It’s hot. Everyone who figured out a way to do so has fled Miami. Bike news is especially slow. Gone from the Bike Blog’s inbox are calls to meetings, the rallyings of the troops for this or that bike cause. Instead, hurricane season seems to have ushered in a rash of murder, mayhem, and carnage to bicyclists. To wit:
Mysterious Bike Death
On July 29, the Herald ran a story about Joaquin March, an eighteen year old who was found lying by the side of the road, his bicycle on the ground nearby. Thing was, after investigating the incident as a hit-and-run, the police figured out that March had already been lying down when the car ran him over. His bicycle – and this is key – was unscathed. (I’ve been hit head-on, but I once got ever-so-slightly tapped from behind while biking in the street, and that collision – maybe less than ten miles an hour – destroyed my rear wheel.)
Moreover, the Herald quoted March’s sister, who insisted that March “always rode on the right side of the road,” although he was found on the left. Police are investigating whether he was murdered.
Fake Bike Cop
Robert Brown, 38 years young, attempted to rob four teenagers on last Tuesday by posing as an undercover police officer and asking the kids to turn over their wallets, cell phones, ipods, etc. The Herald reported that the teens knew something was amiss when they spotted him pocketing the items.
You would think that the bicycle would have tipped them off first. Brown didn’t even have a car – he was on bike. The kids proceeded to beat the crap out of him; it is not known what became of the bike.
Crimes of Opportunity
After noticing that both of the aforementioned articles were written by the Herald’s David Ovalle, we gave him a call to find out if there’s some kind of spike in bike mayhem under way.
“I don’t know about a trend,” said Ovalle. “But I come across all kinds of interesting crimes on bicycles.” Off the top of his head, recalled the January robbery of Jhonna Mercado and the killing of her 18-year-old boyfriend, Garvin Webster – a murder committed by a kid on a bicycle. “They’re crimes of opportunity,” he said. “People who are going by foot or by bike when something happens.”
And Curse Sir Walter Raleigh
He was such a stupid ghet. His bike forks are, anyway – Raleigh is recalling some 1,200 2007 Raleigh Cadent Bicycles with Carbonage Carbon Forks, because, it turns out, they break. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, such breakage could result in “injuries including a dislocated shoulder, a concussion and a broken jaw.”
Guess where they’re made? --Isaiah Thompson