Guy King: Tallying up Tamaki Drive cycling sins

-- Not happy: St Heliers/Glendowie Residents' Association member Guy King (pictured).

When a young female driver inexplicably accelerated through a stop sign into the midst of 20 or so Tamaki Drive cyclists, hospitalising four of them, one of whom remains in an induced coma fighting for life, Mr King said he didn’t know who was to blame for the crash.

Presumably, in the rush for a clipboard and one of those scout masterly idiotic clicking counters I suspect he used to capture, document, and then broadcast (albeit in print media) his evidence of Tamaki Drive Cyclist Sins (TDCS), sympathy for injured cyclists was the last thing on his mind.

“I have started counting and the biggest group has been 52 cyclists in one hit, riding three abreast," he said.

I was genuinely impressed by his powers of observation, knowing just how hard it is to accurately tally a marauding three-abreast bunch of cyclists.

Consider that many motorists struggle to see, let alone count, just one cyclist.

But Guy King is no ordinary contender. In the 10 years he’s spent escorting VIP visitors to New Zealand shores, he’s received a number of professional accolades for his professionalism and CARE.

However, as a self-professed former cyclist, it seems his care and professionalism is no longer extended to cyclists, who doubtless impede the progress of his preferred commuting style.

Perhaps during one of his Bentley parades, when cyclists overtook his cavalcade of waving dignitaries and VIPs, he was able to point a radar gun to measure the dangerously high speeds Tamaki Drive cyclists sometimes attain.

I have seen cyclists speeding, he said, frantically thumbing his Dignitary Personal Protection handbook for the right procedure.

Safety and discretion at all times please, Mr King.

The boil has burst

-- Septic origins trace a distinctly New Zealand streak of vicious intolerance.

The recent collision between Tamaki Drive cyclists and a car doesn’t need further examination here.

But its fetid aftermath shows us for what we are – mean spirited knuckle-heads. The trait squirms under the skin like an angry caterpillar struggling to burst free and eat away decency.

It’s quite strange. We’re good at hiding it from international visitors, who consistently tell us that we’re the friendliest bunch of people they’ve ever met.

Maybe we are, until we hit the road and the caterpillar squirms and intolerance takes hold.

NZ travel guides should come with a warning – the whole friendly thing is a ruse. PR behind which innate spitefulness simmers.

If the silent conversations of road users took voice an awful din of threats and abuse would drown out almost everything: “I’ll show you. I’ll teach you a lesson. Shouldn’t be on the road.” And a thousand other variations.

Why does New Zealand road travel gas common decency and respect?

Do we have large bags of crisps on our shoulders, like the Aussies say? An inferiority complex of small angry man proportions looking for a vent. And what better place than the road, where might is right and little lessons and shows of indignation are so easily dished out.

It’s time we grew up.

We don’t need more laws or special provisions.

Just maturity.

We’re all the same people, just traveling by different means.

Look out for one another and accept that the vast majority of road users are decent people just trying to get some place, without inconveniencing or injuring anyone on the way.

Breathe in breathe out, enjoy the trip and if, along the way, you are inconvenienced, try smiling and waving instead of improvising a demonstration of anger.

Everyone be cool. Be nice. Show respect.

Chopper Guard photo caption competition

-- World Naked Bike Ride – San Fran: Mum, kids and the chariot of naked doom

One day poor little Johnny will look back on this day and smile.

But only after he’s been rehabilitated from his homeless years of self-harm and crack addiction induced by the shame and degradation of his mother’s naked whimsy.   

Post your picture caption ideas in the comments section.

Best caption receives a free copy of Chopper Guard’s Cycling Sauce 2010 calendar. 

Cycling clubs riding to oblivion

-- The world’s moved on, but why haven’t cycling clubs?   

I’m told clubs in many sporting codes struggle to attract and retain members. 

One theorist attributed the problem to the casualisation of sport. People would rather participate on their own terms, avoiding seemingly pointless club codes, diktats and invisible benefits. 

Why complicate access to something as simple as weekend bicycle racing? 

Perhaps this is why rides like ‘Round Taupo’, K1/2 and so on are so popular. Pay the entry fee and participate. Simple.

But not so for club racing. First, you must join the club before enjoying the privilege of paying individual race fees (though I understand Counties Manukau, for example, allows cyclists to participate in three races before membership is required).

What’s wrong with keeping things simple and paying an unfettered race entry fee? Like triathlon, a runaway success, which, as far as I know, bar NZ rep level races, lets anyone with an entry fee race. Lord knows, given the logistics and health and safety issues that come with policing three sporting disciplines in a single race, they could do with the extra money ‘club’ membership brings in.

But simple cycling is not. 

One recent race enquiry served to illustrate the self-defeating anachronism club cycling administration has become. A flyer for Cycling Auckland 2009 Open Road Champs (and good luck trying to find online information about it) appeared in my email inbox. 

Great, I thought. I’d like to race that weekend. $20 entry. Fine. But I have to stipulate my club. Don’t have one, nor do I have a CNZ license. So I ring the organiser, who impatiently tells me that I need to cough up $160 for a CNZ license, which will, in any case, expire in November. “Makes it an expensive race,” he said. I agreed and asked if there was a workaround. There wasn’t.    

Cycling has never been so popular. ‘Clubs’ could do themselves a favour if they for a minute stopped obsessing about administration and took the time to understand the needs and habits of the many thousand enthusiastic cyclists who would happily pay an entry fee to a weekend race, if only it were that easy. 

Or have I missed something? A marvelous additional benefit of club membership? 

Glendowie Bicycle Club (GBC) Spring Tweed Run

-- Gentlemen, lady-members. Bring your bicycles and your panache - organiser

The Spring Tweed Run: 2:30 p.m., Saturday 3 October, Reef Bar, Mission Bay.

The inaugural GBC ride, undertaken last March and promoted as the ‘Gentlemen's Ride’ (though with a cheery “Hello Ladies”), was a stirring success and turned discerning heads all the way along Auckland’s waterfront.

GBC’s Chairman Mike says re-branding the event Tweed Run avoids gender issues and spotlights the importance of rider panache and fashion sense.

“The bicycling movement has been enslaved to garish fashion, accessorising and fleshy contours. We want to reclaim the glory of the bicycle and celebrate its raw understated beauty – everything that is good and right,” Chairman Mike says.

The March ride’s celebrity drawcard, Gemma Atkinson, who failed to show, has this time not been invited.

Astarloza EPO

-- I’ve picked on Tom and antagonized Cadel

Only because they deserved it: Cadel, for his grave personality defects, and, Tom, for being a boone-head. There I go again.

But just as Cadel was due for another dummy spit, along comes Euskaltel-Euskadi's Mikel Astarloza, arresting our attention like man boobs on a motorbike.

"I know that I have not taken anything prohibited," Astarloza said, when his positive test for EPO was announced shortly after this year’s Tour de France.

One day after the counter-analysis confirmation, he said: "I'm completely innocent," adding: "Unfortunately, I can't prove it.” (Probably because you’re guilty, Mikel).

His team said in a statement that it “is not surprised at this result…. and trusts in the rider's innocence.”

But not enough to stop them suspending Astarloza from the team.

Now, of course, Astraloza is very unhappy. “I'm very unhappy.”

As is his sponsor Euskaltel-Euskadi, who faces a second positive for EPO in barely a month, after former Dauphine Libere winner Inigo Landaluze failed an anti-doping test for the same banned substance.

Now ex-pro and lawyer José Rodriguez has stepped in, saying Astarloza's problems stem from training in a hyperbaric tent, which replicates the effects of altitude training and stimulates the natural production of red blood cells (the same thing EPO does much better).

Maybe Rodriguez practices from a tent.

The problem is not Astarloza's red blood cells - it's the properties of synthetic EPO in his blood.

Merckx drugs could kill small horse - Specialized

-- Double glazed reception doors provide transparency of sorts, but in these times of interconnectivity and openness, people want to see deep into the belly of brands they deal with.

While some corporate brands tiptoe into tweets and employ more PhD-qualified call centre operators unafraid to deviate from scripts, most still pine for the safety of weasel words and sanitised pompousness.

However, occasionally, examples of refreshing candour and long leashes extended to company spokespeople offer new hope to nosy consumers.

Responding to my “sarcastic” email, the honesty of this Specialized representative should be revered.

Honestly, I am impressed.

Respect.

From: store_customerservic@specialized.com

I think you meant to send that sarcastic email to Quickstep. We sponsor Quickstep. Quickstep is the team that Tom Boonen rides for. They pay his salary. They are the ones who stepped up with legal help. It was the CAS who let him ride, so maybe you should email them too.

If you think Boonen ruined cycling integrity you must be new to the sport. Drug use and cycling go hand in hand! Even Eddy Merckx was on enough steroids and amphetamines to kill a small horse. What's worse is he was doing it during competition to gain an advantage!! Come to think of it.......several of the last Tour De France winners have had their titles stripped from them for testing positive. Oh hey, where are Kohl and Valverde this year? Oh, that's right....they got busted for performance enhancing drugs and weren't allowed to race.

Don't get me wrong, I totally object to Boonen testing positive for cocaine. I am opposed to drug use in any way. I do think that getting your party on after winning the Queen of the Classics is a little different than flat out cheating. If you want to credit riders with ruining the integrity of the sport there are plenty of people in line ahead of Boonen. I would start pointing fingers at them first.

I do agree with you. I feel like the sport of cycling has had its integrity compromised, but I don't think it was Boonen who did it. While what he is going through really bums me out, I get a lot more bummed out by people I looked at as heroes getting busted for cheating. Pro cycling is very bittersweet. I still have a couple heroes left and I am keeping my fingers crossed that they won't end up dopers. Hopefully the testing will get stronger than new doping technologies. Sadly, there is no money to made in testing and tons of money to be made in cheating.

I hope Tom being in the Tour this year doesn't sour you on it. It promises to be an exciting/drama filled event.

The beatings shall continue

-- Will MOT step in?

Fear is a gift. It stops us from doing things that jeopardize our safety.

Fear also stops the vast majority of New Zealand’s 1.5 million bike owners from riding to work.

We don’t want to get hit. 

And while the risk of an incident isn’t particularly high, the likely consequences of a collision are so brutal (at least for the cyclist) we don’t even want to go there. 

So we don’t and the bike stays in the garage.

What to do? 

The practical folks at Bike New Zealand are on the case and looking to work with Ministry of Transport on the 10-year road safety strategy, which will, we hope, establish a law requiring the preservation of a 1.5m safe passing distance between cars and cyclists.

The threat of a fine for passing too closely might make a difference, though I reckon the associated publicity and awareness of the legislative process, should it go ahead, might make the biggest difference. 

I guess we’ll see. 

At the least it will reduce the cyclist fear factor and hopefully encourage more people to dust off their bikes. This, on its own, has proven to make cycling safer – the more cyclists on the road the safer it gets.

On this matter you should sign the online petition to add weight to Bike New Zealand’s submission.

Road safety’s a funny thing. They say you never see the one that gets you. Just ask Beijing Olympic gold medallist and Argentinean sporting hero Walter Perez, who while cycle training with a group on the Autopiste del Oeste, one of the few roads in Buenos Aires that riders consider safe enough to train on, was run off the road, beaten and arrested by Police.



Turns out the road is a six-lane highway which, by law, is not open to pedestrians or cyclists. But because Buenos Aires roads are so dangerous to ride on, the area's cyclists frequently risk being run off by the gendarmes in order to train on the highway.

And we reckon we’ve got it bad.

In other cases beatings are well and truly deserved.

And I put it to you that these two (below), who I’m embarrassed to say are Kiwis, should be beaten. The inventors of the foldable electric Yike Bike have, in their infinite wisdom, mounted the handlebars BEHIND the seat. And then there’s the small matter of looking like a complete tosser riding it.

The beatings shall continue 

Food for thought

-- Lining up for NZ's Food Insecurity Card

Des O'Dea
Health Economist
Otago University

Dear Des

I must say your food insecurity card is a tasty idea.

Especially for a fat guy like me, who struggles to resist calorie dense options, like mince and cheese pies and butter chicken.

Mmmmm. You see, I’m salivating already.

Anyway, I see that it’s only available to “low and middle-income families” which puts it out of my reach (by global health and government standards I’m fat and rich).

You say the starved of cash tend to high-energy foods.

Frankly, though, in my high-income experience I’ve never consumed so many calories. When you’ve got money to spend you go for the good (bad) stuff.

I figure the assumption is that my high-income status makes me smarter and less prone to fast-food temptation than low-income types. Yes?

So, putting the food insecurity card into my soft sweaty hand would be a waste. I should know better.

But then I think back to my University days (not so long ago) when I really was starved of cash (and, strangely, much skinnier than I am today), and reflect on the satisfaction that came from making rice, chuck steak and peas so darn tasty.

Which I guess poses the question:

Is effectively lowering the price of “healthy foods”, by using things like your insecurity card, going to change anything for low-income earners, who it seems are much like high-income earners and don’t really care about healthy eating options or obesity?

Food for thought.

On a different track, have you thought about subsidizing bicycle ownership?

Get more of us on to bikes, which is known to melt lard from saggy behinds.

Might also help with easing congestion and reducing CO2 emissions.

A much healthier carrot in my mind.

Yours in insecurity

Lester

Cycling Sauce: Chopper Guard Bicycle Lovelies

-- September Sauce – The Klein Bicycles Girl

Klein Bikes founder Gary Klein pioneered the oversized tube aluminium bicycle . In 1995 his company was purchased by Trek, who, according to industry gossip, plans to discontinue supporting Klein.

In the meantime, Gary’s shifted his focus to manufacturing an altogether different kind of oversized tube – the telescope.

This Klein enthusiast (above), enjoying a nice day at the beach, subtly evinces the joy of oversized tubing.