Bicycle Detection Works Well in Pleasanton

This radar device detects bicycles at Foothill Road and Bernal Avenue in Pleasanton.

As promised, I hauled myself over to Pleasanton to check out the nifty bicycle detection system installed at the intersection of Foothill Road and Bernal Avenue. I took Calaveras Road to Sunol and then Foothill, a tree-shaded road along Arroyo de la Laguna Creek.

By the way, this creek is the site of a $650,000 streambank restoration project. One reason for the work is because the backyards of homeowners along the creek are falling away from erosion.

Also following the creek, on the other side of Foothill, there’s the Niles Canyon Railway right-of-way that was lovingly restored for excursions between Sunol and downtown Pleasanton. However, the NIMBYS in Plesanton put up a stink and the plan has been shelved.

But I digress. I arrived at Bernal and Foothill on a Sunday morning, so traffic was light and I had a chance to test the Intersector without cars around. I went left from Bernal to Foothill at the light and it worked perfectly, triggering the left turn signal.

Intersector motion and presence sensor

The Intersector is made by MS Sedco, based in Indianapolis, Indiana, costing about $5,000 each.

It’s basically a small radar with microwave motion and presence detection; it was installed here in January 2010, one of Pleasanton’s 104 signaled intersections.

The device can differentiate between vehicles and bicyclists crossing the road and either extends or triggers the light if a cyclist is detected.

The Intersector is bolted to the upper traffic light pole and communicates with the control cabinet below. It uses Power over Ethernet cabling for power.

Caltrain Sees Uptick in Ridership

News stories gave some good news about Caltrain and other area public transit agencies.

Caltrain saw an 11.6 percent increase in ridership from June 2010 to June 2011. It’s encouraging to read about, especially when Caltrain recently started ensuring more bike-friendly cars per train during commute hours.

While a lack of guaranteed funding is still a fundamental problem for Caltrain, increased ridership sends the strongest possible message that a public transit is worth financing.

New Roundtail Solves an Old Problem

Check out the Roundtail. It promises a smoother ride than traditional diamond frames.

I found out about the Roundtail bike while reading the latest issue of Popular Science.

This innovative bike has hollow steel hoops for rear stays, which are supposed to absorb vibration. The bike promises a smoother ride. It is eye-catching, that’s for sure.

Lou Tortola, the inventor, explains that tests show the bike absorbs shock better than traditional diamond frames. No doubt the tests are right as the hoops are like giant springs.

Many bikes have been built that solve this problem, and they’re traditional diamond frames. You can do it two ways — relax the head tube angle and lengthen the wheel base or use different frame materials. You can also use wider tires.

Of course they won’t grab your attention.

Access Denied at De Anza College

Why isn't this access point to De Anza College open?

With a minor adjustment, there’s every reason to open this access road to De Anza College for two-wheeled vehicles. It bridges between De Anza College Parkway and McClellan Road, near the Hwy 85 overpass. There’s good visibility both directions. All you have to do is install some removable posts to allow access for bikes and motorcycles.

Cyclists could use this route as a continuation from the Mary Avenue bike path through Cupertino. People riding to school on McClellan could use this road for easier access.

91.4 Centimeter Law Moving to Passage

California Bicycle Coalition created a "Give Me 3" campaign to promote the proposed three-foot law.

For those of you who don’t know the metric system, 91.4 centimeters is three feet, and that’s the distance motorized vehicles will have to give cyclists when passing if the bill in the California legislature becomes law.

Senate Bill 910 was introduced by Assembly Member Bonnie Lowenthal, 54th District, which makes up parts of Long Beach, Palos Verdes (nice area), and Catalina Island (not much traffic here). Bonnie chairs the state’s transportation committee.

Will the U.S. ever adopt the metric system instead of giving it lip service? In 1999 we lost the Mars Climate Orbiter because someone used English rather than a Metric number in a calculation. Doh! But I digress.

I support the bill if only because it removes the lamest of excuses used by motorists: “I can’t pass because I’d cross the double yellow line.” The law makes it legal to cross. It takes two seconds to pass, unless it’s lots of riders, and that happens. There are a handful of super-narrow roads in the Santa Cruz Mountains that can be a problem, especially for someone driving an SUV, which is a good reason not to drive an SUV on Summit Road.

There’s a modest fine associated with breaking this law, but seeing it enforced? Dream on. I’d really like to see it applied to motorcyclists who buzz me on Hwy 9 all the time. That’s bad form coming from a two-wheeled compatriot.

However, where this bill really shines is when it comes to cyclists who get injured. Read on: “The bill would make it a misdemeanor or felony if a person operates a motor vehicle in violation of the above requirement and that conduct proximately causes significant or substantial physical injury or death to the bicycle operator.”

Believe it or not, it is not a crime to maim a cyclist, just a driving infraction. That will change with this law. I’m all for it.

Traffic Light Technology for Recognizing Bikes Inches Forward

A system that detects bikes has been installed at Foothill Road and Bernal Avenue in Pleasanton. (Google Maps photo)

While the San Jose Mercury News made a big deal about a plan to ensure traffic lights will recognize two-wheeled vehicles, I’m not so sure it’s happening in my lifetime. As you get older you find yourself using that expression a lot more often.

According to Gary Richards, aka Mr. Roadshow: “San Jose has received a $1.5 million grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to test and identify the best bicycle-detection devices and install them at signals throughout the city. This may serve as a model throughout the nine Bay Area counties.”

Apparently the state passed legislation four years ago requiring that all new and modified signals include bike-friendly signal detectors and directed Caltrans to develop a standard, but it never did.

Cities and counties are on their own to find the best way to make signals work. Pleasanton is trying out an interesting concept. The city, with federal funding, installed microwave vehicle/bicycle detection equipment at selected intersections.

The system can distinguish between motor vehicles and bicycles and provides a longer green signal time when bicycles are present.

Seven units (costing $7,000 each) are installed at the following intersections:

• Foothill Road at Canyon Way – northbound

• Foothill Road at Stoneridge Drive – northbound
• Foothill Road at Stoneridge Drive – westbound
• Foothill Road at West Las Positas Boulevard – westbound
• Foothill Road at Bernal Avenue – northbound
• Foothill Road at Bernal Avenue – westbound
• Stoneridge Drive at West Las Positas Boulevard – northwestbound

It’s about a million miles from my home to Pleasanton, but I’ll try to ride there this summer and check it out.

I occasionally come across signals that don’t recognize bikes, but less and less often. However, there’s one turn signal from Saratoga Avenue to Pruneridge Avenue that has never worked for bikes in the 15 years I’ve been using it.

I gave up trying to get it fixed years ago and started going a different direction. I was even a member of the City of Santa Clara Bicycle Committee at the time, for crying out loud, and still couldn’t get relief.

Fitness for a Cause: Can There Be a Better Combination?

Plus 3 Network offers a way for people to donate to their favorite charity through exercise.

Recently I came across a clever idea for combining exercise with fundraising for your favorite charity, with a social network twist. It’s called Plus 3 Network and its creator is Rick Sutton.

In short, I’m earning about 1 cent a day for my 10-mile bike commute and it goes toward a donation to Team Rwanda, paid for by Ritchey Design, Inc. My weekend rides earn more; a recent 102-mile ride raised 15 cents.

My rides could earn more if I submitted the ride using a GPS recording. A social network twist is that you can share your routes.

Rick had been Vice President of Retail Services, Specialized Bicycles, until March 2007 when he got the idea for Plus 3 Network and struck out on his own.

I met Rick briefly at a Team Rwanda event. The accomplished athlete who competed in triathlons is well suited to running a social network website. Like the triathlete, he has to master many varied aspects of maintaining a website.

The website works well. It’s easy and straightforward to enter your exercise information. I haven’t had any issues, other than quibbles about how some categories are labeled. Cycling, for example, is categorized under Road Biking.

There’s a lot I like about this concept. It gets people to exercise and that exercise directly helps your favorite cause. Rick accepts all forms of physical exercise, another big plus.

Of course, anyone can put down false numbers, and that’s one of those conundrums in the online world. Rick believes GPS is a good hook to help people back up their activity with some documentation.

According to Rick, the algorithms behind his website offer a rational way to determine how much money sponsors will donate to their charity.

Many charities are available, and more are being added. Rick’s athletic background has given him some insights to sports-based causes.

Many causes are well known: Red Cross, Team in Training, The Tech Museum, and Meals on Wheels.

You can link up with other members and share your results. There are also Challenges where token gifts are given to winners.

Plus 3 Network proudly reports it has moved more than $345,000 to non-profits. We don’t know how much healthier we are for this effort, but no doubt healthier.

If you work at a corporation, be sure to let your community relations representative and HR manager know about Plus 3 Network. It’s an excellent way for a corporation to encourage employees to stay healthy and give to a favorite cause.

A Map of Bad Memories

Bike accidents in the Bay Area are being tracked.

If you’ve been in a reported bike/car accident in the past five years (December 2009 – January 2005) in the Bay Area, you can see it on an interactive map developed by The Bay Citizen, a nonprofit news organization founded in San Francisco in 2010.

The data came from the California Highway Patrol, which happens to maintain a database on such matters. This convenience saved The Bay Citizen a lot of extra work by not having to go to each county/city to ask for accident records.

While names are not provided, it gives a fair amount of detail: date, time, who was at fault (if known), injuries or fatalities, type of violation, case number, and whether it was a hit and run.

Bike Accident Tracker 2.0 builds on an earlier effort to record accidents in San Francisco.

While I initially could not find some high-profile accidents, that was my fault. They’re all there. While it may not have every accident, this is probably as close as we’ll get to seeing the big picture.

The Bay Citizen draws some conclusions, which you can read on its website. From what I’ve seen, the worst streets have lots of traffic and driveways, such as El Camino Real and San Carlos Street in San Jose. Downtown areas are another high-accident location, but that’s not surprising.

One accident that drew my attention involved four riders on Sunday, March 9, 2008, late afternoon, on Skyline Boulevard about a mile north of Sky Londa. What’s up with that?

James Lick House Lives On…In Seclusion

James Lick house in Santa Clara, California.

James Lick established his legacy at the Mt. Hamilton Observatory, but he also left behind a nice house built from 1858-60.

It’s tucked away in an apartment complex on Lick Mill Boulevard in Santa Clara, off Montague Expressway. You need permission to enter the property.

Lick lived here for many years, building a granary and planting orchards. The building is not open for viewing, but looking through the windows, the interior is a classic Italianette style with wide crown molding and high ceilings.

I mention the house in Mt. Hamilton by Bike, which has been updated with the names of unidentified riders from the 1963 race.

“The Bike, It’s a Good Machine”

Scott Nydam talks about Rwanda bike racing at the Bicycle Outfitter.

Few Americans have heard of Rwanda, much less know its location on a map, but a handful of American cyclists not only know where it is, they’re living there to foster a grassroots bicycle racing team in the heart of Africa.

To set the scene, a little history: Maybe you’ve heard of the movie Hotel Rwanda, which relives the 1994 genocide in which more than 800,000 Rwandans died during a tribal bloodletting. Sadly, that’s the country’s ignoble claim to fame.

Rwanda is also home to the last of the mountain gorillas, and now that the genocide is a memory, tourists are starting to visit Rwanda to see these reclusive primates.

I found out more about the bicycle racing connection on May 11 at the Bicycle Outfitter in Los Altos, which hosted an event called Rwanda the Slide Show. Scott Nydam, a professional bike racer who took a serious crash and had to end (maybe) his career, talked about his recent stay in Rwanda where he joined Jock Boyer and Clark Natwick (3-time National Cyclocross Champion) at a training camp in the mountains, at about 8,000 feet altitude.

If all of this sounds surreal, you would not be alone, but the slide show brings home what is happening in Rwanda. The Rwandan racers have become instant celebrities in this poor country with few paved roads, as they take training rides on their colorful bikes and equally colorful jerseys.

At every stop they’re mobbed by people who want to touch their bikes and learn more about what they’re up to.

At the behest of Tom Ritchey, owner of a bike component company, a bike race called the Wooden Bike Classic was started in 2006. Now there’s the Tour de Rwanda. Tom has a multi-faceted effort underway to help the people of Rwanda, called Project Rwanda, of which Team Rwanda, the bike racing team, is one facet. (You can make donations at one of these sites.)

Signs of progress are already apparent. Racer Adrien Niyonshuti (MTN/Qhubeka) qualified for the 2012 Olympic Mountain Bike Race by finishing fourth in the elite men’s cross country race of the African Continental Championship at Jonkershoek, near Stellenbosch, South Africa.

If anyone can lead the Africans to glory, it is Jock Boyer. Jock is no stranger to blazing trails, being the first American to enter and finish the Tour de France. He has also won the Race Across America twice, and was the first professional rider to enter that event.

Scott took special comfort in the words of racer Gasore Hategeka, who has found success. “The bike, it’s a good machine.” Well put.