hubratius pliesters or jointered ousmania?

You made it!!! to my little social media experiment. This is not a hypothesis driven study, and the results will just be descriptive. And the scientific method is only loosely in use here. There is no control group. And I don't really know what the question is. Kinda like the cartoons: "let's see what happens if I pour green goo in this tube".

If you're a regular visitor to my blog this post will be utterly confusing.
Nothing bike.

Forgive me, my life was experiments, up until recently, now I just sit at the computer reading and writing. I'm Jonesin' for an experiment. Even one that blows up in my face!

I'm not going to say what the experiment is, but it you want to join in, put the following phrase in a facebook status or tweet:

struntist forgram

And leave me a comment below, WTFLOL...really, whatever you want.

DANGER! at Kerley and Cornwallis.

As a blogger I get to see Google searches that land people on my site. For example people looking for a Carhartt hat often land here, or nude cycling, or free beer.

A couple of days ago I got a couple of searches that caught my eye, then got me thinking, and searching the internet myself for information:

You see as much as I could see, but I will almost guarantee that the intersection in question is Kerley and Cornwallis.







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I love flying down hills at top speed!

Right before this intersection with Kerley, Cornwallis has an excellent hill to get your wheels spinning. However, halfway down the hill is the intersection with Kerley. Cornwallis traffic has the right of way, Kerley has stop signs.

Legally, as a cyclist you have every right to fly through this intersection at full speed. Realistically, SLOW THE F DOWN. This is not the hill to fly down, you'll get your ass killed. Trust me.

Cars stopped at this intersection, espescially in the morning, can't see shit when they look up this hill. One, you're a tiny bicycle, two, in the morning the sun is at the top of the hill.

Recipe for disaster!

If you're flying down the hill at 40 mph, and a car on Kerley doesn't see you, you're toast.

I have now heard of one confirmed accident at this intersection, I also have the search result from a couple of days ago, and I almost got in an accident at the intersection myself.

For me it was the exact situation described above, morning, me flying at 40mph, car stopped on Kerley pulls out having not seen me. Fortunately I was able to yell loud enough to get their attention, so they didn't make it all the way in front of me, and I swerved around the front of the golden Prius.

Remember: You're invisible to the folks in their motorized boxes. Be safe.

Clegg's Pest Control

I'm not a heavy user of the pest control industry. I have a distaste for the chemicals they use. I was, however apathetic to their ubiquitous presence until today. Today I was nearly run off the road by a truck belonging to Clegg's Pest Control. You know the company with the tank logo on their trucks?

Yeah, that's a tank, not a raccoon skin hat.

I would refuse to use their services until they showed a good faith effort to train their employees about road rules, but like I said, I don't use pest control services. So I'm stuck writing a blog post about how crappy their drivers are.

And then I can just hope that my blog post makes it to the first page of google results for Clegg's, and those who ride a bike regularly or love somebody who rides a bike regularly (I fit both categories) will think twice about using their services.

How bad was it? The truck passed me at about 35 mph, and gave me maybe 6 inches of room. I've been buzzed before by vehicles, but this was ridiculous. One little wobble on my part and I could have been clobbered by the side mirror.

Nude Cycling

Warning: this post may be a little NSFW due to censored cartoon nudity and genital mutilation.
Why do people bike naked?

If you read the Wikipedia entry the goal is to "deliver a vision of a cleaner, safer, body-positive world." 


Sounds like a terrible idea to me. Bikes have a lot of sharp bits that I'd rather not have contact my tender bits. 

Sure, it wouldn't happen like the above picture, but you could fall and get yer niblets caught somewhere.


On top of it not being a great idea because of the dangers involved, in my opinion it also doesn't really deliver the message it's aiming for. I've never thought bringing out the crazy was the way to get your message across. And I fail to see how a bunch of naked/semi-naked people riding bikes through town "deliver[s] a vision of a cleaner, safer, body-positive world."

I could protest obesity by going out in public and setting fire to bologna and mustard sandwich on nutrient deficient white bread...

...but I'd probably end up spending the night in a rubber room. While the activity of burning the sandwich was related in a way to obesity, it really does not convey my message. 


I see naked biking in the same light. The message is in there somewhere, but between the people who are offended by the flapping genitalia, and those who just didn't realize there was a message to be seen, nobody save the cyclists themselves really get the message.


And I'm guessing half the cyclists don't even understand the message.


Ok, time to go for a fully clothed ride.