Tag Archives: coneheads

Conehead

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As noted previously, I tend to ride alone.  Not like my daily rides are anything to share anyway – a short commute to work and home again along some fairly innocuous bike paths.  The stuff of legend I know.  One result of riding alone all the time is developing your own habits that may not be compatible with those I will respectfully refer to as my fellow commuters.  I say respectfully as I’ve been dropped hard by more than one of them in the past and I’m sure I will again.

Yesterday as I approached Edmonton Trail, preparing mentally for the climb up to Centre, there was a rider already stopped at the light.  Things, for me, got strange immediately as his stopped position was too far away from the intersection though he was clearly intending to cross it.  I do it one of two ways – in heavy traffic I wait at the crosswalk as it puts me ahead of most of the traffic so I have a clearer view of the intersection and nobody is trying to run me down making their right turn.  Or – if traffic is lighter I’ll ride up to the front of the empty right lane, but on the inside of it.  This rider was back a few feet from anywhere I’d normally stop, so without really thinking about it, I passed him and stopped in front.  I realized too late how it must look and it was admittedly rude but I don’t run into other riders at this light when it’s red.  Ever.  I didn’t really know how to approach it.  I commented on the wind and as the light went green he continued to chat about the state of the bike path.  This is all together new to me – stranger / cyclist chatting.  This too presents a conflict with my established habits.

As a new rider, a new, aging rider watching “the big four-oh” coming at him full speed, a new, aging, 40-ish rider with asthma and a not-that-long-ago tobacco habit, any departure from level ground to a positive angle – meaning uphill – is noted immediately and tends to be a challenge.  My normal course of action had until recently been to simply stand up and mash away while trying not to slow too badly.  As an experiment I’ve been staying in the saddle and dropping into the middle ring (the bottom of the middle ring if I’m honest) and pedaling furiously and while the results have been not all together bad, there are times when standing just seems to be the right thing to do.  Like this section of my ride.

So here we are stranger-chatting as we approach the first bit of incline, him on my right and me wondering if I’m capable of making this little hump while I’m still in the saddle without getting run over by the cyclist that suddenly appeared behind us.  I’m not sure if I earned it with all this headwind riding or if he opted to play nice but by the time we’d made it to the first false flat, he’d stopped chatting and slowly dropped behind.  Before we made it to the next intersection, he was far enough behind me that my habits were no longer his concern.  I rolled through the stop sign and continued to pedal up the gentle slope past the Handi-bus barn to 1st street.  He gained ground behind me and I figured here was where he was going to drop me.  Heading south onto 1st, it turns into a short, steep climb of perhaps 10 meters over 70.  Having ridden the previous 25 minutes home in a headwind, it was nice to have the wind at my back but I was a bit knackered so I stood up and mashed away pushing myself up the hill without so much as a Fred-mirror glance.  Again I was conscious of how it might have looked – me trying to drop my new chatting friend but I didn’t stop.

The truth is though, I wasn’t looking for him, no longer paying him any attention and I hadn’t noticed the 3rd rider since we hit the first slope.  I don’t know if he followed me south on his own route or headed north instead.  I was tired, near the end of my ride and wanted to finish it my way.  I rounded the bend onto 34th and made the climb up to Centre with everything I had and found Centre empty, so I crossed it and went home a sweaty, mushy, happy rider.

9 times or more out of 10, I ride my commute like a man possessed, pushing my mental limits, pushing my legs and lungs.  I like to ride like that, I enjoy that suffering, pushing the boundaries for more growth.

While I am absolutely helpless against chasing down a rabbit, or trying to run away as one myself, it’s  only me I’m competing against.  If I manage to chase down a rabbit, I’ve earned that pass.  I know I’ve been travelling faster for however long it’s taken me to catch them and I can continue that pace (probably).  Passing the rabbit is not a conehead move.  Likewise, being passed while I’m riding hard means they earned it – nothing coneheaded about that.  Pulling in front of another rider at a stoplight and then racing away on the green – it might look like I’m trying to drop them but –honest – they’ve just wandered onto my private track.

To Cover, or Not to Cover. That is (not) the question.

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Warning – this post contains a graphic photo of my legs.  There is also a fresh flesh wound.

I wear a helmet when I ride.  It’s one of those things that happened not out of planning but happenstance.  With three kids on the go, all of whom at least appear to enjoy playing on their bikes – and all of whom fall down – it made sense for them to wear helmets, not to mention they brand you a bad parent and take your money if you don’t.  No amount of coaching a 2 year old on a bicycle is going to instil a sense of caution that isn’t either innate already or life-long debilitating so you eliminate the hazards you can (traffic, hills) and try to protect those you can’t.  I started wearing one when I started cycling to set an example for the kids, besides it would have been odd to wear one before I was riding.  It’s now as routine for them as putting on their shoes – if they’re heading for their bike, they have their helmet on.

When Enthusiasm Overcomes Ability. A Confidence Apogee

I know some folks would shudder to expose their children to harm of any sort, but that’s not us.  Scrapes, bumps, bruises – those are lessons.  Who hasn’t had a scrapped knee or bloody palms as a kid?  Or an adult…

Your head though – that’s a different thing.   Sure, any number of maladies can result from improperly addressed wounds but by and large you grow some new skin, suffer the sheets sticking to your oozing flesh for a couple of nights and then business as usual.  Knock on the head?  That’s too risky for this cowboy rider.

I am on the side of personal choice with these sorts of things.  I think as an adult, I should be the individual who decides that I wear a helmet on my bicycle or my motorcycle or skiing, snowboarding, caving, climbing or any other activity where you might want to wear one.  In anything involving falling objects or movement at speed on unforgiving surfaces however I think you’re nuts if you don’t.  Borders on idiotic.  Why?  Pretty straight forward really.

Your head contains your brain – I realize this comes as a shock to any woman who knows young men but it’s true – and your brain is rather important, however nature saw fit to give you just one.  It’s like nature looked at humans and decreed “if you’re going to be so fool as to mess your brain up, perhaps it’s best you do”.  Big deal – so your brain is in your head.  What ev.  It’s only the thing that controls everything about your very existence after all.  Your personality, your memories, your decision making processes.  Then there’s the more significant stuff it controls like your heart, your lungs, all of your senses, motor control.  Why wouldn’t you want to protect that thing?  It’s the essence of you after all.  Why do you lock your bike up to protect it but not wear a helmet?

The following argument: the safer you make a given activity, the more careless become the participants thanks to the reduced risk.  Full agreement.  Thing is, brain injury takes remarkably little impact, speed or spectacle.

True story time.  When I was in my early 20s, I had a motorcycle accident that totalled my landlord’s custom Harley and put me in the hospital.  An old man with his nurse in the car (not kidding), turned left across the intersection I was riding through and clobbered me.  I still remember the moment after impact and thinking “Holy sh*t!  I’m flying through the air”!  Things got a bit fuzzy after landing however despite the damage to my wrist, my leg and my foot and the complete loss of the motorcycle now trapped firmly underneath the offending car, my helmet never hit the ground.  There wasn’t a scratch on it.  Had I not been wearing the helmet, I would have walked away without so much as a bump on my noggin.   Okay, I wouldn’t have walked as the helmet’s presence had nothing to do with the gaping flesh wounds and exposed bone but you get the idea – the helmet served no function in a rather spectacular crash (that even blew my shoes off – wear boots).

Fast forward a few years.  An employee of Harley-Davidson Canada whom I knew went to work as an instructor teaching other coneheads like myself how the ways and means of Miliwaukee’s offerings.  While fooling around one afternoon, he took one of the program’s motorcycles into the small parking lot behind the classroom, wheelied it at a rather benign speed, lost control and went over backwards - I’ve recently been correct – the front end washed out when the front wheel came back down and he went over the bars hitting his head.  No speed, no drama.  He was pronounced brain dead a few hours later.  Had he been wearing a helmet, he would – literally – have walked away.

Yes….those are motorcycle accidents but they’re true and I’m using them to illustrate that one does not require a “typical” accident to end up dead due to brain injury.

I’ve heard this argument too: “if I’m in an accident with a car, I’m a dead man anyway”.  Okay – yes, in an altercation with a car a cyclist (motor or pedal) is always on the losing end of the deal but death isn’t the inevitable outcome of those accidents (see above).  That’d be like saying I don’t need to wear my seatbelt because if I have an accident with a gravel truck, it’s going to squash me and my car anyway.  What about all the other things that might put you in a situation that involves your head contacting something not moving in the same plane and direction?  An errant dog, unexpected ice, dive-bombing hawks, me throwing my water bottle through your spokes so I can finally pass you…the possibilities are endless.

Here’s what really boggles my mind though – there’s no down-side to wearing a bicycle helmet.  It doesn’t impede your vision like a motorcycle full-face helmet, doesn’t look any different than 99% of the other cyclists (so it’s not like you’re sticking out amongst other riders), you’re already wearing Lycra pants with a diaper stuffed in them – who cares what the non-cycling populace thinks, they’re not hot, they’re not heavy (I’m sure I have toques that are heavier than my cheapo $80 helmet)… The question isn’t why should I wear a helmet, it’s why wouldn’t I.  Why wouldn’t you?