Note: The following video, shot on August 12, 2012, was uploaded to Vimeo on January 10, 2013, after extensive editing.
To view it in full-screen mode, please start the video and then click on the 4 arrowheads symbol (reproduced at right) just left of vimeo below.
To minimize again, click “Esc” on your keyboard (Mac).
Bicycling Made Simple: Gerry Noll Shows How from Martin Pion on Vimeo.
On August 18, 2012, Gerry Noll and I set off to show how relatively easy it is to safely bicycle on Ferguson’s main roads if you just know the basic rules and skills needed for safe cycling, which almost anyone can acquire.
Thanks to Ferguson’s progressive attitude towards bicycle transportation, which it is helping to encourage, Gerry and I were legally permitted to decide whether to control or share the curb lane on the four-lane arterials where most of the video was shot. The curb lanes are typically 12 ft – 13 ft wide in Ferguson, which is definitely not safely shareable with the buses and large commercial vehicles using them, and is tight even with cars, as discussed in previous thinkbicyclingblogs, such as Bicyclist lane control: Why the law needs changing, posted on June 25, 2012.
To avoid being squeezed to the side of the road, I chose to control the lane throughout the shooting of this video, with Gerry following my lead. As amply demonstrated, that rarely caused anything other than a short delay to following vehicles in our lane.
Note on videotaping:
I modified an old hardshell Bell Tourlite safety helmet to hold Gerry’s Contour HD 1050p fixed focus videocamera, designed for active sports taping, plus my Canon S-95 camera in video mode. Being fixed focus the Contour distorts vertical objects near the edges of the field of view, causing them to bend, so I had that facing forward, while my Canon, which doesn’t produce this kind of distortion, faced backwards to tape Gerry and his interaction with following motorists.
Background note on Gerry Noll:
Gerry Noll posing outside his Ferguson Bicycle Shop at 429 S. Florissant Rd. on November 16, 2012.
Gerry opened his Ferguson Bicycle Shop after retiring from nearby Emerson Electric in April 2011, and became a certified Cycling Savvy Instructor in June 2011 and now offers CS courses to adults, so he was a natural for the “starring role” in this movie.
ThinkBicycling 