My apologies.
Yesterday was just one of those days that started bad, and continued a downhill slide until I finally made it to bed, nearly two hours later — and in a much worse mood — than usual.
From the sleepus interuptus of the previous night, to hardware and software issues that had me rebooting my computer and internet service multiple times throughout the day. And not only cost me two days worth of links I’d been saving, but finally made me give up on any hope of writing anything at all last night.
Not to mention a small 2nd degree burn acquired while preparing dinner last night. And a spam attack that had me deleting comments that slipped through the spam filter throughout the day.
So those legal updates I promised you will have to wait another day. Which is okay, because I’m still trying to get a little more information on some of them.
Fortunately, one of the most brilliant features of this world we live in, whether by design or coincidence, is an opportunity to start fresh with every rising sun.
Each dawn is an opportunity to put the previous day’s problems behind you. And a reminder to take your life one day at time, without agonizing about yesterday or worrying about tomorrow.
It’s a concept that goes back at least 2,000 years. And one that the late, great — and sadly forgotten — Dale Carnegie suggested, stressing the need to live in what he called day-tight compartments, without allowing the past or future to leak into the present.
Easier said than done.
Still, those of us who travel on two wheels have an opportunity that others miss, to climb onto our bikes and, for at least that amount of time, to put all of life’s worries and aggravations on a shelf. And just enjoy the ride, whether we’re training, running errands or riding to work or school.
Or just riding.
And as so often happens, by the time we’re done, the world looks a little different. We may come up with the solution to our problems while we’re navigating the streets, or just forget about them for awhile.
Either way, I seldom end a ride without finding myself in a better mood than I started. Even if I started on top of the world.
So I’m going to spend the morning on my bike, and ride the route I didn’t get to ride yesterday. Maybe adding another 20 miles or so to make up for lost time.
I promise to get back to work a little later, and deliver the news I hinted at yesterday.
No, really. Cross my heart.
And in the meantime, here are the links that survived the day to keep you going until we meet again.
……..
The 7th Street bike lanes and road diet make it all the way to the edge of Downtown — yet for some reason, the cyclists in the picture prefer to ride in the buffer zone. The LookOut News asks if cycling in safe in SaMo. Streetsblog looks at best practices by examining Santa Monica’s Bike It! Day. A Lynwood cyclist is seriously injured in yet another hit-and-run. The Biking Black Hole of Beverly Hills has a golden opportunity to create a linear town square connecting the Golden Triangle with Century City. When cities don’t make room for cyclists, drivers wonder why they should. Following the death of a cyclist killed a collision with a police car in a classic SWSS, Bakersfield cyclists become more vigilant — not surprising when even the cops are running them down. A Sausalito cyclist rear-ends a stopped car. A Ukiah driver reports cyclists for hogging the road (scroll down). An Alameda writer asks if cycling can ever be cool. Not surprisingly, the bike wins yet again in a race through San Francisco traffic. A law-abiding Marin cyclist asks why some people act like idiots when they get on a bike; why indeed?
Boulder CO follows Portland’s lead and goes Danish, not Dutch. New ghost bikes cause Memphis merchants to reconsider bike lanes; yes, it’s hard to turn a profit when your potential clients keep getting killed. Ambassadors for better bike behavior in the Big Apple. The New York Times profiles the Cannibal — one of the greatest bike racers of all time; no offense to Lance, but I’d put my money on Merckx. Virginia Beach VA plans a bike lane along a dangerous stretch of roadway.
The Urban Country offers an insightful look at that unique form of harassment that equates cycling with being gay. Scot cycling champ Graeme Obree tells athletes to stay in the closet. Bike scribe Carlton Reid offers a free download of his newly expanded Bike to Work eBook. If cyclists demanded it, the UK could have the backbone of a Dutch-style cycling network in 10 years. Alberto Contador’s arbitration hearing will finally be heard this November, barring yet another delay or more Spanish beef.
Finally, a Santa Clara cyclist threatens to cut a stranger in half with a sword. And a teenaged Placerville cyclist intentionally crashes into a parked car — possibly separating his shoulder — and files a false hit-and-run report to hide the fact that he’d ditched school to smoke dope with his friends.
Mr. LaPorte,
If you you want more information, click on http://bikewalktn.blogspot.com/2011/08/arrested-for-riding-bike-to-school.html
of you could click on “to Bike Walk Tennesee” in my original message, also you could check Elizabethton Police Logs for August 25, or search on Teresa Tryon, or maybe even ask your officer Major Verran, or your police chief about it.
—– Original Message —–
From: Charles LaPorte
To: Jim Lucas
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2011 8:11 AM
Subject: Re: Biking in Elizabethton
More info please with contacts or newspaper reports.
Charles LaPorte
Eliz City Council
—– Original Message —–
From: Jim Lucas
To: rcurta@charter.net ; wecarter@embarqmail.com ; lapcon@chartertn.net ; rsammons@usit.net ; richard@securetestalarms.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2011 2:37 PM
Subject: Biking in Elizabethton
Allow me a moment of sheer outrage, as a Tennessee woman is threatened with arrest for the crime of allowing her 10-year old daughter to ride her bike to school.
According to Bike Walk Tennessee, Teresa Tyron of Elizabethton thought her daughter had a reasonably safe 7 to 9 minute ride to school in the tiny town near the border with North Carolina.
Evidently, the authorities disagreed.
Teresa Tryon said, “On August 25th my 10 year daughter arrived home via police officer, requested to speak to me on the front porch of my home. The officer informed me that in his ‘judgment’ it was unsafe for my daughter to ride her bike to school.”
She followed up by contacting the mayor and chief of police. But instead of getting the apology any rational person would have expected, she was told that the officer would be contacting Child Protective Services and that she could be arrested for child neglect if she allowed her daughter to ride to school in the meantime.
So let me get this straight.
Elizabethton,, a town of just 13,000 people, is so dangerous that children cannot safely ride their bikes on the streets.
Of course, they do not say whether the danger stems from the horrible traffic conditions, which surely must be far worse than those of the Los Angeles area, where children are encouraged to ride to class, though few actually do.
Then again, maybe Elizabethton is so overwhelmed with child molesters and other criminal sorts that it is unsafe for anyone to ever be outside of their homes day or night. Let alone a child.
Or maybe city officials have their collective heads so far up their own collective butts that the entire collective city government would have to visit a proctologist just to get their glasses cleaned.
If the problem is the condition of the streets, it is up to the mayor and other city officials to make them safe, not parents to keep their children off them. If it is a fear of criminal activity, the police should stop harassing parents and start arresting criminals until families do not have to be afraid to let their children go out alone for less than 10 minutes on the way to and from school.
But if it is the latter problem, which I would highly suspect, local residents should seriously consider riding the police chief, mayor and anyone else involved in this idiotic process out of town on a rail, and replace them with far more rational people who understand that riding a bike to school is not a crime, and should in fact be encouraged in this day of rampant childhood obesity., and willing to do their jobs to make the streets safe for everyone.
As an LA native (now in Texas), I spent a lot of my youth riding around Pasadena and LA. I doubt the infrastructure has improved a lot. But… it could be worse. Take a look at this picture of one of the very, very few bicycle lanes in Williamson County, Texas (immediately north of Austin.) Look at the gravel and debris making this lane absolutely unusable. I suspect the lane was striped to obtain eligibility for some federal funding, as roadbuilding (minus any bicycling or pedestrian accomodations) is the national sport of Texas, not football. yfrog.com/khiqqqlj