Back when I was in college I played drums in a few different little jazz bands and combos. I don’t think we were great, but we had some steady gigs and, unbelievably, actually got paid to play. Mostly for dances and stuff, plus the occasional couple of songs as the opening act for the big college jazz ensemble. And in these little combos, we sounded pretty good, because we picked stuff that we could actually, you know, play.

But every once in a while I’d have to sit in with the big jazz band, or some famous jazz figure would come to town and do a workshop or something. And this is always what happened…

Want to ride in the bike lane everywhere you go? Now you can.

(Cool concept if you ignore the fact that drivers might be so distracted by your amazing laser bike lane that they don’t actually pay enough attention to pass you safely. But this IS a step in a positive direction.)

Pardon my language (but I live in Belgium where people really don’t get remotely riled up by supposedly ‘bad’ language, and, anyway, there’s no better way to put this) but this shit just sucks. I’d love for somebody to explain to me how, exactly, cyclists “endanger” drivers.

This nonsense just blows my mind. But I suppose there’s bound to be some blowback as communities around the country take serious steps to make cycling safer (setbacks & disappointments aside) and many more people continue get involved as racers, commuters, or recreational riders.

Anyway, all this is moot over here. I’ve never had trouble with a driver while out on my bike. Not one single time (which is not to say that riding on Brussels’ streets is a picnic, just that people don’t go out of their way to intentionally harass you if you’re on a bike.) Once a truck came a little too close to hitting me for comfort when he didn’t see me in an intersection. The guy actually went out of his way to chase me down and apologize! (In the US he probably would have just thrown a nice ‘apology’ rock at me and moved on.) The only other time I had to actually interact with a driver was when I was carrying my bike over a stretch of road that was totally covered in glass and a guy, not seeing the glass and thinking something was wrong with the bike, pulled over and asked if I needed help.

The weird thing is that the roads here are way narrower and often more crowded than anything in the US, it’s just that there’s a culture of cooperation. Hopefully that kind of culture will grow in the US as more and more people start riding bikes, but for now, I’m not holding my breath.

Credit to metafilter for pointing this story out.

My friend and occasional hiking buddy when I lived in New Hampshire, known to many as the Dining Philosopher, took a trip down to DC last weekend and came back with one photo that really caught my attention.

That would be an original Wright Bicycle — apparently one of five known remaining in the world. That’s Wright as in Wright Brothers — Orville and Wilbur — the fellows who made that first ever flight. If you were paying attention in your elementary school history class, maybe you’ll remember that before they got famous for for building airplanes, they ran a bike shop and, later, the Wright Cycle Company, producing their own line.

So the last four entries now have alternated between complaining about Mavic and joking about how I’d like to end up in prison in Europe. One wonders, does this somehow mean something?

Anyway, yeah, maybe I should commit some crimes in Austria.

Seriously though, this is a good story about prison architecture that you should definitely read.