Helmets

Should adults wear helmets?

I hadn't really thought that there was that much of a debate over helmets until I read the article above.  I thought that if you rode a bike you wore a helmet and it was that simple.  I did know that some people didn't wear helmets, hell my brother would not wear a helmet when we would ride together until we went to the Cycle Eastlake! ride and they wouldn't let him ride unless he had one.  But my brother rides a bike once in a blue moon.  That was always my impression of other non helmet wearers.

Now granted, the guy who wrote the article seems to be a casual cyclist, but some of the responders seem to be people who ride quite a bit.  I just don't get why people are so adamantly against doing something that protects them.  I wonder if these same people drive around in their cars without their seatbelts on?  Some of the responders question why people who are in favor of helmets think that they want people who don't wear helmets to get hurt.  I don't know that this is necessarily true but I do think that they won't feel sorry for someone who gets injured while riding without a helmet.

The only reason that I could see that people were giving for riding without helmets were "personal reasons".  I have to believe that this is because they feel that helmets look dorky.  Hey, I'll admit that there is no way to look cool while wearing a bike helmet but at least your dorky head will be protected.  Also, it's not like anybody is asking you to wear spandex bike shorts!  Although for some strange reason I have seen people wearing spandex bike shorts while not wearing a helmet!

This article also underlines a problem that I have with the media.  They use statistics to support their claim but they omit the statistics that conflict with their point.  The author of the article states:

"Context is important here. The most recent federal statistics on bicyclist accidents shows there were 716 bicyclists killed on roadways in the U.S. in 2008, or about 2 percent of all traffic fatalities. Certainly, helmets might have prevented some of those deaths, but from public health or statistical perspectives, this is a pretty low number"

Now if context was really as important as he claims he would have included all of the statistics that he was looking at.  He also would have realized that while 716 traffic deaths are 2% of all traffic fatalities, they are a much higher percentage of the Cycling population since there are significantly less Cyclists out there than motorists.

The following information can be found at:  http://www.helmets.org/stats.htm This is the same website that the author of the article linked to so he could show where he got his statistics from.


Bicycle Deaths by Helmet Use


1994-2006

Year   No Helmet  Helmet  Total*

1994  776 (97%)  19 (2%)  796

1995  783 (95%)  34 (4%)  828

1996  731 (96%)  27 (4%)  761

1997  785 (97%)  23 (3%)  811

1998  741 (98%)  16 (2%)  757

1999  698 (93%)  42 (6%)  750

2000  622 (90%)  50 (7%)  689

2001  616 (84%)  60 (8%)  729

2002  589 (89%)  54 (8%)  663

2003  535 (85%)  58 (9%)  626

2004  602 (83%)  87 (12%) 722

2005  676 (86%)  77 (10%) 784

2006  730 (95%)  37 (5%) 770

 
From these statistics you are almost assured to not die on your bike while wearing a helmet.  Think about that for a second, no matter how many total bicycling deaths there were in a given year, there were always less than 100 deaths from people who were wearing helmets.  In 7 out of the 12 years that the study took place there were less than 50 deaths among people riders wearing helmets. 
 
So, maybe those people who don't ride with helmets on aren't as smart as they think they are? 
 
At least they look cool.

Some other food for thought:

Bicyclist deaths in 2006 occurred most often during June-September and between the hours of 6pm and 9pm.


Twenty-four percent of bicyclists killed in 2006 had blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) at or above 0.08 percent. This percentage is one-third higher than in 1982.

One-third of bicyclist deaths in 2006 occurred at intersections.

Don't drink and ride, Use a lighting system on your bike especially at dusk, and be careful at those intersections!

What a week!

It's been almost a week since my last post.  It isn't because I'm lazy, although I am lazy, it's because I've been away from the computer.

Last Wednesday started out innocent enough.  I got up at 10 am because I had a couple of appointments at the community college that I am going to in the fall.  One was for counseling and one was for assessment testing.  I decided that I would get some extra miles in by riding my bike to the school for my appointments.  It wasn't too bad but it was the first time I had ridden this summer where the temperature had hit over 95 degrees.  At the time I thought it would be a possible topic for my next blog but that obviously wasn't the case.   Anyway, I got to the school  and I just had to take a picture of the bike in the rack since it's not often my commuter is the best bike around:

I met with my counselor and found out that I would have to take my assessment test and then come back again at 8:00 AM with my assessment results in order with help in scheduling classes for the fall.   I had an hour and a half to kill before the Assessment so I rode over to Barnes and Noble at the mall that is right down the street and picked up a copy of Bicycle Times and had a chicken teriyaki bowl.  I went back, took my assessment and rode home in time to get ready to go to work!  I had hoped to take a little nap before leaving for work but that didn't happen since the assessment testing lasted longer than I had planned.

Since it was Ride-your-bike-to-work-week I was planning on riding my bike to work every day last week.  I did manage to get on the bike to commute to work on Wednesday (which is my Monday).  I put in my 10 hours on Graveyard and left at approximately 6:30 AM to ride the 18 miles from my work to the school so I could make my drop in appointment at 8:00 AM.  I made my appointment and then rode over to the hospital to spend some time with my mom who started her chemotherapy treatments on Thursday (her third time).  Then it was time to go home and get some sleep.  Which I finally did at 12:30PM.

Wednesday and Thursday summary: 26 1/2 hours, 55 cycling  miles, 10 hours of work, 3 hours of school prep, and 0 hours of sleep.  But I did get a cool shot of a hot air balloon getting ready to take off while I was leaving work:

It's there in the background.  It looked a lot closer before I took the picture!

Thursday I woke up too late to be able to ride to work, so I had to take the van to work.  My boss emailed me a story about bike-to-work day and I said that I would be definitely riding to work on Friday which is the official bike-to-work day.  I had to since I have a face book group about Bike-to-work day!  After that is when all the real fun began.

Not too long after I got to work my fiance texted me to tell me that her daughter, from a prior marriage, was in the ER in Northern Ca.  They didn't know exactly what was wrong yet but were running tests and were pretty sure it was her appendix.  After a few hours of no news we did find out that she was going to be having her appendix removed so we would be on our way up north after I got off work.

We took a rental, the money we save in gas over our van pays for the rental and I don't have to put any more miles on it, loaded up the kids and we were able to get to the Bay Area around 5:30 PM.  Everything went OK with the surgery and we were able to bring her home and spend some time with her while she got comfortable.  We did get to visit with my Fiance's sister and mom before some sick members of our family forced us home.

We got home around 1:00 AM and the rental place at the Palm Springs Airport closed at midnight.  So in the morning I got up and dropped the car off and rode the bike the 11 miles from the airport to my grandmas house where we left our van.  I am so grateful for the bike.  If I didn't ride it to drop the car off, I would have had to get 2 sick kids and a sick fiance up at 6AM and drive to the van with them and then have them follow me to the airport and then home.  Not to mention the 30 or so miles of gas I saved on that trip!

Cycle Eastlake

Yesterday my brother and I rode in an 18 mile Mountain Bike and Poker ride called Cycle Eastlake.  The ride supports the Eastlake Educational Foundation which raises money for schools in the Eastlake area in Chula Vista, Ca.  Now I'm not much of a cause guy, but it is kinda cool to know that I can contribute to some good while doing something I love.

We rented a Nissan Altima Hybrid which was pretty cool because it had a push button ignition which was actually more handy than I thought it would be!  The gas mileage didn't seem to be too much better than what we would have got from a regular Altima but I can't say for sure since I haven't driven one!  The trunk was really small.  But we did manage to get both of our Mountain Bikes in the car without using a rack!

We got to Chula Vista around 5:00 Saturday evening and decided that we would go see the 7:30 showing of Robin Hood.  While we were waiting for the movie to start we decided to go ahead and bring the bikes in the hotel room we were staying at and get the bike ready for riding.  My bike had a flat front tire that I hadn't fixed so I figured it would be better to get that taken care of right then rather than scramble around in the morning and  try to get it fixed before the ride. 

So I replaced the bad tube with a good one and started to pump it up.  After about 10 minutes of trying to get the tire pumped up, I realized that the tube was bad.  So we had a mad scramble to go find a sporting goods store that was open to get tubes.  Since my bike only takes Presta valves my options were even more limited. 

This is where I learned about the true magic of a smartphone.

I had never been to Chula Vista before in my life.  So I obviously had no idea where to go to find bike tubes let alone where to find presta valve tubes!  So I used my handy Droid Eris to look up some bike shops in the area (which were already closed) and a Sports Authority store that was about 5 minutes away.  Complete with driving directions!  So we went to the shopping center where the Sports Authority was located and saw that there was a Big 5 there also.  We went in to Big 5 and discovered that their Cycling section consists of one little rack with about 5 inner tubes.  Of course none of which had Presta valve stems.  So we went over to Sports Authority and found the tubes with Presta valves!  Saved the day!

The technical problems didn't end there.  We were getting the bikes unloaded and ready to go when we discovered that the brakes on the bike that my brother was using weren't set up correctly.  Now, the bike he is using is my old Marin hardtail.  It has cantilever brakes which, in my opinion, have to be the least user-friendly brakes that you can have on a bike.  So that means a lot of time wasted on adjusting, remounting, and having to pedal harder than you need to because they are rubbing on your rim.  Anyway we wound up starting the ride about 20 minutes late and I'm sure we were the last ones to get on the ride.

The ride itself was fun!  After about a 2 mile road ride to get to the trails around the lake we were in business.  Now it is a ride and poker run so along the course there are stops where you draw a card to make the best 5 card hand possible.  We were so late in getting started the people at the first card stop had left!  Luckily one of the later card givers let us draw some extra cards to make up for the ones that we missed. 

Oh, and another drawback to starting late is that you have to be careful of the riders who are already on their way back.  The trail looped around in one section and you had to go back on the trail the way you came.  It was quite a shock to be riding along on the trail and all of the sudden see 3 riders coming from the opposite direction!

 

It was overcast out so it wasn't too hot.  Actually, it wasn't hot at all.  It was probably about 65 degrees out.  I took the picture above probably about 6 miles into the ride. 

The trails themselves were nice.  They were well maintained and clearly marked.  They weren't too strenuous so the casual rider can ride them with ease.  As a matter of fact, my brother, who hardly rides at all made it through the whole course!  This is a guy who thought that the small wooden bridges that they put down to get over the watery areas were dangerous because he couldn't keep from going off the sides.  When I explained to him that they were just as wide as the trail he was riding on, he tried to tell me that it was different because there was ground on either side.  I told him: "Yeah, ground covered with trees!".  There was one little creek that didn't have a bridge over it.  My brother thought that it was the craziest thing in the world to try to ride through that.  I rode across it and he opted to carry his bike.

We finished in just under 2 hours.  Other than having to wait multiple times for my brother to catch up, the ride was pretty smooth.  I almost qualified for a prize with the my poker hand too.  I had a 10, Jack,Queen, and an Ace.  I only needed a King on the last card to make a straight and I got a 9.  Oh well.  I don't even know what the prize was I could have won.  We had some Rubio's on the way home and we got home safe and sound. 

It was a good day!

Commute Day

Well I worked graveyard last night and made my usual 26 mile round trip.  Nothing too exciting other than I haven't been commuting on the bike as much as I want to and I haven't been able to make up the miles on my days off because the kids are in between daycare providers and I have them all day on my days off. 

At least I have been able to somewhat make up a couple of miles on the days I have them.  I get to load them up in the bike trailer and haul them over to the park up the street.  I am also the envy of all the moms there who probably haven't thought of exercise since their kids were born.  It's funny, when you go to a park and the people are all driving Mercedes, BMW, and big monster SUVs everybody wants to talk to you about your $350 bike!

You like?


So after working a 10 hour graveyard shift last night, having to take the kids to the doctor, and having a horrible headache, and my upstairs neighbor banging on something.  I have had a total of an hour's worth of sleep!  I may not be riding the bike to work tonight!

Although I am riding in the Cycle Eastlake! 18 mile Mountain Bike and poker ride with my brother on Sunday.  I hope we make it as out of shape as the two of us are.

Now to hopefully get two more hours in of sleep before  I gotta be back to work..

Why do I ride?

If you read my last post you know that I didn't get started riding because I just felt like it one day.  I am still riding today and it's been about 8 months since I first started riding.  You would think I could have figured out a different way to make the 26 mile round trio I have to make each day to get to work right?

Right.

I did get a nice tax return this year which I could have used to get myself some sort of alternate transportation to and from work. 

But I didn't.  Why do you ask?

I love riding. 

First and foremost it is fun.  You can get on your bike and go away for a few hours.  There is just nothing but you, the outdoors, and your bike.  Now where I live we pretty much experience all the extremes except for snow.  We obviously get heat, we get rain, we get heavy winds, we get cool days, we get freezing days.  You really get it all here.  There are also a lot of places you can ride your mountain bike as well.  The desert is pretty rocky so you have to deal with that a lot!

Second, its good for you!  I have lost 20 pounds since I started riding.  It's been a long time since I felt better.  As I mentioned before I sit for 10 hours at work staring at TV and computer monitors.  One of my biggest challenges to my job was to not fall asleep in my chair.  Well since I have been riding I have more energy and don't have problems keeping awake.  Another side benefit of the extra energy is that you aren't so lazy when it comes to taking care of yourself.  So I have been eating better as well.

Now eating better wasn't something that I set out to do when I started this whole bike commuting thing.  When I started out I was taking about an hour and 10 minutes to go the 13 miles one way to work.  I set a goal for myself of getting to work in about 45 minutes.  So I started to ride on my days off as well.  I also started to pick up some cycling magazines like Bicycling, Mountain Bike, and Road Bicycle Times.  One of the biggest things that they all agreed on was if you want to improve your riding skills you needed to eat better.  So I have been.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not on some miracle diet or anything like that.  I've just cutback on the junkfood I ate and have started eating more fruits and vegetables.

The biggest obstacle to getting to love riding was the fact that I started riding because my car broke down.  I had to really fight against the urge to be upset that I was riding a bike to work because I was too broke to afford another car.  I had to just jump in to cycling as a way of life.  The Tour De Palm Springs was coming up and I had done the 27 mile ride back in 2006 and that was a tough distance for me.  I decided that I would push myself a little bit and get ready for the 55 mile ride. 

I have a buddy who lives in the Bay Area who is in to cycling as well.  He also happened to be the person that I did the 27 Mile tour with back in 06.  Now he has been steadily riding since then and I hadn't even been on a bike since we rode in the tour back then.   I told him that I wanted to ride in the tour this year and he was ready to go.  So I had a goal to work toward while I was pedaling my way to work.  I did make the 55 miles and it took me 4 hours and 6 minutes!  I will say that I was extremely thankful for the last SAG stop because  I was ready to die from starvation!  Who knew that a sandwich consisting of two slices of bread  and one slice of ham could taste so good?

I really am glad that I decided to dust off that old bike that I had sitting in my backyard and ride it to work rather than figure out a way to hitch a ride with someone.  I really can tell the difference that riding the bike has made in my life.  Not to be too preachy or anything but the benefits to commuting on your bike or even just getting out and riding for recreation far outweigh the drawbacks.

Welcome!

Well here we go!  Welcome to my first post on Bike at 115 Degrees!

As you probably guessed from the title this blog is about cycling when it's hot out.  I live in Palm Desert Ca. and yes I do ride my bike when it's 115 degrees out!  I commute on my bike to work.  I've been doing it since September of last year and I have about a 13 mile commute each way.  I started commuting on my bike when my car broke down.  I didn't have a way to get to work and due to the scheduling at my job there really wasn't a feasible way for me to carpool with any of my co-workers.  I had an old Marin Northside Trail hardtail just collecting dust so I took it over to the bike shop and got it tuned up and I was off!

The first day I rode to work it was 115 degrees out!  Yes, it gets to 115 degrees here in September!  That's where the inspiration for the title of this blog came from. 

 At the time I started riding, I wasn't in the greatest shape in the world either.  I was 32 at the time and I weighed about 235 lbs, I hadn't ridden a bike in close to 3 years, and my job consists of sitting in front of a bunch of monitors 10 hours a day.  So needless to say just hopping on my bike and riding it wasn't just a simple thing for me to do.  Plus I didn't have a helmet, gloves, or even a water bottle.  So there were a few things to work out. 

Now I decided to take a test run a few days before I had to ride to work for real so I could make sure I had enough time to get to work and not be late!  About 5 minutes into my ride I thought I made a mistake.  My legs were burning!  (I also hadn't figured out that lower gears are your friend.)  I decided to just tough it out and go as far as I could.  I had arranged for my fiance to pick me up at my job so I wouldn't have to try the roundtrip all at once.

As I mentioned before, I didn't have a proper water bottle.  I bought a bottle of Aquafina at the gas station by my house and put it in the bottle rack on my bike.  That turned out to be a real great plan because about halfway through my ride my water was so hot it was undrinkable!  Luckily there is a Ralphs about halfway through my ride so I was able to stop and get another bottle of water.  I just hoped that one would last me all the way to work because there would be nowhere else I could stop to get any more water.

I was in luck and the rest of my ride went pretty smooth.  I made it to work and lived to tell you the story.  it's a good thing I had my Fiance come to pick me up too. While I was putting my bike into the back of the van I noticed that the rear tire had gone flat on my bike.  I wasn't carrying any spare tubes....

Well that about wraps up my first entry.  Thanks for reading!  In the future I'll let you in on some of the lessons I learned the hard way.  I have to ride on a budget so hopefully I can pass on some tips I've learned along the way.  Most of all, I hope whoever reads this blog actually enjoys it!