We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

If this is predicting electric bikes that can keep up with the current speed of the roads, I don't think it sounds meaningfully different from light motorcycles in terms of infrastructure. The vulnerability of the traveller sounds the same. But perhaps the lighter vehicle and environmental benefit will help it reach a critical mass where change will happen..

I think we're generally headed for slower roads in built up areas. It's the cheapest option. 15mph roads will probably be safe enough for cyclists and I personally believe stopping distances have got to come down a lot if we're ever going to let the robots drive cars in towns.

Dreaming bigger than bicycles would be helpful as well. Electrification, and having more than two wheels is a big step up in terms of practicality.

There’s a real sweet spot somewhere around where electrified pedal tricycles, electric three wheel mopeds, and small electric cars like the Renault Twizy, that has huge potential.

I cycle everywhere but I’m realistic about the issues with mass adoption. Bicycles are fundamentally unstable and they are too narrow to expect road discipline by cyclists to be an emergent property. There is also a very narrow band of weather conditions, especially as a function of how hilly it is, where most people can cycle without overheating.

Electrification is a game changer but there’s no two ways about it: these are now literally motorbikes, with all the same potential for antisocial behavior (pavement riding, traffic weaving, shortcuts through pedestrian only areas.) Not being quite so efficient with the amount of road space used might benefit cyclist behavior and force the authorities hand into providing first class infrastructure for non-car travel.

My personal solution is a bit of a hack: ride a cargo bike with a large front bucket. Keeps me slow and riding safely :)

> I guess you've never experienced a 40-45c day. You sound like one of the regular tourist types we get who dismiss how seriously we take summer conditions

Funnily enough I was thinking that about you, because on 40+ days we've got people out riding, overcrowding beaches, walking and some even sunbaking, many will be doing that without shirts on in the open sun and they're not going up in flames. Some poor buggers even have to work outside doing physical labor on such glorious beach days. Personally on days like that I like to go for a quick swim and spend the afternoon with a beer on a bowling green if I can. We've been doing this for generations, my great grandma was doing it before cars, sunscreen and aircon were invented and kids had to walk to school, indigenous people were doing it much longer. We aren't scared of the sun as our skin cancer rates will testify.

Of course these days there's people that take the doona off in the morning and enjoy their air conditioned house, run to their air conditioned car to work in their air conditioned office for 8 hours then do it all in reverse and never see the sun. Of course they don't climatise because they're living in a different climate.

It's excellent to see momentum building like this. Cycling:

- Has lower cost-of-entry in terms of purchase/rental

- Keeps you healthier, which can also contribute to remaining active and mobile in older age

- Provides easier self-maintenance for most common faults

- Requires less fuel (particularly combustible/fossil)

- Can be just as fast, or faster, for transit from A to B in urban environments (especially with e-bikes)

- Is more social and human - cyclists can chat to each other while commuting or in transit, rather than being isolated in glass bubbles (which sometimes leads to misunderstanding and road rage when a simple conversation - even if a little confrontational - might resolve things)

- Requires less physical space - which eventually will make it easier to park cars, once we reclaim this inefficient use of our environments

- Pollutes less

- Is more easily portable within other modes of transport (trains, aircraft, or cars)

- Is, in the presence of good bicycle infrastructure, simply a much more pleasant, enjoyable, and self-directed way to travel

One remaining issue perhaps is large load-carrying; and that's certainly somewhere where cargo bikes and cargo e-bikes are innovating. And also a situation where the physical distribution of goods is changing (for example, via on-demand delivery services, some of which themselves use bicycle couriers).

It's really time to get people shifting towards bicycles in a big way. The arguments against it broadly do not stand, especially in the presence of e-bikes. Cars aren't going to go away, but they're way overused currently.

T2 diabetes is mostly a lifestyle disease.