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Coronavirus has caused a bicycling boom in New York City

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Re: Coronavirus has caused a bicycling boom in New York City

#71

Post by CydeWeys »

jbay808 wrote: post #70
CydeWeys wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's for a different situation, though. The smoke particulates are very small and are omnipresent, so a mask definitely helps. Coronavirus, by contrast, is only airborne for a short while, so unless you're close to someone who's infected you're not going to be breathing it in anyway. That's why they're saying the masks have limited effectiveness outside.

Oh, when the GP said it's unrealistic to bike in a mask, I thought they meant it would be too difficult. Maybe they just meant unnecessary, in which case I agree.

Yeah, I'm thinking that's what they must mean. An N95 mask doesn't cut down your breathing that much, and you can simply down-moderate your effort a little bit so that you never hit a pant. It's no gas mask.

Re: Coronavirus has caused a bicycling boom in New York City

#73

Post by Scoundreller »

koolba wrote: post #22
dmix wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read N95 masks were basically useless when walking outside, they only mattered indoors and in confined spaces (like public transit). I’d imagine biking is even less transmission and wearing a mask with that is pretty unrealistic. It’s hard to find what is right on the internet though.

Useless or pointless?

Pointless waste of a perfectly good mask.

Re: Coronavirus has caused a bicycling boom in New York City

#74

Post by microtonal »

zck wrote: post #50
aqme28 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's right. Most of my bike rides are about 1-3 miles. When I commute to work it's about 6 miles and that's farther than most people bike here.

I think the statement is "most NYC commutes are longer than Amsterdam commutes, so chances are lower that each commute could be done by bicycle". My commute would be almost six miles by bicycle. I'm not especially looking to replace the subway with a bike trip.

My commute would be almost six miles by bicycle. I'm not especially looking to replace the subway with a bike trip.

We cycled 8 miles to high school every day (so, 16 per day). Cycling 6 miles is not a lot, unless you have to stop every minute at a traffic light.

Up till 1.5 year ago (when I wasn't working remotely), I cycled 7 miles to work every single day (also through rain and snow). For good measure, I'd take an extra hilly route the way back twice a week for some extra exercise.

Re: Coronavirus has caused a bicycling boom in New York City

#75

Post by grogenaut »

uk_programmer wrote: post #27
Alex3917 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the bike industry is currently switching over from rim brakes to disc brakes, you can get some pretty good deals on older (but still brand new) road bikes if you look around. A few months ago I bought a carbon road bike for less than $1,500 including tax. Granted expect to spend at least as much on accessories, but if you live somewhere where you can use it for both commuting and exercise then it still pays f…

As someone that used to be an avid cyclist. Disc brakes are almost completely pointless for commuter bicycles. Don't get me wrong they are great when mountain biking (I have cable discs on my mountain bike). On a commuter bike they are mostly just overkill IMHO. But I wouldn't buy a carbon road bike either (All my bikes are steel framed).

As someone who rides 2k miles a year in seattle for multiple years your attitude is why I had to pay through the nose and do all sorts of custom crap to have a decent braking solution that didn't eat my rims and worked well on steep hills and the oily wet on the rims. I'm glad that discs are finally taking over, even if it's 10 years after they should have because "they're not tour legal".

Re: Coronavirus has caused a bicycling boom in New York City

#76

Post by grogenaut »

justinfrankel wrote: post #68
mikestew wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disc brakes are almost completely pointless for commuter bicycles Ignore this comment. Year-round commuting is the prime reason to buy a bike with disc brakes. Is it overkill not to burn through a set of rims each winter? Is it overkill to have decreased stopping distance in the rain? Anyone want to go back to drum brakes on their “commuter” car? Yeah, didn’t think so.

I have short-reach dual pivot brake calipers on a bike which sees >2000 miles year-round each year in NYC, and my rims are still fine after 7 years. From my experience, stopping distance is usually dictated by road conditions more than the brakes. This is with 34mm wide tires, and properly adjusted brakes (a lot of times when people complain about rim brakes, the issue is that they are not working properly). Side not…

Sure and the point is discs will much more easily stop you, the limit of the stopping power is not the brake (friction on rim) like they are in cantilevers, but with the overall physics of the system. Discs are generally in alignment, or very very obviously out of alignment (rubbing loudly), canti's have a lot more room for error.

I'd much rather have a brake system that out performs the rest of the equation than not have enough stopping power.

Re: Coronavirus has caused a bicycling boom in New York City

#77

Post by mikestew »

justinfrankel wrote: post #68
mikestew wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disc brakes are almost completely pointless for commuter bicycles Ignore this comment. Year-round commuting is the prime reason to buy a bike with disc brakes. Is it overkill not to burn through a set of rims each winter? Is it overkill to have decreased stopping distance in the rain? Anyone want to go back to drum brakes on their “commuter” car? Yeah, didn’t think so.

I have short-reach dual pivot brake calipers on a bike which sees >2000 miles year-round each year in NYC, and my rims are still fine after 7 years. From my experience, stopping distance is usually dictated by road conditions more than the brakes. This is with 34mm wide tires, and properly adjusted brakes (a lot of times when people complain about rim brakes, the issue is that they are not working properly). Side not…

In Seattle, I’m not the only one on my race team that would eat rims every year or two.

Fact is, rim brakes are inferior in every way to just about every alternative, save two: they’re inexpensive and lightweight.

Re: Coronavirus has caused a bicycling boom in New York City

#78

Post by Alex3917 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #65
fennecfoxen wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the bike shaped Walmart thing is that it is absolutely irreparable. Got a $200 bike shaped thing first thing when I got a job (technically Kmart but otherwise the same). Dumb mistake. The crank gear bent out of shape before too long, just from applying pedal power to climb a hill. On another bike, that’d be $20 in parts and $40 in labor maybe? On this one it was basically impossible as it was not des…

Never mind that they're assembled by Walmart employees who have no idea what they're doing, and can be quite unsafe. You wouldn't buy a $10 airbag replacement for a car, and you shouldn't buy the cheapest bike possible. This is safety equipment; a failure at speed can be quite injurious to your body.

Exactly. Cheap bikes are made out of aluminum, which can fail at any time without warning and cause injury or death. Much better just to pay extra for carbon / steel / titanium. Carbon still fails, but there are more likely to be warnings first, and even if it does fail completely you're not likely to puncture a lung or whatever from it getting impaled through your chest. Steel and titanium shouldn't fail at all unless you're in a bad accident first. Bikes are great, but you need to take seriously the fact that they can cause serious injury or death.

Re: Coronavirus has caused a bicycling boom in New York City

#79

Post by Scoundreller »

bluegreyred wrote: post #30

wouldn't it be risky to ride behind a potentially infected rider? after all you'd be breathing in their exhaled air, or would the speed and wind dillute the aerosol quickly enough to make it harmless? I read that italy banned bicycling in affected locations to avoid accidents that would further strain their already stressed health care system. sorry, no source.

> would the speed and wind dillute the aerosol quickly enough to make it harmless?

Basically this. It's a probability thing though.

Indoors, air is stagnant and sneeze droplets can float around for a few hours.

Riding behind another cyclist requires poor luck for enough of their sneeze to impact you.

It's still cool enough for me to wear a face mask too, so that's another (hypothetical) risk reducer.

Plus, a cyclist is a good signal someone doesn't have active respiratory disease.

Re: Coronavirus has caused a bicycling boom in New York City

#80

Post by erikbye »

wool_gather wrote: post #40
echelon wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a citation for this? I don't want to blindly trust that fomites aren't a major risk. If true, that changes how I want to get food to my elders. (I've already gotten them several months worth, but I don't see an end to this and would feel safer if they had more runway.)

The CDC does state in one place that inhalation appears to be the primary route: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/transmissi... It says surface -> hands -> mucous membrane "is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads". But then again, the TTL of the virus on surfaces is still not certain, so, as also noted there "we are still learning how it spreads" .

The TTL might be days.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033217v...

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