Cyclist Sensationalism

[WalterWhite]

https://www.castanet.net/edition/news-s ... htm#205180

Wow Steve Quilala. "sabotage"? "a criminal act"??! Dramatic much? They're clearly Olfa brand knife blades. Most likely they simply fell off someone's car/truck and hit the pavement. They come in plastic yellow boxes in packs of usually 25 or 50. How about you get off your spandex *bleep* and simply pick them up? City of Kelowna's fault? My gawd, what a mamby-pamby life you must lead. The fact our Mayor Sugarplum immediately jumped on your pitty-parade is certainly no surprise. An investigation? Charges?? Holy cow - everyone's a terrorist. smh

A cyclist traveling on a popular bike lane was disturbed by what he found Friday afternoon.

“City of Kelowna you need to clean this, this is clearly a sabotage. This is a criminal act, someone is trying to injure cyclists here,” said Steve Quilala.

Quilala posted a video on Twitter showing dozens of razor blades littered in the bike lane just before Sexsmith and Longhill roads.

“This is a very high-speed area for cyclists to go through,” he said in the video.

City of Kelowna responded to his tweet saying “thank you for bringing this to our attention. We’ll get someone out there.”

Castanet reached out to RCMP to see if any charges have been laid or if an investigation is taking place but have yet to hear back.

“We thank-you for promptly bringing this hazard to our attention, as well as to the attention of the City of Kelowna! Please ride safe,” Kelowna RCMP said in a tweet.

Mayor Colin Basran commented on the video calling the act “completely unacceptable!” and “really sad that someone would do this!”

[Queen K]

Omifreaking god, city workers are now sent to go pick up stuff? The cyclist never did a day of work in his life? Gotta call someone to "pick it up"?


Btw, Why don't they go get that damned tree that is growing out from a drain on Gordon Road instead? The roots must be doing some damage down there by now. A Tree of Heaven, clearly growing up out of a drain near Dairy Queen, you'd think some city person would have spotted it by now and said, "hey, let's get that out."

[Symbonite]

Bring the popcorn...this is going to be good.

to me yes anything on the side of the road would have probably come off a flat deck or unsecured load because people don't know how to tie things down on a truck.

Sabotage...ya right...if they were all sticking up then i would say someone took the time to do that....but just laying there...I don't think so.

Sabotage is that mass cycle event that takes over streets.....

[T-roy]

https://www.castanet.net/edition/news-story-205180-1-.htm#205180

Wow Steve Quilala. "sabotage"? "a criminal act"??! Dramatic much? They're clearly Olfa brand knife blades. Most likely they simply fell off someone's car/truck and hit the pavement. They come in plastic yellow boxes in packs of usually 25 or 50. How about you get off your spandex *bleep* and simply pick them up? City of Kelowna's fault? My gawd, what a mamby-pamby life you must lead. The fact our Mayor Sugarplum immediately jumped on your pitty-parade is certainly no surprise. An investigation? Charges?? Holy cow - everyone's a terrorist. smh

100% correct! this story makes castanet look like idiots. I wont even start with what makes the cyclist look like a idiot. sad that they call this news.

btw the blades also come in black box and cost about $50 a box. don't think anyone would waste $50 on some spandex freaks to crash. nails would work better and cost much less.

[JayByrd]

That's what gets me here...after making his video and drawing attention to the problem, he (I assume) rode away and left this hazard for the next cyclist. Looking at his timeline, Mr. Quilala is obviously a serious cyclist. You'd think he'd be looking out for his fellow riders a little better.

[GordonH]

I agree with posters here this was not sabotage (or intentional), more then likely items fell off a truck.

If sabotage/flaten tires was the intent, cheaper choices would be nails, screws or thumbtacks (or just glass bottles smashed).

[techrtr]

As a cyclist, I'm more worried about construction debris like gravel that gets dumped all over bike lanes. I was also wondering why the guy who posted the video didn't just pick them up or move them into the ditch.

[JayPeeWhy]

I am a cyclist. Sports bike, thin tires. I am not sure these would particularly cause any issues as they are flat. Not the best things to have lying around a road for sure but these are not the usual type of item that are intentionally used to cause punctures. I like to think that these are probably just discarded, dropped or fell off / out of something.

[TreeGuy]

Some guy that works in the industrial park read the story on castanet and thought "Gee that's where those went."

[spooker]

Lot's of assumptions here ... as usual ... nothing in the article said that he left them sitting there in the lane ... yes, I would expect (hope) that he'd take a foot and brush them off the lane ... but I like to think people are reasonably good on the whole so I could be completely wrong ...

Like techrtr, I see worse on a daily basis but that is definitely road debris (not going to get into the crap that people throw out their windows) ... but with the advent lately of more incidents that seem targeted at cyclists I wouldn't completely dismiss this ... I've heard complaints from drivers about cyclists in this area ... coming over the hill I love seeing if I can break any speed limits and will usually merge into the traffic so as to not be surprised in the bike lane with someone coming out of Longhill ...

And considering last fall I had a tire and tube skewered by a flat piece of non-sharp metal that was in the bike lane along Enterprise these might not be as quick to damage as nails and tacks but with the speed coming down that hill it could put someone in the hospital ...

[BGrigg07]

Some guy that works in the industrial park read the story on castanet and thought "Gee that's where those went."

Lot's of assumptions here ... as usual ... nothing in the article said that he left them sitting there in the lane ... yes, I would expect (hope) that he'd take a foot and brush them off the lane ... but I like to think people are reasonably good on the whole so I could be completely wrong ...

Like techrtr, I see worse on a daily basis but that is definitely road debris (not going to get into the crap that people throw out their windows) ... but with the advent lately of more incidents that seem targeted at cyclists I wouldn't completely dismiss this ... I've heard complaints from drivers about cyclists in this area ... coming over the hill I love seeing if I can break any speed limits and will usually merge into the traffic so as to not be surprised in the bike lane with someone coming out of Longhill ...

And considering last fall I had a tire and tube skewered by a flat piece of non-sharp metal that was in the bike lane along Enterprise these might not be as quick to damage as nails and tacks but with the speed coming down that hill it could put someone in the hospital ...

Did you actually read the article? “City of Kelowna you need to clean this, this is clearly a sabotage. This is a criminal act, someone is trying to injure cyclists here” tells me he didn't do anything but complain about it. No assuming required...

[netfreak]

Castanet reached out to RCMP to see an investigation is taking place, but has yet to hear back.

This is my favorite line of the story. Yeah I'm sure they'll get riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight on that one.

[Queen K]

I'm kinda thinking the RCMP are kinda busy what with fires and all.

[spooker]

Did you actually read the article? “City of Kelowna you need to clean this, this is clearly a sabotage. This is a criminal act, someone is trying to injure cyclists here” tells me he didn't do anything but complain about it. No assuming required...

Anything derived by conjecture is "an assumption" ... you're connecting dots without knowing anything about the person ... while I'd conclude he's young based on his CV and work experience, his positions and public work show that he's not an idiot in any sense of the word ...

[Fancy]

Lot's of assumptions here ... as usual ... nothing in the article said that he left them sitting there in the lane ... yes, I would expect (hope) that he'd take a foot and brush them off the lane ... but I like to think people are reasonably good on the whole so I could be completely wrong ... .

Brush them off the lane? Really? That's worse. Do people walk their dogs along there?