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adventures / cycling / Friday / Rowan — Comments Off
14
Mar 25

Presenting some cycling research

I gave a presentation of our research today at the Summit on Communication & Sport today. The session was titled Perception and Representation. One of our colleagues presented on topics titled “When Soccer Meets Streetwear: A Critical
Analysis of Soccer Shirts’ New Cool.” Another, a good friend presented on an interesting topic, “Interaction and Gamification – The Media Audience’s Perception of Reality and Virtuality in New Sports Formats. A Mixed-methods Study using the Example of the Baller League in Germany.” Another research team discussed “From Geek Kingdom to Non-Gendered Utopia? The Gendered
Representation of Esport on French Sports Media L’Equipe.fr.”

In between, I talked about the research The Yankee and I conducted last fall. We titled it “Doing this may Kill Me: A Mixed Method Approach to Perceptions of Cyclist Safety.”

Here are some of the slides.

On a beautiful evening in August 2024, two brothers were heading home on bikes when they were killed by an aggressive driver who, police say, had a BAL over the legal limit.

It happened by that power pole on the right.

They were local boys. Two guys done good. Both were hockey players, they became folk heroes at Boston College. Matthew, the younger one, had a short professional run on the ice before returning home to coach his high school team. His older brother Johnny was an NHL star. The family said they were always together. Shoulder-to-shoulder. They were together on that particular day to celebrate their sister’s wedding the next day.

Johnny had two children. He and his wife were expecting their third. Matthew and his wife were expecting their first child.

The driver of the vehicle hit them so hard that his Jeep Cherokee died a tenth of a mile away, as he tried to flee.

We conducted a survey of local cyclists. Using snowball sampling, we aimed at people in the tri-county area, but our instrument quickly reached into the tri-state area. We wrapped it with 1,296 respondents.

Here are a few numbers from the survey …

Of those 1,296 respondents, all cyclists, 66 percent reported near misses with other vehicles on their bike rides. Eighteen percent said they’ve had bike crashes involving vehicles. Nine percent have had more than one accident involving vehicles.

That’s something like 116 people!

Sixty-one percent reported that drivers pass too closely more than half the time. This is, admittedly, a tricky question. As a cyclist, I recall the dangerous passes far more clearly than the safer interactions. (Boy do I!) But … this gets to perception, and the intrinsic motivation involved in Self Determination Theory.

Our survey asked about aggressive drivers, and 13 percent said they have to deal with them on more than half their rides.

Also in this survey, 67 percent of cyclists say they fear they’ll be in an accident when they ride their bikes. And two-thirds of them also told us the infrastructure at their disposal for road riding is inadequate. (The implications here are fascinating.)

Of the 1,296 people who took our survey, 83 percent reported that they feel unsafe riding by some combination of drivers and poor infrastructure. We didn’t break that down further, but it’s there for future study.

When we asked cyclists about their perceptions of law enforcement, the numbers were not good; 64 percent perceived the utility of law enforcement toward helping to ensure their safety was “terrible.”

We’ll unpack this in a moment.

This is not a percentage, but a real figure. A third of our respondents, 453 cyclists who took our survey said the risk was so great they have stopped, or would not, ride on the road.

Here’s some other data. The various state departments of transportation use the term “vulnerable road users.” That’s how they define cyclists, pedestrians, or anyone else not in a car, truck, or SUV.

This, so you know, is the state law on passing vulnerable road users. National advocates who monitor these things say this is one of the best in the country. One of the best laws in the land means you have to give me four whole feet when you pass me. But you have to know that law, honor it, and understand distance and vehicles at different speeds (and a lot of you don’t). So, just think on this for a second. Four feet.

Four themes emerged in our qualitative work. In the first theme, people discuss how road systems are set up, first or exclusively, for motorists. That’s problematic. The US Census says 870,000 people commute by bike. People for Bikes, in their most recent research, says 112 million Americans rode a bike last year. The discourse is due a change.

We saw a great deal of frustration within the law and law enforcement theme. Cyclists complain of law enforcement officers who don’t know the laws or aren’t interested in policing them. They’ve been told that without video evidence there’s not much that can be done. Sometimes that’s difficult even with video.

Infrastructure is a recurring theme in our survey, advocacy, and in national conversations. Cyclists and other vulnerable road users frequently complain about it.

Boil it down to money, political will, and time. Most places are several lacking quality infrastructure for all road users. (Again, not just motorists.) There’s also an urgency problem.

Our final theme, I just called it personal. Hands go to chests when I talk about the bike shop owner who fixed a customer’s flat, and, minutes later, the cyclist was killed by a motorist.

“What if I’d told him I couldn’t do it then? What if I repaired it slower? Or faster?”

He lives with that.

It’s not his only story of that sort.

Let’s talk about impact. The Yankee and I were invited to share the initial version of this research with the local community soon after the Gaudreaus were killed. The crash, and this data, helped inspire the creation of a local safety committee. They are now doing advocacy. That group’s work has them in front of youth organizations. Bike safety and road awareness are key for everyone. They are also taking part in a county safety committee as well.

We’ve also shared the data with the state DOT and talked messaging with a variety of organizations. This research also caught the ear of a state lawmaker, who ran with it. And with good reason!

One criticism we saw a lot is that not everyone knows about the state’s relatively new Safe Passing law. The Center for Sports Communication and Social Impact. We take the title to heart. This is research with real impact. In part because of our research, the Safe Passing law will now be taught in Driver’s Ed and appear on the driver’s license exam.

Please be careful on the roads. We’re all just trying to get somewhere and safety is the goal.

adventures / cycling / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
13
Mar 25

A day in sunny Chicago

Yes, we are in Chicago. Spring has arrived here with us. (It will snow here this weekend.) But today is beautiful, and if there’s one thing I learned in the Midwest, it is that you live for the day, because tomorrow could be an entirely different kind of problem.

But this trip is great, because we are with friends and colleagues, most of whom we haven’t seen in a year. Sadly, some aren’t here for international travel reasons, but maybe in a few years more reunions will be had.

We had lunch with friends from South Florida and UNC-Chapel Hill today. Lovely, lovely people. The sort you should see more than once a year. Two, maybe three times would be much better — and still keep me at low risk of being found out. We walked down to an Irish pub, where everyone working there was Irish, or at least had worked out a good accent. I had the shepherd’s pie, because I’m a sucker for the stuff. In the back of the joint, near the restroom, was this sign.

I glanced at that, thought, They oughta know and took a good picture.

Down the street was a bike shop. My lovely bride had a meeting and I had nothing to do, so I walked down there. Look! Bikes!

The application of that bike lane warning was hasty, and there’s probably an end-of-the-work-week story that isn’t that good, but I had a two block walk, which gave me plenty of time to invent a better story.

I went to the bike shop to look for helmets. I’m due a new helmet this year. Past due, in fact. And they have one I like. And since it’s not at my local store, and I had a few minutes I figured, why not? Except while this store had it on their website, they didn’t have it in the shop. Now, it’s a small enough place that everyone sees you come and go, and so I felt a bit silly about being in there and walking out without buying anything. I need new fingerless gloves, so I bought some. They made a sale, I didn’t leave empty handed, everyone was happy.

And I saw Didi the Devil! He’s a German superfan. A car mechanic by trade, holder of 17 world records for bike inventions and he’s been on the side of the road for all the big races in Europe for 30-some years now. The story goes that in German broadcasts, the old 1 km to go flag, a red triangle hanging above the race, was called “The devil’s flag,” and that inspired the costume. The riders say it’s good luck to see him in the race.

I’ll never see him in a race, of course, but I do see him when I watch the races. And since I’m talking about bikes tomorrow, maybe he’ll bring me some good luck.

The photo was taped to the customer-facing side of the receipt dispenser, so if I had not gotten new gloves I wouldn’t have seen him today. The guy that made the sale flipped that photo up and showed me another one taped beneath it. Double good luck to all their customers who know what they’re looking at.

After the day’s pre-conference work, we went out for dinner with a friend from St. Bonaventure. We headed to another pizza place, but it was a two hour wait for some mysterious reason. Looked dead, sounded quiet. No one wanted a wait like that, so we went to Billy Goat’s Tavern.

It was legendary before it became a bit on SNL.

The place is steeped in Chicago history. This is beneath the old newspapers, and so all of the reporters and the people that wanted to be seen came here. The walls are covered in the city’s history. The picture frames jammed next to one another like a wood and glass wallpaper.

We first visited in 2008, when we were there for another conference. We stopped by at lunch time, when the line wraps around the restaurant and the old man was doing his cheezborger shtick for his guests. That guy is, or was, the life of the party, and he knew it and reveled in it. He could also take one look at you and guess what you were eating. It doesn’t hurt that it was a relatively small menu, but he could just tell. It was great. Also, the borgers are pretty good burgers.

At the time of night we visited, it was quieter, the night crew didn’t need to do the gimmick. And there was plenty of room to sit and have a quiet meal. Also, the borgers are still pretty good burgers.

Now I’m going to go finish my presentation. I have to deliver a concise 12 minutes on this research tomorrow. It’d be better if they would allow me 14.

cycling / photo / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
11
Mar 25

First outdoor ride of the year

Yesterday, at the end of class, I gave my students my other bully pulpit lecture. I tell them at the beginning of the term that being at the front of the room allows me to give one or two brief speeches that have little or nothing to do with the class. And yesterday was the day, because today was the day.

That speech is the one about how to pass other road users safely when you’re driving. There are relatively new state laws. People don’t know them very well. I am updating people one room at a time. I have a whole patter about this, because I’ve been doing it for years. I used to do it much more intently.

The whole thing was about being careful to allow cyclists room to safely operate when you pass them. And I won’t tell you what I wear or what color my helmet or my bike is because I want you to be safe and attentive and considerate when you pass all of them them. Because one of them might be me. “And remember,” I used to say in the driest tone of humor I can muster, which is pretty considerable, “I have your grade, right here, in my hand.”

That’s what I used to do, and one semester a student said to me at the end of the term that I’d psyched her out and tensed her up whenever she saw a cyclist. That’s not the point. Nor is it the point to threatened anyone’s grade, of course. It’s a laugh line. After that, it seemed important to point out, “This is a laugh line. But, also, be careful.”

All of this was made much more relevant after my lovely bride’s pickup truck-caused accident in 2022. And it’s relevant since we’ve been doing research in this area the last few months. And it’s relevant because, today, the weather was beautiful and I took my bike off the trainer and put it on the road. (Twenty-two days earlier than last year!) Oh, happy day.

Also it was a momentous day, of sorts. I’ve been sneaking up on this little achievement for a while, and I certainly didn’t want to capture it indoors. So I have slacked off on the trainer, with that in mind. I didn’t really want to do it on a road I know very well, but that’s the risk you run when you are on your normal training roads. Not that it matters, nothing about this matters, but, somewhere, right in here, I reached a mileage equivalent to the earth’s equatorial circumference.

That’s 24,901 miles to you and me. I celebrated by dropping a gel, turning around, and picking it up.

The bullfrogs were cheering me, and summer, on.

In addition to being the first outdoor ride of the year, and the equatorial ride, it was also new bike computer day. New is a relative term. I bought this, used, at the end of last September and mounted it in the cockpit today. The computer I just retired, a Garmin 705 Edge, I bought used in 2020. It was a 2008 release. My new computer is the Garmin 520, which made its way into the wild in 2013, so I’m happily still behind the curve, but it is a half-decade leap forward for me.

And that’s an important five years because the new computer communications with this new light, the Garmin Varia. I got one for The Yankee for her birthday last year, she loves it, and so she got one for me for Christmas. This is no mere light. There’s a radar system here, and it detects approaching vehicles, and then signals the computer, which beeps, turns red on the edges, and displays dots meant to represent the traffic behind you.

It’s a cool little feature. Sometimes, in the right circumstances, you don’t always hear the oncoming vehicles, so it is a nice help. Though you mustn’t think of it as 100 percent accurate. It’s not too bad on false positives, but there seems to be one time of day, if you’re riding in front of a low-in-the-sun sky, that it isn’t perfect. It didn’t pick up the first two cars that passed me on this initial ride today, but I think it caught the rest of them. One extra layer of safety.

What’s nice is that sometimes the headset will beep, because the Varia picks up a vehicle before I hear it. I have developed a three-look technique that seems to help. I glance over my shoulder when the oncoming motorist is well back, when they’ve closed about half the distance and then just before they get to me. And this seems to help them realize that I’ve seen them too. Since I’ve started doing this late last summer, most of my passes have been much better.

But perhaps the best part of the Varia is this. It has different light settings, and I’ve watched this with great amusement while riding behind The Yankee. She leaves her light on a solid setting, but when a car or truck gets to a certain distance away from them, the light starts blinking. Every time, every time, you see the car decelerate and move over.

So if you wandered to this page thinking about bike radar, we’re still in the early days, but big fans of them so far.

Also, because why not, it was new jersey day.

I got a good sale at NeoPro. Full zip, three pockets, they do the job you ask a bike jersey to do, except make me faster and skinnier. They’re bike jerseys.

Now I need to find good sales on bib shorts.

And to go pack. So, if you’ll excuse me.

cycling / Rowan / Thursday — Comments Off
6
Mar 25

I lost a (slow) race!

Today was the day I was to put my contracting packet behind me. I’ve worked on varying versions of this for weeks, and I reached the finish line, both in what I could do and what I could tolerate, last night. It’s a helpful process in several respects, but it is also time intensive and there are other things I need to be doing.

So I went to campus today because a colleague who is on this particular committee wanted to see what the new CMS the university is using looks like. He’s been frustrated by the rollout of the new process, which is function of where you are standing. Most of my confusion with the process has been of my own doing. There are a few things that they’ll improve on for future versions of this process — you have to go through this every few years — but that will surely improve. My colleague’s perspective shows him some other things. The guy is a rock star, and he’s been incredibly helpful through this whole process. It might not be that every department has a guy like him to help the new people, which would be a shame. He’s definitely been a huge and helpful part of this for me. So I brought him an afternoon coffee and we sat down to look at the new upload system.

I stopped at Dunkin. And then I couldn’t get into the parking deck at work, so I had to drive around while his coffee cooled and looked for a parking space. I wound up parking some ways away, and walked in, while the coffee kept cooling. I assume that’s what it does. I don’t know anything about coffee. And, really I just wanted to get to the office on time and get my packet uploaded and move on to anything else.

The new uploading system we were testing has been perhaps the easiest part of the process. Even still, there were a few unexpected things. Nothing that can’t be overcome. Also, they had my title and department wrong.

So I couldn’t complete the process. Perhaps tomorrow. Tomorrow is the day I will put my contracting packet behind me. It better be tomorrow; the thing is due tomorrow night. It’s complete, and the only thing left to do is upload the files. Most anyone can do that and I am what they call tech savvy.

Not sure why we call people such a thing.

1785, slang, “practical sense, intelligence, knowledge of the world;” also a verb, “to know, to understand;” a West Indies pidgin borrowing of French savez(-vous)? “do you know?” or Spanish sabe (usted) “you know,” the verb in both from Vulgar Latin *sapere, from Latin sapere “be wise, be knowing” (see sapient). The adjective, of persons, is attested by 1905, from the noun. Related: Savvily; savviness.

I guess that’s why.

Anyway, got home, took care of about three weeks worth of email, and then celebrated by doing … not much else today, and enjoying the reflective glow of having this behind me.

And then I went downstairs and basked in the glow of the Zwift screen. I decided to try a race. I think I’ve done three races, now. The first one I don’t even remember. I did one a few weeks ago in a group I had no business being in. The field split up right away and I managed to come in at the front of the second group, with two other people who were pushing me on the last climb.

Today, I chose a flat course, and I followed Zwift’s suggestion. The game will tell you where you should be racing based on your recent performance. And based on my performance I should be in the category that’s one step above physical therapy.

When the time came to begin the group all spun into action together and I found myself right at the front of the ground. I took a photo for proof, because who would believe it?

Second place! I stayed right up front for about seven miles, about 70 percent over my threshold and wondering how long I could stay there. The answer is: about seven miles.

The front of the field left me behind, I faded in the last mile and the next group came up to race me to the line.

And then I rode on for another 10 miles, at a much slower pace because it turns out I was also under-fueled, just to see how long it would take to lower my heart rate. Not too long, it turns out. That’s cardiovascular quality for you. Where it went in the last few minutes of that race we’ll never know.

And the long-range forecast suggests that next week I might be riding outside!

cycling / photo / Rowan / Wednesday — Comments Off
26
Feb 25

Didn’t even realize this was the last Wednesday of February

On campus today, remembering some great advice I once reserved from a former news director, and some equally good advice I received from a faculty colleague, I talked scheduling. It was one of those things you plan ahead about what things you should highlight and discuss, and then suddenly it all disappears when you sit down to do it. Oh well, main points shared. Camaraderie achieved. No one’s lunch was interrupted. Also, I set up another meeting for next week, because I want to be the appointment guy, not the walk in and interrupt your flow guy. That’s how you develop real camaraderie, I’m sure of it.

Anyway, my fall classes look set. A conversation I had last week was fruitful in making some changes. I am not accustomed to having this sort of say in things. Three interesting classes, including one I am designing, but all of them are new to me. New ones take a little more work. I’m going to be proposing and hopefully designing a lot of new classes in the next few years. That’s the plan. Fortunately, I have a notebook devoted exclusively to just these ideas. I wonder how long it will take me to fill that one up.

In class today, we discussed television. Monday we did the same, mostly formats and history. But today it was Ghana, Kyrgyzstan, India. No one saw that coming before I gave the class a reading list.

Did you know the differences between how television works in all of those places? It starts with culture, is heavily influenced by the local languages, or regional historical politics, and, also, topography. Kyrgyzstan, for example, is incredibly mountainous, which limits what we think of as cable and over-the-air television. Also, their past with, and proximity to, Russia figures into what goes on television there, primarily cities versus rural, and you can probably guess the breakdown from there. For Ghanaian television, it’s a balance of history, cultural mores, and importing other products. India is similar, but not at all the same. There are so many languages, so many places where different parts of the country’s people overlap that television is a curious mix. And when the outsiders came, in the early 1990s, there was a lot of pushback. India knew something about invasions, and imported television was seen as a cultural invasion, and not at all welcome. Apparently that has subsided, but I bet there’s some older folks who remember that feeling well. Culture, it keeps coming back to culture. What you’ve got, what you’ll accept from other places, and what other places (the U.S. and Europe in these case, primarily) are offering.

Happily, a bunch of young people who don’t watch a lot of television themselves are going along for the conversation. And next week we’ll talk journalism. It’s a survey of a variety of media forms around the world, and it’s a lot of fun.

The view on the drive home.

This is how I know the days are getting longer. I don’t arrive in the driveway in darkness. I am pleased with this progression.

I haven’t been on my bike in four days, and it showed. Also, today’s route had two climbs in it, so I took my time, enjoying the two-hour effort, and covering 34 miles.

Just one Strava PR today, and it was a climb. It might have been the one pictured here, but they all look the same to me. I do wonder, though, why the avatars don’t get cold. If you pulled off and stopped pedaling, he’d just stand there waiting for you. But, way up there, he should be shivering. Instead, he is immune to the weather, the higher altitude, all of it. He just keeps pedaling, so long as I do.

I have to stop making excuses to not ride. “Schedules” and “work” and “dinner.” Whatever. I should probably ride uphill more. It’s not like my avatar will mind.