May 2018 Newsbrief

The Cross Canada Cycle Tour Society           May 2018, Volume 35, Issue #5

President’s Report                                                                    John Pringle

The End of an Era. Comox Valley Chapter Community Outreach

Easing into it – Was it not lovely to get out on the bike this week (April 16th)? Sun shine. Warmish. Bike?  Well we actually left the bikes in Oak Bay this past Sunday, and walked to and through the splendid  old Victoria neighbourhood of Fernwood. The funky houses, each with different approaches to landscaping and gardens; flowers cascading from above, blossoms and veggies “cheek by jowl”; bushes fully draped in bloom; patches of perfume wafting through the air. Cycling would not have done the beauty, the fragrances, and the garden designs justice. Cyclists, do drop down from the saddle occasionally to catch the subtleness of your city’s homestead gardens. 

The Era – What era you ask? The Bruce McLean era. And not “Bruce the Treasurer”; (Dawn Minett became Treasurer in December). But “Bruce the Office Manager”. He was a multi-tasker. Bruce had argued for some time that a warm body as Office Manager was unnecessary. This is the guy who scouted out and sold the Board on Karelo. He was the mastermind of this system. Knew it inside out. He was valuable and valued. His baby, Karelo, is gone. The new Max-created-website is humming along, with Max well ensconced “behind the wheel”. Bruce assisted Max immensely in the early stages of the website; taking calls and smoothing feathers as the website crankiness was ironed out. 

But Bruce informed me over a couple of conversations in late March that there was little for him to do, and he wanted out. “If you had an interesting, problem-solving type position for me I’d be most happy to stay on”, he exclaimed. “I’ve loved serving the Club.” But in reading over the March minutes he admitted, “Am I glad to be away from this stuff.” He is now co-owner of a dog, and is on to another life phase. We agreed – April 30th would be the date to sever ties.

Max’s website replaced Bruce’s Karelo, but what other tasks and chores either had to be reassigned or ditched? It took the Board awhile to discern:  

  • His home address was the Club’s official mailing address – our post master;
  • His personal phone was the Club’s official phone number – our receptionist;
  • He answered or re-directed all Club e-mails – a partial secretary;
  • He’d continued as a signing officer and bank officer even under the new Dawn Minett administration: and,
  • He was our Backup Treasurer!

Yikes. What to do?

The Board was informed that Bruce’s last day would be April 30th. The pressure was on. We either had to have a first rate system or body in place to allow Bruce to depart with a clear conscience – that he was not fleeing a “sinking ship”. One of us even suggested Bruce’s role was so important we might consider hiring a paid staffer!

The April 9th Board meeting was where solutions had to be found. All hands came ready to work, and we developed a skeleton of a plan, which took a couple of ancillary discussions to put meat on the bones.

Solutions are as follows:

  • The concept of a CCCTS Office is gone – A “Contact Us” link on our website will lead to a page with three inputs; message, title, and category. Category will be a drop-down list of such topics as membership, tours, hub & spokes, treasurer, etc. The category field will allow linkage to that Board/Club member deemed most able to answer queries on the topic highlighted;
  • The Club address is now CCCTS, PO Box 41, Whistler, BC, V0N 1B0;
  • A Club phone number has been deemed redundant as has a Club E-mail Gone. We’ve left Alexander Graham Bell, Robert Kahn and Vint Cerf in our dust;
  • E-money transfers will replace the age-old concept of paper cheques. Signing officers will electronically approve and verify e-transfers (a system in use elsewhere and being introduced by Treasurer, Dawn Minett).

Solutions – maybe? Of course the Contact Us concept has to be test driven by you Club members. Please take it for a spin. If you have problems in finding directions or having a query answered, let us know. Thanks to the Board for pulling together.  

Bruce will walk his dog in peace, knowing full well that he did his part for lo these many years. Thanks again Bruce.

Comox Valley Chapter Out Reach – Once again this Chapter has punched above its weight in leading our various Chapters in giving back to both the Chapter members and beyond. In March 2017 the Board approved a proposal from the Chapter (Leader here is Rob Haigh) to:

  1. Sponsor and participate in two Cycling Rodeos;
  2. Sponsor an adult safe cycling seminar; and
  3. Hold cycle maintenance workshops for Chapter members.

Two “Bike Safe” rodeos were held, in conjunction with the Comox Valley Cycling Coalition (CVCC).  Ten Chapter members volunteered with the Coalition to provide advice to 130 Comox Valley school children.  Our monies ($900.00) helped cover the coalition expenses for the two days, which included course training material, roadway simulation equipment, 16 bicycle rentals, a large trailer, insurance, depreciation, etc.

An adult safe cycling seminar was sponsored ($500.00) by the Chapter, and presented by Coalition members. Thirteen Chapter members attended. Reviews were very good: Even hard-core rules offenders admitted to having learned some safe riding skills. Key themes included rules of the road, heavy traffic navigation, and co-existence with vehicles.

Three cycle maintenance sessions were developed and delivered to Club member by superb bicycle mechanic, and Club member Angus McIntosh who spends winters in the Comox Valley. Topics such as tube and tire repairs, brake, derailleur and drive train maintenance, and elementary wheel truing were covered. Each session was attended by 10 members, and it was so successful, plans are to hold similar sessions in 2019.

Three cheers for the Comox Valley Chapter for accessing the Clubs heritage and legacy funds to not only improve Club members safe cycling and cycle maintenance skills, but to improve the cycling skills of local school children.  We’re proud of you. Well done folks and in particular to Angela Dawson and Marg Harris who performed yeomen service on this project

Upcoming Tours

 2019 Southern Yunnan Province 

2018 NE Washington

2018 Olympic Peninsula Tour

2018 NW Oregon Coast

2018 Spain, Andalucia

 2018 Big Island of Hawaii

2018 Big Island of Hawaii 2

Upcoming Hub and Spoke

2018 Three Rivers, Quebec

2018 Comox Valley 

2018 South Okanagan Hub & Spoke

2018 Manitoulin Island Hub & Spoke

Welcome New Members
Kim Martin North Vancouver BC
Pat Ens Victoria BC
Janet LaBrecque Ottawa ON
Bill Bourne Nepean ON
James Burnett Vancouver BC
Kim McGowan Victoria BC
Constance Fabro Surrey BC
Brian Webster Sooke BC
Janet Davies Victoria BC
Frank Binder Stitttsville ON
Aline Lavoie Surrey BC
Dianne Schneidmiller Coldstream BC
Gene Schneidmiller Coldstream BC
Trek’s New Tech Push: Helping Cars Talk to Bikes So Streets Become Safer
A NEW PARTNERSHIP WITH FORD AND TOME SHOWS HOW CYCLING INTERESTS ARE FINALLY BEING INCLUDED IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRIVERLESS CARS. HERE’S WHAT IT COULD MEAN FOR THE FUTURE OF OUR ROADS.
 BY JOE LINDSEY   JAN 19, 2018     https://www.bicycling.com

Trek made news at the CES show last week by announcing a partnership with Ford and a software company, Tome, to create smart products that alert cyclists and drivers to each other on the road.

Trek’s involvement is notable for several reasons: It marks a shift from passive safety measures—like the daytime running lights Trek makes under its Bontrager brand—to active ones; it incorporates cycling into the transition from current technology to full Level 5 autonomous vehicles; and it represents one of the first significant cases where cycling interests are actively involved in the development of autonomous vehicle technology.

But Trek can’t do this on its own. That’s where Tome, which works in mobile connectivity, comes in. The key is a technology called V2X communication, said Tome CEO and co-founder Jake Sigal. V2X is short for vehicle-to-everything. It essentially makes the entire transportation system into a connected network, where cars can talk to other cars and road users like bikes and pedestrians, and even V2X-enabled pieces of stationary infrastructure like road signs.

It sounds futuristic, and in some ways it is. But Sigal pointed out that the technology is advancing quickly. “The city of Columbus [Ohio] just got a $50 million grant to install and test this technology,” he said.

And cyclists’ seat at the table is not merely courtesy of Trek’s involvement. Tome’s Sigal is one of several enthusiast cyclists at the company, and Trek isn’t their only connection to the bike industry (SRAM is a client). Tome also works with a number of software and automotive companies. Trek spokesperson Eric Bjorling said Tome’s connections to clients like Ford were a major reason that Trek pitched the partnership more than a year ago. “Tome was the bridge, a company that can bring two very different industries to the table,” Bjorling said.

A cyclist’s voice is essential in developing the technology, according to Sigal, because bikes are unique. “There’s a very real difference in a car’s interaction with a cyclist than with a pedestrian or motorcycle interaction,” he said. Cyclists can switch from riding on a sidewalk to the street, and often move faster in congested urban environments than other vehicles. Those characteristics also make cyclists particularly vulnerable, which V2X might help change.

RELATED: The Science of Being Seen

With V2X, connected vehicles that come into a shared communication range will essentially exchange a kind of digital greeting that contains data like speed, location, and direction. After the initial “I see you,” these systems will regularly update each other on changes in those metrics. This kind of tech can already be found in cars and trucks today, in the form of assisted-driving features like emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, and blind-spot warning systems. The Trek-Tome-Ford partnership would simply extend that sensor network to bikes.

Alerts will be dynamically filtered so that only important notifications are displayed, Sigal said. An example: The sensor network will pick up your presence nearby, but the system is sensitive enough to know if you’re on an off-street path, not the roadway, so no alert needs to be delivered to a driver. Or, in a situation where a freeway crash diverts auto traffic to a normally quiet side street frequented by cyclists, the software might create a dynamic danger zone alerting riders to the increased traffic volume (and drivers to the cyclists’ presence). Eventually, as cars become fully autonomous, driver alerts might disappear altogether.

The exact method of delivery, right now, is still to be determined. The technology is inherently device-based, so it could come as part of a V2X-enabled light or helmet. Or, Sigal said, it could simply run off an app on your phone. Whatever form it takes, it’s some combination of software and device. V2X is also far from the only navigation tool in use in cars; prototype autonomous vehicles, in particular, use an overlapping array of cameras, LiDAR, and radar sensors to scan roadways and other road users. “[V2X] provides higher validation, but it’s not a replacement system,” Sigal said.  

 That raises a set of troubling questions: How reliable is this communication? Would all these alerts add to driver distraction? And what about people without these devices? Last year, while researching a story about how cities will build safer streets in the future, I spoke with Martha Roskowski, a cycling advocate who was then the vice president for local innovation at People for Bikes. She raised a troubling scenario about so-called smart cities: “I hope we don’t end up in a place where, in order for people to walk and bike and be safe, they have to wear some kind of transceiver,” she said.
 

That’s a theoretical concern right now, but a valid one. One of the imagined effects of a fully autonomous transportation system is that it could make traffic signals obsolete. Instead of relying on stoplights to direct traffic flow, autonomous vehicles might navigate intersections in what’s called a “slot-based system,” communicating with other road users via technology like V2X communication. It’s a little like how a flock of birds can wheel and pivot sharply as a group based on subtle communication cues, without the birds running into each other. But what if you can’t communicate with the rest of the flock? If you’re riding an unconnected bike, would you sit at an intersection, frozen and invisible, as traffic simply flows around you?

Sigal, at least, sees that as unlikely for two reasons. First, the simple reality is that most of us already carry a V2X-enabled device—a phone—most of the time. And if the tech is embedded in services like bike share, the bike-share rider wouldn’t even need that. Sigal also wants to keep added costs for things like connected lights to a minimum, to make them as accessible as possible. Tome, Ford, and Trek are consciously developing open-source, rather than proprietary, products and want to enlist other companies as partners. “Ford says they want to back an industry standard,” he said. 

 Three years ago, Volvo and sports equipment company POC announced a similar partnership, an all-Swedish consortium that also included the telecom Ericsson. Although the POC-Volvo-Ericsson work also relies almost exclusively on existing technologies, and they demonstrated prototype concepts at CES in January 2015, no consumer products have yet emerged, and no additional partners have been announced. (The project is still active, however.) Sigal outlined an aggressive 12-24 month timeline for products from the Tome-Trek-Ford collaboration to reach markets. So what’s sets it apart from the POC/Volvo collab three years ago?
 

Partly the technology itself. Sigal said they’re already testing at the University of Michigan’s MCity facility, a simulated urban streetscape. V2X is further along, although there are still competing technology standards from which a “winner” must emerge. Developers like Tome have access to more readily available data, including from cycling-focused companies like Strava. And partly, it’s about timing and the zeitgeist among carmakers themselves.

Sigal spoke to me from the Detroit Auto Show, one of the auto industry’s biggest events. He mentioned that many of the manufacturers’ displays included bikes and cycling. “Vulnerable road users are very much on the radar of the car companies,” he said. “And most car companies now have a multi-modal strategy where, five years ago, it was different.” The collaborative interest is there, the technology is rapidly coming together, and the market is only growing. It might finally be time for someone to put it all together.

Published at least ten times a year by The Cross Canada Cycle Tour Society, a non – profit organization for retired people and others who enjoy recreational cycling. 

Items for the NEWSBRIEF must be received by the 28th of the month. The Editor reserves the right to edit for clarity, brevity and suitability of publication. The views expressed in the “NEWSBRIEF” are not necessarily those of the CCCTS or the Editor.

Submissions for NEWSBRIEF should be emailed to derailler@gmail.com

Please be sure to notify the office of any changes in your personal contact information; be it address, phone or e-mail.