gcottay

Today I did a neighborhood bike fix and adjust clinic.

K'Tesh

Was taking photos of the new buffered bike lanes on SW Barbur Blvd (between SW Hooker and the Naito/Barbur split) when I found it flooded.



In looking for the cause, I found it was due to the fall leaves clogging the drain.



I looked around and found a convenient advertising sign "stick", and after a few pokes was able to allow it to drain.




See Something? DO SOMETHING!!!

owenfinn

Took some photos of a few problems with a new bike lane here in Yokohama for a blogger.

https://www.tokyobybike.com/2012/09/y...-obstacle.html

I think we may have helped in getting the city to remove the raised reflective markers but, unfortunately, cars still park in the lane.

hotbike

Trimmed some Hedges. These Hedges were/are (couldn't do the whole hedgerow in one day) blocking any use of the road shoulder, southbound on West Shore Road, in Oyster Bay , Long Island. In fact, they stuck out further than the fog line, so you can't ride on the Fog Line. What's more, they allowed Leaves and Litter to collect underneath, which need to be swept away, which you can see in the second photograph. I might have cut 75 lineal feet of hedges. The road is CLOSED due to extreme storm damage on 28 October, 2012, parts of the seawall were destroyed. I could NOT have done any work here without the road being closed. This road has in excess of 10,000 cars a day under normal circumstances. I deposited the cut-off branches between the guard rail and the hand rail on the seawall across the road.

BEFORE:



AFTER:


There were NO Cars during this time that I was working, except a U.S Postal Van, a Dump Truck from the Village of Mill Neck D.P.W., and a truck from Flag Carpet, which was funny because they superimposed an image of the U.S. Flag over the first letter "F" and it looked like it said "LAG", which would be a terrible name for Trucking Company, I thought. Cleft Road was completely blockaded, BTW.

K'Tesh

AFTER:


Looks quite a bit of work you did there... When it's finally cleaned up, can you do a followup photo so we can get a better idea of the current condition? Thanks!

hotbike

Yes and no, I have more photos, but I don't have time to upload them today. The above photo was taken friday. I worked for one hour on friday. I slept all day saturday. I went back on Sunday and trimmed the hedges for three (3) hours, so more than twice the work is done. But I had to bale the branches (so as to stay on good terms with d.p.w or sanitation, or whoever has to pick up the branches. ) I'll tell you, I made five bales, "bunches-of-sticks" , whatever you call them , and each must weigh between 75 and 100 pounds. Then I ran out of baling twine, again, used up all the twine. I had to leave my road cones at the site, since there was some branches in the road. But the road is closed due to the hurricane, and I was told it will remain closed for nine (9) more months.
Exausted again , I slept all day monday, so I am way behiond on my email. Gotta go, thank you for your support!

hotbike

The branches where they fell. Good thing the road was closed.



Bales of hedge trimmings. Each one weighs about a hundred pounds.


HIGH DEF 1080x720 VIDEO, about one Minute long:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHGP-TVIMXE

(I am not embedding this video due to bandwidth it would take up).

K'Tesh

VERY Nice work! The additional angles really help you see what you were able to accomplish. Closed for 9 months? Sounds like you have a beauty of a bike lane there for now.

K'Tesh

Caught a landscaper blowing leaves into the bike lane today... I asked him if he was going to clean it up. He got all pissed at me telling me that they will go away in a few weeks, and I should go and mind my own business... Guess he didn't know, my business is bike/ped/ADA advocacy. OOPS!

Unfortunately, my camera's battery dies if I leave it in the camera, so I wasn't able to photograph him.

I got the name of his company, called and complained to them. Went to the McDonald's restaurant that hired him, and complained about the mess, and how it's a hazard to cyclists (A LBS owner crashed when a hidden stick popped up and broke his carbon fiber fork once, I've crashed when wet leaves caused my wheels to lose traction). Called Code Enforcement, and let them know about the situation.

I quickly heard back from Code Enforcement, that they've contacted McDonald's and advised them of the complaint and how they are liable for any crashes that result from people avoiding, or crashing due to the mess in the bike lane, and was working with the landscaping company to identify and "educate" the offending landscaper. I'm guessing that this guy's going to be coming back to work for them anytime soon.

At last check, the mess was still in place, but Code Services is on the case. I did manage one photograph of the mess though before the camera died.

hotbike

Yes, the CLOSED Road is a Bike Path for the next nine months. I am glad I had this "window of opportunity" to do the work. I would estimate the ammount of trimmings , in gross weight, to be about one ton.

PS, I got a new camera, and I wish to correct myself, the High Definition video is actually 1280 x 720.

Also , I photographed the debris, so you can get an idea how bad the overhang of the shrubberies was. Alas, I have a lot more to do, and I don't know if I can do it all by myself. I hope we get more volunteers.
At Least I've given them an example of how to trim Hedges. These Hedges have Not been trimmed for about 35 years.

I-Like-To-Bike

Do you think in 9 months that there will be any evidence of the work you did?

Metal Man

Leaf blower- man's most useless, annoying tool.

hotbike

YES and No. These are slow growing hedges and it should take ten or fifteen years for the huge amount of branches to grow back. (unless someone feeds them fertilizer). Furthermore, when they do grow back, they will only require a light trimming with hedge-clippers, and will NOT require Lopping Shears, like what I used.
And by "No", I mean they WILL Green-Up in the Spring, and I can't be accused of killing the hedges. They will just be a couple feet back from the Fog Line, whereas they were overhanging into the traffic lane.

I stand by my claim that these hedges were not properly trimmed in about 35 years.

K'Tesh

When I went to cast my ballot back in November, I nearly got brained by the low branches from this tree. I contacted the American Legion post that it was on the edge of, and they were sympathetic, but said that it was the responsibility of the city to maintain this tree. After contacting the city, and waiting a month, I figured that they had had enough time to fix it, and they weren't. Conveniently today, when I went to check on it, a landscaper was there. I talked to him, and he was Ok with letting me use one of his saws, and to use his truck for disposal. So, I was able to prune the tree, and dispose of the branches instead of leaving them there. I also was able to teach him (not a tree surgeon) in the three cut method of large branch removal.









And at another location...

mconlonx

Got my LAB LCI certification this past summer. #3696, which is a number I find very auspicious even though it features a dearth of primes.

Safety, ho!

K'Tesh

Got ODOT to work on a Pinch point on 99W... About a block away from this is where the bike lane starts, and it's a standard width, that is until we get to the driveway for this strip mall. Then it gets really wide, and then suddenly narrows to only a few feet. The ADA ramp is offset, so if you don't see the curb, you could really easily plow right into it, or have a glancing blow that could knock you into 35-40mph traffic.



After looking at the images (in the emails quoted below), I still have fears (this is close to the area where I was right hooked last year). My latest proposal to them would be to have them paint the curb a different color (yellow's out, how about red?), or paint the bike lane with a skip stripe showing the narrowing of the lane... much like this one

UnsafeAlpine

Nothing today, but I rode yesterday in jeans and a jacket in 40 degree weather and got a smile from someone waiting for me to pass. I smiled back.

I also got a wave from a school bus driver I waited for. I waved back.

If my actions affect the judgement motorists have for all cyclists, hopefully I made a good impact.

K'Tesh

Stopped 6 drunks from driving home tonight. Today was the Superbowl. I'm not a big fan of football, so I took the time to go to my favorite study place and do some reading for tomorrow's class (midterms this week... oh Joy!).

While I was there, I witnessed several people who were quite unstable on their feet walk past (loudly talking with slurred speach), heading from the pub next door to their cars. Fortunately they were busy talking, but it was clear they were about to drive home in two cars. Having left my cell phone at home, I asked another regular at my hangout if he had a cell phone... Nope, but the off duty cop who walked in right after those people walked past did. He heard my request to call the cops, and went out and talked to them (just as they were backing up). He identified himself to them, and talked the driver into a quick field sobriety check. Everybody was happy (except for the guy who was backing the 49's), and they realized that they could get into a lot of trouble if they drove home. A few calls to the kids, and their new drivers arrived to take them home.

I bought the cop's meal as a Thank You, then took the back way to get home. Once there, I called the non-emergency dispatch to request additional patrols around the pub.

See Something? DO SOMETHING! (the life you save could be mine)

Sixty Fiver

I resisted the urge to kick the crap out of a driver who really deserved it.

K'Tesh

Back in July, I warned PBOT about this grate at the corner of SW Barbur Blvd and SW Condor Ave.





It's a steep section of road that comes in at a really sharp angle. If I was riding down Condor, and needed to do a right turn, I'd pull over to the right and drop my foot to the curb to help keep me upright while I check to see if it's safe to do the turn. That grate prevents me from doing that.


So, PBOT went out and put a temporary flashing warning sign over it the next day...



something like one of these...


And it sat there until the repaving of Barbur was finished. However, they never replaced the grate with a bike safe one. A car has been parked over that spot for some time, so I wasn't able to see what or if anything was done, until a few weeks ago, when I saw that nothing was done. A few calls into the 24 Hour hotline, and last week I saw that it was replaced with one that has straps welded over the slots, thus making it safe for us to ride over. (Photo Pending)


On another occasion, I was in Pioneer Courthouse Square, and I noticed that there is a grate that isn't ADA compliant. (too wide of gaps, oriented wrong, and (probably) made from non-compliant materials (something ran over it, bending the whole thing). (Photo pending upload).


I added this to a continuing complaint about the non-ADAAG compliant grates at PSU, and yesterday, I noticed that hey had it cordoned off. Another grate just a few feet away was compliant, how they managed to get one right, and one wrong, I'll probably never know. (Photo pending upload)


Now, if PDX or PSU can only get the grates fixed on campus...

Worknomore

Not today but last week stopped about 6 times while riding to remove bags of recycle trash from travel lanes that had fallen out of the recycle truck. Got some friendly honks & waves from a few cars who saw me.

K'Tesh

It's been a while, but my old Swiss Army Knife that was damaged trying to clear the Fanno Creek Trail is on it's way home after spending some time with the manufacturer. According to FEDX it's on its way home today. (I'm broke, couldn't afford to send it in until this last January)



The tree that damaged it on December 2, 2009.



Here you can see the damaged Wood Saw, and chewed up Saw Liners (and the replacement knife in the background)


Can't wait to get home to find it on the porch.


After a few welcome home photos, it'll get a couple of extra's (I'm replacing the OEM Scales with Plus Scales and adding the Pen, Pin, and Miniature Screwdriver). Then it'll get a few more photos taken of it.


SAWed Something... DID Something!!!
K'Tesh

hotbike

We got a lot of snow here on Long Island, and I did my part by shoveling as much as I could.

K'Tesh

Mixed bag today...


As I was coming home from going to the Orthopedic and Fracture Clinic (a pair of nasty bone bruises, but no fractures or torn ligaments), I noticed that ODOT had fixed the blackhole grates on SW Cedar Hills Blvd... Kinda.


I'm kinda getting tired of the word "kinda". I send my knife to Victorinox, and they kinda fix it (saw's still bent). I request that safety improvements get made, and they kinda get overlooked... You kinda get my drift.


In this old photo, you can see how the grate is really recessed due to overlays not bringing up the grate to the new street level.





Now, it's level, but Wait! What are those new gaps?!





Yup, they're wide enough to swallow my Ranger model Swiss Army Knife (and my knife is wider than a road bike's tires).







Close but no banana...

K'Tesh

And now for one of my fastest responses to a repair request...

Getting off the bus today, I noticed the rotted wooden stump of an old mailbox's post sunken in a hole in the sidewalk.





I was literally on the phone calling Sherwood's Public Works Department, when I observed that the crew working on the sidewalk across the street was Sherwood's Public Works Department.

I walked up, and spoke to the supervisor, pointing out the hole, and he had his guys cold patch the hole in less than 15 minutes...





Thanks Sherwood!