John Schubert quote about experienced cyclists

[Serge Issakov]

John Schubert posted the following comment on Facebook recently, and it explains why I spend time and energy on explaining the virtues of bicycle driving to experienced cyclists (the ones at least apparently willing to discuss such things on the internet):

One thing that makes this effort difficult is the fact that so many people in cycling think a far to right law [like CA's 21202] is appropriate. They view it as their major obligation to stay out of the way. And I'm talking about educated middle aged people with lots of cycling experience.  When someone has decades invested in that paradigm, it's difficult to pry him loose. Name calling won't work. You can't say the person is inexperienced. What remains? Patient explanation. It's a damn sight harder to get the police and prosecutors on our side when we have yet to get a solid majority of the bicyclists on our side.

Serge 

[Michael Graff]

A lot of those experienced cyclists are riding for recreation/fitness, so staying out of the way of "more important" traffic seems like the obvious thing to do.

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[Jim Baross]

How is relative importance determined? Size? Speed? Vehicle Purchase Cost? Vehicle type? Siren sounding? Age of driver/operator? Number of occupants? Trip purpose? Distanc@e of trip?
Or were you kidding?

Michael Graff <michae...@pobox.com> wrote:

>> caboforum+...@googlegroups.com<caboforum%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>

[pete van nuys]

Ah, yes... "real" traffic: people with jobs, important people doing
important things.
Versus people on bicycles, clearly just overgrown children playing in
traffic, gumming up the works for adults.
Problem with this Inferiority Complex is, traffic engineers don't
separate "real" trips from "play" trips when they count cars. And
counting cars is at the heart of all infrastructure investment.
Consultants and public works staff would never presume to assign motive
to drivers whose cars they count; they shouldn't do it with bicycles
either. Worse, they must not be allowed to assume that ALL bicycles are
frivolous traffic.
California's new CEQA standards allows cities to count "multimodal"
Level of Service through intersections if they choose, so that even road
design which tolerates car congestion may qualify for funding if other
modes move people efficiently. The ramifications of this are only being
discussed now.
But the more cyclists who demand that we be counted too, the better the
ultimate outcome for everyone... even the drivers.

--
Regards,

Pete
949 492 5737

[Richard Masoner]

On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 9:55 AM, Michael Graff <michae...@pobox.com> wrote:
> A lot of those experienced cyclists are riding for recreation/fitness, so
> staying out of the way of "more important" traffic seems like the obvious
> thing to do.

I live near Santa Cruz, and the worst traffic congestion is always on
the weekends during the summer. I'm pretty sure all of those people
aren't headed to the beach for work.

I don't know who caught the story about the Tony Kornheiser radio rant
and Lance Armstrong's response, but in a nutshell:

Kornheiser is a nationally known ESPN sports commentator in Washington
DC. He ranted the other week about cyclists in DC in shiny lycra pants
-- especially those of us who ride in the lane and 'block traffic' --
and suggested listeners should run cyclists over to teach us a lesson.

Lance Armstrong had a heart to heart discussion with Kornheiser and
appeared on Kornheiser's show last Friday morning. Armstrong was very
reasonable and said some good things about cyclists' right to the
road, but he also diluted his message by saying cyclists should stay
to the extreme right to stay out of the way of traffic.

Richard Masoner

[Michael Graff]

That's why I put "more important" in quotes.  I was referring to the cultural norms and taboos.

[John Forester]

I think that it is highly improbable that any large proportion of American bicyclists will support vehicular cycling in any probable future. It is silly to base a strategy on such an improbable event. Any strategy for protecting vehicular cycling has to be based on something beyond popular opinion, for that will always be against us. Something more solid, such as the always-necessary requirement for vehicular cycling, cycling in accordance with the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles, wherever that is better than cyclist-inferiority cycling or bikeway cycling, can be reasonably supported. So what if most people don't believe this; the need can be demonstrated without regard to popular opinion. Since it has to exist, and there is no way of specifying all the conditions in which traffic should proceed by the standard rules instead of the bike-lane rules or the cyclist-inferiority rules, then there is no reasonable way for the FTR or MBL statutes to exist.

Serge Issakov wrote:

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-- 
John Forester, MS, PE
Bicycle Transportation Engineer
7585 Church St. Lemon Grove CA 91945-2306
619-644-5481    fore...@johnforester.com
www.johnforester.com

[Jim Baross]

I must disagree to some extent with John Forester when he states that “…it is highly improbable that a large proportion of American bicyclists will support vehicular cycling in the probable future.” I do expect that the current and new bicyclists will not call what they learn to do “vehicular cycling” but they will learn to ride vehicularly. How else will they survive to ride again to all the places they wish to?

 

Among many other things, Bike Paths, Bike Lanes, and other Bicycling Facilities, even with the (often severe) problems (I’m not going to list them all) associated with them, are encouraging more people to try bicycling. For those that survive their experiences with special Bicycling Facilities, it won’t take long to find out that there are not and likely won’t ever be Bicycle Facilities to all the destinations/places that these people want to ride to. Their recourse will be to try out riding as a part of normal traffic; first as gutter-huggers, then – as I and probably all of us eventually learned – as bicycle drivers vehicularly.

 

Color me clueless or ambitious – still.

 

Jim (the optimist cyclist) Baross

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[Willie Hunt]

I think one of the biggest challenges that promoters of VC face is
just getting the word out that VC exists as a cycling option. Sure
most adults realize that cyclists do ride on the street, because they
see those “racer” types in groups on high end carbon bikes with super
bling components and loud spandex shorts with team jerseys flying
along on major streets. But somehow they fail to make the connection
that anyone on any bike with a little understanding can also use the
streets too. And to make matters worse, cyclists that the average
adult may see on the street are often riding with poor vehicular style
and often violated traffic laws. So, what’s out there is setting a
bad example. It’s an extreme rarity for the average adult to witness
a proficient vehicular cyclist in action.

Below is a LONG story of how I got here. The process was arduous
because I never knew of the existence of VC, until just about 2 months
ago. Somehow our system fails to communicate to cyclists in general.
It’s not because I was not willing to learn, or was not poking around,
I just did not know where to look. So this makes me wonder, if a
cyclists as avid as myself can miss this boat for decades, how can the
average person who does a little cycling ever be expected to figure
this out.

Well, I think it starts with advertising. Dana at Bentup Cycling
gives out little cards that have the CVC rules on them. That’s
helpful, but too obscure for most newbies. A link to a video on a web
site, or even giving out a DVD with a bike purchase may make a BIG
difference. Just something so that the new buyer gets even the
smallest exposure to the VC concept, I think would get many new
cyclists to explore it further. I know that if I had been given
something similar in 1992 when I bought a Schwinn Hi Sierra to ride in
Bloomington around the campus, it could have drastically changed my
path in cycling.

Willie

My Path to VC

My childhood cycling ended in 1978 at 15 years old when I got my first
car in Houston, TX. In 1992, after realizing the my physical shape
was horrendously bad, I got into my adult cycling rode around the
Indiana University campus and the awesome Bloomington countryside on
paved roads that went everywhere with very little traffic. I bought
my first “real” road bike in 1993 a Trek 1100, and I rode the wheels
off the thing. Life was good, and I learned plenty about how to deal
with traffic when I needed to, but that was a rarity. I never knew
the term vehicular cycling, and I was clueless about why some cyclists
did not want bike paths around the city, and insisted that riding on
the streets was better. I rarely rode in the city, except to commute
through the Indiana University campus to my job with the University.

In 2000 I move to Orange County, CA and took up MTB riding, because a
friend introduced it to me and MTB riding really is world class around
here. I had ventured out on various occasions on my newly bought 2000
Trek, but it just was nothing like the Indiana countryside, with an
insane level of traffic and so many traffic lights. I explored a few
paths, like the SART, but gave up on road cycling for MTB riding,
particularly in the Cleveland National Forest. Life was good again,
as I happily pedal my way 5000 feet vertically up Mt Santiago and took
my choice of mild or wild descents back to my new home in Foothill
Ranch, CA. However, that all changed in Oct 2007 when the Santiago
wildfire burned up Whiting Ranch and the CNF. I was totally shut down
for MTB riding out of my garage. This forced me back on my road bike,
but recent minor back injury caused me much trouble with the old
upright. In Jan 2008, I went to “the dark side” and after 6 hours of
test driving at Bentup Cycles, I took home my first recumbent, a
Bacchetta Corsa hi-racer.

It was after getting the recumbent; I explored the option of commuting
some 20 miles or more from my house to my office in Fountain Valley.
At first I used my MTB to check the routes out. I was actually
fearful of using major streets even with bike lanes. The traffic was
overwhelming. But on my MTB, I could do anything I wanted to do, even
hob curbs, ride on the grass or dirt, ride really bad roads with
potholes, etc. It was a courage booster, and I quickly discovered two
things. One was that I discovered routes that would not kill my
skinny road tires (650x23mm on the bent), and the other was that I
realized riding on these streets wasn’t so crazy after all. Once I
started commuting on the recumbent, it changed everything again,
because the ease of longer travel in both effort and the driver’s
view, particularly rear view (with a good handle bar mirror) is
outstanding. In my quest to refine my skills I did a bunch of poking
around on the internet and found cycling road riding guides (not call
VC though) and a bunch of statistics on bicycle crashes. Working
through the data and info, I slowly improved my road skills and this
in turn expanded my route possibilities.

By Oct 2008 hooked up with the Orange County Wheelman, and started
doing weekend recreational rides, in addition to my commute rides. By
then I had a solid understanding of VC principles, but still no formal
education or still knew the term existed. Riding with the OCW let me
explore longer ride getting to the century mark by riding to and from
my house to do a 60 mile club ride. On December 28, 2008 I did my
first double, a solo unsupported spur of the moment ride I created,
and it showed me that I could ride much further than I ever dreamt
possible on a bicycle. In early 2009 I started riding centuries with
the OCW century group and that year did 17 centuries and an addition 7
doubles. All this mileage, plus the commuting brought me to 8700
miles for 2009, with 4400 miles in 2008. Still, I was clueless about
the existence of Vehicular Cycling, even though I was following most
of the concepts while riding.

Then on www.bentrideronline.com early in 2010, I discovered the old
poll on VC and that lead me to Wikipedia’s description and then to
Forester’s book “Effective Cycling” and then to CABO and CABOforum.
It may have taken half a lifetime, but I actually got here. WOW!

On Mar 23, 12:28 am, "Jim Baross" <jimbar...@cox.net> wrote:
> I must disagree to some extent with John Forester when he states that ".it

> is highly improbable that a large proportion of American bicyclists will
> support vehicular cycling in the probable future." I do expect that the
> current and new bicyclists will not call what they learn to do "vehicular
> cycling" but they will learn to ride vehicularly. How else will they survive
> to ride again to all the places they wish to?
>
> Among many other things, Bike Paths, Bike Lanes, and other Bicycling
> Facilities, even with the (often severe) problems (I'm not going to list
> them all) associated with them, are encouraging more people to try
> bicycling. For those that survive their experiences with special Bicycling
> Facilities, it won't take long to find out that there are not and likely
> won't ever be Bicycle Facilities to all the destinations/places that these
> people want to ride to. Their recourse will be to try out riding as a part

> of normal traffic; first as gutter-huggers, then - as I and probably all of
> us eventually learned - as bicycle drivers vehicularly.
>
> Color me clueless or ambitious - still.

>
> Jim (the optimist cyclist) Baross
>

> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> SDCBC-Open-Forum+unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the

> words "REMOVE ME" as the subject.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Bob Sutterfield]

Jim, you're not clueless, but you are optimistic.  You describe a new rider's growth from gutter-hugger to VC.  Yes, that might happen from time to time.  The more frequent path takes them to membership on bicycle advisory councils and city council meetings, and writing letters to the editor signed "avid cyclist".  There, they cite their miles and years of experience and request - nay demand - more places to ride.

[Serge Issakov]

Willie, thank you for sharing this.

> I think one of the biggest challenges that promoters of VC face is
> just getting the word out that VC exists as a cycling option.

I've been thinking and saying this for years.

It's why I created the Wikipedia page.

>
> Then on www.bentrideronline.com early in 2010, I discovered the old
> poll on VC and that lead me to Wikipedia’s description and then to
> Forester’s book “Effective Cycling” and then to CABO and CABOforum.
> It may have taken half a lifetime, but I actually got here. WOW!

How did you get from Effective Cycling to CABO? Ah, there must be a
reference in the book?

Can this be shared off this list?

Serge

[pete van nuys]

I second Jim B's vision.
I'm getting cyclists of all stripes in my classes, and a surprising
number of women who commute or ride in their daily lives.
They're taking TS 101 'cause something aint workin' for 'em.
That something is precisely: Bicycling as Americans Know It.
But Bicycling as Forester advocates works.
Now, what shall we call it?
EC?
VC?
Integrated Behavior?
Bicycle Driving?
Common Sense?
I hope all you wordsmiths settle on something-- fast.
'cause as an old marketing guy I assure you Words Have Meaning.
Words shape thinking-- not the other way around.
Find the right "brand" for this behavior,
attach the benefits firmly to the brand,
and you absolutely
will change
American
Bicycle
Culture.

[Daniel Gutierrez]

Pete wrote: "Now, what shall we call it?"

Bicycle Driving, which implies driver behavior.  This follows from the fact that the law already defines us as "drivers", and it's a natural term that is already understood by the public, so we can leverage this understanding.  I'm in the process of dumping the integrated, separated and segregated behavior labels for driver behavior  (follows driver rules), ped  behavior (follows ped rules), and hybrid behavior (rules that are neither driver nor ped, and/or some of each).

I'm finding that this framing is easier for people to understand because it exploits common terms, driver and ped, and adds one new term, hybrid, that can be defined in terms of the others.


- Dan Gutierrez -
Long Beach, CA
(562) 244-4145 Cell
(310) 336-3075 Office
(800) 616-4714 Pager
Dan.Gu...@Charter.Net
 
Organizational Affiliations
Local:
Long Beach Cyclists, Technical Advisory Committee Chair
Aerospace Cycling Club, Founder and Current President
SouthBay Westside Transportation Mgmt. Assoc., Board Member
 
State:
CA Assoc. of Bicycling Organizations (CABO), District 7 Director
CABO Education Committee Co-Chair    http://www.cabobike.org/
Caltrans District 7 Bicycle Advisory Committee, Policy Chair
 
National:
League of American Bicyclists (LAB), Certified Instructor, LCI #962
http://www.bikeleague.org/
Dual Chase Productions LLC, Co-Creator  http://www.dualchase.com/
Dual Chase video hosting at Cyclist View   http://www.cyclistview.com/
YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/CyclistLorax

From:	pete van nuys <petev...@cox.net>
To:	jimb...@cox.net
Cc:	'John Forester' <fore...@johnforester.com>, serge....@gmail.com, 'sdcbc' <sdcbc-op...@googlegroups.com>, 'Cabo Forum' <cabo...@googlegroups.com>, 'John Schubert' <Schu...@aol.com>
Date:	03/23/2010 07:27 AM
Subject:	Re: [CABOforum] RE:  John Schubert quote about experienced cyclists
Sent by:	cabo...@googlegroups.com

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[Bob Sutterfield]

Daniel Gutierrez wrote:

I'm in the process of dumping the integrated, separated and segregated behavior labels...

Alas, that terminology evokes such useful parallels with our country's other times of legally forced but logically and morally indefensible segregation.

[Daniel Gutierrez]

Bob wrote: "Alas, that [integrated, separated and segregated behavior label] terminology evokes such useful parallels with our country's other times of legally forced but logically and morally indefensible segregation."
 .
While the morally indefensible part is good, the "integrated behavior" terminology suffers from the same difficulty as the older term "vehicular cycling"; to many it implies some odd "sect-like" form of behavior to describe the simple act of driving a bicycle in traffic like other drivers operate in traffic.  So rather than define new terms to describe driving, let's just call it what it is: driving.  Or to say this another way, driving is driving, whether it's car driving or bike driving.
 .
The other huge advantage of this terminology is the strong focus on the person and their behavior, and not the vehicle/device/conveyance characteristics.  I also like the fact that Willie and others immediately combined the behavior terms with the word mode to describe the temporal nature of such behavior, so that cyclists can operate in, and transition between all three modes while travelling by bicycle.

Daniel Gutierrez wrote:
I'm in the process of dumping the integrated, separated and segregated behavior labels...

Alas, that terminology evokes such useful parallels with our country's other times of legally forced but logically and morally indefensible segregation.

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[pete van nuys]

Geeeez, Willie.

Where do I start?
As the home of IU, Bloomington is supposed to be one of the nation's original bicycle friendly communities-- before the term was hijacked by the LAB.
And-- I love this-- Bicycle Garage is one of the NBDA's most successful bicycle dealer members, always cited for best practices in retailing.
And they failed you.
On the other hand (in no particular order...)
1.)� the LAB has presented VC on its site for decades
2.) in 1992 there was VC booklet out there, making the rounds somewhere from Bicycling mag-- Schuby, how available was that book back then?
3.) EC was taught in the 80s, morphed into various forms by the LAB, and taught through the 90s...

But your point was that then-- and now-- the industry doesn't support it, much less promote it.
Yes. Absofrickin'lutely true.
America is a market culture. Not just a market economy.
Americans will buy anything, from spurious sex tonics to derivative securities, when they are advertised.
If a product, idea, or panacea is Advertised, it Exists.
That which is not Advertised, fades.... away.....
Bicycle companies haven't advertised since Schwinn on Kaptain Kangaroo.

They think they are oh, so smart.
They let their dealers advertise their products in local markets.
They pocket the marketing dollars they save.

Two problems:
1.) when you don't advertise you don't control the perceived value of your product.
No general advertising and only those exposed to the local ads hear value messages. So Americans' perception of the value of the bicycle eroded steadily in relative dollars since the 60s.
This opened the mass channel to bike sales, which further eroded the bicycle's value.
It's no accident that today America's biggest bicycle company is a mass merchant supplier, Dorel of Canada, who purchased our previously largest bicycle supplier, Pacific Cycle, which also started out as a mass and discount supplier (originally Pacific purchased junk bicycles for promotional give-aways with home stereo systems... now that's about as low as you could go bicyclwise, IMHO).
Then, since Americans expected all bicycles to be priced like at Walmart and Sports Authority, the specialty channel (previously known as the Independent Bicycle Dealer channel, to distinguish itself from mass, a.k.a "IDBs") turned to cheaper suppliers, Mexico and Asia. Which has led to the evisceration of domestic bicycle manufacturing. Sure, making anything in the US is expensive. But it doesn't help when your product managers are lying awake at night trying to figure out how to sell this year's bike for less next year. At least automobile product managers try to sell this year's car for more next year.

2.) when you don't advertise you don't define the features and benefits of your product.
Instead you're reliant on what consumers already know about it, or make up in their own heads about it.
Or worse, what powerful people like legislators, traffic engineers, and police say about it.
And for this audience I don't have to explain what that means.

This industry is narcissistic and currently in the thrall of Interbike's promoter, Nielsen (the ratings corporation, among other things).
It takes most if not all of a company's marketing budget to attend Interbike. What's left with the big boys goes to racing-- which is frighteningly expensive-- which entertains the enthusiast bike consumer which is the only customer most dealers give a shit about. Nevermind that racing only reinforces what Americans already know about bicycling: that you have to be an athlete to do it, maybe on drugs, and it's only safe on closed roads with police escort. Finally, if a tiny tinkle of coin remains it takes a few dealers and self important bike co. presidents to Washington DC for the LAB's Bike Summit, where they pay due respect-- and I mean that respect is actually due-- James Oberstar and a few other Congressmen who have put bicycle-positive aspects into Federal transportation law.

But there's nothing left to tell Americans that bicycle drivers are legal road users, albeit slow moving traffic, and that there are bunches and bunches of reasons that, well, gosh darn it, they should just become a bicycle driver, too.

And that, Willie, is why you had to make the journey of discovery for yourself.
And why you should take the next LCI Seminar you can find:
Apr 23
Seminar Santa Fe, NM
Fri-Sat, Apr 23-25, 2010
Contact: Tom Trowbridge, 505.827.0050
Seminar signup

And learn how to cut up tennis balls. And develop a Bent 101 course, and teach it from Dane's shop.....
which at least it's located in a town with a neat name!

[pete van nuys]

Bob, yep, right on... ignorance re-enforced by experience.

Tragic example is the beloved rondo rider recently killed on a SUT by a
6 year old-- who died why the family stood by and watched.
Why would a rider concerned with completing a high mileage event be
riding a recreational trail?
Why would he not know that he MUST slow to a walking pace whenever
passing pedestrians?
Guess no one ever told him.
At some point physical prowess discourages basic learning.

[Willie Hunt]

I bought 4 bikes in Bloomington, one from the Schwinn shop and 2 Trek
road bikes and a hardtail MTB from the Bicycle Garage. I had four
chances to have something shoved my way, but nothing, Natta, zero.
Sure I could have spent more time digging around even asking on
rec.cycling (remember news groups? Way before the www), but I did not
know what to ask or even that it existed. It hard to look for
something when you do not even know what you are looking for, or even
know to look in the first place. Yes, I failed to connect to the
system and the system failed me to me.

However, most all of my cycling buddies (both a mix of MTB and road
riders) that I have met since I've moved to California also seem to be
about as clueless as I was 2 years ago before I starting commuting.
The roadies seem to have some grasp on VC, but really they just rely
on being a pack and the pack get its way with motorists. They blow
stop signs, stretch way into red lights, turn left without negotiating
for lane space, hog the whole right lane, go straight from the right
turn pocket, etc. I'm positive that some have taken LAB courses, but
many I know have not. I just ask my rock climbing buddy who does at
least 2 group rides (typ 40 miles) a week and I had to explain LAB,
TS101, VC, etc, because he did not know anything about it. My feeling
is that the system has failed to communicate to a huge potential
audience out there.

Willie

On Mar 23, 8:28 am, pete van nuys <petevann...@cox.net> wrote:
> Geeeez, Willie.
> Where do I start?
> As the home of IU, Bloomington is supposed to be one of the nation's original bicycle friendly communities-- before the term was hijacked by the LAB.
> And-- I love this-- Bicycle Garage is one of the NBDA's most successful bicycle dealer members, always cited for best practices in retailing.
> And they failed you.
>
> On the other hand (in no particular order...)

> 1.) the LAB has presented VC on its site for decades

> 2.) in 1992 there was VC booklet out there, making the rounds somewhere from Bicycling mag-- Schuby, how available was that book back then?
> 3.) EC was taught in the 80s, morphed into various forms by the LAB, and taught through the 90s...

>.......

[John Eldon]

I ride occasionally with the local YMCA's club. The assistant instructor is great, but the main instructor does not fully comprehend lane positioning and right hooks. Group ride leaders should be LCI-trained.

John E.