New York worker needs new brake pads.
Posted on 02/15/2020 4:38:53 PM PST by grundle
* A New York City environmental organization called “BK ROT” violates OSHA safety regulations by forcing its employees to dangerously use their feet as brakes, “Fred Flintstone style,” on a bicycle, while hauling “almost eight hundred pounds” down “substantial hills.”
* Sandy Nurse, the organization’s founder, is running for political office.
* Nurse also thinks she shouldn’t have to pay back her college loans.
In New York City, a woman named Sandy Nurse created an environmental organization called “BK ROT.” The organization collects food scraps and other organic waste, and turns it into compost.
As part if its green mission, all of its employees travel by bicycle.
The New York Post recently wrote the following about this:
Five days a week, Victor Ibarra rides a bicycle through North Brooklyn, collecting food waste from restaurants, coffee shops, and other small businesses and packing it into plastic tubs on a trailer that he tows with his bike. There are two substantial hills on his route, and when the tubs are full the entire load—waste, trailer, bike, Ibarra—adds up to almost eight hundred pounds. “Uphill is really hard,” he said the other day. “But, actually, uphill is a lot easier than downhill. Going downhill, I have the hand brakes pressed on, but the bike is still going.” To stop completely, he has to use his feet, Fred Flintstone style.
Ibarra is twenty-three. His employer for the past six years has been BK ROT, a nonprofit hauling-and-composting operation in Bushwick.
This is very dangerous, and certainly a violation of OSHA safety rules.
Nurse also thinks she shouldn’t have to pay back the money that she chose to borrow for college, even though she chose to sign a legal document promising to pay the money back.
CNBC recently wrote the following about this:
Sandy Nurse doesn’t see why she needs to be $120,000 in debt “just for trying to improve my understanding of the world.”
And so, after a decade of struggling to repay her student loans, she plans to stop trying. She hopes others will join her, too, in a national strike against the country’s outstanding student loan debt, which is marching toward $1.7 trillion.
“It’s a way not to look at ourselves as failures because we’re failing to pay back an excessive amount of money for knowledge,” said Nurse
Nurse’s comments are despicable. Instead of admitting that she is a deadbeat and a liar, she is trying to falsely portray herself as being a victim.
I wonder how Nurse would feel if her customers who paid for their compost with a credit card were to call their credit card companies and have the charges removed, and Nurse ended up not getting the money that her customers had promised to pay her.
To make matters even worse, Nurse is running for political office to become a member of New York’s City Council.
We already know that, in the name of being green, Nurse forces her employees to use their feet as brakes like in The Flintstones.
Since Nurse is running for political office, I wonder if she wants to force the entire population to do the same thing.
Emphasis on the “ROT”.
Anyway, a bit misleading headline. Stating “forced” implies to me that some enviro nut insists they keep from using rubber pads and wearing it out quickly by applying brakes. But really it’s just that one gets to a point where that may happen.
Funny as hell
Lets add it up... Bike ~ 40 pounds + trailer ~ 25 pounds + rider ~ 200 pounds = 265 pounds. I have an almost identical trailer and you are not suppose to put more than 60 pounds in it; but lets say they somehow can fit 150 pounds of wet compost into it... that is still only 415 pounds. Our mountain bike tandem has the same type of brakes. It weighs 65 pounds, I weight 200 pounds and I have ridden it with a 200 pound stoker on numerous occasions. We never had problems stopping. Someone doesn't know how to adjust their brakes.
“See, you didn’t know the guy weighs 400 himself.”
A 400 pound guy would fold the wheels on any bicycle like folding a piece of paper. =;P)
I said I doubted the 800# part.
400 sounds much more reasonable.
What can we expect from modern “journalists” but hyperbole in order to push the agenda.
Too many people will take the 800# figure at face value.
That does seem like a lot. Probably beyond the capacity specs for the trailer. The wheels and axle in your picture don't look like they could hold that much.
Possibly they're talking about "government contractor pounds," which are what they've been billing the city for collecting and hauling. These do not necessarily bear any relation to what you and I call "pounds."
It’s all about the downhill journey. Any one bother to ask how he’s able to pedal 800# uphill?
Where do they go to pick thus stuff up how often and what and how do they charge?
I know you did and I appreciated your clarification. We have had several bicycle trailers over the years. We still have two of them. One weighs quite a bit, has a steel frame and larger steel rimmed wheels with steel hubs; it is made to carry two little kids and is rated for about 100 pounds. The one that looks like the the picture of the bicycle and trailer from the BK ROT Facebook page is all aluminum and rated to carry 60 pounds. You could probably probably get away with twice that much if you were sticking to smooth surfaces, but the 150 lbs that I used in my calculation would really be pushing it.
Amazon sells a wide variety of bicycle trailers most are rated for 40 to 80 pounds. The one that I found that was rated to carry the most was the “Cycle Force Trail-Monster Cargo Trailer” which could carry up to 275 pounds. But it does not look much like the ones in pictures I could find being used by BK ROT.
In 3rd world countries bicycles are used to transport all sorts of cargo. The Ho Chi Minh trail was quite primitive during most of the Vietnam war and more foot and bike trail than an actual road. I have no doubt that people in some parts of the world manage to pack a lot of weight onto certain types of bicycles. But the whiny rascals at BK ROT... probably not so much.
An empty tandem axle U-haul trailer scales in at 1600#. The maximum load ed weight limit is 5000#. The trailer has surge activated hydraulic brakes. If one uses that as a reference, a linear scaling factor would approximate about 160# for an empty commercial duty trailer built to the same standard for this task, as depicted by the article.
Bikes built for commercial purposes likewise are of heavier construction than two wheelers for recreational use. The trailer and load are probably twice the weight of the bike and operator. The hitch mechanism should have a force sensing system with which to apply electric trailer brakes if the load is of that magnitude. YMMV.
Never had a bike trailer myself. Just never had the use for one personally. Never carried more than myself on a bike.
The Viet Cong learned from the Japanese in WW2. They carried a lot of their supplies by bicycle when they captured Singapore. And probably many other places as well.
Low tech has advantages of its own at times.
We use the trailers to bring our dogs along behind our tandems when we go for a ride on bike trails. We used to put three weinerdogs in the biggest one. These days we only have one weinerdog so we use the smaller trailer. Our favorite ride is on a section of what is called the John Wayne trail. It is on the old Milwaukee Road rail right of way where we ride it and it goes from Rattlesnake Lake up to Snoqualmie Pass. The trail is dirt with a good gravel surface so we pull the dog and trailer behind our mountain bike tandem.
It is about a 2000 foot elevation gain in 20 miles at a nice even grade of 1% to 2% on most parts of the uphill grade. The little trailer slows us down by a couple of gear ratios going to the pass which is around 10% to 20% depending on how steep that part of the trail is. Of course going back down it does not slow us down at all. The dog loves it up there, but I am always afraid she might run after a bunny or something so we keep her on a leash.
I forgot to mention the final two miles goes through an unlit tunnel, so you have to bring along lights.
I stopped my coaster brake bicycle that way as a youngster speeding down a steep hill when the chain fell of (coaster brakes). Ruined a pretty new pair of $20 shoes. Folks were NOT happy. I STILL had to crash into bushes.
I didn’t read the whole piece.
But seriously, is that the reason they are banned from using brakes?
My first thought is that what the employees are getting is punishment for being effin morons. Honestly, how can I feel sorry for them. At some point in life people really should learn to think for themselves.
Sounds like a cult to me.
YYYYYyyyyyyyabba-Dabba-DUH!
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