BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

not much info: http://www.wpxi.com/news/27226923/detail.html

The potholes are my biggest fear right now. I wonder which pothole it was he hit. I came through there at 10 and don't remember that fencing being in place, though there was a work crew there.

I'm glad they've just patched forbes by the cemetery. Cars have been swerving into the bike lane, which is already full of gravel, in order to avoid the holes.

Maybe the cars will sweep out some of the gravel. I don't recall gravel being a big problem before the stripe was painted.

The gravel is probably what used to be inside the pot holes.

I recall between Morrison and Morewood on Forbes there was a crater either along side a manhole cover or a drain grate. It was a big'un. Saw it Sunday.

The roads are so terrible right now and the city's budget doesn't show much promise for many of them getting fixed.

Maybe the Free Market will fix the holes.

^ exactly!

The title "Man Falls Off Bike, Lands Face-First In Oakland". ?? Where was he when he started?

Dear William Randolph Hearst, where are the editors.

The "potholes" in question are actually two square water-service ports, just downhill from the Morewood intersection and a foot or two inside from the center-line (i.e., exactly where your front wheel would be if you're shooting for the Gates driveway).

They're abrupt enough that you don't see them on the approach, and by the time you would see them, you're paying more attention to signaling and oncoming traffic. I was watching for holes, and still got surprised and almost thrown by them.

@ALMKLM Maybe the Free Market will fix the holes.

The oil company solution is to biodegrably fill the pot holes with the bodies of cyclists. This will smooth out the ride for SUVs.

^ sounds like a Yes Men project.

i take that stretch daily. those covers are especially bad if you're signaling to turn into gates. i've run over both of them, though, without injury. now, i know better.

I talked to the parking lot security guard, and she said he ran over one of the manhole covers while trying to make a left turn, going slow. But maybe she meant those ports.

I am continually amazed by all the crap in the roads that modern cities don't have. Not that it will ever change.

I spoke with the guard after almost taking the same spill, and she said it was definitely those ports. The really tricky thing with them is that they're a double-hit to your front wheel, right where you need to be looking at oncoming traffic.

Wait, so do people not bike through campus on the walkways anymore? Growing up and going to school there, people bladed and biked (and skate board, and unicycle, and any other wheeled conveyance) all over the walkways and sidewalks. Has that fallen out of fashion now?

edited - or is it simply that this forum is more than average-ly populated by more street-cycling people, thus this is a problem. otherwise once could deek on to campus at the garage or Morewood handicap breaks in the sidewalks and still get to Gates without these getting in the way.

@ejwme, i'm coming down morewood, and headed to newell simon. there's a walkway from the gates driveway behind hamburg/smith, that is immensely convenient for that commute. if i'm headed to, say, greenfield, i will often cut through campus to get behind it.

incidentally, the more painful holes in the ground, should you hit them at speed, are the cover right off the curb cut at the forbes and morewood intersection, and on morewood northbound from forbes, where there are large chunks of land missing, and milk cartons and posters of all the people suspected lost in them.

@ ejwme - When I need to get from Frew Street to Forbes Avenue, I will take the cross-campus paths. I try not to ride the sidewalk parallel to Forbes Avenue, except traversing it to get to or from the inner part of campus.

I think in the 10 years since I've been on campus daily, two buildings have vanished and at least three new ones sprouted up in their place (including the removal of my favorite shortcut from Squ'ill to north oakland).

but it's nice to know it hasn't gone TOTALLY square in the mean time.

the cover right off the curb cut at the forbes and morewood intersection

Yeah, that's a big 'un! It's awfully close to the curb, though, so I hope you aren't riding through it -- way too easy to bounce off the curb if you do.

Ugh - I used to have to dodge (or occasionally run over) those things on a daily basis, turning left into CIC. Like HV said, I never considered them to be dangerous, but now I know better. But in general I try not to run over anything on the street if I can help it, even if it looks innocuous.

I don't think "because there's a path" is a real reason not to ride on the street, especially considering I'd never be comfortable riding through peds at the speeds I could hit on the (downhill) street. Though maybe skipping the light would have balanced it out.

I'm sorry, salty, didn't mean to imply that riding in the street was unnecessary since there were paths, or that the street shouldn't be maintained simply because the street should be maintained. Just what people were saying made it sound like nobody rode through campus anymore, since there are more car-lite ways of getting the places in question, if memory serves (it probably doesn't).

That stretch of Forbes... I'm most comfortable on it when I'm not making turns. When I'm headed by bike to places on it that require turns, I usually hop off and pedestrian it around there - when I move slower it's harder to get into trouble

heh, np - i was just being a bit surly, but the more i thought about it tonight, the more i remembered it being sometimes crappy to have to make that left (esp with jackasses right up your ass from sitting at the light) - maybe cutting through campus would have been safer (if a bit more leisurely).

but, for some reason i'm always in a hurry. if i could catch all 3 lights i could get from my house to the office (1.1 mi) in under 4 minutes elapsed, which i thought was pretty cool.

anyways, sometimes we'd have an afternoon constitutional around campus, and i definitely saw plenty of bikes around - so no worries about that.

For the record, I was the unfortunate who fell off his bike and landed on his face in Oakland. Broke a couple of things (C2 vertebra, nose) and got otherwise banged up. It would probably have ended up much more of a melodrama had I not been wearing a helmet (mine was cracked). All is on the mend and I should be back on the saddle in about 6 weeks.

escargonaut's post succinctly summarizes the situation that I found myself in. What's galling is that I've gone around those holes it seems like a hundred times before, but that morning the traffic was particularly complicated and took too much of my attention.

Holy crap, no wonder you haven't done any tags in a while. Hope you're (relatively) OK and glad you didn't end up under the wheels of any of that traffic.

Wow. Glad you're on the mend. Feel better soon.

I was wondering why you seemed to have disappeared from the board. Glad you're on the mend, Ahlir!

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

At three o'clock he had a great fall.

The King set the Time Machine back to two.

Now Humpty's unscrambled and good as new.

(Frederick Winsor)

...and I wish the same for you!

Ahlir, I'll add to the list my hope you're restored to full health and happy cycling soon.

Anybody 311 the road issue in this discussion?

@Ahlir - Glad to know you are up and about enough to monitor this board. Hope you'll be back on the bike soon!

Ahlir, thanks for updating us on your condition. Hope you continue to improve at a fast pace. Did you happen to share a room at the hospital with my friend Zack who was also in a crash around the same time as you?

Phhst, show me some research that says that helmets are useful!

/end sarcasm, I wear my helmet and I think it's saved my head a few times too

@scott: Zack and I were indeed in the same room on the general ward. As I recall, he went though a car windshield... ouch.

C2, yuck.

Ouch. Get well soon!

Yah feel better soon. Sorry to hear about your accident.