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Things people blamed on bicycles

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Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#841

Post by prennert »

bostik wrote: post #690
prennert wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In London it is worth trying to optimize where you live so you can get by bicycle where you need to go. Some parts are terribly connected for cyclists others much better. You can use citymapper to find and check for cycling routes (do not use Google to find cycling routes). I found that North (Islington) and East are better for cycling than South or West.

(Snark incoming!) Entitled much? Try having a family, and getting a place with a garden. Around Islington decent places like that go for around £2M. With the most lenient lenders you can get a mortgage for 5.5x your annual income, so in order to afford one, I would have to make about £365k a year. Which would likely put me in the 99.99th percentile in terms of income. Yeah. Sure.

I always think London is only good for students or rich people. Since I am neither, I moved away.

Islington is massive with expensive and cheaper areas, but all of it is fairly cycleble. But if you want to go further away, I did cycle from Lea bridge road close to Walhamstrow every day for years to around Euston. That's North East and used to be cheap the live back then. I tried Tottenham, too. That's harder to cycle to and from.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#842

Post by kuschku »

petre wrote: post #837
kuschku wrote: post #798

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I paid 400€ for mine and it was the most expensive bike I've ever bought. And I honestly still consider that too much. There's people who cycle as method of transportation, and those who cycle as a sport. It's only the ones cycling as sport who need this expensive stuff.

You don't get much bike for 400€ nowadays, maybe an entry level Decathlon model. I think I built my last classic road bike for a bit more than that amount out of a mix of second hand parts and a new cockpit, tires, chain and brake pads.

This is the one I've got: https://boc24.de/products/bocas-bari-trapez it was on sale for 350€, I added https://www.bumm.de/de/produkte/dynamo-scheinwerfer/produkt/... and now I'm more than happy for what I use my bike for (fietsen). Obviously, I wouldn't enter a race with it, but why would I?

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#843

Post by tremon »

petre wrote: post #837
kuschku wrote: post #798

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I paid 400€ for mine and it was the most expensive bike I've ever bought. And I honestly still consider that too much. There's people who cycle as method of transportation, and those who cycle as a sport. It's only the ones cycling as sport who need this expensive stuff.

You don't get much bike for 400€ nowadays, maybe an entry level Decathlon model. I think I built my last classic road bike for a bit more than that amount out of a mix of second hand parts and a new cockpit, tires, chain and brake pads.

https://www.internet-bikes.com/1013656-amigo-classic-c1-26-i...

Perfectly functional sports utility vehicle for less than €200

If you want to add some cargo space in the front, you're in the price range the GP mentioned: https://www.omafiets-online.nl/omafietsen/Spirit-Cargo-Trans...

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#844

Post by bwindels »

dageshi wrote: post #365
bwindels wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if you can't safely overtake a bicycle, you expect it to stop by the side of the road to let you pass after 20 seconds?

If they're going significantly slower than the average speed and there's a pile of traffic held up behind them... yes?

So if you're stuck behind a tractor, do you also expect it to stop by the side of the road and let all traffic pass? I'm sure many farmers would disagree with you there and tell you they've got work to do. I've never seen any tractor do that in fact.

Same goes for bicycles, they've got places to be. It's a means of transportation just like a car. If there is no bike lane, that's though luck for the cyclist (as it's a lot less comfortable) and for the motorists behind them, and a good reason for cyclists and motorists alike to argue for more bike lanes. Why should they alone bear the cost of shitty infrastructure (in time lost stopping by the side of the road every time a car is stuck behind them for +20s)?

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#845

Post by neutronicus »

DonHopkins wrote: post #807
wpietri wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't take a lot of people for aggression to feel common to cyclists. Just as a proxy measure of right-wing-ness, 11% of people in Balitmore city voted for Trump, and 35% in Baltimore County. But I think the aggression is part of dominance assertion, a behavior that is more approved of on the right, but you still see plenty of on the left.

Rolling coal on cyclists, and proudly posting videos of it on youtube, and plowing trucks through the bicyclists, and writing articles portraying the perpetrators as heroes, is a hell of a lot worse than the common everyday "aggression" that American cyclists experience. They're absolutely not equivalent. Can you link to hundreds videos of left wingers with Biden bumper stickers rolling coal on anti-environmentalists…

I mean cyclists here talk about getting "bricked" (what it sounds like, getting a brick chucked at them)

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#846

Post by grecy »

dazc wrote: post #258
grecy wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people have no idea of the destructive power of the three ton death machine they are in command of. For that reason I think it should be mandatory to volunteer in a crash recovery ward at a hospital for 100 hours before getting a drivers license.

These people never consider the possibility they will actually hit something, their driving skills being so above average and all..

Which is why we should force them to see the reality of what happens when people do. And they'll talk to those people who are severely injured, who will say "it was never going to happen to me either".

I'd bet the number of licensed drivers would drop, people wouldn't want a license after seeing the harsh reality.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#847

Post by femiagbabiaka »

paganel wrote: post #769
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ve got it backwards: Most people who ride bikes do not fit this description. Working class riders represent the large majority of riders globally. They ride for transportation, not pleasure, and on whatever bike they can, in whatever state they can get it. Because you’re right: a car is actually not an achievable purchase for those in precarious financial situations. This is the case for most forms of alternative…

This is what normal people understand right now when someone mentions bicycles: "Portlandia bike clip" [1]. It's a 10+ year old clip but all the better for it, sitcoms like Portlandia were in the vanguard of a lot of class-suppression and gentrifying stuff that we now see as "good for everybody!", not just for the middle-classes from which we're a part of (and which those sitcoms were targeting, self-parody used to b…

You’re right, there’s a long way to go. My family think I’m nuts any time I ride my bike more than a mile or two, when I go get groceries on it, etc.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#848

Post by crooked-v »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #840
crooked-v wrote: post #747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cars are somehow destructive to community live Cars by themselves? No. Car-centric design? Yes. The most obvious place to see this in the US is suburbs designed entirely around cars, where there's often literally nothing but cul-de-sacs and single-family homes for miles and miles and it's nigh-impossible to do anything out of the house without a car.

Except, I live in an apartment with my 4 year old. I can take him to the park 10 minutes walk away. But it would be a whole lot easier if he could simply go into the back yard.

You can have backyards without living somewhere car-centric. Plenty of people used to, in fact, until cities went all in on banning or de facto banning new construction of townhouses and duplexes/triplexes as a way to drive out the poor and/or minorities.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#849

Post by petre »

kuschku wrote: post #842
petre wrote: post #837

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get much bike for 400€ nowadays, maybe an entry level Decathlon model. I think I built my last classic road bike for a bit more than that amount out of a mix of second hand parts and a new cockpit, tires, chain and brake pads.

This is the one I've got: https://boc24.de/products/bocas-bari-trapez it was on sale for 350€, I added https://www.bumm.de/de/produkte/dynamo-scheinwerfer/produkt/... and now I'm more than happy for what I use my bike for (fietsen). Obviously, I wouldn't enter a race with it, but why would I?

It's ok to move around town if you don't have any hills, I suppose.

Re: Things people blamed on bicycles

#850

Post by kuschku »

petre wrote: post #849
kuschku wrote: post #842

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the one I've got: https://boc24.de/products/bocas-bari-trapez it was on sale for 350€, I added https://www.bumm.de/de/produkte/dynamo-scheinwerfer/produkt/... and now I'm more than happy for what I use my bike for (fietsen). Obviously, I wouldn't enter a race with it, but why would I?

It's ok to move around town if you don't have any hills, I suppose.

The city I grew up in and used this kind of bike just fine in has ~70m height difference between the hilly parts and the flat parts.

Sure, you won't be able to cycle up to the Zugspitze with it, but for cycling in a regular hilly town it's enough, 7 gears are fine and the brakes are good enough as well.

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