SPEAKING OF BICYCLES – EJAY FARRALES

Write – Out

When I went to write down this speech, I sat down and googled advocacy. What came to mind, was making a positive lasting change in my community. Even though I knew what advocacy meant, I still didn’t know what I personally wanted to advocate for. So I went to the speaking center and one of the coaches, Sameer, asked me if you could change one thing in the world tomorrow what would it be? The one thing that came to mind was police brutality. However, instead of talking about the image that law enforcement has about us and their respective reputation. I want to discuss our perspective of law enforcement, particularly in their mode of transportation.  

In my opinion the image of law enforcement varies based on who you are, your location and experiences you have had with them. What I mean by this is simple. For example, if you are in a good neighborhood and see a cop on bike, you see that cop as a companion or friendly figure who is patrolling, compared to people in a bad neighborhood, they would typically view cops as enemies or people who are after them because color race and where they live. The image of law enforcement is something that will always vary depending on  situation at hand. Depending on how police officers look, the vehicle they are using, as well as the neighborhood they are in can really make a difference in how they are perceived.

So how does this relate to bicycles? Police officers that occupy patrol vehicles are viewed significantly different than policemen who patrol on bicycles. Due to the stereotype of police officers being prejudiced citizens and minorities are generally uncomfortable and frightened at the sight of police cars. On the top of the police car the siren and bright flashing colors of red, white, and blue are supposed to represent America and our freedom. However, when the patrol car is behind you flashing the sirens, freedom is by far the last thing on your mind. From the perspective of civilians especially in urban areas, the police patrol car is viewed as an active predator that is hungry for prey. On the other hand, police officers patrol on bikes are viewed differently than those in a car. This is due to the fact that we can physically see them walking and riding around just like civilians, making them more approachable and less intimidating. Patrol cars to normal civilian cars relate the same as shark to fish in the ocean.

When bikes come to mind we tend to envision a person exercising or enjoying a leisure ride through a park. When I see an officer approaching me on a bike my first reaction is not associated with fear because the image of the bike is familiar to me. A simple symbol of a bicycle can easily change the perception in how we see law enforcement. Reshaping the image of law enforcement will improve officer citizen interaction which will reduce the excessive force used by law enforcement.  With that said, law enforcement must take action in bettering their image to the people for their sole purpose is to protect its citizens not be against them.

Having the Cyclecide Heavy Pedal Bike Rodeo at our school was a great experience and just flat out fun. Seeing all the different and really creative bikes was a pleasure to look at and even more so riding them. The tall bikes seemed super scary to ride, but once you got up their pedaling it felt great. Having the founders of Cyclecide talk about their experiences with their business was just really refreshing to see as you can tell they are happy and passionate about. Along with the creativity, its just was great to see that there are are things out there you would never think you’d see in a lifetime. As the class moved forward, the vibes and fun just continued to spread across the campus as students from all over, came as they wanted to experience these breathtaking bikes. Overall, it was such a great experience and a pleasure I had this week.

For my speech 3, I was pretty satisfied with my speech. I think the information of my topic was pretty straight forward and understandable. I was happy with my delivery, and volume of the overall presentation as every felt natural, with minimal to no stumbles over words. I wish I could have made some of the transitions a bit more smoother and improving my language by using minimal words to get my point across as well as executing the information on my slide about strategies a bit better. IN addition to that I really emphasized my introductory and closing remarks and I think I improved a lot in this speech. Moving forward I hope to keep improving my language along with having stronger more meaningful content on my presentation. Also, when I am presenting to read off slides, thought I did a better job in just speaking rather than reading off slides, hope to keep improving that as well.

• http://www.dummies.com/sports/bicycling/understanding-the-tour-de-france-and-the-strategies
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/tour-de-france/9400588/The-Tour-de-France-a-guide-to-the-basics.html
• http://www.velonews.com/tour-de-france-101-beginners-guide
• http://www.welovecycling.com/wide/2015/07/15/the-tactics-used-to-win-the-tour-de-france/

Hi good afternoon everyone

you guys all know me by now so no need for the introduction

as you guys know we have been watching videos and reading about cyclists and their perspective of cycling, so that got me really interested in the sport of cycling itself. not having a strong background of cycling, I really learned a lot and want to share my interest and knowledge with you guys. with that said, I decided to do this by researching about the biggest  cycling event in the world. the tour de france.

Being a 23 day long race there are many aspects of the race, but unfortunately I won’t be able to cover all that today given the short time period I am given today.. However, today I will be talking about some things that caught my interest and just some basics of the tour for those who both are familiar and not familiar with this race. These things consists of the numerous stages, strategies, and some basic info about it.

the tour de france first originated in 1903, it is also the biggest race in the world being a 23 day event. has 21 stages, each stage represents a day of racing and the extra two days are dedicated to rest. In addition to that there are 4 jerseys with meaning given out each day, different everyday, the yellow jersey represents the winner from the pervious day, the white represents the best young prodigy, the green is given to the best sprinter and the last jersey is given to the best climber.

like there are 4 jerseys there are also 4 stages

flat stages

mountain stages

hilly stages

time trials

in addition to those there is a prologue stage which is 8km and that will determine who will wear the jerseys on the first day. another stage they tend to add are team trials which are added every couple of years for the sake of mixing it up.

next, I will be talking about some strategies in racing.

like you guys know a key to these events are simply saving and conserving in any way you can as these events rely on sheer stamina, endurance, amongst other things.

ECHELON

PELOTON

WORKING TOGETHER – synergy, teams work as units

SPRINTS & LEAD OUT TRAINS – build around sprinter

WINNING INDIVIDUALLY

with that said, I hope to spread the awareness of this amazing event and hope to share my interest and knowledge with you all today. on that note, I would like to end with this slide which is all the information for the upcoming tour, so tune in!

This is my S3 outline on the Tour de France

With this weeks material and content, the whole idea of competing in cycling and the numerous details and strategies that go into winning has sparked great interest in this sport. Being someone who likes competitive nature decided to talk about the Tour de France as it is the biggest cycle race in the world. I intend to share my interest in this topic.

About the relationship of individual and team, I thought Rendell response was interesting because of the bicycle racing perspective he took. Before reading this I was completely unaware about the things he mentioned about cycling racing. Being a person who is more familiar and used to playing team sports, I never thought of biking as something that overlaps, but Rendell makes it clear in the slight overlaps it has. Playing basketball majority of my life before college, there was many times where you have to sacrifice your own personal benefit for the sake of winning. As my position in basketball was the point guard primarily, I had the ball in my hands all the time. Although in every game I would be tempted in taking first immediate shots, in which I was confident in making, I knew that in order for the team to win, it would require unselfish play from me as a teammate and leader. With that said, you always have to give something, to make the team better. Like basketball, there are also times in cycling where you must work together and sacrifice personal benefits for the sake of others.

After reading Rendell’s response, I  learned a lot about biking and was able to really feel the essence of a big race. I thought his response was very interesting, well described and very informative as I did not know most of these things about biking. ” … to compete, even rivals must cooperate,” by this statement, cycling is so similar to many other sports and things involving a team. Success here in this case would be achieving that one common goal, by working together as a team, even if you’re not on the same team. It’s so interesting and intriguing to me how cycling is so strategic and Rendell captures every aspect including the thought process in making these decisions in a race. By working together to save energy, cyclists form mini teams throughout the race whether it being intentional or not. The things you do and sacrifice to put yourself in a winning situation is what cycling is about. By being competitive and knowing what is at stake cyclists must also make sacrifices in the form of a team.

How important is audience to you as a speaker?

• as a speaker, my audience is the single most important thing. As a speaker, the whole reason I am up is to present information to them and depending on the type of speech you are doing. get the audience engage, interested and in some cases to even make them think differently about a certain topic from when they first walked into the room. However, no matter what the topic is, being a speaker you must keep audience engage and interested in you and your message.

What kinds of audiences do you want to talk to?

• audiences I’d be interested in speaking too would be audiences of business members, people interested in the topic I am talking to or students, kids, people willing to learn and open to hearing new information.

What will be some of the difficulties in making an impact on your chosen audiences

• Some of the difficulties in making an impact on chosen audiences are the stereotypes given from the audiences to the speaker, overcoming that along with people that are just different from you can be a struggle and difficulty. Also connecting with people with different mindsets and thinking can also be a struggle.