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Cake day: December 27th, 2025

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  • Yep, agreed, it has a lot to do with the geometry of the bike, too. The old, short-tail, drop-bar, racing-style “10 speeds” of my youth felt very precarious, and going over the handlebars was a common occurrence because of the rider’s position. The longer tails, and more-upright posture of the rider, on a city/commuter/hybrid bike puts the bike’s center of gravity much further aft. Going over the handlebars is quite unlikely, and good bike infrastructure that doesn’t put riders in the door zone (or gutter) is much more important than a helmet.


  • This seems to spark inchoate rage or cognitive dissonance when I point it out, but for exactly the same reason, everyone should wear a helmet when driving a car, too. Head injuries are common outcomes of car wrecks, and a debilitating injury. It may feel unnecessary, because the majority of people can go an entire, normal lifetime without a head-injury crash. But, then, exactly the same is true of cyclists.

    Certainly, everybody knows somebody who crashed on their bike and was saved by their helmet. In contrast, I knew people who crashed in their car who may have been saved by a helmet. I say “knew,” because they’re dead.






  • It’s well-known that how you ask the question in a survey can drastically skew the response, and so we have to interpret these results based on the specific questions they asked.

    We know from sale prices that people actually covet walkable areas, so much so that the accusation of “rich elitist” gets tossed at proponents of walkable cities. Those places are so much more expensive. So maybe people are thinking of “houses that I can afford” when they answer this survey? Or, they’re answering it from the perspective of already needing a car, so a little extra driving is no big thing.

    What would the results be if they asked things like, “Do you prefer neighborhoods where kids can safely play outdoors, or neighborhoods where there is too much traffic danger?” Or, if that’s too biased, “where children can walk to school versus taking a bus or being driven?” Maybe break up the question, “Do you prefer to have stores located near where you live, or do you want them farther away?”

    There are lots of different ways to ask, and the different results would be informative.

    (Also, this survey relies on self-reported urban/rural distinctions, and those answers are wildly inaccurate, to say the least.)



  • Joshua Slocum put in to port for several extensive refits on his boat over the course of his circumnavigation. (He famously did it solo for the first time around 1895.) Materials engineering had improved enough by 1968 to run the first solo, nonstop circumnavigation race, the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race.

    Nowadays, the sea is still harsh. If one stayed in the less stormy locations, in more-northerly latitudes to avoid the full-bore tropical sun, one could reasonably expect to stay at sea without putting in to port for over a year. The biggest challange would be mental, as loneliness takes a huge toll, as does the bland diet required.