If You Were Riding the Bicycle #1

The way some drivers love to hate cyclists and the way some cyclists love to hate them back really puzzles me. Its like a kind of bigotry, really, as we take turns making ridiculous sweeping generalizations about each other. I am sick and tired of cyclists who characterize any driver that criticizes them as a selfish, dangerous, gas-guzzling destroyer of the earth.

I am equally fed up with motorists who complain that cyclists are all road-hogging, rule-breaking moronic hippies or Lance Armstrong wannabes.



The truth, of course, is that as with all people, there will be selfish, stupid fools who obviously don't understand anything at all sprinkled through both of these groups.

When I'm riding with cars, I do my best to make good time while being as considerate of drivers as I can and ensuring my own safety. I drive a car too, and I know how worrisome and sometimes annoying certain people riding bikes can be. On the other hand, I have zero problem with a cyclist who slows me down for little while as they make their way along safely and predictably. When I'm riding, I try to put myself in the motorist's shoes, and this approach has served me well over years and years of bicycle commuting.

What I'm asking for in this post (and hopefully others if they present themselves) is that motorists do the same for me in specific road situations that I will illustrate with real video shot from my bike. Please don't jump to the conclusion that other cyclists would agree with or approve of my decisions; I fully expect to get called out by some practitioners of the very safest and best types of cycling too.

So, here we go:

What would you do if you were the riding the bicycle? Until next time,

R A N T W I C K

I Am Very Very Sorry. Please Don't Hate Me.

Ever since I first heard of "sharrows", I've had this stupid image knocking around in my head, like an earworm. I guess this is an "image worm", or perhaps a "mind's eyeworm". Anyway, it's been bothering me for some time, and I need to get it out, and I think posting it here might be the only way. I am very very sorry. Please don't hate me.

I Hope to God Something Like This Never Happens Again,

R A N T W I C K

Deshake It, Baby, Deshake It

As you may be aware, I've got a digital camera attached to the handlebars of my bike that I use to take video. Most of the time nothing interesting happens, but sometimes there's good stuff I can work with. Now, I have seen good video shot from bicycles, usually mountain riders for some reason. Fat Cyclist has started making videos of some rides, and they look great. When I look at my own stuff or on youtube for commuting / street footage, however, it is often very shaky, and sometimes bad enough to give one a headache, especially with "first person" perspectives using cameras mounted on the bike.

Here are a couple of representative examples:

I think better cameras and helmet mount systems can remove a lot of shake... but I don't have any expensive gear. I also think there is a reason that the best cycling videos are not shot from the first person perspective. There are, however, FREE (I am incapable of typing the word 'FREE' without capitalizing it... hmmm...) after-the-fact remedies for all the shake and vibration inherent to inexpensive setups like mine (and theirs). The remedies I speak of are two bits of FREE software; VirtualDub and a plugin for it called Deshaker. I forget where I got them, but just google 'em up, they weren't hard to find. What was hard to find was a mix of deshaker settings that worked well with the moving camera on my bike, which I finally found after much trial and error. This stuff isn't perfect. The edges of the video get weird. The improvement, however, is remarkable. I'm going to show you some before and after video now, of course! Watch the whole thing... there's a 'happening' near the end that's kind of funny.

First, the bad:

Please know that when I was riding by, that kid was laughing her head off over something, so no worries on the shove. Now, the deshaked version:

Crummy wind-noise and camera-rattle audio on both, I know. Normally I would replace that with some music, but didn't bother for this quick demo.

I don't want to bore everybody with the details of setting up deshaker. If you have an interest, email me and I will send you screenshots of the deshaker configuration screens and try to explain the process.

Shake It Only When You Should,

R A N T W I C K

Support Your Local Bike Shop - If You Can

You know those Ortlieb panniers that led me into Cycling Forum Hell? I made my decision and shopped around, and found that they were indeed expensive. I called the Canadian distributor to find out which Local Bike Shop (LBS in cycling forum parlance) carried them, and came up with just one. When I called that shop (which wasn't one of my favourites) they told me the panniers would have to be ordered for me and since they didn't make regular orders from that distributor, I would have to pay for the shipping too. The price they gave me made me cringe, so I started looking online.

American online bike stores had them, but after Duty, Shipping and Taxes I was looking at roughly the same amount as having the LBS get them. If you are into cycling stuff, particularly building bikes and sourcing parts, you know this tune well. I was stuck. In the absence of other good options, I did the unthinkable. I looked in online stores from the UK and Europe.

As you may have guessed, Ortlieb is a German company, but it should be noted that they are definitely distributed worldwide, and have a strong US presence as demonstrated by ortliebusa.com.

Why, then, does the pannier set I was after sell for $78 US in England and $140 US in Canada and the States, before shipping? I'm trying to understand. Surely the lower number of cyclists per capita is made up for by the hugeness of the American market... is it possible that so few North Americans buy these things that economies of scale don't or can't keep the price similar on both sides of the Atlantic?

Are there protectionist economic practices keeping those evil European panniers out of North America? Are the hard working pannier makers of middle America in danger of extinction?

I hemmed and hawwed for over a month. I mean, having something shipped from England? Eventually, against my better judgement, I ordered them from an online retailer in the UK. Shipping was more than it was in my "test purchases" of about a month earlier, and I thought "here we go... they're gonna end up costing the same no matter what I do". After shipping and before crossing Canada's borders, I had paid $118 US. Now here's something freaky... that's where the spending stopped! It was some kind of International shopping miracle!





No tax, no duty... wait, wait! On second thought... I did pay duty and taxes, yeah, and was pleased to do so, because I would never cheat my government.

The package arrived at my house about 6 business days after ordering - not bad having come ACROSS THE ATLANTIC OCEAN!

original, undoctored painting source: picture-book.com

So, anyway, the upshot of this whole post is that by shopping globally rather than locally, I saved at least $40 US. That is so very wrong! I shouldn't be saving a penny by having stuff shipped ACROSS THE ATLANTIC (or Pacific, for that matter) OCEAN! Now that the deed has been done, I feel a little dirty. I mean, if you want to talk about environmental concerns, having stuff shipped from all over the place certainly isn't helping. And I really would rather support my LBS; I'm just not willing to pay an extra $40 or $50 to do so...

I'm off to examine my conscience. It may take several days.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K