Tuesday Night Bike Ride — More enforcement on the way?
I got a call today from a woman whose husband apparently got run over by the Tuesday Night Bike Ride. He was riding his bike with the family dog running alongside when the TNBR came, according to her, upon them way too quickly. He was knocked from his bike and injured, and his dog was also run over and suffered a broken leg.
She says the riders did not stop and told him he should have gotten out of the way.
I’m not sure what to think about it all. She said the police would be coming over to interview her husband, and I would guess this will result in some more police presence on the ride in the immediate future.
I haven’t been on the TNBR in nearly a year. It got way too aggro for me and at one point I got yelled at by someone for refusing to run a red light while he “corked” Broadway. He gave me a lecture about not knowing what I was doing and not understanding how the TNBR works. I ignored him.
Later a few of us started leading smaller rides that left at a reasonable hour (the TNBR had started leaving past 9 PM) and word got back to me that “Tucsonbikelawyer was trying to destroy the Tuesday Night Ride” by splitting it up. That’s when I called it quits. It just isn’t any fun to me to be in a pack of people who are running lights on major intersections and choosing routes that don’t avoid such intersections. The TNBR is supposed to be relaxing and fun, and for me it stopped being those things.
When it started, it was nominally “led” by some of the young bike superstars in town, and they selected great routes and, after a few rocky fits and starts, led by example. We had some meetings with the police about ways to avoid unwanted police presence, and after awhile the cops started leaving us alone. (There was one arrest early on and extremely annoying police motorcycle presence. It was awful.)
But over time the people who typically led the ride graduated or left or lost interest, and it became much more unruly. Maybe now it’s different, but the call I got this morning doesn’t suggest that it is.
I hope the TNBR folks realize that the police can make this ride really unpleasant if they want to, and just a tiny bit of good behavior and self-enforcement can go a long way toward preventing that.
I’d like to hear from people who are still doing the TNBR, and if anyone saw this week’s incident.
–Erik Ryberg
August 13th, 2010 at 7:38 pm
I never participated in the TNBR – I only know of it from your blog posts – but if it’s anything like the rides in Chicago, especially Critical Mass, then it’s got a handful of combative, belligerent bike hipsters that give the rest of us a bad name. Angst is infectious; I’m sure if someone were to “take control” of the TNBR and give it more positive leadership that things would settle down and it’d return to being a joy again as opposed to being an outlet for “repressed” bicyclists to flaunt the law. Again, I’m only going by what you’re writing, but I’ve been to enough of these sorts of rides to know how they go.
In Chicago there is/was a weekly/monthly bike bar crawl. Some people started off belligerent and became even more so as they drank. The solution was simple: shape up or you’re banned from ALL local rides. Failure to follow these rules results in a severe telling off or asskicking, depending.
I love bicycling, and I say this cautiously, but get stuck in a vehicle or on a bike in the way of a Critical Mass-esque ride and you’re just asking for harassment. Sounds like this guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
August 14th, 2010 at 12:14 am
[...] then blames the agencies who built it. A bicyclist — and his dog — get run over by a regular Tuesday night bike ride in Tucson; needless to say, the riders did not stop. Well, how do you ride in heels? Searchers [...]
August 14th, 2010 at 7:53 am
[...] Tuesday Night Bike Ride — More enforcement on the way? [...]
August 14th, 2010 at 9:07 am
TNBR is soooo 2007
August 14th, 2010 at 10:07 am
I’m suprised that the TPD is going to interview the vicitim almost a week after the incident. Is this more of a response than is typical for something like this. I can’t imagine the they would come take my statement/file a report if I called about a car wreck several days after the fact.
Is this typical?
August 14th, 2010 at 10:33 am
Didn’t ride in it this week, but the
lady’s report sounds way out of
character for the TNBR as it has
been the past few months that I
have been riding it. ‘Way too
quickly’ doesn’t fit….
2 or 3 weeks ago the cops came
up and admonished the group for
being a little sloppy in taking
up two lanes, so they moved
over and all was fine.
August 14th, 2010 at 10:57 am
I was in TNBR last tuesday and I don’t recall seeing a man getting knocked off and his dog run over. So I wondered about the Fixed ride that usually take place before TNBR so could it be them?
August 14th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
The Tuesday ride generally scares me… I almost got run over by them riding down third street. They were taking up the whole road, most didn’t have lights, they didn’t see me until we were within 100m of each other, and they all looked at me like I was to blame when they had to move over to let me through going the opposite direction. Completely oblivious people.
August 14th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
Yeah I stopped going for the similar reasons, not to mention the pretentiousness I was encountering from some of the ‘fixie kids.’ It was really funny to listen to them tell me that I just couldn’t understand what it was like riding without brakes. Especially since I have had a fixed gear bike since they were in middle school.
August 14th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
Oh, shite. Just when I was getting ready to go back.
I went on the TNBR a few times earlier this summer, and it ended up being led by whoever rode fastest, mostly little man-children on BMX bikes.
Those faster riders had little sense of Tucson geography and tended to mostly use arterial routes (no fun)or the Aviation Bikeway (boring!).
They didn’t understand the crack-the-whip principle: the pack is faster at the back than the front.
They didn’t understand that you need to make periodic stops for the back of the pack to catch up or you’ll leave whole groups of riders in the dust.
So the ride got fragmented and people got left behind.
I’m not a disgruntled slow rider.
I loved the ride when it was moderate speed, because it included all levels of riders and gave everyone an opportunity to talk to strangers.
I miss riding in a diverse group of friendly people on quiet residential streets where neighbors would come out of their houses and wave to us.
Wednesday Night Ride, anyone?
August 14th, 2010 at 9:27 pm
Ed… I can assure you that the Tuesday Fast Fixed Ride has never run over anyone or any animals.
August 16th, 2010 at 10:32 am
The scofflaw reputation of this ride is what has prevented me from joining it. That and the late start time.
August 16th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
I think it’s impressive the amount
of leeway cars give the TNBR. There
is not a whole lot of traffic to deal
with generally and if an intersection
gets corked, it’s just for one cycle
of the signal lights. It amounts to a
really short ‘train’ wait. TNBR’ers
are not an ‘in your face’ group of in-
a-hurry racers.
August 16th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
Well, I heard third-hand that this incident really did happen. It seems that the man’s dog was on a leash and he was riding his bike. The dog moved toward the TNBR and cyclists hit the dog, the leash, and the man.
So, on the one hand, this guy probably was not riding in a safe manner. On the other hand, maybe if some people had stopped the situation would have turned out a little better in the long run.
Coghauler, I just can’t get behind the corking. I know it’s a short wait, but it’s also a short wait for the light to change. What gives cyclists a pass?
I agree that 98 percent of the TNBR’ers are not an “in your face” group, it’s just finding a way to deal with the two percent who are (and the 40 percent who will follow them because they think they are supposed to) that is the problem.
EBR
August 17th, 2010 at 11:34 am
Yeah since the BMX kids have been leading the ride I’ve definately noticed a few changes. The ride doesn’t end up waiting for people to catch up. Corking has been lax (i consider it a bike parade and therefore 1 minute of corking isn’t such a big deal. Going fast combined with the corking creates a potentially dangerous or annoying situation with cars as they wait for stragglers. Also people have not been waving to the cars as readily, which normally works well for calming the drivers for the minute they are stopped.
Changes are definitely needed.
Don’t know about this story but it sounds like the man is at fault for the crash ie: his dog ran into the ride, not the other way around. but it also sounds like the TNBR was incredible rude to not stop and help him out.
August 17th, 2010 at 11:19 pm
AQP, Alright
August 18th, 2010 at 12:25 am
[...] Ryberg of TucsonBikeLawyer.com suggested in a recent post that there would be an increased police presence because of a recent incident on the ride in which [...]
August 18th, 2010 at 12:26 am
There were police officers on the ride tonight pulling cyclists over for various infractions. Check out the post: http://bit.ly/9gECGh
I’ll have a video up soon.