Bike Talk Podcast

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1. from kpfk in los angeles california valley free radio in florence massachusetts wnuc in detroit
2. and biketalk.org worldwide this is bike talk welcome to bike talk i'm taylor nichols and i'm
3. nick richard hey nick hey we've been talking a lot about the ups and downs the highs and lows
4. of a bike trip like the one I'm doing, one of the things I've taken away is it sort of mirrors the
5. highs and lows and the ups and downs of life in general. It's just more compacted into riding
6. from A to B every day on a bike trip. You know what I mean? We were also talking about how
7. if you want to get a job, plan a trip and you will get a job to mess up your plans for your trip,
8. like the best laid plans, right? It happened. I had to do the trip because I didn't get a job.
9. And then here I am on the trip and I got a job. That's good. No, that's bad because it kind of
10. interrupted my trip. You know what I mean? That's bad. No, that's good because they said they would
11. fly me to LA to shoot it. And so if I could get to Minneapolis, I could fly to LA and interrupt
12. my trip for a few days and do the job and then fly back to Minneapolis. Oh, so that's good. Well,
13. no, that's bad because I was still like 105 miles away from Minneapolis. Oh, that's bad.
14. No, that's actually good. A friend of the show, Brett McGraw, who has been on the show a couple
15. of times, said he would come out and meet me about 50 miles outside of Minneapolis and escort me into
16. the city. Oh, that's good. Well, no, that's bad because it was still a long way and it was windy
17. and Brett and I didn't get into Minneapolis until after 10 p.m. at night when it was dark.
18. That's bad. Well, no, actually, that's good because his wife, Laura, and his brother, Dylan,
19. met us with dinner and cold beer. That's good. Is that the end? That's the end. But you're right.
20. That was good. And I think it shows me how important people like that are on a trip like this. They go out of their way to drive you out of the rain or to ride out of town to pick you up and escort you into town.
21. So I want to play a little bit of sound that I got talking with Brett McGraw and his wife, Laura, and his brother, Dylan, who really opened up their lives for a day to introduce me to Minneapolis. So here's Brett, Laura and Dylan.
22. Cool. So here I am with my escort service, Brett McGraw, who's been on the show a couple of times.
23. He's an advocate from Minneapolis and a lifesaver. Brett, you did 90 miles yesterday coming out to
24. pick me up and bringing me back in. Thank you so much. What inspired you to do that, to leave work
25. a little early and come out and rescue me? Well, when I was coming out to LA over two years ago
26. now and I reached out to you guys and I wanted to go for a ride. We were going to meet and go for a
27. ride or get coffee. And then you had something else going on. So we couldn't get together. And
28. I'm like, I've wanted to meet you in person. We've talked now three times via zoom and I don't need,
29. you can ask Laura. I don't need any excuse to go for a bike ride, which is great because sometimes
30. I do. It's like, I have to run an errand. I have to go to the store, just anything for a bike ride.
31. Well, Laura, your wife, and Dylan, your brother, were both so welcoming last night with bringing us dinner.
32. Laura, how is it with you?
33. You have an e today when we did the tours Tell me a little bit about Minneapolis and tell me about the trails because I don think we rode on a road hardly at all It was almost all trails
34. It's all trails.
35. All the way to St. Paul.
36. We love the trails.
37. I'm not exactly sure where we are, and I'm not exactly sure where we went.
38. So maybe you could kind of give an audience who doesn't know Minneapolis a little bit about our track.
39. We live in St. Louis Park, which is a first ring suburb.
40. Very close, though, just a few miles out of the Minneapolis border.
41. But there's like three entry points from St. Louis Park to get on the trails.
42. Get on the trails and you can head anywhere.
43. You can go into Minneapolis.
44. Anywhere in Minneapolis, there's all different connections.
45. You can hit the Greenway.
46. And which trail was that, the main one?
47. The Midtown Greenway.
48. And then we went on the Midtown Greenway.
49. And we went everywhere and we took you everywhere.
50. We did 30 some odd miles and you were on an e-bike.
51. Tell me a little bit about your e-bike.
52. I love my e-bike.
53. It's a VeloTrick.
54. I have another bike, a Surly Preamble, which is my favorite bike.
55. Brett insisted I get the electric bike because he's going farther and faster,
56. and I do have a little asthma, so sometimes it falls behind.
57. And I might add because Dylan rides really fast.
58. Really, really, really fast.
59. So it's just Dylan and I have to keep up with him.
60. But it's a lifesaver, and now I go farther, but I still ride my preamble.
61. And the best part of the Mid-Term Greenway is we rode 5, 6, 7 miles without stopping,
62. without a stoplight, without traffic.
63. And today was Pride.
64. We did Pride Ride, but that was also really fun
65. with a big group, 50, 60 people maybe.
66. Yeah, got to People's Pride over at Potterhorn Park.
67. No problem.
68. And Dylan, you and I have never met,
69. and I think Brett kind of threw me on you
70. because last night and tonight I'm staying in your guest room,
71. and that's one of the things about this kind of a trip
72. that is so fun for me, meeting people.
73. and relying on their graciousness to help me make this trip happen.
74. You're a pilot for Delta, and you're not flying right now, luckily, so I can be here.
75. Tell me a little bit about how biking fits in your life with your sort of fireman work schedule,
76. you know, three days on flying and maybe three days off.
77. My brother has dragged me kicking and screaming into some of his hobbies.
78. So when I moved to Minneapolis a couple of years ago, we went bike shopping together,
79. and I ended up with a Salsa flat bar gravel bike.
80. and have really gotten into riding.
81. Trying to fit that into my schedule has been a challenge,
82. but it's also incentivized me to other cities, pick up a bike share bike.
83. When you're overnighting in a city that you don't normally go to,
84. you're able to use the bike share bikes or something like that.
85. Yeah, it's really helpful when they do have them, and so you can jump on a bike.
86. We have different apps that we can use, and it says,
87. oh, this bar or this restaurant or whatever has great burgers.
88. or yeah it's always good when the pilot of your plane is saying this bar the long overnights the
89. 30 hour overnights but there's always like food to be had and and you know you're carless which
90. is beautiful which is beautiful so you pick up a bike share and you can ride to a good barbecue
91. joint or fried chicken place or something that's marrying biking at home with biking on the road
92. has really been helpful for me and kind of the job that i do as well the first person i heard that
93. really does that was David Byrne of the Talking Heads. He, on tour, would bring a bike and bike
94. around different cities that they were playing in. So you're following in David Byrne's footsteps,
95. which is, I think, pretty cool. That's very admirable, because I love David Byrne.
96. Brett, what's the number one bike city? Minneapolis.
97. I mean we talked about it before I mean I biked in Los Angeles San Diego New York Chicago Tokyo Copenhagen and Amsterdam And Copenhagen and Amsterdam definitely have a little bit of an edge on us
98. But anywhere I've biked in the U.S., except maybe Ann Arbor, I think Minneapolis is the best.
99. We've got the best infrastructure.
100. And, I mean, riding with you today just reinforced how great it is, how easy it is to get around.
101. Well, it's nice when you can show off the infrastructure to somebody who doesn't know it.
102. Because that makes you appreciate it all the more, I think.
103. Oh, yeah. Definitely.
104. We've had Christopher Taylor, who is the mayor of Ann Arbor, on the show.
105. And he's fighting really hard to make Ann Arbor second or third best bike city.
106. It's looking good.
107. Last time I was there, I was very impressed with what they got going in.
108. I do need to get out to Davis.
109. Davis is supposed to be amazing.
110. Right.
111. And as we've talked about before...
112. Which is in what state?
113. California.
114. That's what I thought.
115. I was a flight instructor in Davis, so I know Davis very well.
116. I think that's the home of the first bike lane.
117. I think so, yeah.
118. And on all the signs, the city in Cigna is the big wheel bike with the big wheel up front, small wheel in the back.
119. As I have been crossing the country, the little towns that say we are a bike-friendly community really means a lot.
120. It means that they have restaurants and markets.
121. It means that they have a camping area, possibly.
122. Maybe they have a shelter.
123. Maybe they have a bike repair stand.
124. But just the fact that the people who are in that town are open to rolling wallets as someone called bikers because they roll through your city and they spend money and then they roll on to the next city.
125. And cars leapfrog all of those cities and bikes stop in every one.
126. So, Brett, Laura and Dylan, you guys made my little trip to Minneapolis.
127. Thank you very much.
128. It's great to see you, Taylor.
129. And can't wait for you to get back and probably do a century and get you off into Wisconsin.
130. So happy to host you. You know, when Brett asked me yesterday when you guys were riding here, of course, I said yes. And it's been great hosting you. And you're welcome anytime, either east or west.
131. Well, it's been wonderful being hosted. So thank you.
132. You're welcome.
133. You know, one of the nice things about having people like that in a town that you don't know is they introduce you to other people who are also riding. So in the morning, we got up and we joined the People's Pride Ride because June is Pride Month.
134. and we rode with about 50 other people to a big park in Minneapolis
135. and I got a chance to speak with some of the people who sponsored and supported the Pride Ride.
136. I'm in Minneapolis and I got to do the People's Pride Ride this morning
137. that was led by Jules and Mel and Brian, who were the three people behind the whole thing.
138. And I wonder if you could start by telling me why a People's Pride Ride is different
139. from a regular Pride ride, and why possibly it's more important.
140. So People's Pride is kind of an alternate take on the classic Twin Cities Pride,
141. which is normally in downtown Minneapolis in Loring Park.
142. And People's Pride is a little more grassroots, like independent,
143. kind of without corporate sponsors.
144. And so we thought it'd be fun to have a ride going here
145. and kind of support the community pride from a queer community space.
146. And so we had a nice six-mile loop to get here.
147. It was beautiful.
148. We know that grassroots work only works if someone steps up.
149. It was simply a matter of like...
150. Stepping up.
151. Stepping up.
152. Who is willing to like do it even if you don't have the skills?
153. Like you can find people that do.
154. Like I actually have not marshaled a ride before I started marshaling with the pedals.
155. That largely because I knew with the pedals it was a safe space to learn And I have people here like Mel like Ryan that are incredible like leaders and organizers themselves That how I kind of came to do this And as far as like
156. why I think like a pride ride is important as well is because like, we know that this grassroots
157. works literally saved our, some of our neighbors, right? It kept during the ice raids and all of
158. that. Correct. Yeah. We talked with Brett McGraw during all of that and it was a pretty traumatic
159. time for everybody, but I can imagine for people from Minneapolis even more so.
160. Yeah, for sure.
161. You said something at the beginning, before we started the ride, about how biking is such
162. a part of creating a community.
163. And I wonder if you could elaborate on that a lot, because that's what we believe at Bike
164. Talk.
165. Certainly.
166. I mean, one of my favorite things of living in uptown is that I literally walk out my
167. door and see some of my best friends, right?
168. The number of times I've run into Brian biking down Bryant and Mel just like walking around the neighborhood.
169. And that just doesn't happen in a car.
170. It does not. Exactly.
171. Where you can stop and chat with each other is that's a result of like our built environment.
172. Like what do we prioritize in transportation?
173. I love living in a walkable urban space because it builds community naturally.
174. Mel, tell me what your role on all of this is
175. and how you feel about bringing people together on a bike
176. to support all different kinds of communities,
177. not just the Pride community, but immigrant community,
178. whatever community needs some support.
179. Yeah, I'm glad I got this question.
180. Pedals was the kind of bike patrol group based in Uptown,
181. but there's so many...
182. And Pedals is the name of the organization?
183. Yeah, it's like Pedals with a T instead of a D,
184. but like flowers and bike pedals, it's play on words.
185. and as Jules kind of mentioned we've kind of transitioned from doing more patrolling stuff to
186. more like group rides but and when you say patrolling you mean patrolling for ice that was
187. in the neighborhood affecting your neighbors yeah so during metro surge like in the heat of it in
188. the winter there was like these signal group chats that were kind of like neighborhood based
189. and you would get on this call and either you'd be walking around or you'd be driving
190. us bikers are crazy and we loved being outside in the cold but also the bike really allowed us
191. to get around in places that cars and people on foot couldn't as fast.
192. The group started because people just started seeing each other on patrol.
193. And then there was like school patrol groups that got organized.
194. And it was just a nice way to get to meet each other.
195. But yeah, speaking of community, there's so many bike groups.
196. Like we bumped into Bonesaw Cycling Collective,
197. which is a wonderful organization in Minneapolis.
198. They do a lot of community rides and a lot of mutual aid work.
199. We just like bumped into them in the last two blocks of our ride.
200. and we said hi to half the people and merged together.
201. But there's so many group rides in Minneapolis.
202. There's a website called msp.bike.
203. I hope I said that right.
204. But Minneapolis bike groups, like you will find it.
205. There's a huge ride calendar.
206. You can find a community for anything.
207. I mean, this is People's Pride ride.
208. We want to do a ride to here.
209. There's rides to Twin Cities Pride probably.
210. Like there's rides every day
211. and for all different types of people.
212. Why is riding in a group to one of these things different?
213. I would say better, but why is it different
214. than just going there on your own?
215. Well, one, biking is fun, and biking with friends is fun.
216. And Minneapolis has great bike infrastructure.
217. Sure does.
218. But not all places and not all the time.
219. And when you have, honestly, more than one person biking at a time,
220. so like two people side by side, it can be tight.
221. We don't have nearly as much space as cars, and it makes it hard.
222. So when you're biking in a group, it just means you can take up more space
223. and you can have fun chatting with people.
224. On the road a little bit too.
225. Yeah, but biking is just so fun and you can just get to go where you want and also the buses sometimes get delayed because of traffic.
226. Because of bikes, probably, right?
227. No, it's because people who want to come to these wonderful events want to park within a block, but the reason they're there is because it's car-free, so it's a lot of fun.
228. A little silly.
229. Well, Mel, Brian, Jules, do you want to say something?
230. I have one more comment about why we ride to an event like this together.
231. I think biking with a group is a great way to meet some new people
232. and to have conversations while we're rolling through maybe a new route
233. we haven't thought of before, and so there's discovery there.
234. But then you get to the event, and you have people you can be at the event together with,
235. new friends, and it just expands the community.
236. You can attack it from all sides.
237. Well, I'm glad you added that because that's totally true,
238. and that's what happened to me today.
239. I met a lot of people and otherwise it would have known.
240. Well, first of all, I wouldn't have even known about it, but now I know about it.
241. So thank you for including me in your ride today.
242. And thanks for coming on Bike Talk.
243. Thank you.
244. Yeah.
245. And if I could add one more thing.
246. Please.
247. I wholeheartedly believe that bikes are love.
248. It brings you closer to nature.
249. It brings you closer to your neighbors.
250. It brings you closer to your friends.
251. One of the things I've learned on my trip riding across the country is biking brings you closer to yourself.
252. Oh, yeah.
253. Also.
254. Oh, yeah.
255. Sure does.
256. Thanks.
257. Yeah, thank you so much.
258. You know, one of the great things about meeting people and these kinds of organizations that support cycling is you really see how people move, you know, from a rider to an advocate to actually working in the business.
259. And one of the people that I rode with on this Pride ride was Christina, and she now works for the DOT.
260. Those are the kind of people that we want working in those jobs.
261. So here's a short interview that I have with Christina.
262. I also ran into Christina, who is on the People's Pride ride, but also an advocate.
263. But also, she works for the Department of Transportation as a planner.
264. Tell me exactly who you work for.
265. I work for Hennepin County.
266. That's the county that Minneapolis is in.
267. And I work as a transportation planner in long-range planning, specifically bike and
268. ped and some car stuff, but mostly bike and ped.
269. You were such a great guide for me because you kind of told me where we were and what was what.
270. And we were on trails almost the whole ride today, which was really nice for everybody.
271. Yeah, we got to use some of the, I would even call them historic trails, around the lakes on Bidet-Makaska and then Lake Harriet.
272. We got to see the Midtown Greenway, which is a rails-to-trails project, probably one of the first huge projects within this part of the Midwest.
273. We've talked about that on our show before and about how important it is that even in Minneapolis,
274. they plow it in the wintertime, which is great.
275. Yeah. This past year, we had an especially snowy winter.
276. It snowed and it stayed, so we really relied on those plows.
277. And we do plow a lot of the protected bike lanes.
278. They have these skinny little plows or these little vehicles with big brushes on the front.
279. Right, right.
280. Because we know that a lot of folks depend on the cycling paths for commuting
281. and getting their families where they need to go.
282. I'm a full-time cyclist all year round.
283. No car, no car, no problems.
284. Yeah, you said you gave up your car a couple of years ago, and you don't miss it at all.
285. I don't.
286. The city and the county and the region is really, really set up in a way that we've made it possible
287. that you don't need a car to survive, and you can even really thrive without having a car.
288. And I think we got to highlight a lot of the hard work that the city, the county, even the state has also,
289. we get a lot of funding from the state.
290. We get a little bit of funding from the federal government.
291. Not as much as we used to at the moment, but, you know, those grants will come back.
292. And, like, our parks department is amazing here.
293. So we have parkways.
294. We have this area called the Grand Rounds that we rode a little bit of today.
295. You got your graduate degree in urban design?
296. Yeah, I went to The Ohio State University for urban planning for my grad program.
297. My background is in ecology so I really think about how do cities and transportation and the environment ideally meet But I work a lot in people and planet conflict And you said that you were an advocate for a long time or did it sort of start after you got your degree
298. Tell me what the transition was, because I'm really interested in how advocates move into positions of power.
299. I think I was an advocate without knowing it.
300. When I lived in Cincinnati, I worked at a place called Nobo.
301. It was a bike co-op, so you could learn to work on bikes, and then you earn your bike that you fill yourself.
302. And going from that into showing up to city council meetings because I wanted better bike lanes,
303. or I wanted just clearer rules for drivers and education for kids so that people learn how to ride a bike as part of the curriculum in elementary schools, which we do here.
304. Right, which is all connected, right?
305. Yes.
306. Get kids riding early.
307. You know, I'm from Los Angeles, and lots of times kids can't ride because there's not ample space for them to ride.
308. Here there is with the bike paths.
309. Yeah, and safety education.
310. And when I moved here and I had to take my driver's test again, I was surprised that there were questions about bicyclists and how much space you need to give them.
311. And if someone's riding on the shoulder on a 50-mile-an-hour road, which I'm sure you did on your way here.
312. I did.
313. What are my responsibilities as a vehicle operator?
314. So yeah, everything is really connected.
315. And I think in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Twin Cities, general area,
316. it's really obvious how much work and care has gone into making this space perfect.
317. Yeah, planning, right.
318. Well, it's a beautiful city.
319. And thank you so much for the work that you do in the city.
320. Thanks for being my guide.
321. And thanks for coming on Bike Talk.
322. Yeah, and I hope we will see you on our podcast too at StreetsMN.
323. I'd love that.
324. Thank you so much.
325. One of the great things about Minneapolis, Nick, is this Midtown Greenway.
326. And we have talked about it before on the show.
327. It is a 10, 12, 15 mile highway for bicycles right through the middle of Minneapolis.
328. And it is so much fun to ride on.
329. It's flat because it is a rails to trails route.
330. And it goes right through the heart of Minneapolis.
331. and it goes right by this really great bike store called Venture Bikes.
332. And sure enough, one of the guys we were riding with got a flat tire.
333. So we went into Venture Bikes and I spoke with the manager.
334. So we've been seeing the sights of Minneapolis.
335. And sure enough, one of our group got a flat tire.
336. Luckily, it was right outside of Venture Bicycle Shop.
337. I'm talking with...
338. Atanua Theba is my name.
339. And the name of the bike shop is Venture Bicycle Company.
340. Yes, Venture Bikes.
341. Okay.
342. And you're in Minneapolis, obviously.
343. You fix flats, you sell bikes.
344. You were talking about states.
345. First, tell me a little bit about your shop
346. And tell me about the riding that you're doing
347. And people are doing out of your shop
348. Totally, so we are really a bike shop on technicality
349. That we have to be a shop to keep the lights on
350. We ultimately try to be a community space
351. For people doing whatever they do
352. Yeah, there's lots of tables out front
353. Which was really nice
354. Yeah, and so it's a crazy mix of what we offer
355. We host community bike rides
356. That are just about being outside
357. And the community exploring the city
358. We host group rides that do training
359. and performance-focused development.
360. We also are just the local hub for several clubs and study groups and book clubs
361. and all sorts of just super cool stuff.
362. But the secret back thing that we also do is we are directly connected
363. to one of the largest medical hubs in the metro area.
364. And I might add the Midtown Greenway.
365. Yeah, and we're physically connected to the Midtown Greenway.
366. So we have this amazing relationship with Alina Health, Abbott Northwestern,
367. Children Hospital and we are also taking care of their riders and they have created facilities that allow their staff to ride to work keep their bikes safe shower and change and do everything they need to to be ready for a full day of hospital work
368. Wow, that's fantastic.
369. I think for me, being kind of the manager of the shop,
370. I'm so grateful that I have the opportunity to look at someone,
371. have them walk in and say, you know, I need a bike or I need to fix this.
372. And whether the budget is $10 or $10,000, I get to sit and work with them directly.
373. Oh, that's great.
374. Well, thanks very much for talking to me and thanks for fixing my buddy's wheel.
375. Yeah. Well, thank you for coming in and I'm sorry you got the flat,
376. but I'm glad we could take care of you.
377. No, it's, you know, sometimes the good and the bad.
378. So yeah, it's so great that you made it to Minneapolis.
379. It's supposed to be one of the great bike cities in America.
380. They say it's the number one bike city in the country.
381. I recently spoke with Dave from Bike Talk with Dave and he says Des Moines,
382. Iowa could be number one. And of course, people in New York say New York's number one.
383. But Minneapolis has a lot of good infrastructure to allow people to choose to ride a bike.
384. So you're on other bike talks?
385. People have been reaching out and wanting to know about the trip. It's been really fun to
386. meet some of the other podcasters who are in the same world as we are and, you know,
387. talk about not only bike talk, but talk about the trip and, you know, the good fight that we are all
388. trying to fight. Yeah, no, I'm glad you're doing that because like I've seen bike talk with Dave
389. every time I go look for bike talk on Apple podcasts. And that's cool that you finally met.
390. Well, he was very clear that he added the with Dave because you had started bike talk long before
391. he started bike talk. Well, hi, Dave. And Dave was great. We had a good talk and it's a good show.
392. I've heard the show in the past. There's a listener email. They said, my name is Kim and I'm a new
393. bicyclist. I just started following your podcast. My sister and I are planning a long ride from
394. Richardson, North Dakota to New Rockford, North Dakota over four days. This is my first long ride
395. and my sister's second but longest ride. What is your best advice you could give us? That's a great
396. question. And I have learned so much from other people on my trip that I'm absolutely happy to
397. help Kim. I actually rode through Richardson and camped very near there. My advice right off the
398. bat, though, is to make sure you understand how to use the adventure cycling maps and the ride GPS
399. digital interfaces, because that is really helpful when you plan your trip. So make sure you do it
400. on your phone that you practice how to set up your ride because then you can just have your phone on
401. your bike and it will tell you in a quarter mile turn right onto Wichita Street or whatever the
402. street is. And that takes so much guesswork and anxiety out of the trip that you can just enjoy
403. the scenery and the sights. It's funny, the town that I rode through previous to Richardson was
404. actually called Taylor. And I stopped in Taylor, North Dakota and had a beer in a bar and ended up
405. talking with this guy, Kenny. And he told me about a campground about five miles outside of
406. Richardson. Now that might be too early for Kim and her sister to stop at, but it was a wonderful
407. place to go and spend the night. Two miles down this really beautiful dirt road just outside of
408. Now, I'm not sure where Rockford is, but I think if they practice with the adventure
409. cycling maps and the ride with GPS digital interface they be very comfortable on their trip planning how many miles they want to ride where they want to camp where they can get some food where they can find a restaurant
410. where they can find a campground, and that'll make the trip much, much easier.
411. Wow. I thought it was going to be something about keeping your shifter lubricated.
412. You know, I have really struggled with that, Nick. Brett in Minneapolis even took it to the
413. bike store while I'm here at home in Los Angeles for these few days shooting this film. And I don't
414. think they were able to fix it all the way either. They said, maybe your left arm and your left hand
415. is getting weak. No, you know, maybe it is. Yeah. Like they didn't see a problem with it. Well,
416. they have lubed it and I think it's better. But the mechanic did say these Shimano 105 shifters
417. can be stiff and maybe, you know, leaning on my hands for eight hours a day on the handlebars
418. day after day has possibly weakened my hand. I don't know. But my wife was concerned by that
419. and said, hey, when you're back, let's go to the doctor. Oh, my God. I don't think it's serious.
420. My left hand feels good. I don't know why the shifter would all of a sudden change and why I
421. would all of a sudden lose any any real strength in my left arm. But I want to thank Brett for
422. taking it to the bike store while I was out of town for those couple of days.
423. Thanks, Brett.
424. And for Kimberly, that does seem like the best piece of advice, you know, know your
425. route.
426. And adventure cycling, I guess there's no substitute for them if you're going cross
427. country.
428. Does it have to be with ride with GPS?
429. That's one example.
430. There's also Komoot, but adventure cycling works with ride with GPS.
431. So on my trip, I've been using the adventure cycling maps for the big picture and then
432. the ride with GPS digital interface for the day to day. And I think that's how adventure cycling
433. wants us to do it, wants you to do it when you're on a bike trip, because you can really get into
434. the nitty gritty with the ride with GPS. You can really see where you are, where adventure cycling
435. is just a digital map and it doesn't really show you where you are on the route. I hope Kim keeps
436. in touch with us and lets us know how her trip goes, because once you've sort of gotten over the
437. hump of doing a short trip, then you realize a longer trip is just more of the same. And it's
438. really an experience to get out of your comfort zone and meet those other people and go to those
439. other places. I'm Stacey with this week's news. The Carlsbad Police Department unveiled an online
440. portal where residents can report unsafe e-bike riding by submitting photos, videos, and details
441. about when and where incidents occurred. The reporting portal is the latest step in the
442. city's broader effort. They recently adopted stricter regulations including a minimum riding
443. age of 12, helmet requirements for riders under 18, restrictions on e-bike use at two community
444. parks, and authority for officers to issue 48-hour impounds for e-bikes when riders are caught
445. operating them recklessly. No word on when a dangerous driver portal will open. Virginia and
446. Arizona will be the first states to incorporate speed limiting devices for dangerous drivers.
447. In Virginia, it will be required for drivers caught speeding over 100 miles per hour.
448. In Arizona, it will be offered in exchange for license revocation for any dangerous driver.
449. The Intelligence Speed Assistance Program will use GPS technology to monitor and restrict a
450. vehicle speed, with judges deciding on a case-by-case basis whether and for how long to implement the
451. limiter. Offenders must cover installation and maintenance costs of the device until
452. hampering with it could result in a misdemeanor charge. These are two of seven states that have
453. signed intelligent speed assistance into law. Maryland will come online in October, Illinois
454. and New York in 2027, Georgia in 2028, and Washington State in 2029. Meanwhile, the District
455. of Columbia has had this in place since 2024. Midwest Cyclery in Kansas City was the lucky
456. recipient of a call from the Dutch national soccer team. They bought 17 bright orange bikes for their
457. team to use while in town. Since Momentum Magazine ranked the 16 World Cup venues by bike access,
458. and Kansas City came in last place, Momentum used the methodology behind the Copenhagenize
459. Index and the People for Bikes City ratings. It isn't simply whether a stadium has bike racks or
460. a nearby trail. Instead, the rankings consider the quality of the surrounding cycling network,
461. the connectivity of bike infrastructure, proximity to city centers, and how comfortably an average
462. rider, not just a fearless commuter, could reach a match. We have an interview with Mark O'Connor
463. with Families for Safe Streets about their new framework for autonomous vehicles. You know,
464. we were talking with Jim Pokras a couple of weeks ago about that. So I'm curious what the framework
465. is. And I'm curious what Jim might say about it when he comes back on the show. Yeah. So here's
466. Mark O'Connor. This is Mark O'Connor, Policy Counsel for Families for Safe Streets. Families
467. for Safe Streets is coming out with a framework for autonomous vehicles, which, among other things,
468. would make safety standards that are comparable to the airline industry. That's what we are calling
469. for and insisting upon, yes. AVs, autonomous vehicles, would have to be safer than human
470. drivers in any environment and for all groups. Yes, and not just safer. What we're saying is
471. that autonomous vehicles should be substantially safer than human drivers. The reason why we're
472. saying that is the past 100 years of cars on our roads have been an absolute disaster, right? We
473. have more than 40,000 people killed every year in recent years. Over the past century, that has
474. translated into more than 4 million people on US roads that have been killed. And if we is purely
475. setting parity with human drivers as what we require of AVs, we would essentially be accepting
476. the status quo and the history of this carnage on our roads, which is what Families for Safe Streets
477. exists to prevent. So Families for Safe Streets is an organization of survivors of traffic violence
478. or families of people who were killed. Absolutely. Individuals. It was founded by people who had lost
479. loved ones. And it consists of people, also members who have been injured themselves in
480. traffic crashes. And so we advocate for life-saving policies and provide support
481. for crash victims as well. You're really prepared to be the ones to bring this up.
482. I believe so, yes. This is certainly a part of the autonomous vehicle discussion
483. that has been missing and the voices of people impacted is critical.
484. It's an interesting comparison to the airline industry to have AVs regulated that way.
485. Yeah, so basically what we're saying is that the carnage on our roads over the past century
486. from an automobile-focused set of policies that have not put human life first,
487. that is not something that has come about by happenstance It not because driving is inherently dangerous And we make the comparison to commercial passenger aviation to essentially highlight that fact that it not inevitable
488. the carnage on our roads, and also to learn from commercial passenger aviation for what we can do,
489. what we must do in the US to make our streets, our roads safer, and especially with autonomous
490. vehicles. And so just to make the comparison to aviation today, aviation is not inherently safe.
491. This is some kind of an argument that we often hear when we try to make this comparison between
492. autonomous vehicles and driving and aviation. Airplanes fly across the US and across oceans
493. through serious weather around the world and here in the US achieve a safety record of essentially
494. zero passenger deaths in an average year. That's not inevitable. That is something that has come
495. about through decades of focusing on implementing redundancy measures to layer your operations and
496. your equipment kind of production with safety nets throughout, which is what we are adopting
497. and applying here with the safe systems approach for autonomous vehicles. We know from cars on our
498. streets and our roads in the US that the safety measures that have been implemented have often
499. been implemented reluctantly by auto companies from seatbelts to airbags to crumple zones. These
500. were measures that were often opposed and were often criticized as being too costly or not worth
501. it, but they were eventually implemented through advocacy from victims and others. And what we're
502. saying is that we need to move from crash mitigation measures that react and try to
503. mitigate harm after it has occurred to actually preventing crashes from happening in the first
504. place, which is what we do with commercial aviation in the US. Presumably with AVs, it's more like a
505. centralized operation. Like aviation, you don't have random people flying their own planes
506. everywhere. No. And what we are calling for in this framework is that regulators certify where,
507. when, and how AV companies can operate on our roads. We propose essentially a staged
508. certification pathway that starts with AVs operating only in simulated environments and
509. then moving through this staged pathway with kind of increased autonomy and having to meet
510. increasing safety standards that we lay out in the framework as well.
511. And so what we developed was this two-pronged gain and guard rule that says that where AVs
512. operate, they must be substantially safer overall on average.
513. That's the first prong.
514. and then the second prong is that AVs can never be worse in any single environment or condition
515. and all of this is compared to human drivers. So that's kind of the gain and guard rule that
516. we need to achieve gains. AVs have to be substantially safer on average when measured
517. on crash injury and fatality rates compared to human drivers and then the guard part is that we
518. need to guard against the so-called edge cases of catastrophic regression of AVs, where they
519. suddenly do something that is wild.
520. And for that part, we are saying that they can never be worse than a human driver in
521. any of those areas in which they operate.
522. So that the gain and guard rule And you can attach different levels of safety We are saying that right now we should not set the standard for the gain portion for AVs any less than 10 times safer
523. than human drivers, which is based on current data. So that's the gist of the gain and guard rule.
524. Yeah, there's another rule, the lawful AV.
525. Yeah, so the lawful AV is a complementary framework to the gain and guard rule. So
526. you could have an AV and company that satisfies the gain and guard rule, but still engages in
527. kind of unlawful driving on a regular basis, blocking the sidewalk, blocking the crosswalk,
528. the bike lane, a host of unlawful behavior that doesn't necessarily result in immediate
529. and measurable harm. And what we are saying is that regulators must have this lawful AV
530. framework where for ABE companies that accumulate a certain number of these instances of unlawful
531. behavior, that it triggers an investigation. That investigation could lead to suspension.
532. That suspension could lead to revocation of the ABE company's certificate to operate.
533. So those are kind of two complementary frameworks that are meant to both ensure that ABEs remain
534. safe and that they also interact with all of us in ways that are predictable for everyone
535. around them also gain public trust.
536. We recognize the shortcomings of current federal regulation in the area of autonomous driving
537. on our roads.
538. And the framework that we have established is one that can really be applied on any level,
539. whether it's federal, state, or local.
540. And we lay out some clear frameworks that states can adopt right now and some standards that they should follow by prioritizing human life.
541. I was going to say, if you leave it to the federal government, they don't like regulation.
542. They don't like safety, really, I would say.
543. So it might be regulated at the state or city level, but at least it's not going to be self-regulating like the tech people.
544. They're not going to be policing themselves.
545. No, to us, that's unacceptable.
546. There are some helpful regulatory approaches that are happening in different places, but the self-certification by AV companies would be repeating the process that has existed in the US for decades where auto companies self-certify.
547. And then we rely on mass recalls of cars, some years recalls affecting more than 30 million cars, to kind of fix the problems afterwards.
548. But we don't do that in aviation.
549. In aviation, you have these rigid and thorough certification pathways that don't rely on recalls as the primary way to improve safety after harm has occurred.
550. There's a few other areas in which we apply aviation style policies. Another is on liability. I was listening to a show of yours recently where you discussed liability for AVs.
551. And what we are proposing is essentially a strict liability system for AVs where similar to the aviation and maritime industries you have a two structure where if you are harmed by an AV you are guaranteed compensation up until a certain threshold And that kind of the first tier And then beyond that threshold there is an assumed liability essentially on the part of the AV company that they caused the harm
552. but it can be disputed by the AV company. It shouldn't just be the AV operator, Waymo or
553. someone else that is responsible. We should establish a pool compensation fund where all
554. of the companies that are significantly involved in making and operating the AV that they pay into
555. that compensation fund. And then individuals who are harmed will be paid from that compensation
556. fund. And then between themselves, the different companies afterwards, they can figure out what
557. liability between them should look like, how different levels that each company should pay
558. into that compensation fund. And that really was motivated by the experiences of Families for Safe
559. Streets members who will share the absolutely broken system of insurance and liability today
560. in the US, where if you are harmed, you have to navigate often years of litigation with various
561. different parties that are involved. There can be different parts of the vehicle that could have
562. failed, can be more than one driver involved, all of those different challenges that can delay
563. justice and compensation. And with an AV world, that's only going to be complicated many times
564. over and extremely more complex. The current and kind of historic liability and insurance
565. system doesn't work as it is, and it is terribly suited for an AV world. So that's why we are
566. calling for an aviation style two-tier liability with a pooled compensation fund.
567. It sounds like a really smart model to look at aviation.
568. We think so.
569. And for your listeners, the entire framework is available on familiesforsafestreet.org.
570. There's a whole lot more to it.
571. It's an 80-page document.
572. Indeed it is.
573. Thank you so much for having us on.
574. Thank you, Marco.
575. It's great to talk to you and Families for Safe Streets.
576. Thank you.
577. You know, it's interesting to hear Families for Safe Streets talk about the carnage on our roads for the last hundred years.
578. You know, people who have lost people to traffic violence.
579. And to know that there's this debate out there about whether autonomous vehicles are good, because a lot of people say they increase car dependency.
580. Right.
581. There'll be more driving.
582. It's easier to do because when you're not in the car, also the car could be driving around looking for cheaper parking.
583. Right. Yeah. Not just more trips, but possibly more miles. Right.
584. But they're looking to make them significantly safer than human drivers.
585. Yeah. Next up is Bob, who I met on the trail coming into Minneapolis.
586. It was a bike path.
587. And one of the things he sort of complained about, he was going east to west, is the amount
588. of cars on the road.
589. And I had that issue too in certain areas.
590. And I remember a couple of weeks ago, I said, you know, some of these truck drivers can't
591. lose their jobs fast enough to AI.
592. Maybe the AV cars will make these kinds of trips safer for cyclists on the road.
593. So this is an interview with Bob on the road.
594. And you can hear in his voice that he's struggling a little bit. I think part of it was the traffic and part of it was the cold. But I also think part of it was maybe he did not have the support system that I have had from the listeners of Bike Talk and from people like Brett McGraw.
595. and his wife, Laura and Dylan and other people that I've met on the road and really our bike
596. talk family. And that has meant a lot to me and helped me through some of my lows.
597. That's good.
598. Yeah, that's good. You're exactly right. That is good. So here's Bob.
599. So I'm almost in Minneapolis and I run into Bob Shuck, who is coming from the East Coast,
600. going to the West Coast, and he's just leaving Minneapolis, I guess.
601. I'm not sure where you slept last night.
602. But we were talking a little bit about navigation
603. and how important that is on a trip like this.
604. Tell me the struggles that you're having.
605. Well, you know, in the old days, you had a paper map.
606. I still have some of those.
607. But, you know, it's just major roads.
608. The one thing with the ride with GPS that really actually threw me for a loop,
609. have you ever looked at it?
610. Yeah, of course.
611. It has all the different types of map categories.
612. Right.
613. So when I set this up, I did it on a laptop because it's a hell of a lot easier to look at and see it than to work on it.
614. Right.
615. What I liked is I used the Google Map category on it because you could automatically kind of like zoom in and many things were there.
616. Right.
617. Restaurants were there, places to stay, things like that.
618. And then they have a thing called like points of interest.
619. Right.
620. And then you could go and you could put additional things in because unless you zoomed in, you wouldn't see the other things.
621. But if you put points of interest, you could always see those.
622. so I spent a hundred hours or more like putting in all these points of interest and not worrying
623. about all these things from google maps because I'm like I'll be able to just zoom in and they'll
624. be there and it wasn't till a few days before I went away that I actually started using my phone
625. for it yeah yeah I used it biking around town a little bit and stuff and I went to use it and I go
626. there's google maps and it was on a Friday right and it takes like two days to hear back from them
627. and they only write you back.
628. And I think I was leaving Monday.
629. I Google about the private GPS, and they go,
630. they don't use Google Maps on their phones.
631. So all your planning.
632. Yeah, all the planning.
633. And I'm going, everything that I had spent on is kind of gone.
634. So luckily, I have brought two phones with me.
635. One I bought as a used one with a little bit of a bigger screen
636. that I use for the trip, and that's my regular phone.
637. But what I end up finding is I'm running both so I can see the things that are on the Google Maps.
638. On your one.
639. Because I can't see.
640. And then you're trying to figure out where you are on the maps.
641. You know, that's so similar to the issues I've been having with Ride GPS.
642. So that's the lesson, I think, if we're going to give anybody who's thinking about a trip like this, figure that stuff out first and how to do it on your phone.
643. Go out and really test it.
644. Yeah, and test it.
645. Because I went and did just a ride where I recorded it.
646. That's no good.
647. It's like set something up.
648. Yeah, and getting your miles for the day and all of that kind of stuff.
649. Well, tell me where you're starting from and where you're going to.
650. I started just north of Boston at the coast.
651. I live in New York, in upstate New York, so I got a ride there.
652. Okay.
653. And then going to the coast of Oregon.
654. And then how are you going to get home?
655. Maybe I stay I don even know how I ended up at that spot It was just kind of when you set the map it just flew there There a bike shop there I talked to them a while ago
656. They'll box up.
657. Sure.
658. And I forget the company that does the shipping.
659. Yeah, you can do that.
660. Most airlines do also.
661. There's a company that ships bikes.
662. And that's the least of my concerns.
663. So let me get there, and I'll figure out how to get the bike back.
664. Well, you said that you've been out about a month.
665. And let me ask you this, because this is something that I'm struggling with.
666. What are you doing with your regular life while you're out here?
667. What does that mean?
668. I mean, how are you handling your regular life?
669. Are there people at home?
670. Well, I retired a year and a half ago.
671. But, you know, there's a lot of thinking to do ahead of the game.
672. Like, I've never been one who's, you know, been too thrilled with all the Internet and technology and stuff.
673. But I spent the last year or so converting over all my accounts and getting those things set up so that things could get paid and things like that.
674. Technically, my house is as hot as hell.
675. Somebody went in it the other day and said it's all stuffy because there's nobody there.
676. My kids are elsewhere.
677. I try to handle what I can remotely.
678. The one thing that I always have to tell people is it's kind of like a 24-hour job.
679. It is.
680. It's not, oh, it's like so much fun.
681. I mean, every day there's at least two goddamn detours that go to nowhere.
682. I doubled back today, went over two interstates and stuff to get back,
683. hoping that trail would be open because they don't tell you where it would be open.
684. You know, you get up in the morning, you know, you've got to figure out if you're going to get something to eat or get it later.
685. I bring my bags, I take my bags off every night.
686. Right.
687. They're kind of a mishmash.
688. You have to repack everything.
689. It takes forever.
690. Packing's a problem, yeah.
691. And then it's like, is the weight good?
692. Is this good?
693. My brackets broke off my back like one weekend.
694. They're zip-tied.
695. By the time you get started, you've burned a bunch of time.
696. And then you're like, where are you staying?
697. If you're going to do that, I have all the stuff for sleeping outside.
698. I barely ever used it because it's been so cold until this last week.
699. Oh, really?
700. I've been camping a lot.
701. I've been camping three days, staying in a hotel, camping three or four days.
702. and I was cold through North Dakota and Montana
703. and I think you're going to go that way
704. on the northern tier area.
705. A lot of mornings I've been leaving
706. and not even really early,
707. getting out seven, you know, it's been 47 degrees.
708. Yeah, yeah.
709. And I'm not camping in it.
710. And that's another thing is if you're camping,
711. it takes even more time than if you're staying in a hotel.
712. And I started off doing way more miles than I anticipated.
713. I was going to say like 60 a day.
714. I was doing 80, 75.
715. Today I'm doing 70 plus.
716. Yeah.
717. Because the weather's getting funky.
718. Yeah.
719. And I'm going to try to do a long today, a long tomorrow, and then two shorter ones.
720. And then find a place where there's rain.
721. Two shorter ones.
722. So if I need to run because I'm trying to get the fire going.
723. But anyway, you'll be working nonstop if you're camping out because then your gear's wet.
724. Yeah.
725. You don't want to do with it.
726. I gotten pretty good at setting stuff up and taking it down But you know the good thing for you is you have the mountains coming I wanted to do this when I was like a kid in college Same with me But I always said I had to work and make money for it
727. And everybody's like, isn't it like the greatest thing?
728. And I'm like, eh.
729. I think it would have been a lot more fun then because, first of all,
730. ignorance would have played a bigger hand in it.
731. Right.
732. But also, there's just so many damn cars and trucks.
733. Well, it's nice that we're on a trail now, and you'll have a trail for the next two days until you're almost out of Minnesota.
734. Then you're back on the road.
735. But it's kind of discouraging with the traffic, honestly.
736. When I came in, when you're going to go through Minneapolis, my first two days, I came over from Wisconsin, from La Crosse.
737. Those first two days were almost like heavy highway riding the whole time.
738. It was Route 61.
739. and i'll watch for that because i am going through um wisconsin no options you were pinned against
740. the river yeah there was a train 80 of those two days were on highway the only thing positive i
741. could say is it wasn't as busy as i thought it would be good but you know when you're on those
742. roads then you're watching debris and you know i've seen more road than i've seen scenery yeah
743. well that's going to change because you're going to see a lot of scenery coming up but i totally
744. understand about the traffic. What my takeaway has been the highs and the lows. You know, you go from
745. a low one morning to a high that afternoon or a high one morning to a low that afternoon when the
746. rain starts. So I hope that the highs stay high for you and the lows stay out of the picture.
747. The bad thing is that it has been cold. The good thing is it hasn't been blissfully hot.
748. And that's kind of thing too, by the end of the week, it's supposed to get real warm. So I was
749. try to shorten the rides because that's been positive, but it's been hard to camp out.
750. It's been the strangest weather.
751. And anybody I've asked, you know, like people who work on the trails,
752. and they'll go, I've never seen wind like this, like, my whole life.
753. I mean, it's been...
754. The wind is tough. I totally agree.
755. And I want you to look for Kay on the road, okay?
756. Kay will be coming west to east, and she's 71.
757. So she's out there doing it all.
758. So, Bob, thanks a lot.
759. Okay, and good luck to you.
760. I wish Bob the best of luck because he's got some really beautiful country in front of him.
761. And he'll be riding on roads that won't be as traffic laden as many of the roads in the east were.
762. And so I hope he really gets an opportunity to enjoy the ride and it warms up a little bit.
763. And he makes it all the way to the West Coast.
764. Go Bob.
765. Yeah.
766. That's the show.
767. Good show.
768. We want to thank Brett McGraw and Laura and Dylan.
769. And we want to thank everybody on the Pride ride, Jules and Brian and Mel.
770. And I want to thank Christina and, of course, the people at Venture Bike Shop.
771. And we want to thank Mark O'Connor with Families for Safe Streets.
772. And I want to thank Bob for stopping and talking to me and letting me in on the struggles of his ride.
773. And of course we always want to thank our regulars Julie Richard Josh Hagelin Kevin Burton Amy Ziering Lindsey Sturman and Stacey Randekker Do you have a quote You know I do This is one I think that we done before It by Scott Stoll
774. And it's, a bicycle ride around the world begins with a single pedal stroke.
775. And I think that is so true.
776. Certainly in my case, and I hope with Kim in her case, and Bob in his case, and anybody else who is planning a long trip, you just got to start pedaling.
777. Thanks, Taylor.
778. Ride safe.
779. This episode of Bike Talk is sponsored by the law offices of Pocras and Talos Reyes,
780. with offices in Los Angeles and Bakersfield, and serving all of Southern California.
781. Bike Talk is a project of CRSP and the Los Angeles Ecovillage Institute.
782. And that was Bike Talk.
783. If you have a story, a tip, or a topic, head over to biketalk.org and send us a message.
784. Talk again next week.
785. Get on your bike.
786. Sit on the seat.
787. Put your feet on the pedal
788. And ride it all around, ride it all around
789. Get on your bike
790. Sit on the seat
791. Put your feet on the pedal
792. And ride it all around, ride it all around
793. Oh, get that car out of my way
794. I wanna ride my bike today
795. Keep me fit, get me there
796. I won't go stinking up the air
797. Leave me high, I'm a daily grind
798. Let your mind unwind
799. Live this life, pretend to lie
800. Better get yourself a bike
801. Get on your bike
802. Sit on the seat
803. Push your feet on the pedal
804. And run it all around, run it all around
805. Get on your bike
806. Sit on the seat
807. Push your feet on the pedal
808. And run it all around, run it all around
809. Get that car out of my way
810. I wanna ride my bike today
811. Keep it fit, get me there
812. I won't go stinking up the alley
813. Behind the dinner grind
814. Let your mind unwind
815. If it's life, pretend to lie
816. Better get yourself a bike
817. see you next time.
818. Oh, got your self a vibe?