Vehicular Cycling (VC) - Recommended Reading for this forum

VC BOOKS

Effective Cycling by John Forester
Cyclecraft by John Franklin
Bicycle Transportation, Second Edition: A Handbook for Cycling Transportation Engineers by John Forester

VC-Related Traffic Cycling Books

The Art of Cycling by Robert Hurst
Urban Bikers' Tricks & Tips: Low-Tech & No-Tech Ways to Find, Ride, and Keep a Bicycle by David Glowacz

VC ONLINE PUBLICATIONS

Advanced Traffic-Bicycling (http://www.cyclemedia.org/cc/index.htm) by Lauren Cooper
Bicycle Street Smarts (http://www.bikexprt.com/streetsmarts/usa/index.htm) by John S. Allen

VC-RELATED ONLINE PUBLICATIONS

Listening to Bike Lanes (http://www.wright.edu/%7Ejeffrey.hiles/essays/listening/contents.html) by Jeffrey Hiles

VC WEBSITES

http://www.johnforester.com
http://www.cyclemedia.org/

VC-Related WEBSITES
www.bicyclesafe.com (http://www.bicyclesafe.com) (Michael Bluejay)

If you have recommended reading for members of the VC subforum, please add a post and I'll update the OP accordingly.

Curious George rides a Bike

any and all bike repair guides

oh, yeah, and your local traffic laws.

How to Talk Dirty And Influence People

Catch-22 - Joseph Heller

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) IV
is very helpful.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) IV
is very helpful.
Yes that is essential as well as How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff for helping with "comprehension" of VC Brand evidence.

"Totem and taboo: Resemblances between the psychic lives of savages and neurotics"
1918 Sigmund Freud

Distinguishing Science and Pseudoscience (http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/pseudo.html)
Rory Coker, Ph.D.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) IV
is very helpful.

omg :roflmao:

+1 to each of the responses so far

I would add,

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition

Bertrand Lemennicier. Why Sophisms Die Hard: The Power of Ideas over Interests.

Open Directory Project. Informal Logic. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-informal/

George Orwell. 1984.

Arthur Schopenhauer. Eristische Dialektik oder Die Kunst, Recht zu behalten. 1830
-especially the following chapters:
Spezifische Behauptungen des Gegners verallgemeinern
Verdecktes Spiel
Falsche Prämissen
Postuliere die These (petitio principii)
Zugeständnisse von Einzelfällen verallgemeinern
Wähle polemische Begriffe
Stelle scheinbar absurde Thesen auf
Verteidigung dirch feine Unterscheidung
Konsequenzmacherei
and, last but not least,
Sei persönlich, beleidigend, grob

Bicycle Street Smarts (http://www.bikexprt.com/streetsmarts/usa/index.htm) by John S. Allen


Street Smarts is quite good. Very simple and direct.

James Gleick. Chaos.

Voltaire. Candide. "...the best of all possible worlds..."

Jacobs. The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

Campbell. The Coming Oil Crisis.

Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K Jerome

Paul

I recommend reading the Drivers Handbook for your state. And please, read it at the 8th grade level it's written at, for crying out loud.

Streetwise Cycling:
http://www.ncdot.org/transit/bicycle/safety/safety_Streetwise_cycling.html

Thank you for posting this, HH. I had not been aware of the Hiles paper, and am looking forward to reading it in its entirety. (I'm just midway through Chapter 2 as I write this.)

"You're Only Old Once!" by Theodore Suess Geisel (Dr. Suess.)

Excerpt:

One day you will read in the National Geographic
of a faraway land with no smelly bad traffic.

In those green-pastured mountains of Fotta-fa-Zee
everybody feels fine at a hundred and three
'cause the air that they breathe is potassium-free
and because they chew nuts from the Tutt-a-Tutt Tree.
This gives strength to their teeth,
it gives length to their hair,
and they live without doctors with nary a care.

And you'll find yourself wishing that you were out there
in Fotta-fa-Zee and not here in this chair
in the Golden Years Clinic on Century Square
for Spleen Readjustment and Muffler Repair.

As for books specific to VC, the few that exist have been mentioned. I've read them and all of them are actually pretty good. The only people who believe that you have to be totally VC or totally anti-VC are the few gung-** apostles on this forum. Fortunately most people in the real world can see two sides at the same time without losing their minds.

As for more theoretical works, I lean to the belief that bikes are inevitable and we should start planning for them.

Deep Economy by Bill McKibben. Bikes are the future, cars will go away, so all this BS is worth it.

There are many good books on sustainable urban design, including "Jacobs. The Death and Life of Great American Cities" (mentioned by Robert Hurst) and Asphalt Nation. Also Carfree.com (http://www.carfree.com/) Read these so we can have an educated voice in planning the cities we will live in.

"You're Only Old Once!" by Theodore Suess Geisel (Dr. Suess.)
A good friend of mine entering the "Golden Years" had one tidbit of advice:

"Stay healthy!"


:D

On a serious note, I'd be interested in hearing what people think of the Hiles paper. Unlike most of the OP's reading list, this does not seem to be promoting just the VC side. Instead, he claims to want to strike a balance between what is usually referred to as "VC" and what he refers to as "affordance cycling", meaning whatever you think works best for you in your situation, regardless of VC. It's an old paper (1995?), but it's the first time I've read it, and I think I can see strains of his thought continuing to be developed in the present day conversation, not least among the various viewpoints that have been represented on this forum. He certainly states coherently thoughts and objections I've had myself on both sides of the issues.

It's too bad he apparently has no interest in updating the paper. I'd be interested to hear what he thinks now, what he's done since he wrote that, and how the paper has influenced bicycle advocacy since then. But certainly some of you are able to fill me in on that. (And some of it I could certainly Google.)

On a serious note, I'd be interested in hearing what people think of the Hiles paper. Unlike most of the OP's reading list, this does not seem to be promoting just the VC side. Instead, he claims to want to strike a balance between what is usually referred to as "VC" and what he refers to as "affordance cycling", meaning whatever you think works best for you in your situation, regardless of VC. It's an old paper (1995?), but it's the first time I've read it, and I think I can see strains of his thought continuing to be developed in the present day conversation, not least among the various viewpoints that have been represented on this forum. He certainly states coherently thoughts and objections I've had myself on both sides of the issues.

It's too bad he apparently has no interest in updating the paper. I'd be interested to hear what he thinks now, what he's done since he wrote that, and how the paper has influenced bicycle advocacy since then. But certainly some of you are able to fill me in on that. (And some of it I could certainly Google.)

I wrote a review of his paper many years ago. Here is my final paragraph:
"Hiles is dissatisfied with all of the current systems or theories about bicycle transportation. He asserts that the American bicycle transportation system ought to be emotionally attractive to people with all the different opinions about bicycling. He explicitly states that he makes no recommendations about the design of a system that might achieve this goal. In fact, his suggestions about the philosophy that might be followed to start to learn about that design are mutually contradictory."

My review earlier states that since Hiles thinks that all views are equally valid, he can make no recommendations at all.

On a serious note, I'd be interested in hearing what people think of the Hiles paper. Unlike most of the OP's reading list, this does not seem to be promoting just the VC side. Instead, he claims to want to strike a balance between what is usually referred to as "VC" and what he refers to as "affordance cycling", meaning whatever you think works best for you in your situation, regardless of VC. It's an old paper (1995?), but it's the first time I've read it, and I think I can see strains of his thought continuing to be developed in the present day conversation, not least among the various viewpoints that have been represented on this forum. He certainly states coherently thoughts and objections I've had myself on both sides of the issues.

It's too bad he apparently has no interest in updating the paper. I'd be interested to hear what he thinks now, what he's done since he wrote that, and how the paper has influenced bicycle advocacy since then. But certainly some of you are able to fill me in on that. (And some of it I could certainly Google.) I'm glad you read it. I think it's important for all cycling advocates to read it and think about it.

I recommend it because it's a rare example of someone who criticizes Forester but yet shows that he has a good understanding of vehicular cycling (with a few relatively minor exceptions). Hiles is an intellectual version of JRA, if you will.

My take on it is ultimately he has nothing to contribute to the conversation. It's like writing a paper on abortion or Iraq that explains both sides, but draws no conclusions about whether abortion should be legal or not, or whether we should "stay the course" in Iraq or pull out. The analysis of both sides might be fair and well reasoned (and for that alone it's worth reading), but that's about it.

Being a philosophy minor as an undergrad, I can appreciate Hiles' attempt here. All philosophy students realize pretty early on that it's not going to ultimately answer any questions, only clarify them. But it is helpful to do so, and I think Hiles has for this issue.

BTW, I don't get the reference to JRA, although it doesn't make a difference to your point. Reminds me of a liberal political commentator who once referred to George Will as "the Voltaire of the flat-earth set." :D

Being a philosophy minor as an undergrad, I can appreciate Hiles' attempt here. All philosophy students realize pretty early on that it's not going to ultimately answer any questions, only clarify them. But it is helpful to do so, and I think Hiles has for this issue.
Right, which is why I recommend it.


BTW, I don't get the reference to JRA, ...
Of all the VC-contrarians on this forum, JRA seems to have the best understanding of it (though there was one notable exception, the first I ever noticed, in the last week or so, though I can't remember offhand exactly what it was; if I find or remember what it was, I'll add an edit here).

Lest there be any misunderstanding (too late, I suppose), I guess JRA is someone's username here? I don't recognize it, so I thought HH was referring to someone well-known by initial. And I also didn't mean to compare him(?) to a flat-earther, only that HH's comparison reminded me of that - an articulate spokeperson for a viewpoint often not well articulated. (Okay, I probably just shouldn't have said anything.)

Yes, JRA is a member here.

BTW, I don't get the reference to JRA...

HH likes to throw names around to see if anyone responds. Perhaps he just wants me to post more since I'm such a big fan of his nutcase ideas, his zealotry and the fear-mongering and bullying tactics he uses to promote his ridiculous political agenda.

Forester's critique of Hiles' paper is a must read:

An Apologist for Bike Lanes Gets It All Wrong (http://www.johnforester.com/Articles/Facilities/Hiles3.htm)

It's typical Forester.

There are only two reasonable explanations for these errors: phobia or mendacity, otherwise described as unconscious lying or conscious lying. In the first case, Hiles is so imbued with the cyclist-inferiority phobia that this forces him to interpret everything he observes or reads according to its precepts; that is the only way that he can understand the cycling world.

Yada, yada, yada. :rolleyes:

If anyone wants to know why there is so much venum in the bike lane debate, why rational discussion is nearly impossible, why there is so little chance of a compromise, and why VC-ism is such a laughingstock among vehicular cyclists, they need not look much further than the attitude and name-calling that typify and have come to define John Forester.

John Forester, has there ever been anyone who has talked about cycling and failed to sing your praises that you didn't call a liar?

BTW, I've read Hiles' paper several times over the years. It's better than anything John Forester has written on the subject -- not that that is a high standard.

Here's a book that might be helpful in understanding VC-ism:

Robert Lifton, Thought Reform & the Psychology of Totalism.

Any good book or article on cultism and charismatic leaders would be helpfull in understanding both Forester and his followers - not that VC-ism could rightly be called a cult-- many of the thought control tactics are absent although Forester does have a cult-like following that is a little scary at times. Some of the characteristics of cults are present: groupthink and groupspeak, to name a couple.

Forester also has an uncanny ability to inspire animosity :D, which he is always quick to attribute to cyclist inferiority phobia or some other mental condition (using a tactic characteristic of cult leaders).

HH likes to throw names around to see if anyone responds. Perhaps he just wants me to post more since I'm such a big fan of his nutcase ideas, his zealotry and the fear-mongering and bullying tactics he uses to promote his ridiculous political agenda.
Uh-Oh, now you done it!:eek: No more comments from HH about your brilliance, understanding or intelligent observations.

But not to worry, I'll give you an electronic High Five for this right on the money description.

Ask you congressman how that's done. :D