7 posts tagged “driving”
On Friday night, Tina and I went to go see the new Pirates of Caribbean movie.
Saturday, woke up at 6 am to go climbing at Castle Rock with Chris and a crew of people from the Bay Area Outdoor Adventure Club. Dinner & drinks at Suppenkuche, then fell dead asleep. Sue hooked me up with a sweet T-shirt, too.
On Sunday, Tina and I went to Kara’s Cupcakes in the Marina, then to Marin to go hunting for bicycles, jerseys and planters. Went to the Ducati dealership too. Dealt with a parking douchebag in Mill Valley and took Pista to the dogrun. Watched a documentary on Fred Phelps, and slept well (again).
On Monday, woke up ad took Pista to the dogpark. Rode my fixie to Mill Valley for the Memorial Day parade & pancake breakfast. Went to a barbecue at Chris’ house, drank divine wasabi bloody marys, and ate awesome cookies and burgers. Then went sofa shopping with the crew and returned home for some dinner & watched the Lost season finale.
Because it’s okay to have a carbon footprint, as long as you pay for some guy to plant a tree.
I’m participating by driving my dog Pista to Work Today.
In a little over an hour, Tina and I will be heading down to SoCal for the Butterfield Double Century. I’m keeping my fingers crossed the Sixaflu that attacked me earlier this week will have been drubbed out of my system by tomorrow morning. I feel well enough to drive, I hope that upward trend continues. Here’s to vitamin C!
Show us what's in your rearview mirror.
Why Pista, of course!
Got my motorcycle license today. Woke up way too early for the privilege of being the first person at the San Francisco DMV , took a couple tests and got the sheet of paper (why California insists on this archaic process of mailing your license after a couple weeks is beyond me).
I had taken the CHP motorcycle safety course so I could skip the DMV driving test. I heard you needed a scooter or incredibly tiny bike in order to pass it. The class was definitely worth it.
So now I have to sort out a bike. Patti has graciously offered to loan me a bike for a while, so I think I can put off a purchase for a couple months. Every friend I have who rides has told me the same thing: Don't get the bike you really want first. Get a first bike, get comfortable riding it (translation: drop it a couple times), then spend the lucre on the real thing.
So I've been trying to determine the likelyhood of crashing a motorcycle in the first N units of time. Factors in my calculation:
- I have plenty of experience riding a bicycle in traffic. San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tokyo and rural riding. Mountain biking, road and track (velodrome). I ride a brakeless track bike 300 days a year, rain or shine. Logged a few thousand miles.
- Had an automobile license for 14 years, and no tickets (speeding or otherwise) in 5 years. My car has a stickshift, 300HP and a big spoiler. Still have good driver discount. ;)
- Since I've been cycling seriously, I've had only 2 incidents that could be categorized as crashes.
- Both crashes involved MUNI rails.
- Both crashes were on a mountain bike with knobby tires (note to self: not great for city riding).
- Only one crash resulted in an injury.
- Zero incidents on a road or track bike (brakeless or otherwise).
- Percentage of bicycle rides without a helmet: 0.05%
- Percentage of unhelmeted rides longer than 2 miles: 0%
So I have a good safety record behind the wheel and handlebars. I like to go fast, but with a safety margin. Assuming I keep things reasonable for the first thousand miles or so on a motorcycle, the risk of an injury resulting from a crash or other incident resulting from my own actions should be relatively low.*
*Yeah, I'm knocking on wood too.
