OK, how much room do you need to ride a bike on the road? The least I have ever used was about four inches from kerb to wheel whilst being brush-passed by a juggernaught at 40+mph. Big laundry bill that day. But how much do you really need to be a law abiding cyclist? Try this. Ride along at your normal distance from the edge of the road. Now open up your Highway code and do a proper [right] turn signal. Thats right, arm straight out. If you are really BIG then you won't have slapped the pedestrian waiting to cross at the lights around the face by accident, or wrapped your elbow around the belisha beacon. There you go. A minimum is so you can perform legal signals and still be totally on the road.
OK, so you are now a bit further out, maybe further than you are used to. And now you discover something. BIG things stick out further into the road than little things. And BIG things need more room. And strangely enough, the more room you take up, the more space cars leave for you! Broadly speaking, cars will leave you as much room as you leave yourself so keep out from the edge of the road about the same distance you want cars to keep out from you.
"I love to ride," he said. "It gave me back my life."
Mr. Thompson said he weighed 370 pounds when he retired, and his doctor told him he was going to die. "I made a lifestyle change then, including watching my diet and exercising, and I weigh 220 to 225 right now."
America's children are getting fat - so fat that they may grow up to be the unhealthiest generation in decades.
The alarm over childhood obesity rang in 2002. New data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey showed that 15.5 percent of children were seriously overweight and 15 percent more were at risk of becoming so.
That was triple the rate of 20 years earlier. . . .
The conclusion of many nutritionists and public health officials about the 9 million overweight and 9 million at-risk youths: Children were getting less exercise than ever, just as the food industry was overwhelming time-pressed families with inexpensive, high-calorie convenience foods, snacks and sodas. Much of its advertising was aimed at children.
"If we don't get a handle on childhood obesity, it's going to consume our country," said Dr. Walter Bortz, senior adviser to Healthy Santa Clara County, a task force planning a countywide effort against obesity.
Middle schoolers overweight but parents don't realize it--study
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
ReutersHealth reports on two new studies. One shows that nearly 50% of U.S. middle schoolers are overweight or close to it, and another shows that neither parents nor children are aware of the problem:
Part of the problem, she said, is that "overweight is now seen as the norm." The UK researcher noted that some parents of normal-weight children were concerned that their children were underweight. . . .
In the American study, which included 1,700 eighth-grade students, nearly 50 percent were overweight or were at risk of being overweight, lead researcher Dr. Francine Kaufman of Children's Hospital of Los Angeles told Reuters Health in an interview.
Kaufman and her colleagues found that about 40 percent of children had pre-diabetes, which is marked by above-normal levels of blood glucose. In addition, nearly half of the students had low levels of HDL, the "good" form of cholesterol, and many had blood pressure that was above normal for their age.
Biking was tough today as we went through the Ozarks which were very hilly. Steep uphills, more than what we remember the steepest in Utah being. We biked until we reached Alley Springs, Mo., where there was an old historic city museum with the Flower Mill. Chad and I found a nice river where we jumped about a 7- or 8-foot bridge, landing in the ice cold river. It felt very refreshing though.
After that we had some steep climbs to Eminence, Mo. When we got there, there were thousands of people with tubes and rafts. We had a hard time looking at them because we wanted to be out of the hot and sweaty job we had to do and out there floating on the river. But, we found an awesome little BBQ place to eat at, where we got brisket sandwiches donated. The place was so cool, probably my favorite restaurant style so far. Very western - as you walked in, the rock gravel continued all the way in, with haystacks all around and a table in the middle that, instead of stools around it, had Saddle Seats to sit on.
James Thayer and two companions will ride into Kansas on Sunday, more than two weeks into their quest to bike across the country and well on their way to showing what amputees can do.
Thayer, of Mayfield [KS], is being sponsored on his trip by the Amputee Coalition of America. The other riders are Kip Peavy of Montgomery, Ala., and Linda Holt of Peabody, Mass.
Riding 40 miles per day, the trio left San Francisco on June 2 and plan to arrive in New York City on Aug. 6.
A San Jose Mercury News article details the problem of growing obesity and some of the attitudes that have helped create the problem:
America's children are getting fat - so fat that they may grow up to be the unhealthiest generation in decades.
The alarm over childhood obesity rang in 2002. New data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey showed that 15.5 percent of children were seriously overweight and 15 percent more were at risk of becoming so.
That was triple the rate of 20 years earlier.
But the situation for adults is, if anything, worse:
Looking ahead, officials forecast a huge medical bill for the United States, as this generation joins an adult population that is increasingly overweight. The 2002 health survey found 64 percent of adults overweight or obese in 2000, compared with 56 percent six years earlier.
TT's are all pain, nothing more nothing less. Warmup well and then suffer, that's the key. Sounds like fun doesn't it?
About the mile and a half mark, something strange happens. A Dogfish rider passes me. It looks like Mark Nagey who I know is a very strong cat 3. If he's in the race, he passed at least two people before he got to me. Then Jim passes me looking solid. I notice that his cadence is slower than mine. I'm running about 94 - 95 so I shift to a harder gear and try staying in the 80's a bit. This could be more efficient but harder on the leg muscles. . . .
Mizzou grad student Amahia Mallea's ride through American history continues:
Packed and ready to leave this morning when I flatted in my driveway. I had psychologically left, but found myself physically stranded. At first I felt a rush of excitement to get the flat changed quickly but ended up frustrated, throwing tire irons, unable to work with the stiff new tire. I strapped the wheel on my back, grabbed my road bike, went out on the MKT trail and found my friend Sarah waiting patiently for me. We went to the bike shop, then home to put it all back together again.
Finally underway after noon, we rode steadily through the humid heat on the Katy Trail State Park towards Boonville where we would meet our friend Jeff for lunch.
Eccentric bicyclist and author Alfred Jarry turned Paris on its head:
Bound by rods to their machines, the crew of a five man bicycle hurtle across Europe and Asia in a grotesquely dehumanised race against an express train. The riders, who are paced by jet cars and flying machines, reach speeds of 300 kilometres an hour thanks to their diet of Perpetual Motion Food, a volatile mixture of alcohol and strychnine. One of the riders dies in the saddle, an event hardly noticed in the farcical pandemonium of technology in which the race ends after ten thousand miles. The race is a key episode in 'The Supermale', a French novel written in Paris in 1902, which speculates on how our minds and bodies may be overwhelmed by technology. The author, Alfred Jarry, was fascinated by bicycles, and they often appeared in his barbed and often shocking writings. He was also notorious for his wild eccentricity and his outrageously unconventional cycling.
Yesterday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch has an article about Bob Deufel, who is preparing for his 20th MS150 after having two surgeries for aneurisms.
When Deufel got his first job after college, he decided to commute by bike every day. He'd ride 12 miles each way to his position at the University of Indianapolis. "I had another set of clothes in my office there, so I'd change when I got there."
At that point he realized he needed a better bike, so he got a Raleigh three-speed. He still has that bike hanging in his garage.
Wikipedia has a very interesting article on the history of the bicycle from the very earliest precursors to modern times:
In Germany Karl von Drais, a civil servant to the Grand Duke of Baden, who had studied mathematics, physics, and architecture at the university of Heidelberg invented his Laufmaschine (running machine) of 1817 that was called draisine by the press and then velocipede. He did it in response to starvation and dying horses after a crop failure the year before ("eighteen hundred and froze to death," a snow summer due to the volcanic eruption of Tambora).
The requirement of balancing was nearly insurmountable for the average population, with only a few young men being ice skaters at that time. Therefore the velocipede was pushed by the feet against the ground and no attempt was undertaken by Drais nor by mechanics elsewhere to take the feet off safe ground and to put them on pedals . . . On his first reported spin from Mannheim on June 12, 1817, he covered 8 miles (13 km) in less than an hour. The wooden draisine weighed 48 pounds (22 kg) or less, had brass bushings within the wheels, a rear-wheel brake and 6 inches (152 mm) trail of the front-wheel for a self-centering castor effect.
Q: What is the number one reason why one bike is stolen over another?
A: Availability! Thieves steal bikes because they are easy to swipe, not because they’re expensive or cool. When you don’t lock your bike – even for a couple of minutes – it’s an advertisement to thieves: "This bike now available for stealing!!!"
"For the past nine years Liberty has had two police officers on bicycles. On their bikes officers are more in contact with people, more like the old-fashioned foot patrolman," HateBusters founder Ed Chasteen said. "Bicycles make it possible for officers to meet and greet people and create the good will needed between citizens and law enforcement. And when necessary, bicycles carry officers quickly and quietly to apprehend lawbreakers. "
A St. Louis cycling organization was unsure about what to do with a donation of several hundred bikes until group member Patrick Van Der Tuin, 25, saw a cyclist hit by a car in front of his house, and the idea clicked for "Broken Bikes, Broken Lives."
In August, Van Der Tuin put up a bike for the crash near his home. In the fall, he and his friends put up a dozen more bikes, all painted white, around St. Louis. This spring, another 15 or so went up.
Now ghost bikes are spreading around the country as a grassroots cyclist safety movement.
permanent link to article: "Ghost bikes in the KCStar"
posted by Brent Hugh at
6/10/2004 09:31:00 AM |comment on this article
Speed bumps in neighborhoods cut traffic risk to children by 60%
Some people find them annoying, but those speed bumps that force motorists to slow down in residential neighborhoods and near schools can significantly cut the risk of injury or death to children, a study says.
The review found that children who lived on streets near a speed bump were up to 60 percent less likely to be hit and injured by an automobile than youngsters in areas without them. . . .
Motor vehicle-related incidents are the leading cause of death for children age 1 to 15, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The study said Oakland had the highest rate of pedestrian deaths among California cities in 1995. That year, the city began a safety campaign after a pickup plowed into the playground of a local preschool, killing a 2-year-old and injuring 10 other children. The effort resulted in the installation of some 1,600 speed [bumps] on residential streets by 2000. Tom Van Demark, the head of the Oakland Pedestrian Safety Project, said there has been a 15 percent decrease in child pedestrian deaths and injuries in the past few years.
The article quote's St. Louis Recumbent Bicycles' Sam Blevins:
"I envision a day not too far away," Blevins said, "when recumbents will be standard, when people look at someone on a diamond frame and say, 'Wow, you still ride one of those?'"
Lewis & Clark re-enactment works its way across Missouri
Monday, June 07, 2004
The Lewis & Clark re-enactment is slowly working its way across the state of Missouri during the month of June.
During this first part of the re-enactment, from St. Charles to Boonville, much of the activity is accessible via the Katy Trail.
A Columbia Tribune article has details about the celebration as the Corps re-enactment arrived at Huntsdale:
The Discovery Corps’ replica keelboat and pirogues docked near the boat ramp at about 11 a.m. to the applause of about 100 observers, including many who wore biking helmets, evidence of the nearby Katy trail.
The two-day festival includes many activities to keep visitors busy. In the field near the boat ramp, a replica rendezvous camp was set up for visitors to see how traders and hunters met up during the days of the Lewis and Clark expedition. The camp included an 18-foot-diameter American Indian teepee, a tomahawk-throwing demonstration and an 18th-century firearms demonstration.
Troy Calkins of Olathe, KS, plans to unicycle the entire Bike Across Kansas route. Bike Across Kansas starts today on the western border of the state. According to the KCStar story:
Using only one wheel and good old determination, 33-year-old Troy Calkins of Olathe plans to roll across Kansas in eight days.
If he succeeds, he will become the first person to unicycle across the state, he said.
“They think I'm nuts. They really think I'm crazy,” Calkins said. “A lot think it's not possible. But it's very doable.”
Obesity in children even more dangerous than previously thought
Thursday, June 03, 2004
According to an article in ReutersHealth, a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine of obese children suggests that overweight and obese children are even more likely than previously thought to be at risk for serious complications such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease:
"Obesity [in children] is not a cosmetic issue and preventive measures ought to be implemented to stop further weight gain," said Caprio, who is at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. . . .
Almost 39 percent of moderately obese children and almost 50 percent of the severely obese were classified as having the metabolic syndrome. The higher a child's body mass index (BMI) - a measure of weight in relation to height - the greater was the risk of the metabolic syndrome. . . .
The metabolic syndrome is a cluster of risk factors that often precedes type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Signs of the metabolic syndrome include abdominal obesity, high levels of blood fats called triglycerides, low levels of HDL ("good") cholesterol, high blood pressure and high blood sugar.
The world is thick and rich when savored at 12 mph and, after last year's river trip, I knew I would tour again. Over winter break, I got this idea: use the bike trip as a teaching tool. As a teaching assistant at M.U. in required survey courses in history, I wanted to convey to students that history is interesting, important and fun. The American History by Bike trip project was born. One hundred students collaborated to develop and research bike trips that will send me around the United States, exploring the history of places and themes. Now that the semester has ended, I have packed up my panniers and am heading off to savor American history.
The Arizona Star has an article, focusing on a Lenexa, KS, family, about the struggle to help middle-school age youngster to be more active:
The intensely social nature of adolescents suggests another strategy for getting them moving. Instead of just proposing a walk or a game of hoops, make it a social event.
"Most kids do their activities with someone else," said Jim Sallis, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University. Sallis has evaluated initiatives aimed at improving physical education in schools. "Getting a compatible group of peers is usually quite important." . . .
Several experts also emphasized the importance of creating a home environment that makes it easy for your adolescent to make good choices.
If you put your adolescent in a room with a television set and a video game, for example, "He's going to pick the TV set and the video game," said David Dzewaltowski, a public-health behavior researcher at Kansas State University.
Dzewaltowski is just finishing a four-year study of how to promote good eating and more physical activity in middle-school students.
Surround your adolescent instead with equipment and opportunities for physical and outdoor activities. Make the television and the computer and the video games less convenient.
And then clamp down on "screen time." Or require that each hour of screen time be offset by an hour spent in physical activity or outside.
