A soggy day makes me wonder about bicycling and class; or, fun with data

Posted on February 6, 2012 by

A couple of weeks ago we had that typhoon, remember. And there were almost as many cyclists about as there were clogged storm drains, which was fun to see. Here’s a pond that developed at 15th and Lawrence:

But as I rode around in that downpour, doing some errands, a thought crossed my mind that surprised me. At first, I didn’t think I would confess it here. But why shouldn’t I?

I’ll back up a minute to mention that I enjoy doing errands by bike, even in the rain. And now that we have the Xtracycle, carrying stuff home is easy.

I brought this Vitamix blender home from Hartwick’s the other day. I picked up a 40-pound bag of dog food another day.

And the day of the typhoon, I went to Hummingbird Wholesale — which is like Costco for hippies — to pick up some big bags of flour and rice and beans and a 2.5-gallon jug of soy sauce, because my children drink it like water.

But riding home in jeans with a bunch of bulk food on my bike in a hammering downpour, I thought: “Wow, I wonder if these people driving past in their dry, warm cars think I’m too poor to own a car.”

And I had a brief moment of self-consciousness about that. Which is weird, because this doesn’t normally happen to me. I usually don’t think about bikes that way. And I don’t care much what anyone thinks of my income. And if I was too poor to own a car, so what?

But I am a product of American society, so I suppose these stigmas soak in over the years — and I suppose they can be hard to shake.

Recently, I came across a chart that showed the portion of “bicycle trips” made in the United States by four different income quartiles. The trips were pretty evenly distributed, with the poorest quartile accounting for slightly more trips.

But the speculation among those who did the study is that among poorer people, those “bike trips” tend to be transportation. Among the wealthier, “bike trips” tend to be for recreation.

You know, golf …

… tennis…

Going to the D.A.C.

But I got wondering specifically about Eugene. I couldn’t find any data about “bicycle trips” — or bicycle errands. But the United States Census Bureau kindly offers us information by city about how people commute to work.

Data from the U.S. government would seem to be authoritative. Although, looking at this table in front of me right now, I see that the Census Bureau reports that 16 people in Eugene commuted to work by ferry boat.

All of them men.

So we will bear that in mind.

Now, you may have heard that Eugene has a pretty high bicycle-commuting rate, compared to the rest of the United States, anyway — somewhere around 8 or 10 percent depending on the data you look at.

Here are the Census Bureau estimates over the three years (2008-10):

Not reflected here is the 1 percent “other” — which we will venture is not, in fact, ferry boats, but rather skateboards.

But let’s get back to the money question. Here’s the likelihood that you ride a bike to work in Eugene depending on your income. For instance, of all the people earning $15,000 to $24,999 per year, 14 percent commuted by bike:

You know, once I start making graphs, it’s hard to stop me.

So as long as we are mucking around on the Census Bureau website, here’s the percentage of people in Eugene in various age groups who use a bicycle as their primary means of getting to work:

And then we can look at bicycle commuters in Eugene by gender:

We can see what this means, can’t we? It means either rich people, old people and women are not getting with program — or it means, more likely, that the demographic bulge of college dudes riding fixies to campus and their jobs at Dutch Bros. is skewing the data.

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*All data is from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey “three-year estimate,” covering the years 2008-10 for the city of Eugene.

Posted in Real news/events, weather | 14 Comments

Call your congressman, in which Eugene Bicyclist gets all earnest

Posted on January 31, 2012 by

I’ve been reading this book called “On Bicycles” — imagine that, me reading a book! And I learned something: In 1992, Congress passed a bill that started funneling gas tax money — a very small fraction of it actually — to states to build better infrastructure for bicyclists and pedestrians.

It’s been going on ever since.

Now, Congress is working on a new transportation bill. As it stands, the new bill removes all of the dedicated funding for bike and pedestrian projects. I won’t go into all the details, because people who know more than I do already have:

  • The blog of the League of American Bicyclists offers a fine explanation of the history of these programs and what’s at stake now.
  • And the local GEARs blog makes it easy to take action and let your feelings be known. This post points out how the new bill “has the look and feel of a 1970 Highway bill.”

So what, you’re wondering, do we have to show for this 20 years of dedicated money for bicycle and pedestrian projects?

Here are some projects in Eugene were partly paid for by these federal funds:

  • Significant parts of the Fern Ridge Trail, from Bailey Hill Road out to Green Hill Road.
  • The new Delta Ponds bike/pedestrian bridge.
  • The nice new path along the Middle Fork of the Willamette River in Springfield.
  • The bike-pedestrian bridge over 18th Avenue at Westmoreland Park.
  • The “traffic calming” circles on 15th Avenue, a designated and well-used bike route.

Also on the chopping block is a program called Safe Routes to School, which does such good work as teaching bike safety to school kids and improving street crossings, so we can encourage families to get kids walking and riding to school again. For an idea of what this program has done, check out this Google map.

Posted in cycling infrastructure, Real news/events | 3 Comments

A little rain never hurt anyone

Posted on January 30, 2012 by

For once, the weather forecast was correct. The rain arrived as predicted, midafternoon, just in time for the inaugural Eugene Bicyclist Race for the Beer.

It was genuine Oregon rain, too, the kind where you walk outside and say, “It’s not so bad, just a drizzle” but after 30 minutes you begin to suspect this is somehow a wetter than a normal rain.

But who cares? We had a good turnout anyway.

(I think there was some water on the lens for that one.) We had one crate bike (though you can’t see it here) a couple of cargo bikes, a fixed gear or two, some kids on Xtracycles …

And amazing wildlife, like this herd of gazelles crossing the Serengeti:

Oh, wait, that was this one:

Hey, did you know there is a brand of bike called a Gazelle?

It’s Dutch, and this one will run you about 1,200 bucks.

If you know about bike frames, you will notice that this one has what we might call a relaxed geometry. That means the seat tube and the forks lean way back. In layman’s terms, it’s a La-Z-Boy with wheels.

In fact, Gazelle touts this bike’s “unique 66-degree geometry for a very comfortable upright seating position and allows you to arrive at your destination in a nicely relaxed fashion.”

We’ve drifted off on a tangent, haven’t we?

Well, I don’t think anyone was riding a Gazelle yesterday. But I do think we arrived at our destination in nicely relaxed fashion.

The overall pace was not what you’d call brisk. In fact, we were led for a time by a 5-year-old who has been riding a two-wheeler for all of a couple weeks. But he did a terrific job — the longest ride of his young life.

Our destination, by the way — after an easy ride around the River Trail — was the Ninkasi tasting room, which kindly gave us a good deal on pints.

I enjoyed chatting with everyone, and meeting people I’ve corresponded with only in blog comments — or not at all.

Since most of my photos from the day are very bad and blurry, it is fortunate that Austin of the Breadbike blog took some better shots. I think he’s working on some video, too.

UPDATE: Breadbike posted a fun video.

Thanks everyone! We’ll do it again sometime. In the meantime, I’ll get back the usual nonsense.

Posted in Real news/events | 6 Comments

The drawbacks of bicycling with kids: No 1: the backtrack

Posted on January 24, 2012 by

The Eugene blogger known as Mamafiets — who writes nicely about life as an essentially car-free mom of two young children — has started a series of posts entitled:

“25 Things I Love About Family Bicycling”

She has written about such things as splashing in puddles and the joys of keeping your beloved little ones warm. I like her blog very much.

But being the cynical bastard that I am — and lest you get the wrong idea about “family bicycling” — I will take this opportunity to begin pointing out:

“25 Things About Family Bicycling That Will Make You Want to Slam Your Forehead Into Your Handlebars.”

No. 1:

“Da-Da. I only have one boot on.”

This announcement comes — it goes without saying if you are the parent of a toddler — some considerable time after the boot actually fell off. Five or six blocks, at least.

So we backtrack.

Even when she manages to keep track of both boots, she usually has them on the wrong feet.

“Mama, my hands are cold”

And, as Kurt Vonnegut used to say, so it goes …

(Thanks to Emily “Mamafiets” for the inspiration.)

Posted in cycling lifestyle | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Let’s go for a ride

Posted on January 22, 2012 by

Remember back in October, I suggested it might be fun for me to get together for a ride with those of you who follow this blog and contribute to the little community that has grown around it. Well, we are going to do it:

  • When: next Sunday, Jan. 29, at 3 p.m.
  • Where: meet at the EWEB plaza, by the fountain along the river trail.
  • What: a slow, easy ride of an hour or 90 minutes on a yet-to-be-determined route. We’re going to make it family friendly, too, as Sharrow is planning be there with kids on her bike.
  • Why: no real reason, except to meet a few of you and get some fresh air.

We will end at the Ninkasi tasting room around 4:30 p.m. (where I’m told kids are welcome until 8 p.m.).  You should know that Ninkasi has offered to give us half-price pints — so if going for a ride with me is not your idea of good time, maybe half-price beers will entice you.

Milk crates are not required, nor will they be turned away. All sort of bikes are welcome, the weirder the better. I’m bringing my camera, of course.

If you have a suggestions for a route, leave it in the comments.

Posted in Real news/events | 14 Comments

Gleich’s California driving record: Nothing on it

Posted on January 17, 2012 by

James Gleich’s drivers record from the time he apparently lived in California turns up clean. But it’s too old to know for sure if there was ever anything on it.

Geich was the driver who police say struck bicyclist Mingo Pelkey on River Road in Eugene this past August. Pelkey died shortly after the collision. (See a list of earlier posts for all the background.)

It took a while to get the printout from the California DMV, but as for violations or accidents: “None to report.”

Of course, it has been more than four years since Gleich was issued an Oregon I.D. card (in October 2007). Assuming that’s when he moved here, any number of things that might have been on his California record would have been removed by now. So we can’t say there was never anything here — but, of course, we can’t say that there was, either.

In California, most moving violations, accidents and license suspensions are cleared off a driver’s record after either three or four years.

A few convictions stay longer, such as driving while suspended and driving while intoxicated. A DUI in California stays on a drivers record for 10 years. So it would seem he had neither of those, anyway.

As for the status of his license in Oregon, the DMV in Salem says the open-ended suspension we reported on earlier, which took effect Sept. 22, is still in effect.

As for the status of the police investigation into the fatal River Road crash, I’m checking with the D.A. and with the police. I don’t expect them to have much to say, and I’m assuming the case is still open. But I’ll keep you posted if I learn anything else.

* * *

For a list of all posts about the Mingo Pelkey case, go here.

Posted in Real news/events, the mingo pelkey case | 1 Comment

News links: Learn bike repair; the plan for 24th Avenue

Posted on January 16, 2012 by

Couple items of note:

  • The city is working on a plan to add bike lanes to the stretch of West 24th Avenue from Friendly to Chambers. But the Friendly Area Neighbors executive board has sent a letter to the city opposing the idea. There’s a good recap of the situation on the GEARs blog. If you’d like to have bike lanes there, advocates want you to speak up and let the city know.
  • Want to learn to be your own bike mechanic? The University of Oregon Bike Program is offering a bike repair class, one night per week for six weeks — starting this Tuesday (today) and Wednesday. There are two sessions, one running on Tuesday evenings and one on Wednesday evenings. It’s $65 for students, but it’s open to anyone if you join the UO Outdoor Program first — which is an additional $15, so $80 total. It sounds pretty thorough: “The format is hands on; you will disassemble and reassemble nearly every major ‘system’ on the bike, learning how and why it works and how to keep it working well,” says UO Bike Program coordinator Ted Sweeney. For details or to sign up: 541-346-4365 or bikes@uoregon.edu.
Posted in Links/aggregation, Real news/events | 1 Comment