself over a photo in the December issue of single-speeder/mountain biker Ross Schnell posing with an elk he has killed. The pic, more typical of a hook-and-bullet mag’ than a bike rag, illustrates a Robbie Stout training piece about doing something other than cycling in the off-season.

Now, I don’t know Ross Schnell from mach schnell. Maybe he hunts for meat, not trophies. I don’t hunt at all, unless you count stalking the wily skinless chicken breast at Vitamin Cottage-Natural Grocers. However, I know a few folks who do, reasoning that free-range elk is a whole lot tastier and better for you than feedlot beef.

But our reader apparently has Ross Schnell’s number, based on a single photograph. He is an “assclown,” a “jackass redneck,” a “semi pro CO dolt with a tiny dick,” an idiot and a coward. Our reader adds: “Want sport? Try to hunt me, I’ll not only come after your hillbilly ass, I’ll come after your family — then you can hear all about the terror, pain and torture a hunted animal experiences from your kids or wife.”

A little casual research using our reader’s name and location, e-mail address and forum handle leads me to believe he is a vegetarian. If so, he makes a very poor advocate for the moral superiority of gatherers over hunters. I’m not sure the Buddha would be down with going after someone’s family, even a poorly hung hillbilly’s, with a heart full of righteous indignation and a fistful of deadly zucchini.

What’s amusing about the letter, other than the mental image of its purple-visaged author, is the clear sense that our reader is absolutely certain that he is correct about the evils of hunting, when he is mistaken about so much else. He got the author’s name wrong, calling him “Robbie Scott.” And he mentioned wanting to speak with “one of your three editors. Steve, Charles or Patrick. …” We three edit the VeloNews.com website, not the magazine. Says so right there in the masthead on page 14.

Finally, he mistakenly elevates the “predominantly white collar and educated clientele” of a bicycling magazine over the blue-collar, Guns and Ammo rednecks of the world. I’ve lived among both ’necks and yuppies and find both crowds astoundingly human, which is to say imperfect, possessed of traits I admire and others I dislike.

But the rednecks have stopped more often to offer me a lift or some tools when they saw me fixing a flat tire during a ride. They’ve cheerfully given me venison, elk, even bear, from their hunts. And somehow I can’t recall one ever proposing to come after my family in the name of “sport,” or even something I’d published.

“Have some class and a conscience for god’s sake,” concludes our reader. And they said irony was dead.

A crunch you can’t get with the Cap’n

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments
Not exactly green eggs and ham, Sam I am, but there is some green involved.
Not exactly green eggs and ham, Sam I am, but there is some green involved.

I don’t remember exactly when I first started liking a little salad with breakfast. It’s probably Hal’s fault — he’s more of a culinary pioneer than I am and has been known to eat all kinds of weird items first thing in the morning. Living at altitude 15 miles from a piss-poor grocery will do that to you. Planning and creativity are required.

Whatever. I like the way some lettuce and tomatoes look on the plate, drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil and a little salt and pepper, cuddled up next to the eggs, scrambled with green chile, garlic and chives.

And I like the way it tastes, too. Beats the mortal shit out of a bowl of Cap’n Crunch, a moon pie and a Co’-Cola.

• Update from on high: Hal advises from the Hardscrabble Times kitchens that breakfast today consists of a package of Stahlbush Farms frozen spinach thawed in a skillet over low heat, then sautéed with garlic and olive oil, with a half-dozen locally acquired eggs scrambled in along with some organic Parmesan. Sliced oranges are served on the side. Options for the carnivorous include diced Maverick Ranch or Larga Vista Ranch ham.

Footloose

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
There's no place like home ... there's no place like home.
There's no place like home ... there's no place like home.

Another sign of the times: the seasonal purchase of a new pair of running shoes. I haven’t been running that much lately for a variety of perfectly defensible reasons, chief among them sloth. But winter exercise means either the icy brown stripe up the pooper or an occasional descent into pedestrianism, and since my shoes are all pretty much blown out, I swung by Colorado Running Company to do a bit of business with John “Usuck” O’Neill, like me an O.D. (Original Dog) and Chief Cur Emeritus of Team Mad Dog Media-Dogs at Large Velo.

John sold me a rather sparkly pair of Saucony Progrid Omni 8s that look like footwear from an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, but a few tromps through the goo will take a little flash out of their dance.

I got started this afternoon with a short jog through Monument Valley Park, which was still a little sticky in spots from last night’s light snow. But I still get the feeling I could click them together a few times and wind up in either Kansas or Oz.

Altitude sickness

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

Well, that’s officially it for summer — I pulled the cover off the pergola and stashed it in the garage. No chance of cranial sunburn on the back deck for now, the skies being gray, the temps in the mid-30s and some nasty-looking weather to the south.

Still, it could be worse. My man Hal up in Crusty County reports thusly: “It’s snowing again. I’m moving to Pewblow.”

He’s kidding, of course. We have both lived in Pewblow, and the best that can be said for the place is that it’s 10 degrees warmer than where Hal is right now, which would be stuck in a steadily swelling snowbank at 8,800 feet just east of Weirdcliffe.

Pewblow makes Bibleburg look like San Francisco on a sunny day. My hometown has its faults — many, many of them — but at least here the cops don’t tase you before they shoot you just to see that look on your face. They just ask if you’ve found Jesus and then blow a great big .40-caliber hole in your heart so they can see if he’s really in there.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to work up the ‘nads to go out for a short bike ride, maybe a little cyclo-cross over in Monument Valley Park. Try that in Pewblo sometime. The cops will see you running with the bike and figure you stole it. Then it’s zap, bang, and hasta la vista muchachos.

• Late update: OK, I did it — sucked it up, pulled on the winter kit and went out for an hour of solo ’cross. Lord, did I suck, particularly on the running bits, which used to be my strength. But about 40 minutes in, it finally started getting good to me, and for a lap or two I felt marginally competent, if awfully slow. And now my back hurts. Mine will not be a pretty old age.