SPEAKING OF BICYCLES – EJAY FARRALES

1. The first video on “Why We Shouldn’t Bike with a Helmet.”  , by Mikael Colville-Andersen, Colville-Andersen is a designer and urban planning consultant. Andersen first use of evidence was comparing the most livable cities in the US to bicycles. He showed us the best cities and then highlighted top 12 which all had a high level of bicycle traffic in their cities. With that said he transitions his next piece of evidence, or expert testimony from a Norwegian philosopher. His next pieces of evidence were more of examples that in reality we are all risks and at any given time some freak incident could happens and living in fear is lucrative and only helps business. In short, he had many types of evidence and made use of significant stats and expert testimonies to help his claim.
2. The second video on “The Importance of Bike Helmets.” by Fred Rivara, a physician and Professor in Seattle, took a different approach on his claim. Being a physician and professor he his. He looked a the medical side of things. Black and white, using many statistics, and studies regarding brain damage, the downsides of bicycling (injuries,hospitalizations, deaths). After showing the dangers of death he then shwoed more statisitics of the positives of riding bikes which proved that helmets worked. Showed high percentages of injuries prevented by helmets of the face, brain, or head.

Both videos showed different uses of evidence and were both effective and tailored to their respective claims.

INTRODUCTION:

Hi everyone, my name is ejay farrales and as you may know or not know I am from San Francisco, California and today I will be talking to you guys about bike culture in the great city and my hometown San Francisco. The reason why I wanted to talk about this with you guys, is being in a first year seminar that involves bicycles, I wanted to give you give you information about the city and its bike culture.

With that said, I will be talking to you guys about 3 main things. number 1, what bikes are best suitable for the city. number 2, some information about the SF Bike Coalition (in which all of us signed up for temporary memberships not too long ago) and their strategic plan through 2017. and number 3, just some random things you should know about biking in the city as we are getting closer to the point in which we will start going on expeditions.

SO here it goes

My first point, what Bikes are best suitable for the city?

SO if you’re Commuting around the city during the week; doing longer road rides on the weekends: If you’re going to mix in some longer rides, it’s worth investing in a good road bike.  (go up hills, absorb vibrations

Mostly just for going around town on short-ish rides or for commuting:  Since you’re not going to be riding long distances, I’d optimize for a bike that can handle the annoyingly bumpy streets.  For this, I’d recommend a steel frame bike and a hybrid bike tire; Steel will absorb the vibrations from the road really well while the hybrid tire is wider than a road tire so you’ll feel a bit more in control.  I wouldn’t do a mountain bike as those tend to be super heavy and will not be any fun when climbing hills.

lastly, if you’re just planing on riding around the mission or Haight street for a couple of hours I’d recommend a fixie bike (or single gear) bike.

NOTE: WITH ANY PURCHASE OF A BIKE, BUY A BIKE LOCK!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS INVESTMENT IS CRITICAL AS IT WILL SAVE YOU A LOT OF MONEY, 20 BUCKS FOR LONG COMPARED TO REPLACING A WHOLE BIKE.

SHOW MAP, so here we have the green lines which represent the multi use and all purpose roads, so on these paths you can run on them, bike, scooter, bike, walk a dog, etc. on the purple lines, there are bike lanes as well however, these lanes are shared with roads and cars.

SO the next thing I will be talking about is the SF Bike Coalition and their goal

Their goal thru 2017 is to half at least half of San Francisco Biking and a quarter to be biking frequently, or regularly. In order to try to achieve this, there was four focus points. First focus point was to EXPAND AND CONNECT OVER 50 MILES OF BIKEWAYS, NEIGHBORHOOD GREENWAYS AND OTHER CONNECTIONS THROUGHOUT SAN FRANCISCO, TOWARD MAKING THEM ATTRACTIVE AND COMFORTABLE TO PEOPLE OF ALL AGES, FROM AN 8-YEAR-OLD TO AN 80-YEAR-OLD. Second Focus point was CATALYZE SAN FRANCISCANS TO TRY BIKING MORE OFTEN. By doing this they would close down streets on the weekends for families to bike and really push a bike to work day and bike to school day, among other things. The 3rd focus point was to INTEGRATE BIKING INTO MORE SAN FRANCISCANS’ LIFESTYLES TO MAKE IT AS EASY AND COMPELLING AS POSSIBLE FOR PEOPLE TO BIKE MORE OFTEN. (pause and show stats) and finally their last goal was to INCREASE SAFETY OF BICYCLING ON SAN FRANCISCO’S STREETS BY WORKING WITH STREET USERS MOST LIKELY TO CREATE SAFETY ISSUES.

FINALLY, I will be talking about were just 10 things all san francisco bikers should know. As you guys know, we will all soon start going on expeditions soon in this class. So these are some tips you guys can take away when we do start going on these expeditions.

• Biking is the best way to get around San Francisco.. its true, there is simply too many people and not nearly enough parking spots. I drive and it is terrible, parking is terrible traffic is terrible and the time to commute from one place to another is about the same amount of time you would take to park a car. Biking is easy and convenient, of course if it is not raining.

• The Wiggle is your best friend. This is very true, for those who do not know the wiggle. The wiggle is a bike route in SF (SHOW MAP) that gets you across the city to downtown thru golden gate park and around masonic. This bike path is one of the most effective bikes path and most used in SF.

• Know the rules of the road. (self explanatory)

• Get a good lock. (very true, like mentioned bike theft is huge in the city, so get a good lock and done

• The best routes that aren’t the Wiggle: (map out the best routes for you, be prepared and map it out, it will help make your journey easy and enjoyable)

• How to take your bike on transit.

• Ride across the Golden Gate Bridge, at least once. (this I strongly recommend especially those not from the bay area, the golden gate bridge is a landmark and on a nice day beautiful for bike rides as well as the beautiful view on the other side)

• Car-free places to practice riding: (refer to map)

• You don’t have to wear anything special to bike.

• San Francisco bike riders aren’t all the same.

CLOSING REMARKS

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING AND THAT CONCLUDES MY PRESENTATION.

Overall for the first presentation, I think I did a better good job, well executed, but average with lots of room for improvement. I feel like I did not miss anything regarding content and my presentation was very similar to my practice trials, so I was very pleased with that. Regarding the my delivery of the presentation, I feel like I had a pretty good delivery. I felt like my projection was well and compared to previous presentations my delivery of words were not shaky with minimal stumbles. In addition, I felt like I was talking in a calm manner, not rushing, showing a good amount of confidence in what I am talking about and controlling the presentation in that sense. Learning about confidence in this module along with some other tips and key points in a good public speaker really helped me. From my presentations last semester, compared to the first one of this semester I feel have gotten a big boost of improvement. Instilling confidence in myself and being confident helped my presentation. Being up in front of people with confidence vs being up in front of people with less confidence makes a huge difference, as time seems to be going slower and I am able to have more control and be confident, but calm with what I was presenting.

I was very encouraged that I was able to incorporate things that I have learned and showcase a lot of things in which I wanted, I was happy in all the information I was able to convey as well.

Moving forward, I hope to improve on many aspects of my presentation, by adding more things of a good speaker to my future presentations. I also hope to continue my progression with public speaking by continuing to practice and take tips and characteristics of a good speak and instill that in myself.

HERE BELOW ARE ALL THE SOURCES I USED FOR S1:

• http://www.7×7.com/ten-things-every-san-francisco-bike-rider-should-know-1786276604.html
• https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-bike-for-commuting-within-San-Francisco
• https://www.sfbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Strategic-Plan_2012-2017-v2013.pdf
• http://www.sfbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/SF_Bike_Map_and_Walking_Guide_2014.pdf
• SFBIKE.org has a lot of great information and cool stuff to check out as well!

SPEAKING OF BICYCLES OUTLINE (FOR PRESENTATION)

TOPIC/THEME: SAN FRANCISCO AND BIKING

1. A presentation based on your own personal interests, values, or community. Whatever your interests, there’s a way to find out about the bicycle connection. Go to the main page of Fusion and search for your interest + bicycle. (Obviously, YouTube is also a great place to search but I want you to get to know the library site—it’s my job.

1) Reasons why I chose this topic

-being from san francisco this excites me and sparks my curiosity to learn more about the city

-to prepare for future expeditions or self expeditions

-being in this class, i thought this was a great way to kind of introduce this class and san francisco and the richness of biking in san francisco

-learning more about the bike coalition and what we signed up for

-give background info on biking in the city, preparing our fellow classmates for bike rides,etc

2) Which type of bikes are best suitable for the city

3) SF BIKE PLAN

-Overall goal and focus points of bike plan for 2017

About how many people bike to work, how many people bike to school

On average how many people have their bicycles and use the paths

Where in sf is it friendly to bike, etc.

SF BIKE TO WORK DAY

With 12,000 + members, the SF Bicycle Coalition is the largest city-based bicycle advocacy group in the nation and one of the largest membership-based groups in San Francisco.

• What about your home state or home town? What do people there think about bikes? Does your community have a bicycle plan? Mine does—and I was pretty surprised to learn about it! http://www.wilmapco.org/bikewilmington/

4) 10 things YOU MUST know about San Francisco and Biking

1.My first idea for a credibility assessment would be on the bicycle laws in California as well as other states, in particularly bikers running stop sign. As a driver in San Francisco, it bugs me that some bikers think it is okay to break rules and get mad at drivers for certain things, when them themselves can’t obey simple traffic laws.

2.For the interest idea, and for my own sake as a future rider. I would like to figure out which type of bike is best suited for my community and city of San Francisco. With the geography of San Francisco how it is, I want to find out which type of bike is best suitable and easiest to ride in this city.

3.A presentation based on your academic or professional interests. As a business major, I would like to find out which type of bikers produce the most sales and have the biggest market.  This could be something I may want to do in business. So thinking about the different types of bikers and the economical aspect of bicyclists could spark an idea for a new product/business if market is big enough.

The reading that I read was about a Kathryn Bertine a cyclist in her own right and her story on how she got to become a cyclist. Kathryn Bertine has a rather interesting story as her life took many turns in where she finally got with cycling. Kathryn started off as an ice skater/ a figure skater in where she focused in and had a side interest as a writer. Throughout her life Kathryn was open to many sports along the way and was talented in many sports. Some of these sports were Skating, Running, Rowing and she also participated in many triathlons. Kathryn was special in a way that she set goals, met them and exceeded most of her goals as her mindset and mentality was of very strong will. Kathryn picked up things and succeeded in nearly every sport she tried and with these sports reached collegiate, professional or even Olympic levels. After constantly achieving goals in education and various sports mentioned earlier. Kathryn finally picked up cycling where she went from a level 4 to level 1 level in just a few months. This was already impressive as her leg strength from other sports she has done, benefitted her in many ways and helped her fast improvement. She picked up much joy for the sport and continued with it as she wanted to compete in the Olympics. As she didn’t make the Olympic team, she didn’t give up there. Her determination led her to find another way, in which she was forced to find another country with a poor cycling reputation and make their team, improve their team and earn citizenship in that respective country.

Another article I read was Denise’s Miller, fastest women on earth. This article was very interesting as it told the story of her love with speed. I found it so interesting in how she felt when she was riding 100+ miles an hour on a bike. Denise explains the dangers of cycling at that speed as an adventure because although it is a risk it’s something they calculate and work hard and train to be able to ride at that speed.

My thoughts on Strickland’s “What every kid wants” article is great. I think Strickland’s stories and ideas of one-thing bikes are amazing. I loved the essence and nostalgic feel it brought. Made me think about the times I had as a kid and brought back many distant memories and emotions during my childhood. Each story was interesting and was heart-warming when reading about the different personal experiences with biking.

As a kid, I remember riding bicycles a lot, I remember that once I finally got it for the first time it was such a satisfying feeling and a feeling that I enjoyed. I remember wanting to go out with my cousins and ride around the neighborhood and even when we were not allowed to ride around the neighborhood. I would still ride around my backyard in circles and circles until I got dizzy or simply tired. My experience is similar to Strickland’s story (on page 28) in a way that I really value it and a bicycle is a friend in a way that it is always there for you when you need it and is something that will always be by your side and something you can generally rely on. Something that will normally always bring joy to your side.