Shek's Footprint

I have a hard time understanding the second amendment. I do not know what the gun-laws are in other countries and my views are not affected by them. When I question the second amendment, all I get is, “This is America and we have the right to bear arms.”

Well, I am sure every country in America does not have the right to bear arms. Semantics aside, I don’t get any reason other than it is their right. The question, “What is the reason it is easy to walk out of a gun store with a semi automatic AR-15?” is answered by rephrasing the question itself, “It is our right to bear arms“. It starts to sound like an infant not wanting to give up their toys, not a reasonable explanation supporting an amendment made to the constitution by the Founding Fathers.

Don’t even get me started on the Concealed Weapons Permit (wikipedia link).

I went shooting at a gun range this weekend. My friend owns a couple of hand guns and we shot them. I shot approximately 100 bullets, most on a Beretta 9mm. My first shot was with the 9mm. It took me by surprise. This gun handled and shot a lot better than the Sig Sauer P238. I even managed to hit a couple of bulls eyes. One in the chest and one in the head.

The mechanics of a gun, like the mechanics of anything well engineered fascinate me. I was excited to operate it, much like I was excited to operate a lathe for the first time. Except, on a lathe, I created a product of value. With the gun, I shot up a target. After we were done with shooting, I was not overcome by a sense of manliness but by a sense of satisfaction and respect for a gun. A bullet packs a lot of power and I hope to never use it. It was also an enjoyable experience.

It has not changed my stand against the second amendment. Cars are not too far from guns. I had a few close calls while riding my bicycle to the gun range. Nothing spectacular, just normal Jacksonville traffic.

It is more difficult to acquire a license to drive a car than it is to purchase a gun and bullets. Allowing motorists to talk on cell phones, change radio channels, make conversations with co-passengers and listen to music at a loud volume while driving is quite irresponsible. A car can be very dangerous even at low speed impacts for people who they hit. With this logic, I should be against the DMV licensing and driving rules too. Well I am and I think everyone should be subject to a mandatory full fledged driving test every other year and all cars should go through an inspection every year.

Just as there is a possibility I might purchase a car again, there is a possibility I might buy a gun. The difference is that if I ever give up my car free life, I will buy a completely utilitarian car. Contrarily, I’d purchase a gun purely as a hobby. I don’t have anything to protect. They can steal my motorcycle, TV and laptop. Everything else is old and used. It is not worth protecting these assets by having someone’s blood on my hands. Protecting a family is different. I don’t have wife and kids and am therefore not qualified to comment on it.

Even if I ever buy a car, I will continue to ride bicycles for transportation. On the other hand, if I ever own a gun, I’ll never carry it concealed.

No position is absolute. Times change and with time changes the angle with which we look at a problem. I often evaluate my position against the car tax. It is a position of protest against the City of Jacksonville making people spend a large sum of money every month in the name of basic necessities.

Days like today make me evaluate my stand. It was starting to rain by the time I was leaving work. I left early to beat the rain. The rain caught up with me by the time I reached I95, the last 4 miles of my 13 mile commute. It is here that grooves are cut along the road to help cars. Motorcycles be damned.

Climbing the Acosta bridge was very challenging. It is already super windy on the bridge. Even more grooves give the motorcycle a mind of its own. By the time the motorcycle climbed near the top of the bridge, the cross wind started to push it into the next lane. The grooves cut on the road aid the wind making the motorcycle even more unstable. There was nothing I could do to compensate the shift. A heavier motorcycle will compensate for the wind and the grooves but it costs more money. If I money was not an object, I would never protest against the car tax.

I reduced my speed, stepped down a gear while making a mental note to not use the front brake. The red Camaro behind me was surprisingly understanding and kept a safe distance while I negotiated a freshly wet curving exit lane. I later saw the sticker “Harley Davidson” on the rear window. They probably knew the limitations of a motorcycle on a windy rainy day on top of a bridge.

This somewhat righteous protest of mine is based on an absolute truth. The truth that even a minimum wage employee is required to either buy a car and pay running costs or waste time and effort waiting for busses.

I feel compelled to carry out this protest even if nobody is listening. This protest was never supposed to be easy.

The terms cargo and bike are not popularly used in the same sentence. Bicycles make excellent cargo carriers. They don’t have to carry a piano to qualify as a cargo bike. Something utilitarian like a grocery store trip makes a bicycle a cargo bike. It changes a bicycle from a sport or a toy to a tool. It changes the bicycle from being a lifestyle to being a mode of transportation.

We have been reinforcing the utilitarian prowess of a bicycle by providing free valet parking at the Riverside Arts Market. People who choose to use their bicycles as modes of transportation are being encouraged at the market.

We have met many amazing people arriving at the market on their bikes. From little kids on trikes to mommies with kids in a trailer. Since we are always occupied at the market guarding the bikes (with our dear lives), we never get an opportunity to ride and hang out with these amazing people. Hence, we came up with the Cargo Bike Picnic Ride. It is a three mile leisurely ride in the friendly streets of Riverside that ends in a picnic. People are encouraged to bring their picnic gear, games, beverages, musical instruments etc. along for the ride.

Information Website: http://shekscrib.com/cargobikepicnic

Date: Sunday 23 May, 2 pm

Start: Five Points Coffee & Spice (820 Lomax)

End: Memorial Park

If you have parked with us, here is a chance to ride with us and hang out at beautiful Memorial Park. If you haven’t parked with us yet, you are welcome too. Anything that can carry cargo is allowed, including your backpack. Bring your friends along for the ride or simply have them meet us at Memorial Park for the picnic.

Having spent the last week bouncing around on my motorcycle in a 20 mph cross wind, I was super sensitive to every feature on the road that is not motorcycle friendly. The most important ones are cracks on the road between lanes and at a curve and the grooves cut on an interstate to facilitate rain water flow. I encounter these grooves on bridges across the St. Johns where the winds are especially choppy. My protest against Car Tax is more challenging than I thought.

Most roadway design engineers are not motorcyclists or bicyclists for that matter. These two groups usually get left out during planning. When a co-worker asked me how my commute has been lately, I decided to bring forth the issue of grooves cut on the road surface. I made a case that it is designed for four wheeled traffic and is potentially unsafe for motorcyclists. Tires get caught in the grooves which make the motorcycle follow the grooves till they get traction back. This happens back and forth and the motorcyclist is helpless in controlling the machine efficiently. Lighter motorcycles like mine feel it more than some heavier ones. An accident at interstate speeds with moving traffic can be fatal.

Motorcyclists are about 2% of registered vehicles. My coworkers made a point that roads are designed for the majority. They argued that it is my choice of lifestyle to ride a motorcycle and the engineers should not have to bend over backwards to accommodate my personal life choices. I am sure some of his comments were friendly banter but it made me think about concept of designing for majority. It effectively puts a price-tag on the value of a motorcyclist’s life. What is an acceptable price of anyone’s life?

What determines majority?

Is it just number of registered cars v/s motorcycles? The cars win hands down. I have designed a different method of scoring majority that is fairer and somewhat biased.

It has two factors:

Factor One > Occupants per 100 lbs

Factor Two > Gallons per 100 mile per occupant

Assumptions:

• Average motorcycle = Suzuki SV 650
• Average Car = Honda Civic
• One occupant per car
• One occupant per motorcycle
• Fuel efficiencies from company websites

Factor One – Occupants in a vehicle per 100 lbs. Single rider on a 650 cc street bike that weighs 500 lbs will have a score of 1/5. A single motorist, which is usually the case, in a Honda Civic weighing 3000 lbs will have a score of 1/30. Every Honda Civic on the road is equivalent to six motorcycles. Factor One result = 6.

Factor Two – Gallons per 100 mile per occupant. A 650 cc motorcycle gets around 55 mpg (city + hwy). Therefore, the single rider uses 1.81 gallons per 100 miles travelled. A 2010 Honda Civic gets 29 mpg (city + hwy). A single occupant uses 3.44 gallons every 100 miles driven. Therefore, a Civic user is 1.9 times the fuel footprint of a motorcycle. Factor Two result = 1.9

Factor One multiplied to Factor Two gives 11.37. Therefore, each motorcycle on the road gets multiplied by 11.37 to become a car equivalent. With motorcycles being 2% of registered vehicles, for every 98 cars on the road, there were 2 motorcycles. Now, for every 98 cars on the road, there are 2 X 11.37 = 22.75 motorcycles on the road. That is a share of 18% of traffic. Even though a minority, it is not negligible any more.

There are factors such as less wear on the road by motorcycles due to low weight thereby requiring less road maintenance that I have not considered. I have also not considered how motorcycles are unfavorable in adverse weather conditions since I ride all year and it has nothing to do with considering roadway design. Noise pollution on some larger cruisers and choppers is also not considered since plenty of cars have loud exhausts and a lot of them also blare loud music. Most motorcycles don’t come with sound systems.

I am a little biased on my two factor calculation but every road designer and transportation engineer is biased towards cars. I don’t feel guilty.

All of the above rant and pseudo-mathematics mostly try to convey that cars take a front seat in any planning. Cars are convenient, safe, protected from elements and quick. Motorcycles are not that convenient, safe with proper training, not protected from elements at all but are quick. Bicycles are neither of the three but probably the safest. Bicycles are convenient if one lives in a bicycle-centric city. Cars do cost the most amount of money to purchase and operate. They suck people deeper into dependence than a commuter motorcycle does. Yet, we promote it.

We are supposed to be the smarter of the mammals!

I just uncovered my whiteboard at work. It was tucked away under some folders in my drawer. I did not remember what was still written on it.

It is a small sized board that was light enough to be pinned to my cubicle wall. It was the statistics tracker for my car-light days.

Since I was sparsely driving my car, I decided to track what I was exactly doing.

• The first line says when I last filled up my gas tank. 14th august had been 26 days since I I updated the board last. I put my car up for sale (link)  in the beginning of October which shows when I stopped updating the board.
• The next line tracks the gallons used since the last fill up. In 26 days, I had driven 143 miles at the rate of 24.5 miles per gallon and used 5.8 gallons.
• I had ridden 923 miles since I started commuting by bike in the end of May 2008. A coworker added “Days ridden in Tropical Storm : 1″ since I rode to work and back on one of the first days of tropical storm Fay hitting us. Riding in strong winds and rain was challenging but I lived just two miles away. That was also the day I did not get honked or yelled at.
• I tracked days that I had not driven the car. This prompted me to question the times I did drive thereby thinking of alternatives. The xtracycle was purchased out of this statistic.
• My goal was to ride atleast 250 miles a month. Below that, I measured the miles I rode each month. Since I stopped tracking by the end of September, I never updated this board.

Keeping track of various numbers helped me make a sound decision about a drastic change in lifestyle. The anxiety I felt was minimal. It was also a good motivator to keep riding. I did not openly track the money I was saving in car payments and insurance. Those were constant expenses.

Discovering this white board brought me back good memories. Those were very passionate days and played a strong role in making me what I am today. It is because of those days, and that whiteboard that I joined forces with Matt at Bikejax and executed a successful bike valet. We are expanding it this weekend due to higher numbers of commuters to the Arts Market.