jean_claude

I used to regularly troll the semi-serious club rides on my recumbent, beating them on the flats, crushing them downhill, and pedaling like mad to keep up on the uphill battles. Just me, no motor onboard. But I've been thinking about buying one of those pedal assist e-bike rear wheel kits and putting it on my folder for commuting to work on recovery days rather than drive. They look dead simple, just need to make a bracket for the reaction arm and battery pack. Also, much cheaper than a decent quality e-bike would cost (new).

Yeah, I can imagine. About half the kids (adults, really -- it was a grad course) in a systems programming course I took had that deer in the headlights look in the computer lab sitting at a Unix prompt. Not that they couldn't figure it out, but there was a definite learning curve.

What's your source on the claim that bicycling is 7x more dangerous than driving a car?

Most sources put it around 2.5x more dangerous than driving, and I'd wager most of those deaths come from inexperienced riders who don't know the traffic laws as applied to bicyclists.

Fatalities Per Mile

Motor Vehicle Travel.................... Bicycle Travel

42,000 killed........................... 813 killed

2.56 trillion miles..................... 21 billion miles

0.016 fatalities per million miles...... 0.039 fatalities per million miles

Data from Traffic Safety Facts 1997 and The Environmental Benefits of Cycling and Walking

Pulled from http://www.bellboycott.com/cached/www.kenkifer.com/bikepages...

Yeah, I empathise with you. Once the crystal embedded in your palm starts flashing red(1), nobody in the industry even wants to acknowledge your existence, let alone your experience. I have a youthful voice and went to university for CompSci long after graduating from a technical high school, so when I show up for the in-person interview, the atmosphere often gets sucked out of the room.

The absolute worst experience was a technical phone interview that was going very well, I thought I connected with the interviewer(2). So I was shocked after being complimented on the breadth and depth of knowledge I had, near the end of a 45 minute conversation, there was a pause and he asked "so, when did you graduate from high school?" Needless to say, the tone changed somewhat and I didn't get the in-person interview for the position that "wasn't really a good fit for me," and he, "wasn't really sure [we're] going to actually fill this position," forgetting that he earlier said he wanted someone as soon as possible.

(1) See Logan's Run -- it's a documentary about the Bay area companies' solution for aging software engineers. /s (2) And I knew him, but only in the sense I knew him from several mailing lists stretching back to the days of USENET as a knowledgeable, respectable guy with a good reputation.

TL;DR ageism is a thing everywhere.

Correct, it's more like buying Microsoft Flight Simulator and not being able to run it because your monitor is not a genuine Microsoft monitor.

Oculus DRM works by locking the "Oculus exclusive" software to the Oculus hardware. Hackers, of course, have cracked that nut, so the usual arms race against offensive DRM has begun.

"What do you propose a well-educated rider should do, when all the bike lanes are in the door zone and bikes are legally required to stay in the bike lane?"

Well that's the usual poor planning I see in America. Sharrows or "share the road" signs are much better than many of the dedicated bike lanes I've seen here.

First, find another route, if possible. Second, start going to your city's public meetings and/or complain to the city about the clear danger that poorly planned bike lanes inflicts upon the public. Learn the law specific to bicycles for your area and get involved with a bike advocacy group if you really care.

As far as helmets go, I like to keep my brains intact, so I wear one, and have the abrasions on an old helmet to prove it. Front tire blowout and dumping at 45 KPH downhill on a recumbent was an experience that could have been worse sans helmet. That said, a pound of plastic and foam can only do so much for you. Good luck!

"A car door opening in your path is a car door opening in your path at any speed."

No offense, but that's what will happen when poorly educated riders bike in the door zone. See: http://www.bikelaw.com/2016/02/18/door-zones-a-dangerous-gam...

Biking amongst traffic on roads requires skill, knowledge of biking laws, good situational awareness, knowing how to posture and when to take the lane to protect yourself.

Oh, and a bit of luck that the people next to you in their steel cages aren't homicidal towards bicyclists.

Never talk to a cop or fed without a lawyer present if you are being questioned for anything other than a traffic ticket or you were just the victim of a crime. Even then, be careful what you say. They are not there for your benefit.