Right, Matt. Mea culpa.
Bell-less, wot to do? "Bazwaldo's dream-spec Nomad" thread overlaps/chimes in, as it were, so let me replay my comment from that:
One finds that there's usually an etiquette with bells -- I learned in the Netherlands this past autumn, for example, that it's Bad Form to ring them too much/too insistently/too whatever. Some places, they barely seem to exist--riding in the environs of New York City was astonished to see how few there were. Scared the hell out of me, but then, I'm just a country boy adrift in the big city.
I depend on my Incredibell--mostly to alert others to my presence, in a discreet, Canajan sort of way. Especially useful, maybe even critical, on mixed-use paths. In Austria, on the Donauradweg, I even had wandering tourist pedestrians thank me for using the bell.
On the other hand: Walking in Berlin with my daughter, and being a bumbling auslander not alert to the etiquette and the markings on the sidewalk (pavement) (trottoir), I was dismayed to hear, not a tinkling wee bell when I was in the way (unwittingly) of a fraulein on a big city bike, but "Aus dem weg! Aus dem weg!" I said, "Chill, babe, how serious can it be?" This had no discernible effect, but I felt, well, justified after a fashion, 'cos she didn't have a bell, nor even a whistle.
Bells are valuable where bikes & pedestrians mix...cows know this too, of course--they wear bells 'cos their horns don't work.
Cheers,
J.
