Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Things people blamed on bicycles

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

811–820 of 852 posts

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#811

Post by DonHopkins »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #600
tablespoon wrote: post #479

https://twitter.com/mstyczen/status/1561856668450754562 : > Biking linked to impotence IMHO, that one's probably true: https://www.webmd.com/men/features/biking-and-erectile-dysfu... : > ...too many hours on a bicycle saddle can compress the artery and vital nerves leading to the penis. > The result? A risk of numbness, pain, and erectile dysfunction. > Male cyclists can place a significant percentage of their weight…

This is why male saddles have a channel down the middle these days versus the old brooks style saddle

Now can anyone explain why male bikes have this annoying tube right where it can injure you the most? I'm deeply suspicious of gender specific bicycle designs.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#812

Post by microtherion »

usrusr wrote: post #788
microtherion wrote: post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know what the law is in your country, but in Switzerland, it is unlawful to pass a moving car with its turn signals set on the right.

On a separate lane, no matter how early the signal is set? That would seem like an invitation to power abuse considering how much time queuing cars spend in that not-quite-standing state.

The situation I meant was for a bicycle passing in the gap between the right hand lane and the curb, not on a separate bicycle lane.

> That would seem like an invitation to power abuse

As in, cars could set their turn signals all the time? Pretty sure that would be against the law, and it would probably be easier to achieve that effect by hogging the right side of the lane (which is also against the law, except when combined with setting the signals and preceding a right turn).

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#813

Post by _chu1 »

stopyellingatme wrote: post #492
_chu1 wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the American suburban/rural spillover, riding a bike is a fever dream, I wish I could but then again it's a tradeoff of not living in any big city of my state (I live in Alabama so I obviously don't have good choices)

I live in Birmingham, AL and biking is an impossibility here. Mountainbrook has nice sidewalks though. Just have to pay 1m+ for a house over there.

Birmingham is getting rough, I moved away near the St Clair county area. Safer areas, less things to do overall though.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#814

Post by farnsworth »

cheeze wrote: post #784
tenpies wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the blood on the political class for this. After all, they're the ones who made murdering with a car the most penalty free and easily forgiven way of murdering someone. In some cities you can be comically negligent - I'm talking murdering people over on the side walk because you dropped a bottle of water in your car - and be perfectly okay.

I'm a cyclist and hate this as much as the next person, but "murder" seems pretty harsh as a choice of words

Killing people due to negligence seems pretty harsh as an action

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#815

Post by Macha »

hackernewds wrote: post #192
pembrook wrote: post #178

Think folks are missing the point here. The idea of this thread isn’t that bicycles are uniquely singled out for ridicule. These article snippets all come from a time when the bicycle was just invented and usage was growing fast (eg like any new tech). In fact, I think they were taken from a defunct Twitter account called pessimists archive. The point is that mass media will always court controversy and bemoan any ne…

Precisely. See this same trend with online shopping, social media, and app-based food delivery. If they sucked, they wouldn't be so ubiquitous. But they are.

Some of these things did suck - just for someone who is not the customer, so it didn't impact their ability to keep going.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#816

Post by swyx »

pembrook wrote: post #178

Think folks are missing the point here. The idea of this thread isn’t that bicycles are uniquely singled out for ridicule. These article snippets all come from a time when the bicycle was just invented and usage was growing fast (eg like any new tech). In fact, I think they were taken from a defunct Twitter account called pessimists archive. The point is that mass media will always court controversy and bemoan any ne…

Pessimists Archive does not seem defunct fwiw https://twitter.com/PessimistsArc just tweeted yesterday

Jason Feifer did change the name of the podcast, which i do recommend: https://www.jasonfeifer.com/episode/did-pessimists-archive-c...

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#817

Post by bertil »

speedgoose wrote: post #805
kuschku wrote: post #803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to live in a hilly, rainy part of Germany. I cycled that exact distance every day. It's not an issue. If you've got children, get a cargo bike with child seats or a bicycle trailer with child seats. Works fine, many parents did that.

You need very convincing arguments to convince people to downgrade their quality of life that much. Biking on the rain uphill with a bike trailer is not fun compared to driving a car. That’s my point, I personally enjoy biking.

I would love that this argument about the quality of life to be also heard when talking about people who have to suffer the consequence of cars: violence, children's deaths, pollution, noise, aggressive tone, inhospitable cities, enormous parking lots that are hellish all Summer and don’t let water seed though. For the last years, deadly heat waves, and floods.

Selfishness isn’t an argument when making collective decisions.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#818

Post by ajuc »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #781
ajuc wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's the slower vehicle's responsibility to yield to faster traffic WTF is wrong with you in America? When a bike goes on the pavement it's the bike that has to yield. When a pedestrian or a bike goes on a road - it's the cars that have to yield (usually, there's exceptions).

No. Traffic is supposed to flow. A vehicle that's moving too slowly is an obstacle on the road. There is such a thing as a minimum speed and cyclists violate that every single day.

> There is such a thing as a minimum speed and cyclists violate that every single day.

On every road where minimum speed is introduced bikes are banned anyway. At least in my country. It's just motorways and expressways. Every other road does not have minimum speed and bikes can go as slow as they wish. Anything else would be discriminatory towards less fit people.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#819

Post by josephcsible »

kuschku wrote: post #800
josephcsible wrote: post #762

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would we tolerate a car on our roads with turn signals and brakes that couldn't be used at the same time?

Why should cyclists, who got the roads built in the first place , be driven from the roads by motorists? Bicycles aren't the problem, the singular focus on cars in our societies is the real problem. Roads used to be shared between horses, carriages, bicycles, vendors, and pedestrians. The car is a monotheistic religion, there can only be one god, the car, and you have to devote your whole life and society to it.

> Why should cyclists, who got the roads built in the first place, be driven from the roads by motorists?

This feels a bit like saying that the US shouldn't have abolished slavery since it was founded by slave owners.

> Roads used to be shared between horses, carriages, bicycles, vendors, and pedestrians.

Lead used to be in paint and gas. Doctors used to perform surgery without even washing their hands first. People used to use chamber pots instead of toilets. And roads used to be disgusting from being covered in horse manure.

> The car is a monotheistic religion, there can only be one god, the car, and you have to devote your whole life and society to it.

No, we just want different spaces to be used for different means of transportation, similarly to how you wouldn't want someone riding a motorcycle on the sidewalk.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#820

Post by kuschku »

josephcsible wrote: post #819
kuschku wrote: post #800

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should cyclists, who got the roads built in the first place , be driven from the roads by motorists? Bicycles aren't the problem, the singular focus on cars in our societies is the real problem. Roads used to be shared between horses, carriages, bicycles, vendors, and pedestrians. The car is a monotheistic religion, there can only be one god, the car, and you have to devote your whole life and society to it.

> Why should cyclists, who got the roads built in the first place , be driven from the roads by motorists? This feels a bit like saying that the US shouldn't have abolished slavery since it was founded by slave owners. > Roads used to be shared between horses, carriages, bicycles, vendors, and pedestrians. Lead used to be in paint and gas. Doctors used to perform surgery without even washing their hands first. People…

> No, we just want different spaces to be used for different means of transportation, similarly to how you wouldn't want someone riding a motorcycle on the sidewalk.

So does every cyclist. Yet it's motorists that protest against that every time they'd have to sacrifice a lane.

Post reply on HN