Category: Uncategorized

The Crash

I had a crash about two weeks ago… on my bike. (Yes, crash not accident.) It sucked, but it’s all my own fault, so at least no one else was involved. Luckily, I caught it all on video!

On the way to work I had cut through the cemetery to avoid taking the lane on Burleigh where it’s currently down to one lane due to construction, and coming out of the cemetery I turned a little to tight into the bike lane and went down. Now, since the bike lane is not 100% completed, there’s dirt/mud on either side of it as no grass has been planted yet.

Basically when I made the turn (probably going a bit too fast) I had two options: Ride into the mud, which probably would have caused me to slip/go down, or take the tight turn. If I had gone into the mud and kept going straight I would have gone off the curb and into the street. No choice was a good one, really.

And yeah, too much speed was definitely a factor in the crash… as it often is.

After the crash I got myself up, surveyed the damage, wrapped up my scraped/bleeding hand, and continued to work. My handlebars were completely banjaxed, and I didn’t realized it until later, but my fender had gotten knocked loose. Bike people said I should definitely not try to bend back the handlebars, so I replaced them a few days later, got my fender back in place, and most importantly, I got gloves.

The handlebars were a pain to deal with, and the fender was just fiddly to get back to normal… but my hands were hurting for over a week, I had to keep the left one bandaged up for about five days. Honestly it’s been about a week and a half and my hands and wrists are still not back to 100%. (I mean, I did hurt them again doing something else stupid, so…)

I went to two different bike shops for gloves, with no luck, ordered a cheap pair online that I returned because the XXL was still to small/tight, and finally I got the Pearl Izumi Elite Gel Bike Gloves (XXL). They were not cheap, but why should I cheap out on hand protection!? I should not. I’ve been meaning to get gloves for a while now, as longer rides can cause a little bit of hand pain, and I really like when my hands are not in pain.

Enjoy this brief crash footage from my new “Bike Bits” video. Also, Three Ouches? Yes. Besides both my hands, I skinned up my shin, but honestly the hands were so much worse I totally forgot about the shin thing.

I will be riding with gloves from now on… every time… all the time.

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Tags bikes, broken, pain

Uncategorized

WisDOT Active Transportation Plan

Post author By Pete Prodoehl
Post date 2026-10-03
No Comments on WisDOT Active Transportation Plan

The WisDOT Active Transportation Plan is available now. It’s worth a read. I’ve pulled out a few things to highlight here.

WisDOT envisions that walking, bicycling, and other forms of active transportation will be safe, accessible, and convenient for people of all ages and abilities.

On average, people who walk and bike take more trips to local retailers and spend similar amounts when compared with people who drive. Bicycling contributes greatly to the state’s economy as well; In 2022, the total output of bicycle related industries in Wisconsin was over $5.36 billion.

https://outdoorindustry.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/OIA_RecEcoState_WI.pdf

Trips taken alone make up nearly 74 percent of all commute trips in the State of Wisconsin. By investing in active transportation infrastructure, Wisconsin communities can offer viable alternatives to short commute and non-commute trips taken alone. Approximately half of all vehicle trips in the United States could be made by bike in 20 minutes or less, and more than one-quarter of all vehicle trips could be made by foot in 20 minutes or less.

There are many benefits to reducing the number of trips taken alone, including:
– reduced traffic congestion,
– reduced vehicle parking demand, and
– increased lifespan of transportation infrastructure.

Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. Active Transportation Transforms America: the Case for Increased Public Investment in Walking and Biking Connectivity. October 2019.

The majority of motor vehicles produce tailpipe emissions, evaporative emissions (e.g., fuel evaporating in the engine or fuel system), and wear-and-tear emissions (e.g., tire particles, brake dust). These emissions worsen air quality and adversely affect human health. Exposure to traffic-related air pollution has been associated with childhood asthma, respiratory illnesses, and cardiovascular disease, which impacts communities adjacent to high volume highways.

https://www.healtheffects.org/system/files/SR17TrafficReview.pdf

The severity of crashes increases dramatically on roadways with higher posted speed limits, which leads to higher proportions of fatal and serious injury crashes. On roadways with posted speeds of 25 mph or less, 20 percent of crashes result in a serious injury or fatality; on roadways with posted speeds of 45 mph or greater, this rate jumps to 55 percent.

https://wisconsindot.gov/Documents/safety/education/pedestrian/wistudy-pedcount.pdf

Definitions

Active Transportation: Using human-powered means of travel, which includes bicycling and walking, with or without the use of mobility aids, and may also include using other human-scaled or micromobility devices that may be electric-powered or electric-assisted, such as e-bikes and e-scooters.

Complete Streets: Streets that are designed to provide safe and convenient travel for all users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, riders and drivers of public transportation, as well as drivers of other motor vehicles, and people of all ages and abilities, including children, older adults, and individuals with disabilities.

Rolling: Rolling is an inclusive term that refers to people using other wheeled mobility devices such as wheelchairs, scooters, skateboards, and other mobility aids. Typically used with the phrase ‘walking, biking, and rolling,’ and included in active transportation.

Separated Facilities: A shared use path, side path, or sidewalk that is physically separated with a vertical barrier from motor vehicle traffic.

Shared Use Path: Shared use paths, also commonly referred to as trails or greenways, are paths designed for and generally used by bicyclists, pedestrians, and other non-motorized users. A side path is a type of shared use path that follows the alignment of the roadway.

Vulnerable (Road Users and/or Modes): Non-motorists including pedestrians, bicyclists, other cyclists, and persons on personal conveyances.

I may add more things here after another read through. I occasionally spend time tying to education people about things like how Cars Ruin Cities but most car-brained people tend to think that there is a War on Cars and every bike lane and cyclist is a threat to their way of life.

(Local copy in case the original moves or disappears. WisDOT-ATP-Draft)

Tags bikes, wisconsin

Uncategorized

Videos… on YouTube!? (Or Peertube?)

Post author By Pete Prodoehl
Post date 2026-09-30
No Comments on Videos… on YouTube!? (Or Peertube?)

(Note: I thought I published this one back in July! I guess not… it was sitting in the “Drafts” folder. So here ya go!)

I mentioned I recently got a 360 camera and I’ve been having some fun recording videos of my bike rides.

There’s a playlist called: Bike Riding.

It’s on YouTube. Sigh… What!? Not on Peertube!?

Okay, so what is Peertube? Check out joinpeertube.org. (And maybe read the docs.)

PeerTube is a federated video platform. Like Mastodon is for short form posting. (See there used to be a web site called “Twitter” but it’s a Nazi site now…)

See peertube.tv, but also peer.tube… and maybe tilvids.com, and makertube.net, and even urbanists.video.

PeerTube is clearly a good alternative to Corporate Video Platforms like YouTube. Viva La Federation!

But also… things cost money. I thought about using a PeerTube server for my videos, but a few things made me have pause.

I have absolutely no intention of “monetizing my content”. I don’t want to make money from these videos. I just want a place to store, share, and publish them. That said, hosting videos (especially long & large videos) does cost money.

A 6 minute video is about 1 gigabyte in size. I could easily make videos much longer, multiple times per week. That’s a lot of disk space…

If I were to use PeerTube I would feel guilty unless I started donating each month. But if I upload to YouTube I never feel guilty about chewing up their disk space or bandwidth. Fuck ’em!

YouTube takes advantages of users but am I taking advantage of them in this case? Do I get the better end of the deal? Free video hosting for me, right?

Maybe I am overthinking this… or thinking about it wrong? Maybe I should put all these videos on urbanists.video, and help build an alternative to YouTube.

Like I said, I don’t care if these videos get any views, I don’t want to make money with them… maybe I do want to try to build community, built an alternative, and help people avoid using YouTube.

Maybe I should move to PeerTube.

Tags fediverse, video

Uncategorized

Coospo TR70 Radar Bike Light

Post author By Pete Prodoehl
Post date 2026-09-24
No Comments on Coospo TR70 Radar Bike Light

I recently picked up a Coospo TR70 Radar Bike Light to use for my bike riding, specifically for my commute to work since it puts me on a few roads where there can be heavy/fast car traffic, mainly Hampton Avenue through Milwaukee, Butler, and Menomonee Falls.

Matt has a Garmin Varia and I thought about getting one but I still get nervous spending over $100 on something.

The Garmin Varia is $150 USD while the Coospo TR70 is $70 USD. That half-price deal really got me interested, though I was worried about quality, especially with the app, since I use my mobile instead of a cycling computer.

Oh, Trek also has their own, the Trek CarBack, which is $200 USD, which is even nore expensive! But does have the best name.

Okay, so how well does the Coospo TR70 Radar Bike Light work? Before I got it I read a few reviews, watched some videos, and now that I’ve used it for a few weeks here are my first impressions, though obviously I don’t have any other units to compare it to, so this is more “Pete’s take on a bike radar” than a full-on review.

I am impressed. I read all these reviews talking about false positives and false negatives and I’ll just say that 98% of the time it seems to work perfectly. Maybe there is a 2% or less error rate, but I don’t rely solely on the radar. I still look around, I look back, I stay aware.

Here’s an example of my use. While riding down a road where it’s best to take the lane, if I hear beeping I am 98% sure there is a car behind me. I can choose to speed up, move aside, etc. I can also look back and double-check if there’s a car, but it’s not going to change my behavior. This is specific to the route I take commuting. The radar is an additional warning system that is almost always right.

One of the roads I take is 35mph and drops to 25mph. If I am on the single-lane 35mph part and not going top speed (25mph on the ebike) and then hear the warning beeps I can hit it hard, pedal faster, and get to the 25mph part where the road goes to two lanes and I get my own lane while the cars can take the other one.

So basically I’ve tried to implement specific strategies for my riding. For me, this works well. If you just ride with no regard for cars and think the radar will be 100% accurate all the time, well… I don’t trust any machine that much.

When I commute in the protected/separated bike lane the radar will let me know when cars are coming up behind on the street. I’m not on the street, but this is still good! If I know a car is coming I can be extra careful when I come to a cross-street in case a car driver decides to turn right into my path. Again, I still look, but the warning is another prompt to look.

As for the mobile app, it has some annoyances, but it’s good enough. I did have to set my phone to not sleep the screen at 5 minutes because it would dim while the Coospo app was in the foreground. Granted, it still beeps, but you don’t see anything. Now, sometimes I have another app up front, like the Fitness app or whatever, but luckily the Coospo app will run in the background and continue to warn you with beeps if cars are approaching.

There might also be an advantage to the mobile app. I’ve read comments that with a cycling computer paired some of them do not allow you to adjust the volume. Posters have complained about the loud beeping they cannot turn down. Luckily my mobile has a volume control.

Even if the radar isn’t that great, a good quality rear bike light might be $30 or $40 USD, so the fact that for $70 USD I got a good rear bike light with a 40 hour battery life is pretty damn sweet.

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Tags bikes, light, review

Uncategorized

Living (Almost) Car-Free

Ok, that “Almost” is doing a lot of the heaving lifting… In 2025 when I got the ebike I tried to ride my bike instead of driving to work, and between August and November I did 50 days (10 weeks worth) of biking to work. I also biked to stores occasionally, and just biked for fun.

There were times I needed to use the car. Days I had doctor appointments, or had to run errands that were farther away or I could not get to safely by bike… and there was a period of a week or two when my daughter’s car was non-functional and she borrowed my car.

So while I am not “car-free” now, and probably won’t be in the foreseeable future, I have been mostly car-free the past few weeks. Once again the Madeline’s car was in need of repair, and I just gave her my car and rode my bike.

I did have to borrow the car back to get to a doctor appointment, but otherwise I tend to just go to work and go back home most weekdays and the ebike does fine for that.

If Dana and I go someplace we take her car. It’s a newer hybrid and gets 36mpg versus my 2010 Subaru that gets about 20mpg when all I do is drive to work most of the time.

But what if it rains!? As the old saying goes “You’re not made of sugar.” I Did get soaked on a ride to work one day. I just dried off when I got there, and changed clothes, which I do anyway in the summer due to the heat and sweat.

What about the winter? I don’t mind the cold. I have winter gear. I should be fine. I can probably handle 30 minutes in the cold each morning and evening. What about snow… and ice? We’ll see. I did get a studded tire for winter riding which should deal with the ice. (Last year a friend wiped out their bike on the ice and broke their leg. Nasty!)

But again, I will have the car for backup on days when it’s too brutal to ride to work. If I get to work and there’s an afternoon snowstorm I can probably bum a ride home if I have to leave the bike.

Ah, yes… I work at a great company that provides indoor bike parking, which is huge, because it means I don’t need to worry about locking up outside when I get to work. My employer has been extremely supportive of my biking to work.

So not car-free yet, might not ever be, but I love having the car as a backup option and biking to work when I can. I pay less in gas, auto maintenance, and there is one less car on the road most days.

Tags bikes, cars