CyclingSavvy class in Orange April 24th and 25th

Register Here

OCBC is proud to announce our first CyclingSavvy course of 2015 on April 24th and 25th in Orange.

CyclingSavvy is a program of American Bicycling Education Association, Inc. (ABEA). The course teaches the principles of Mindful Bicycling:

  • empowerment to act as confident, equal road users;
  • strategies for safe, stress-free integrated cycling;
  • tools to read and problem-solve any traffic situation or road configuration.

The course is offered in three 3-hour components: a bike-handling session, a classroom session and an on-road tour. The classroom and bike-handling sessions may be taken individually, the road tour requires the other two as a pre-requisite.

Sample Lesson

The object of the course is not to turn people into road warriors. Being a confident, competent cyclist has nothing to do with speed or bravado. You don’t need either of those things to have access to the entire transportation grid.

Even most confident cyclists prefer to use quiet routes when feasible. In many cases, it is only an intimidating intersection or short stretch of busy road which hinders a cyclist’s preferred route. This course is designed to show students simple strategies to eliminate such barriers, and ride with ease and confidence in places they might never have thought possible.

The philosophy and intent of our course is best described in this quote by Aimee Mullins:

…all you really need is one person to show you the epiphany of your own power and you’re off. If you can hand somebody the key to their own power… the human spirit is so receptive… if you can do that and open a door for someone at a crucial moment… you are ‘educating’ them in the best sense. You’re teaching them to open doors for themselves. In fact, the exact meaning of the word “educate’ comes from the root word ‘educe.’ It means to bring forth what is within. To bring out potential.

The 3 Part Course
Our course is designed to be taken as individual sessions or as a complete course. Train Your Bike (bike handling) and Truth & Techniques (classroom session) can be taken individually in any order. To sign up for a Tour of Orange, you must have taken or be signed to take the other two classes prior to the tour class. Individual sessions are $30 per session. A package of three sessions (the full course) is $75. A package may be used to take the sessions at any time.

Train Your Bike! (3 hours):

This session is conducted in a parking lot. It consists of a set of progressive drills designed to increase students’ control and comfort handling their bikes in various situations. Drills include:

  • Start/Stop, Power Pedal & Balance Stop
  • Snail Race, Slow-speed Balance
  • Drag-race, Gears & Acceleration
  • Ride Straight, One-handed
  • Shoulder Check
  • Object-avoidance Handling, Weave, Snap
  • Turning: Slow-speed Tight Turns, High-speed cornering, Emergency Snap-turn
  • Emergency Braking

The Truth & Techniques of Traffic Cycling (3 hours):

Through guided discussion with video and animation, this session familiarizes students with bicycle-specific laws, traffic dynamics and problem-solving strategies. Students discover that bicycle drivers are equal road users, with the right and ability to control their space.

Tour of Orange* (3.5 hours):

This session is an experiential tour of the roads in the city of Orange. The course includes some of the most intimidating road features (intersections, interchanges, merges, etc.) a cyclist might find in his/her travels. The students travel as a group, stopping to survey and discuss each exercise location. After observing the feature, discussing the traffic dynamics and the best strategy for safe and easy passage, the students ride through individually and regroup at a nearby location.

* The Tour session is only available with the full course. The other two sessions may be taken á la carte, in any order.

More information
Origins & Principles of CyclingSavvy

Register Here

 


Update!

To ensure that your bike is in perfect operating condition for the class, Jax  will extend a 50% discount on the labor charge for a “basic service” at any Jax Bicycle Center for anyone who signs up for a Cycling Savvy or TS 101 class. The basic service is $69.99. Jax will  provide a coupon to anyone who signs up for one of the classes for 50% off on the labor charge ($35.00). Any parts that are needed for the service will be at the regular price.

Email lci@ocwheelmen.org if you would like a coupon for a tune-up!

Danger Roads

Quick, can you name the most dangerous roads in the OC?

To qualify, the road must have at least 1 bike related collision in the last 11 years.

Thanks to the blocked bike lane last month (surprise!) on northbound PCH before Warner, and the fact that the k-rails were still there this week after work was completed, we thought we’d take a look at roads and bike collisions in the OC. to see if perception matched reality.

Since CalTrans failed to notify the cycling community before the lane closure, and failed to remove the barriers in a timely fashion, we could wail about the injustice of it all, but we won’t.

We also wonder what else is going on about the county putting bike riders at risk. If you see something, send us a short note (anonymous if you’d like), and we’ll follow up on your tip. Thanks!

The Candidates:

The current contenders in the Danger Road category are:

Danger Road Contenders

Danger Road Contenders

As seen, RT 1, or the Pacific Coast Highway leads the contenders so far at 331 bike related collisions.

We are only counting collisions without regard to death or injury at this point; an aggregate total count if you will.

The road travelers among you know some of these roads go through many cities, and some might even change names as they do.

What you might not know is spelling prowess is lacking in some of the records reported to the CHP, and some roads have various derivations. For example; BROOKHURST ST is #7 on the contender list, yet in the database there’s also BROOKHURST, BROOKHURST RD, SOUTH BROOKHURST ST, N BROOKHURST ST, SOUTH BROOKHURST S, NORTH BROOKHURST, NORTH BROOKHURST ST, S BROOKHURST, S BROOKHURST AV, and let’s not forget BROOK HURST (space between). I’m sure you get the point, so might Brookhurst move up to earn the title of “Danger Road”?

Care to guess? Have a favorite? Let us know your choice for top “Danger Road”, winner gets to ride it at their own risk. When we open the envelope with the winner, we’ll either update this post or create a new one.

updated 11/18/12

The “Winners”:

Danger Road Winners

Danger Road Winners

A tie for 10th place at 121 collisions as 17th street moves up to equal the number of collisions on Newport Blvd.

The overall “winner” at 425 collisions is RT 1, aka Coast Hwy, PCH, W Coast Hwy, E Coast Hwy, Pac Cst, and all the other names for this road in the database.

Yes, we went through line by line for all the roads including Brkhrst, Brookherst, and all the others to arrive at this list.

With 150 more collisions than any other road, PCH (or RT 1) travels the length of the county, so perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise given ridership, traffic, and the probabilities inherent in the mixing the two.

What’s interesting is the distribution of collisions along the road as seen here:

City by City

City by City

Newport Beach is clearly above all others and not in a good way which is one of the reasons we support local efforts to improve cyclist safety in this city.

We’ve documented (and mapped) plenty of Newport related items and issues which you may find here.

 

We also thank all those that turned out for the NPB Memorial Ride and Fundraiser last October.

With 9 riders killed and 442 injured from the above 425 collisions, the chart below attempts to discern any seasonal effect in collisions.

Collisions by Month

One would expect greater numbers of riders in the summer months, and the chart shows the highest injuries happening in July and decreasing into the winter. The high count in March may be weather related due to unexpected rain and road conditions.

Collisions and injuries are not a 1:1 proposition. Sometimes there are more than one person injured in a collision and sometimes no injury is reported from a collision, hence the difference in numbers between collision and injury counts.

The complete breakdown looks like: 462 total injuries from 425 collisions involving people on bikes.

442 bike riders, 6 motorcyclists, 3 pedestrians, and 11 drivers were  injured during this reporting period ending the 3rd quarter of 2012 with the most recent entry to the CHP database dated 7/28/12.

Nine bike riders are dead as a result of collisions with no other fatalities recorded for other road users.

With your continued support, we aim to identify, notify, and assist in reducing ridership collisions.

OC Bike Collision Demographic

We’ve presented charts and figures for counties and cities regarding collisions with bike riders showing the counts of fatalities and injuries, (in Newport’s case even the degree of injury), and who was at fault for the collision yet there’s still something missing.

To better target our educational outreach, we need to know “who are these people”, or who these people are that are colliding or are being collided with on our roadways.

The overview results are surprising and interesting, so we thought we’d share some top level charts for the county:

2010 Race Demographic

 The classifications for race are assigned in the collision record database, and the 23% being “not stated” may indicate shoddy record keeping by the reporting agency in 2010.

2011 Race Demographic

In 2011 record keeping improved in the county, shrinking the “not stated” to a negligible number (9). While it would appear that Whites either quit riding their bikes and causing collisions, or previous educational efforts are bearing fruit, we suspect more of the latter than the former.

Obviously the largest jump in colliding riders are the ones identifying with the Black and Asian categories, with a slight decrease in the Hispanic and Other categories.

So far for 2012 there aren’t too many records from Orange County with demographic information. As noted in an earlier post, some PDs are better at taking care of “administrivia” than others in getting their paperwork submitted in a timely manner. We also found that collision demographic data lags the actual collision record submission such that there may be a collision record with 2 parties injured, yet the party record is not there!

Such is the risk and result when working with preliminary data, so until the county demographic records show up, we present the 2012 collision demographic for the state:

2012 State Demographic Race

This might be something you’d expect to see from a state wide coalition like the CBC or even CABO, and while we can, it’s far beyond our charter to do so and this was done just to see if we could.

Since you asked, yes we have the city by city breakdown for the county, and they will be contacted regarding educational outreach efforts. On the other hand they are always free to contact us!

And since you’re wondering where this all came from…

All collision records are collected and maintained by the CHP SWITRS (Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System) database. There are actually 3 parts to the complete information record: collision, party, and victim. The record caseid (a unique identifier) is what ties the 3 segments together and we created a way to allow party information to be tabulated by any criteria we choose within the items contained in the database.

The process is time consuming and a lot of checks and balances are built in to avoid record duplication or omission, however that is part of the value-add provided by the Orange County Bicycle Coalition.

Your membership and donations help fund this effort, thanks for your support!

OC Tour de Cure 2012

As one of 83 cycling events in 43 states for diabetes, join over 250 riders as the OC Tour de Cure takes place this Saturday 9/29/12 in Aliso Viejo and Laguna Niguel. The fundraiser supports nearly 26 million Americans with diabetes through the American Diabetes Association.TdC 2012

There are 3 road and mountain routes to choose from, or bring both bikes and ride one of each! A bike corral will hold your extra bike while you are out riding.

Choices in distance vary from 6, 20, and 50-ish miles for the road, while mountain riders may choose from 5, 10, and 25 miles.

The start line is located at the LDS parking lot at 28291 Alicia Parkway, while the finish line and and Tour Village is located at the Wood Canyon Elementary School at 23431 Knollwood in Aliso Viejo.

Thank You!

With online registration now closed, the OC Tour de Cure passed its goal of $60,000 and is just shy of $1,400 of its new target of $80,000.

$80,000 target broken!

You may sponsor a rider, or make a direct donation to the event from the website.

Thank You!

Please be aware, and respect others on the trails, paths, and roads.

For additional information please e-mail Heather Erickson, or call 714-662-7940 ext. 7518.

Thanks for your great support!