I think I'm going to try to organize this a bit, maybe I can even make spoke cards to sell for a couple bucks each and get the money to the family somehow.

I was friends with the guy, but really drifted apart, especially after I moved to philly.

I will be in town the 14th, and was trying to possibly organize something for then, so we can get enough steam behind it, and get everything else in order by then as well.

If anyone else is okay with that date, let me know. As far as the rest of the minute details I'm up for suggestions, or whatever anyone has. I just want to get as many people on the road as we can to show support for bike riders and this fine young man who paid the ultimate price for denying car culture.


-Jp

At least the car and truck driver's "papers were in order." What the hell does that mean? And what does it have to do with anything?

where is this video i hear mentioned? i'm curious as to the report...

this still makes me sad every time i think about it. i can only imagine how other friends feel.

edit: and dutret, you're on my ignore list, but whatever you said, just shut up. this is no time for your *******ness.

let this be a peaceful ride, if a motorist has a problem, we can inform him, rather then have another u-lock down pour like the last critical mass

I don't really want to contribute to the debate here, as it seems pointless; BUT,

Dutret, there's no way that riding in Georgia, even in the most metropolitan areas, compares to the total insanity of riding your bike in a place like New York/Boston/maybe Philly. I don't want to take some kind of elitist, "you don't know REAL city riding" stance; but there's a huge difference. I would never talk about my personal experiences riding in New Brunswick, NJ and try to relate them to this because I know that there really aren't any comparisons at all. I mean, I agree with you that splitting lanes around moving dump-trucks is a dangerous move; I said so earlier. But that's no reason to brush this kids death off and be like, "Whatever, he got what he deserved".

My bad, reload race on the 14th. How about the 15th? That way, there's people in the norhteast as it is, who can come out and get to boston if they want to contribute?

I'm seriously going to pull all of this together. So please, stop bickering and give me some feedback/constructive criticism.

I can get flyers made, but I'm in philly. I can show up with spoke cards, I can plan a route, I can create an e-flyer. And I can have all of it done by next week.

So who has a trash frame? I'll throw down for white paint/flowers/etc.

I ride through that intersection everyday. I second ratattacks statement regarding the lanes and worst of all people on foot.For people not from Boston you can't appreciate the fact that people pay zero mind to lights etc when crossing the street, honestly at that intersection you are equally safe between lanes then running the 50/50 chance of some hungover college student with an ipod on stepping right into your front wheel. That being said......... noone HAS to be to blame...that's why it's an accident. My thoughts are with this guys family, this has been a crazy week at NU.

I think the spokecard/charity thing sounds like a good idea.

My condolences to anyone who knew him.

I have a trashed frame. I'm sure if someone really wants to fix it up, they could, but the seat tube has two small cracks from my endless struggle to remove the seat post that is destroyed and still stuck IN the tube. Its a frame/fork.

The 15th is a good date.

Although I hate to keep this banter going, as it detracts from the tragedy, I'll let me and my ego chime in.

I live a few blocks from the accident, and have been riding huntington for 3 years now, and I'm not sure that in the direction the kid was going that I have ever been on the right side of the lane (where I'm guessing many of you think he should have been). Traffic is almost always backed up in both lanes (close to the curb), and lane splitting is basically the only way to go because people waiting to cross hang off the sidewalk effectively block the right lane for cyclists. Believe it or not, splitting the lane to get through backed up traffic (and starting off splitting as you proceed through the intersection) is probably the safest bet at that spot because of the insanity of pedestrians at the intersection. Even if there is no car traffic you have to ride in the middle because people refuse to see bikers as oncoming traffic. Almost everyday when walking I see a biker (with a green light) have to narrowly cut through the herds of northeastern students. I'm not saying it is anyone's fault, but what I am saying is that splitting the lane in that case is very often where you have the most room. The weather sucked, the situation sucked, and dead kid is a tragedy.

As a slight aside, I must take a moment to defend Boston cabbies, as they are often the only ones I trust on the road, since they actually look before they pull out into the lane. They certainly aren't the safest drivers, but generally I get more acknowledgement from them than anyone else.

But **** this banter, when should we have a memorial ride? I propose we do it as a ride of silence, to commemorate not only this dead cyclist, but for all those who lost their lives while riding.

You're by far this board's least interesting troll/gadfly/
muckraker, or whatever the hell you fancy yourself.
Frankly, you're boring, and everything you say sounds
like a desperate attempt to be another less intelligent,
less articulate dutret.

it scares me that anyone thinks dutret is intelligent besides dutret himself.

this story is very sad, as we all know.

i read this yesterday, and a cab turned into me last night. i literally thought of it as i was going down (i am fine, just some small bruises). this particular tradgedy, or something equivalent, could happen to any of us, including dutret. riding a bicycle is a giant risk, as is being a pedestrian, a motorist, or a passenger. my deepest condolences to the friends and family of this young man.

So sad. As my grandfather would say, I ain't got the words.

Everyone asserting that splitting lanes here was the safest option had actually convinced me I was wrong. But they also had me under the impression that the cars were moving faster then a bike could and that doing anything remotely safe or taking another route was completely unavoidable. Sorry, but splitting lanes because traffic is backed up is never the safest option(though it may be safer then cruising the shoulder.) The safest option would be to sit in traffic with all the other vehicles because you value your life and safety more then the few minutes you can save by cutting through traffic or possibly passing very slowing on the shoulder. Yeah it sucks but unfortunately splitting lanes through even slow moving traffic is incredibly dangerous. If this truly was an intersection where the traffic is traveling at 30, there is no safe shoulder and absolutely no alternate route that avoids it short of walking the bike on the sidewalk(even if it is a mile longer) then I stand corrected.

I may not live in boston but I have spent combined weeks there as well as ny and every other major city in this country. No matter where I go I always see a certain segment of cyclist riding with little respect for anyone else on the road or for there own safety. Some accidents truly are unavoidable. Maybe this was one of them but the fact that he was splitting lanes and the behavior of 22yo male messenger bag wearing cyclists in general makes me doubt it.

All that I want to say is that we all lost a really great kid. He was one of the most friendly and outgoing people that I have ever met.

dutret has shown several times that he's intelligent, but he also continually shows that he is extremely prejudice and narrow minded, and this narrow-mindedness makes it hard for him to feel empathy or see beyond his own limited perspective. he has a clear vision of what should and shouldn't be done on certain bikes that sometimes relates to safety and sometimes relates to UCI regulations and if you don't follow his vision then you fall into his prejudicial groups. it's upsetting to see someone who has such an ego-driven view of humanity and feels nothing for those who aren't directly connected to him or living life as he believes they should be, and folks on here get upset about it because everyone wants to believe that everyone on a bike is somehow enlightened.

i agree with those who've said that you can't automatically place blame on anyone here. we share the streets with cars, and when an accident happens you can't automatically assume the cars are at fault, or that the drivers don't feel horrible about what happened. don't let your own vision of the world be skewed according to who rides a bike and who doesn't cause all this is going to do is lead to more conflict and prejudice. grieve for everyone involved, cause once you know you've killed someone - even if it's not your fault - your life is never the same.

yeah. well, that season is just about upon us. weather's getting warmer, lot more people are gonna be out there and things will get even more dangerous. so for those who aren't awake yet, this is your wake-up call...let's none of us end up in that statistic club.

I agree that dutret is probably an intelligent person, I have actually supported him at times, but his comments over the past few day have been disrespectful, hurtful, cruel, ignorant, insensitive, and frankly I believe brought on by the fact that he can hide behind a mask while posting on the internet (I guarantee the same comments would not have been made face-to-face had he met up last night with the group of us from Boston who met up last night).

There are multiple intersections I can think of where stopping anywhere other then at the front of the line of traffic at the intersection is incredibly dangerous, more so than lane splitting.. If you stop cars/drivers often tend to think you are getting off your bike and stop paying attention to you.

I don't have the time or the linguistic skills to describe in detail the intersections I'm referencing because I'm sure the mental image you would get would be very different than the real place. And I don't feel like arguing this with you anymore.

For a THIRD time PLEASE stop placing blame ANYWHERE, I said already that I went overboard by blaming the cabbie early on.

Dutret you have shown yourself to be truly shameless. Please realize that there people who are deeply saddened by this persons death and regardless of your feelings about him and his actions you are hurting those who are grieving right now and have never broke your code of cycling conduct or done anything to you. Your insensitive comments are not changing peoples mind or making people safer riders, they are only causing harm.

Well said Morgie.

This guy's "advocacy" is ego driven bull****. True advocates feel compassion. Obviously his only concern is being in the right.

This monster probably feels vindicated by this tragedy. As long he's being proved right who cares if someone has just died.

yeah +1. you can play the blame game all day but a kid is still dead.

JP, I'll help out with this. I do know that a Ghost Bike is going to be placed at the spot tomorrow, I believe. The Boston Crit Mass email list has more information on it.

I was thinking we should dismount and walk our bikes silently down Huntington, as a show of respect and memoriam.

Actually, I've read (yeah I know... you can find a study that proves pretty much any point) that the greater the number of bikes there are on the road, the safer it is to be on a bike. I believe the rationale is that the more that cars interact with bikes, the more aware they are of them.