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Introducing The Nation’s New CSIs

February 28, 2018/2 Comments/in The Savvy Cyclist /by Karen Karabell

Eight more dreamers in our ranks!

The solid citizens who traversed the country earlier this month to become CyclingSavvy Instructors might be surprised to hear themselves described as such. But right now there’s still so few of us (people who know how to go by bike anywhere now, rather than waiting for some imaginary future when it will finally be “safe” to ride).

That’s OK! These guys are going to make dreams come true. I’d like to introduce you to the nation’s newest CyclingSavvy Instructors:

Jacob Adams

Jacob came the shortest distance with an audacious goal: He’s ready to transform the University of Florida’s car-centric culture.

He’s in a position to do so. Jacob currently works on bike programming for the university’s Office of Sustainability. He intends to use both education and encouragement to show people how easy it can be to choose bicycling.

CyclingSavvy Instructors learn from their colleague Jacob Adams in Orlando.

CSI Jacob Adams (at right) uses his engaging and entertaining style to make an intimidating road easy to navigate by bike

Jacob lives in Gainesville. He’s a lifelong cyclist passionate about sharing the value of cycling with the world. He’s managed bike shops, worked as a community organizer, organized bike races throughout Florida, and delivered food for Jimmy John’s — by bike, of course.

Jacob described his training weekend as “an invaluable experience.”

“The CyclingSavvy curriculum is a game changer for safer cycling and for improving the overall standing of cyclists in the hierarchy of transportation resource users,” he observed.

“The system feels like magic when it’s implemented. I want to give that gift to other cyclists.”

Jacob loved working directly with CyclingSavvy co-founder Keri Caffrey.

“Keri and the entire CSI team at the seminar created an accepting and encouraging space that made it possible for all the instructor candidates to learn and grow during the weekend. Having the opportunity to learn the intricacies of the program from the team that conceived, developed and implemented it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I will always look back upon fondly.

“Turns out Orlando isn’t so bad after all!”

Randy Dull

CSI Randy Dull is at the front on the right, leading instructors to their next destination

Randy lives in Columbus, Ohio. He’s been involved with USA Cycling as both a racer and coach. He’s done race promoting and taught bike maintenance classes. He rides almost every day. Check out the impressive ride log he keeps on his company’s work site.

“I love to ride,” Randy wrote. “In addition to recreational riding, I’ve been commuting to school and work by bike since I was 15 — an opportunity for two more rides per day!”

The process for becoming a CyclingSavvy instructor is intense. Randy observed that he learned quite a bit from his fellow students as well as the instructors. He looks forward to passing it on.

“Helping others to gain skill and confidence on the bike is my quest,” he said. “CSI training provided great help with both subject matter and teaching techniques. This was time well spent.”

Carl Fenske

CyclingSavvy instructors at the beginning of an intense and rewarding day.

CSI Carl Fenske (at front left) describing what to expect on the Tour of Orlando

Carl hails from Greensboro, NC. He describes himself as a cycle tourist, urban bike commuter and cycling advocate. He’s ridden across America and led several self-contained youth cycling tours from Maine to Florida, as well as in England. During his 38-year career as a science teacher, Carl commuted six of those years to and from school by bike, and taught summer cycling camps.

Carl never heard of CyclingSavvy until last fall. “When I first discovered CyclingSavvy, I watched several of the videos and was intrigued by the concepts presented there,” he said.

He immediately subscribed to CyclingSavvy Online, but then discovered and signed up for a three-day workshop in Charlotte, led by veteran instructor Pamela Murray.

“It was there that I was able to gain new approaches to teaching cycling skills and strategic riding practices,” Carl said. “I inquired about becoming an instructor because I wanted to continue my CyclingSavvy journey.”

Carl called it a “privilege” to work with Keri during his instructor training — and then took his observation a step further.

“She’s identified and solved so many common problems that urban cyclists frequently encounter, she may become known as the Mother of Modern Bicycle Transportation.”

Les Leathem

Les is one of the guys behind These Guys Bike. He maintains there’s a big difference between knowing how to balance on two wheels and riding.

CyclingSavvy instructors learn all sorts of ways to communicate. Les Leathem practices “chalk talk” in a parking garage in Downtown Orlando

“Riding a bicycle means feeling confident at any time,” he says. “It means the ability to ride in most weather conditions, it means using it for exercise, transportation, or just the sheer joy of getting outside and doing something!”

A native of New Orleans, Les has returned home after many years away. He is Louisiana’s first CyclingSavvy instructor. He’s excited by the rapid rise of bicycling in NOLA, and looks forward to helping people discover savvy cycling.

“Remember: Whenever, however, wherever you ride, you are an advocate,” he says. “And what you communicate matters.”

Les was already one of the nation’s top cycling instructors when he decided to check out CyclingSavvy. He’s a coach for the League of American Bicyclists, teaching others how to become League-certified instructors.

This bicycle expert was surprised when he took CyclingSavvy.

“Taking the basic course, I learned a lot,” Les wrote in his application to become a CyclingSavvy instructor. “The focus of the course was very useful and different. I’d like to be able to offer that perspective to the community.”

Damon Richards

Damon is the executive director of IndyCog, the bike advocacy nonprofit serving Indianapolis. He’s an Indianapolis native and Indiana’s first CyclingSavvy instructor. He says he’s “pretending to be retired” from running a small computer consulting company. As head of IndyCog, he wants to create more bike riders in Central Indiana.

Damon & Randy describe their road features for the Tour of Orlando

CSI Damon Richards and CyclingSavvy co-founder Keri Caffrey discuss the road feature he’ll be leading later that day, as instructor trainer Lisa Walker and CSI Randy Dull listen

And not just Indiana. Damon’s recent ride across America led him to an epiphany. Every single day delivered kind encounters, almost always with strangers and even when he thought it might be otherwise.

He’ll never forget being stranded on a lonely road in Oklahoma as he changed a flat tire. A guy in a large pickup truck roared by. As he flew down the road, Damon looked up to notice the guns on the rack behind the bench seat.

A couple of minutes later, the guy came roaring back. “This can’t be good,” Damon thought to himself, and started looking around, wondering what he could grab to protect himself.

The guy jumped out of his truck and heaved a huge tool chest over to Damon and his bike. “I see you have trouble,” he said. “How can I help?”

That ride set Damon on a mission. He realized that biking was about so much more than the bike. His research afterward led him to savvy cycling, as a way to restore kindness and civility to everyday human encounters.

Scott Slingerland

This training included not one but two directors of bike-ped organizations. Scott serves as director for CAT-Coalition for Appropriate Transportation, in eastern Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley. He comes to bicycling-pedestrian-transit advocacy & education as a “recovering engineer,” with 12-plus years’ experience working on power plants and pressure vessels.

CyclingSavvy instructor training in Orlando (Feb 2018)

When you’re bicycling, you have choices! CSI Scott Slingerland describes the pros and cons of options for cyclists when using this road and its sidepath

Bicycling has been a big part of Scott’s lifelong journey for synergy of transportation, sport, health and freedom. He first biked to school at age 11. He’s done mountain bike racing and bicycle touring in the United States, Costa Rica, Germany, China and Taiwan. He’s not owned a car since 2008. He bikes daily for transportation, averaging about 7,000 miles per year.

Scott used a combination of Greyhound, Amtrak and his own power to get from his Easton, PA, home to the Orlando training. His trip included visiting friends in Daytona Beach. He rode from there to Orlando.

Scott decided to pursue instructor training last fall after taking CyclingSavvy. “I’m fascinated by the extensive communication methods taught to foster cooperation between cyclists and motorists,” he wrote in his application to become an instructor. “I want to bring this method to local cyclists in my official capacity and extend the teaching to motorists as well.”

Scott continued: “I also find the classroom portion of CyclingSavvy to be eye-opening with clear presentation and graphics.

“In the general realm of expanding bicycling, I would like to focus on teaching skills, driver awareness, and cyclist-motorist cooperation, rather than fighting for, or against, infrastructure.”

Jeff Viscount

He’s called the “Mayor of Biketown” in Charlotte, NC. Jeff runs WeeklyRides.Com, an impressive compilation of rides, tours and all things bikey around Charlotte. He’s a recreational road cyclist and commuter. “I want to help others learn and understand the principles and techniques taught through CyclingSavvy,” he wrote in his application to become an instructor.

He did a fabulous job in Orlando.

CSI Jeff Viscount with an excellent "chalk talk" in Orlando

CSI Jeff Viscount created an excellent “chalk talk” of an intimidating intersection in Orlando

Brian Watson

Someday lots of us will be earning a living teaching savvy cycling. Right now, Brian is!

CSI Brian Watson (kneeling) describes how to easily bike on a busy road under Interstate 4 in Orlando

Brian lives in Bremerton, WA, and teaches Seattle-area adults and children through BicycleTeacher, his bicycling education coaching service. He is Washington State’s first CyclingSavvy instructor. Every weekend from mid-April through late September, Brian teaches, often for Go Redmond, a mobility program in Redmond, WA. His students include those who have never been on a bike to people with many years in the saddle. When Brian’s not on his bike, he’s busy in Watson Studios making one-of-a-kind creations in wood.

“Becoming a CyclingSavvy Instructor has been a long-time goal, and was a rigorous and rewarding process,” Brian wrote afterward. “The insights and thoroughness of the CyclingSavvy approach will allow me to offer the best in bicycling education in Washington State.”

When he got back home, Brian wrote this awesome post on the instructor forum:

Pedaling home from a long day of CSI training, I experienced a poignant moment of civility that CS behavior inspires. It was dark, so I had my lights on, and was wearing my reflective vest and wristbands. I had moved into the left tire track (after scanning, signaling, and verifying that the lane was clear) at a stoplight to turn left. As I was waiting at the light, a driver pulled up behind me with her right turn signal blinking. Since there was plenty of room in the lane for us to wait side-by-side, I gave her a friendly wave to come on up beside me.

She rolled her window down to thank me, and then said, ‘It’s just so nice to see a bicyclist following the rules.’ Even though she was some distance behind me as we approached the light, she was able to see me, see my signal, and correctly read my intentions from my lane positioning. She was genuinely appreciative of my behavior, and I returned the gratitude to her for her civil driving.

I then gave my best ‘red light speech’ extolling the CS approach, and encouraged her to check it out so she too could ride her bike anywhere, any time.

The light turned green all too soon, and we parted ways with a wave and a smile.

In today’s climate of fear and incivility, this brief encounter was a small but powerful demonstration of the potential for creating trust, respect, and kindness with simple changes in cycling behavior.

CS gives me HOPE.

cyclingsavvy instructors in orlando, florida

The nation’s newest CyclingSavvy Instructors. From left: Lisa Walker (instructor trainer), Jacob Adams, Les Leathem, Scott Slingerland, Carl Fenske, Damon Richards, Randy Dull, Jeff Viscount, Keri Caffrey (CyclingSavvy co-founder), Brian Watson and Karen Karabell (newly minted instructor trainer)

Daytime Lights: Magic Bullet Or Not?

February 7, 2018/13 Comments/in The Savvy Cyclist /by John Schubert

Two recent tragic bicyclist deaths in Florida resulted in a local newspaper column extolling the importance of daytime running lights. Without going into detail about these tragedies, I’ll say one thing: It’s doubtful that either death would have been prevented by daytime running lights.

That’s the thing about tragedies and safety equipment. Whatever safety equipment you’re enamored of — daytime running lights, protective padding, helmets — it will help some times, but not others. But when you’re upset because a friend died, that kind of thought-chopping doesn’t come to mind.

Of this you can be sure: Safety equipment is an area where “always” and “never” don’t exist, and where emotional baggage leads all of us to want to cling to a magic solution.

As an expert witness in bicycle crash reconstruction cases, I believe daytime running lights are usually superfluous. Yes, there are specific occasions where they do help. But they often are used as a makeshift solution for problems best solved by behavior change. If daytime running lights are offered as a do-it-all solution, they become grist for victim blaming when a cyclist was doing nothing wrong.

When To Light Up

Let’s start with the situations where daytime running lights do help. These would include fog, heavy rain, the sun low on the horizon, confusing lighting, and short sight distances on curvy roads.

Fog can reduce visibility to a very short distance. Where I live, in the hills of eastern Pennsylvania, the hilltops can be in the clouds and the valleys can be clear. Sometimes I may need daytime running lights — very bright ones at that — to be seen in the fog. But a half-mile later, I’m out of the fog, and visibility is good.

Some of the curviest country roads make a case for daytime running lights. Even so, if you measure the actual sight distance on a curvy country road, you’ll be surprised at how far it really is. There’s plenty of space to slow down from curvy-road driving speed to cyclist speed. But there’s no harm in giving the overtaking motorist a wake-up call.

Scott Slingerland, executive director of Bethlehem, PA’s Coalition for Appropriate Transportation, demonstrates the effectiveness of daytime running lights earlier this month in Easton, PA.

view from rear of man cycling with daytime running lights

Scott is easy to see coming and going. But is this because of his lights?

Lane Position

It’s your lane position that affects how soon you’re seen, often more than any light can. This is especially true on curvy roads. If you’re hugging the curb on a curve to the right, you come into view later than a rider using a lane control position.

Dappled mottled light, on a tree-shaded road, makes a case for daytime running lights. The brain takes longer to assemble the picture of a bicyclist in such lighting conditions.

Daytime running lights need to be bright enough to be conspicuous in daylight. If not, they’re no more effective than a rabbit’s foot. How often have you seen a bicycle light, in bad need of new batteries, blinking feebly — in broad daylight? I saw several on a recent trip to Philadelphia. A dim, poorly aimed daytime blinkie just sucks up the electricity to make the light even less effective at night when that rider absolutely needs it.

Brightness costs money. The least expensive bike lights (less than $10 for a front-and-rear set from a major discount retailer) are usually bright enough for nighttime use. But I wouldn’t bet on those lights being noticed on a sunny day. To be seen in daylight, you want a more powerful light. The taillights that have a strobe function (Portland Design Works Danger Zone and Planet Bike Superflash are two that come to mind) cost more than this. So do brighter headlights.

I recommend that you test daytime running lights in the situation when you might use them. Turn them on, take them outside, and see how they appear from 50 paces away. Do they jump out at you? Are you sure? Remember, you’re an alerted observer, and you are far more attentive to them than the people you want to see them. Those people are un-alerted observers.

When the Sun is Low: Your Shadow Points to the Danger

Does a daytime running light really solve the sun-low-on-the-horizon problem?

While the world probably looks clear to this cyclist, his shadow points toward drivers on a high-speed arterial road who have the sun in their eyes – and may not see him as he violates their right-of-way

As we teach in CyclingSavvy, the sun low on the horizon can be a serious problem. Your shadow points in the direction of people who can’t see you. And in the class, we tell people to take a different route or to wait a few minutes for the lighting conditions to change.

The need to verify your lights’ adequacy is most especially true when the sun is low and casting glare. In that situation, you’re asking your daytime running lights to overpower the entire sun! If you do a good observation experiment — with several observers, please — take good notes and tell us what you saw. We’ll publish it. Bonus points if you take a good photo.

Blinded By The Light

What if your light is too bright? At a minimum, you annoy people. You distract drivers from their ongoing job of absorbing visual information and then going on to the next bit of visual information.

It’s a fad — a bad fad, in our opinion — to make emergency vehicle lighting so bright and so discordant that it’s difficult to look away from it. But look away you must, in order to focus on the path you need to travel. The driver needs to watch where she’s going, and watching the light display interferes with that.

Some of today’s lights are strobes, rather than light-emitting diodes. Are they too bright? In some situations, yes. For daytime running lights in pea-soup fog, probably not.

Remember, in normal lighting conditions, a cyclist in a black shirt is easy to see from 200 yards away. And all of us have an obligation to be looking when we drive.

Daytime running lights make you more visible, certainly. But if you were already visible, does making you more visible help? I don’t think so. You need to be relevant as well as visible. The nature of driving is that the driver discards most visual information. When he sees a bicyclist on the shoulder, his brain thinks, “That cyclist is out of my way, and he’s not a factor.” A blinking light is unlikely to change that thought process.

Any search engine will find you dozens of articles in which daytime running lights are praised as if they are mother’s milk. In those articles, people who don’t use daytime running lights are badmouthed. This is stunningly irresponsible, because it aids and abets victim blaming where it matters most — in court.

Imagine yourself, the victim of a motorist-at-fault car/bike collision. You were plainly visible. But the defense counsel brings out a stack of articles telling you what a jerk you were for not using daytime running lights. He asks you to read them aloud on the witness stand. Your emotions go south and your blood pressure skyrockets. After the first dozen articles, he calls for a break, and out in the hall, offers you $100 to settle the case then and there.

So. . . use daytime running lights mindfully. And promote them cautiously.