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Firstly, for your convenience this bicycle blog will be open on Monday, January 20th, which is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
I mean sure, I won’t be updating it that day or anything, but you’re more than welcome to come in and make yourself at home.
Moving on, after trying skinnier tires, I’ve put the Garvel Kings back on the Roadini:
I do prefer them, and I think the reason may be that the bike sits higher with the fatter tires, which is somehow more in proportion with the longer wheelbase and general roominess of the bike. With the 32s it kind of had a little bit of a “lowered CRV” thing going on:
[From here.]
As for the Garvel Kings themselves (the actual model is “Gravel King SK”), I noted some discussion in the comments yesterday about their propensity for flinging very small rocks due to their tiny, closely-spaced knobs:
Apparently people even call them “Gravel Flings.”
I had no idea this was even a thing before I took delivery of the Roaduno, though I did immediately notice it the first time I took the bike onto a trail. However, I soon changed the tires–not because of the flinging, but because I was having trouble getting one of them to seat properly (I could feel a little “hop” when riding), and I happened to have a pair of Bruce Gordon tires in the ol’ tire piile that seemed to be a better fit. So when I was putting the Roadini together I figured I’d give the Garvel Filngs another shot, and not only did they roll smoothly and hop-free, but I also haven’t really noticed much if any flinging, though I suspect this is because the ground has since frozen and there’s really nothing to fling until it thaws:
As for flat-resistance, which I believe someone else also mentioned, I don’t like to tempt the Puncture Gods, but so far so good–though the Homer initially came with the slick version of the Garvel King, which rode very nicely, but which I eventually gave up on because I was getting too many flats:
I would think the knobby version would be at least a little less flat-prone for the simple reason that there’s more rubber for small and pointy things to burrow through before they can liberate the air from the tire, but I guess we’ll see.
By the way, I should note that I am using primitive inner tubes. I wouldn’t necessarily rule out going tubeless on the Roadini at some point, but generally on a bike like this I don’t mind using a heavier-duty tire with tubes over a lighter one set up tubeless, since pinch flats aren’t really much of a concern, and I’d rather not deal with topping up the sealant and all that stuff. Of course the calculus is totally different on the Jones:
When you’re riding 3-inch tires at low double-digit pressures over rocks and logs, tubeless is the only way to go.
But maybe next time I change the tires on the Roadini I’ll try it without tubes, who knows?
In other news, a reader informs me that the New York Times’s “Ethicist” has taken on the subject of bicycling and traffic lights:
Here is the question:
And here is the answer:
From the Ethicist:
Those of us who walk in New York City know the unwelcome experience of having bicyclists whizzing through pedestrian crossings when we have the light. Each year, in fact, a few hundred unlucky pedestrians in town will be injured from encounters with bicyclists, a handful fatally. With a pedestrian scramble — also known as a Barnes Dance, in honor of the traffic engineer Henry Barnes — vehicular traffic is paused in both directions; pedestrians can cross the intersection diagonally if they want. If you’ve forded Tokyo’s famous Shibuya Crossing on foot, you’ll be struck (or, rather, not struck) by the ability of hundreds, even thousands of pedestrians to swarm across the intersection without bumping into one another, let alone a car or bike.
I have no doubt that you’d be a careful crosser; your evenhanded summary of the situation suggests that you’re able to look in both directions and size things up. But one rationale for these scrambles is to enhance pedestrian safety by completely separating vehicles from pedestrians. Cyclists who play it by ear, or eye, are defeating the point of the system. And norms get settled by decisions that people like you make. Stay put when your light is red, and you serve as a role model for other cyclists. Predictability and social trust are strengthened when people follow the rules even when they don’t see any benefit in doing so. At a Barnes Dance, it really is best to let the traffic signals lead.
Setting aside the issue at hand for the moment, I’m not sure people should be looking to the New York Times for ethical advice, as it’s a little like consulting PornHub’s Standards and Practices Executive in matters of taste. Nevertheless, overall I found his response satisfactory, though I could have done without the gratuitous discourse on “Tokyo’s famous Shibuya Crossing,” which serves no purpose here whatsoever apart from establishing how well-traveled the writer is. (This is colloquially known as a “humblebrag.”)
Anyway, once he returns from this flight of fancy to Japan, he notes that each year “a few hundred unlucky pedestrians in town will be injured from encounters with bicyclists, a handful fatally.” Certainly reckless cyclists pose a real danger to pedestrians, but the “handful fatally” part was quite jarring, and it leads me to suspect he’s getting his statistics entirely from the “AI Overview” you get when you do a two-second G**gle search:
I’m not sure what the number is for 2024, but according to the DOT, in 2023, bicyclists killed two pedestrians:
In 2022 it was three:
And here are the prior years all the way back to 2008:
Now I realize he’s The Ethicist and not The Semanticist, but in 16 years there were only two years in which more than two pedestrians were killed by cyclists, and nearly half of those years saw no pedestrians killed by cyclists. So I’m not sure where he’s getting “a handful” each year. I mean sure, technically one can be a handful–just ask double hand job guy:
But to say a “handful” of pedestrians are killed by cyclists in New York City each year is quite misleading. Consider: I have four Rivendells, and you’d be right to say that’s a handful. But if I promised to give you a handful of Rivendells every year and half the time I don’t give you shit, you’d be right to call me a liar.
Otherwise, yes, the Ethicist is correct that you should be considerate towards pedestrians and be a model cyclist and blah blah blah. Though when it comes to cycling-related questions it’s generally better to consult someone who actually rides a bike:
Put that in your hand and stroke it.
