Pass it on?
Hopefully, next year the Film Festival can find a much better representative of the film industry to make an appearance in Traverse City instead of somebody like Madonna, who sexually exploited her way to stardom.
If Rick Coates ever does get to interview Madonna, how about asking her if she passed her “Boy Toy” belt buckle down to her young daughter so she can wear it like her momma did.
Angelina M. Randazzo • TC
Evasive action
Anne Stanton’s article, “Ride ’Em Cowboy!” was a timely and relevant look at the very important issue of bicycling safety, and, for the most part, I agreed with her in just about every respect. However, there were a few omissions that I would like to point out, as well as an issue I disagreed with.
Riding on the right side of the road is considered a primary rule of bicycling, but it’s not always safe or practicable. I ride on M-22 in Leelanau County enroute to work, and I always ride on the left, facing traffic.
Notice in the two biking fatalities mentioned, the riders were killed by drivers who struck them from behind. They never saw the vehicle that hit and killed them. Personally, if I’m going to be run off the road, I prefer to see it coming -- at least this way I have a chance to take evasive action.
Granted, M-22 has a paved, six-foot-wide shoulder to ride on, and it may not always be practicable to ride on the left, but I’ll do it every chance I have.
Also not mentioned was bicycling at night. I get out of work at 2 a.m., and half of my route takes me down M-22. I wear a helmet with a detachable headlamp, as well as two strong LED flashlights that I velcro to the helmet when necessary, along with a small LED light facing backwards. I also have a flashing red tail light on the bike. I get teased a lot about the amount of lights I wear at night, but I’m strongly aware that, at two in the morning, I’m riding a highway that leads directly from the bars in Traverse City to an all-night casino that also has bars. I want these inebriated drivers to see me!
Also, drivers: when you happen upon a bicyclist riding towards you at night, dim your lights! We can’t see the road ahead of us when we’re blinded by your high beams—no one likes to barrel down the road on a bike when he can’t see anything.
Finally, always wear a helmet, no matter how goofy you think they make you look. I’ve only had one crash on my bike, but I was stunned at how fast my “face-plant” occurred. I literally had no time to react before I found myself flat on the pavement with my bike on top of me (I hit a curb that I hadn’t seen). Don’t be an organ donor because you thought helmets were “dumb,” or “unmanly,” or “funny looking.”
Like on a motorcycle, there are no second chances in a bicycle accident. Do everything you can, and wear everything you must, to avoid the accident in the first place.
Howard J. Blodgett • Leelanau
Know the road rules
Thanks for the good article on biking and a touch of safety practices. With the growing numbers of cyclists on the road due to economics more than anything else, it is important that people be reminded of the rules.
A lot of people have taken to riding after many years if not decades of not riding, most haven’t ridden since they were kids, and man how times have changed. The number of cars have gone up considerably and the recognition of cyclists on the road has gone down. Long gone are the days of weaving back and forth across the line like we did as kids. Auto drivers don’t know for sure what to do with a cyclist anymore.
I read Bicycle and Mountain Bike magazine and every month someone comments about the cyclists they have encountered who are not obeying the rules of the road. These are the people that cause drivers to respond like the ones you commented on in the article. There are rules for cyclists and if someone is intending to ride their bike in towns or on rural roads, then they better learn the rules and obey them. This goes for riding our miles of bike trails too.
You would do the public a huge favor by posting articles or comments about riding in Northern Michigan. The Express is respected and read by many, it would be a great medium to get good info out to the growing number of pedal power people, new and old.
Joe Deater • Lake Ann
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You don’t need to look far for things to do in Northern Michigan this summer. Every town has its festival and ambitious calendar of events. Following are a few sure bets. (See separate calendars for music festivals, racing and theatre events.)
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Northern Michigan has always had a robust endurance sports scene. Following is this summer’s lineup of road races, triathlons and cycle events:
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The name of Bill McKibben isn’t well known outside environmental circles, but he’s considered a planet prophet – one of the very first to alert the public to climate change.
McKibben will make a free appear-ance in Traverse City on September 7, compliments of the Michigan Land Use Institute (the nonprofit group that’s strenuously pushed the idea of eating locally with its Taste the Local Difference campaign).
McKibben’s got a lot to say even beyond climate change, but will arrive in town with a nurturing kind of message. He believes that scaling down can make people much happier.
Twenty years ago, McKibben warned of climate change in his book The End of Nature. It was the first such book for a general audience and arrived at a time when scientists were still arguing about the phenomenon. There’s now scientific consensus by the world’s leading scientific bodies that focus on climate change, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
McKibben’s latest effort is Deep Economy, which pushes the idea to “think globally, act neighborly” as one of his friends succinctly put it on a homemade bumper sticker. He warns that America’s hyper-individualism has left millions feeling alone, vulnerable and cut off from their communities.
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Ever wonder how area lakes and streams stay stocked with brightly colored trout for area anglers? Stop in at the Michigan Fisheries Visitor Center, located in Oden, just north of Petoskey, and find out.
With interactive learning displays, a replica of an old fish railcar to tour, natural trout stream and half-mile-long nature trail that leads to the Oden State Fish Hatchery, getting back to nature is fun and free. Daily tours at the modern facility, completed in June 2002, explain why hatcheries are necessary, how fish are raised and what happens to them as they mature.
“We raise brown trout and rainbow trout here,” says Maureen Jacobs, park interpreter with the Department of Natural Resources. “We do about 250,000 rainbows every year and about 750,000 browns that we end up releasing into our lakes, rivers and streams.”
The original Oden Hatchery was built in 1920 with fish ponds surrounding the building.
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Shades of Harry Potter and his cloak of invisibility! The gee whiz scientists are buzzing with experiments in invisibility.
There have been other stories of invisibility, as in the book The Invisible Man, in which drinking a chemical rendered the hero invisible as long as he went around naked, and the radio series The Shadow, in which Lamont Cransten could hypnotize people so they could not see him. In the Star Trek science fiction series it was the Romulans and Klingons who used a cloak of invisibility. That’s fiction, too.
But what about some sort of paint that bent light? What if, for instance, a tank could be made invisible? Now it’s looking like invisibility is possible and not merely fiction.
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