Wary of Public Transport, Coronavirus-Hit Americans Turn To Bikes (reuters.com) 110
Timothy Aeppel writing for Reuters: The coronavirus pandemic has sparked a surge in bike sales across the United States, according to a major manufacturer and a half dozen retailers interviewed by Reuters. Many of the purchases are by people looking for a way to get outside at a time of sweeping shutdowns and stay-at-home orders aimed at containing the virus: Even the worst affected states are allowing people out to exercise. [...] To be sure, bikes remain well down the list of U.S. commuting preferences.
About 870,000 Americans, on average, commuted to work by bicycle in the five years through 2017, or about 0.6% of all workers, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The rate was higher in urban areas, at about 1.1%, and about 20 cities with at least 60,000 residents had rates of about 5% or more. A more recent survey, though, showed a higher percentage of U.S. workers using a bike to get to work. Private research firm Statista Inc.'s 2019 survey showed 5% rode their own bike, while another 1% used a bike share service, an increasingly common option in larger cities. The article notes that many bike shops remain open during the pandemic because many local governments have declared bicycles an essential transportation item.
Kent International, a bike importer and manufacturer, said sales of its low-priced bikes had surged over the past month. "Kent is already out of stock on five of its top 20 models and expects that to rise to 10 by the end of the month," writes Aeppel, citing chief executive and chairman Arnold Kamler. "Kamler said sales at most of the major retailers he supplies were up 30% last month and are up over 50% so far in April, with the surge in demand forcing him to change shipping arrangements."
About 870,000 Americans, on average, commuted to work by bicycle in the five years through 2017, or about 0.6% of all workers, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The rate was higher in urban areas, at about 1.1%, and about 20 cities with at least 60,000 residents had rates of about 5% or more. A more recent survey, though, showed a higher percentage of U.S. workers using a bike to get to work. Private research firm Statista Inc.'s 2019 survey showed 5% rode their own bike, while another 1% used a bike share service, an increasingly common option in larger cities. The article notes that many bike shops remain open during the pandemic because many local governments have declared bicycles an essential transportation item.
Kent International, a bike importer and manufacturer, said sales of its low-priced bikes had surged over the past month. "Kent is already out of stock on five of its top 20 models and expects that to rise to 10 by the end of the month," writes Aeppel, citing chief executive and chairman Arnold Kamler. "Kamler said sales at most of the major retailers he supplies were up 30% last month and are up over 50% so far in April, with the surge in demand forcing him to change shipping arrangements."
Fitness/Recreation, too (Score:3)
I was talking to a co-worker who's building a home gym and he said all the items are in short supply and going for very high prices - barbell weights, benches, everything.
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I was talking to a co-worker who's building a home gym and he said all the items are in short supply and going for very high prices - barbell weights, benches, everything.
Folks, the time to be doing this was while we weren't locked down and everyone wasn't me-too'ing. Next time your wife questions that sleek, matte black BowFlex at just 24 easy payments of $89.99, just remind her, "think of the coronavirus."
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Right on. Let's all sit on our asses and watch YouTube reviews of all those gadgets!
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Do we need gadgets and machines for everything? Whatever happened to push-ups and burpees?
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Do we need gadgets and machines for everything? Whatever happened to push-ups and burpees?
With push-ups, you have limited freedom in assisting the difficulty level to your abilities. My SO is in good shape, exercises three times a week, but she still cannot do a single push-up.
That said, there are many other effective exercises that don't require more hardware than a roll-up yoga mat and a pair of adjustable dumbbells.
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"Good shape" and "cannot do a single push-up" don't really match up.
I worked in an office, never did any kind of weight training or used my arms much at all, except to open doors and steer a car. The only person with arms skinnier than mine were a friend who was paralyzed and had severe muscular dystrophy. My arms would be shaking before 5 push-ups, by 10 they would be basically collapsing. I worked at doing single-digit pushups a few times a week. Within a month I was able to do 10 easily, and on my way to
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"I can't do a push-up" just means "I don't feel like doing a push-up", unless you're overweight, or have some kind of neurological condition.
If you're that overweight you could use this opportunity to learn to prepare/eat the right amount of food without outside distractions like fast food joints.
And if you can't manage that you probably aren't going to make much use of the exercise gadgets anyway.
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My SO is in good shape, exercises three times a week, but she still cannot do a single push-up.
If you're really too weak to do even a "girl" push-up (with knees on the floor) you can do a standing "push-up" with hands on either side of a door frame.
PS: That's some weird definition of "good shape". Seems to me like it's mostly in her head.
C-virus Hit Americans turn to bikes (Score:5, Funny)
Well sure, the novel corona virus is scary like meeting your g-friend's parents, but resorting to the mode of transportation we all generally relied upon when we were ten seems a bit extreme.
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Not shared transportation like a bus, train, light rail, streetcars, a subway system.
Re:C-virus Hit Americans turn to bikes (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? They were popular then as a wonderfully inexpensive, compact, versatile, and fun vehicle, and they remain popular among adults in many places for exactly those reasons.
Granted, the fun part is a little more labor intensive than a lot of us would like - as a rule we're older, fatter, and in far worse shape than we were as children - but that's what electric assist is for. Bring the effort down to what it was when you were flying across town at age 12.
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I WISH I could ride my bike. I need reconstructive surgery on my foot. It was scheduled for June, now, due to being laid off and the corona virus restrictions, there's little chance I'll be able to get it done before next June, and probably not then as I burn through what savings I have trying to survive this.
I have a boot, basically a removable cast so that I can shower, since this is a long term thing. It keeps my ankle immobilized (among other things). Turns out, you can't balance on a bicycle or a sc
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They do make a variety of adult tricycles - both standard and recumbent, often with room for serious cargo.
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true, and I'd love to have one, but they are incredibly expensive, especially now that I do not have a job.
it also occurs to me that securing such things is going to be a lot more difficult with even more desperate people on the lookout for a quick buck.
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electric assist
..no, if you're admitting to being fat and weak, you need to pedal your bike, not turn a throttle, and keep pedaling day after day until you can truthfully say you're not fat and weak anymore. That's why you're fat and weak in the first place: too many 'conveniences'.
Also all these 'e-bikes' are hideously overpriced. You could buy a decent used motorcycle for what they cost.
Buy a nice regular bike, get it fitted properly for you (it's more than just the seat height, freind-o) and pedal it. Minimum of an
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Ah yes - because there is no possible middle ground between getting *no* exercise and grueling self-flagellation. There's certainly no room in this world for people to enjoy themselves.
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grueling self-flagellation
Oh, you're one of those people who think you have to ride as fast as you can for hours at a time or it doesn't count or something? LOL.
Try this: ride at a sustainable pace for an hour a day. You don't have to kill yourself off. Just ride steady, keep pedaling, aim for a cadence of at least 80rpm (preferably 90rpm), and raise your heart rate. I recommed around 120bpm. Do that 5 days a week for a month and you'll see a marked increase in your overall endurance, and so long as you don't eat like a pig you'll
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You probably know quite a lot about fitness and health!
But you probably don't know what it's like being a person that doesn't choose to train and race for 10 years of their life. For most people, the primary way they're going to spend time cycling is to cycle to work. Their primary goal won't be "get fit enough to race", it'll be "get to work", and unlike you they don't have the option of picking how long to cycle for -- instead they need to cycle a certain distance, and there's an upper limit to how much t
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For most people, the primary way they're going to spend time cycling is to cycle to work.
That's what the GP said wasn't it? 120bpm for an hour or so a day. Unless you're driving intentionally as slow as possible to try and hatch a Pokemon egg and you need to convince Pokemon go that you're at walking pace, just cycling to work will achieve exactly what the OP pointed out, better still you won't even be sweaty when you get to work.
120bpm is not some extreme endurance training. At that heartrate you will comfortable be able to have a normal conversation too.
But for people commuting to work, electric bikes are great.
Depends on the people. If the people ha
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> if you're commuting to work (a fixed distance) not having an e-bike would be far better for you.
You're making two huge assumptions there
- that people would take a normal bike instead. That they'd be inspired to start despite the unpleasant level of effort required to ride a bike to work when they're out of shape. And that the sustained unpleasantness wouldn't eventually drive them away back to more passive forms of transportation.
- That exercise is the point. If the point is transportation or enjoym
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You sound like a typical exercise-averse person and don't understand (or ignore) the words 'sustainable effort', all you see is 'exercise' and you quail at it like someone pointing a gun at you. Like most people, sadly.
You ride at a pace you can SUSTAIN for 'X' amount of time
That means 'You are not out of breath', and it means 'You are not so sore afterwards you can't move', and it means 'Yes, y
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A used e-bike is a lot cheaper than a used motorcycle. And depending on your needs, you can get a surprisingly decent one from China for under $300. And getting a motorcycle into your apartment could be a real trick - keep in mind that you may well have to rent a parking space as well - assuming one is even available. I understand a parking space in NYC can get quite expensive.
And if that sustainable pace means it takes me an hour to get to work?
You seem to be missing the point, I'll say it once more and
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Pedal a normal bike anyway. It's not anywhere near as bad as you think. Stop making excuses.
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I did read the study I linked. It says that non-bike owners get 3308 MET minutes/week of total exercise, regular bike owners get 4085 METm/w, and e-bike owners get 4463 METm/w (9% higher). Looking just purely at the time spent cycling, regular bike owners get 1442 METm/w and e-bike owners get 1764 METm/w (22% higher, calculated from "daily average travel duration from travel diary" in Table 2). Regular bike owners spend 30.3 minutes cycling per day while e-bike owners spend 45.6 minutes cycling per day.
This
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And here's a study [sciencedirect.com] to back up what I just said. Electric bike owners cycle for longer and travel further than regular bike owners do, and as a result actually get more exercise per week.
That's bullshit. Put them on a regular bike and they're toast. E-bikes are an expensive waste of time, people shoudl be riding normal bikes at a reasonable sustainable pace LIKE I SAID and people like you writing all those words like you did really sound like you're convincing yourselves that being overweight and having no endurance whatsoever is perfectly okay. Please, stop being lazy. Also read my comment again because you clearly didn't understand a single word of it. Oh and you can complain all you like
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According to the study I linked, the average trip length for e-bike owners riding on regular bikes was 8.4 km, compared to 4.8 km for regular bike owners. They also get more exercise than people that only own regular bikes do (4463 vs 4085 MET minutes/week, 9% higher). Rather than being "toast", this actually points towards e-bike owners being fitter than non-e-bike owners.
In any case, my primary point was that electric bikes require more effort than driving, which is the mode that people prefer when they d
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..no, if you're admitting to being fat and weak, you need to pedal your bike, not turn a throttle
Pretty much all e-bikes these days have pedal assist. This allows to pedal at a comfortable steady pace, ignoring inconvenient terrain. As a result, studies show that people on e-bikes get as much exercise as people on normal bikes. E-bikes just make it way more enjoyable.
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..no, if you're admitting to being fat and weak, you need to pedal your bike, not turn a throttle
Uh...in an electric assist bike, you *must* pedal.
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Back when I was a teenager, I was living in a country where biking was possible all year round. These days, not so much. Fortunately I only live a mile from work, so I walk, even when the temperature is lower than -20F
Re:C-virus Hit Americans turn to bikes (Score:5, Informative)
Never been a better time. Weather is cool, air is clean, cars are few.
Sure, bike commuting in, say, Atlanta in July isn't for everyone. But most of the time it's not as bad as you think. Comparing the Huffy a Walmart drone assembled for you when you were ten is like judging all cars by a 1977 Chevy Vega.
A modern hybrid bike is more like a Honda Accord. Or you can buy the equivalent of a Range Rover or a Ferrari -- spend more than $15,000 on more bike than you could ever hope to use.
I think a lot of people should be looking at something like a mid-tail cargo ebike. You can get a decent one for around $1500 that'll give you around 30 miles of range on a charge. If you must replaced the short haul trips in your car it could pay for itself pretty quickly.
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That said, it's not exactly obvious that bike riding is good for you [bicycleuniverse.com]
Re: C-virus Hit Americans turn to bikes (Score:2)
Those statistics don't account for the long term health costs/savings of cars/bikes.
As a long time bicycle commuter, my experience of being too tired to cycle after a hard day's work at the office is in fact quite the opposite. Office work rarely leaves your body very physically tired, even if you feel completely knackered and on the edge of falling asleep - in this situation I'd rather get on a bike and be woken up than put in the mind numbing situation of driving. Getting the blood pumping a bit and oxy
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Stats like that (per mile deaths) are interesting, but depending on what you're talking about they're not very useful.
If you're trying to make a personal decision about what to do, you also need to include the health benefits of having exercise built into your schedule-- whenever I've looked into this kind of thing I've always concluded that what's really dangerous is not getting any exercise.
If you're trying to compare two different lifestyles to make public policy decisions about which to encourage,
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The figures are skewed in multiple apples-to-oranges ways. If you are traveling over 100 miles, chances are you're going to drive on a highway which are about 2.5x safer than urban streets for drivers. The correct way to look at things is total mortality for people who cycle regularly vs. people who don't.
As for ebikes, unless you ride 100% on the throttle most ebike riders are still getting health benefits. Studies of ebike users show they do similar amounts of work to conventional riders, but undertake
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It'll vary a lot depending on the route you take. You're not "supposed" to ride on sidewalks, but a few months ago when I commuted on a bike, I'd take the sidewalk wherever possible. For me that was almost the entire route. Foot traffic was low enough that I almost never passed more than 2 or 3 pedestrians on a trip. The biggest obstacles were some corners where the sidewalks were old and didn't have ramps at the corners. I'd either have to pick the bike up over the curb, or if there was no cars, briefly sw
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I think modern hybrid bikes solve one of the major trepidations people had about riding a bike to work every day - "what if I'm too tired after a day's work to pedal all the way home?"
You're probably thinking of e-bikes or other motorized variations. A hybrid is a combination of mountain and road bicycle features. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Bike Commuting in Atlanta in OCTOBER, 97F degrees (Score:1)
I still love it though.
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The closest brush with death I had on a bike was hyperthermia on a charity metric double century ride in 103F temperatures. I was less than a mile from the finish line and feeling chills when a quick-thinking gardener hosed me down as I struggled past. I must have looked like hell because he didn't even ask. Seconds after I was drenched I started feeling hot again.
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Bicycle cardio is awesome and there's every reason to do it even sans a pandemic. I do it on an exercycle at home because the local drivers would turn me into a meat crayon but the energy is well worth it.
Not doing cardio is stupid and a key reason so many Americans turn into obeest tubs of enflabulent shit then die slowly and miserably from diabesity.
Re: C-virus Hit Americans turn to bikes (Score:1)
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Here in the Netherlands lots of people do that every day. We have more bikes than people in our country.
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we all generally relied upon when we were ten seems a bit extreme.
I find it more extreme that what worked so well for us when we were 10 keeping us fit and healthy somehow got stigmatised as we grew up to worship the mighty diesel and wear our diabetes diagnoses with honour.
Me, I rely on my bike every day. The only time I've driven my car this year was to go to another country. But mind you I can cycle to the other side of this country without ever coming in contact with a car or leaving a bike path so there's that difference.
I'm going to get some lunch and head to the ha
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The owner of our local bicycle shop and three of his friends were collision-propelled off the road by a careless driver recently, and it happens too regularly for me to consider anything other than a stationary bike... but your situation with all the bike paths sounds incredible.
well, yeah (Score:2)
They make it easy to fly past other people quickly, limiting your exposure ... and to quickly and easily get away from others, increase your distance.
By contrast, walking, you are very much at the mercy of others.
Distance (Score:5, Insightful)
>"To be sure, bikes remain well down the list of U.S. commuting preferences. "
It isn't about preference, it is about distance. Few people do or can live close enough to work to bike. It is also a miserable conveyance when it is bitter cold, super hot, raining, or when you don't feel well. Can't carry much, either. And it isn't very "safe." So it isn't that much about "preference" but "practicality" for the vast majority of people.
And yes, I bike to work most every day- I chose to buy a house that close. And it is wonderful to spend almost nothing on gas, get to work in just minutes, never sit in traffic, have a car that lasts "forever" and rarely needs service, and get a little exercise. But I also live in a horrible school district. Since I have no kids, it doesn't matter, but it would to many. And it is noisier, more cramped here than I would like, and a little more crime. And taxes are higher. Life is full of compromises.
Re:Distance (Score:5, Insightful)
An awful lot of people live within 10 miles of work - that's less than an hour at modest speed, and electric assist can take care of whatever fraction of that work is necessary to avoid overexerting yourself. Depending on traffic, you might even make the trip faster than by car.
Certainly it's not as comfortable as a car in inclement weather, but there's plenty of places where that's not a problem most of the time, and the right clothing makes a world of difference.
Safety is an issue, especially in places not designed with biking in mind - but that can change very quickly if it catches on.
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I'm pretty sure (I'm an American, but a lot of the cool news in e-bikes is in Europe and especially China) that I've heard you can get higher-speed e-bikes, they're just not legally classified as bicycles and require a license (or you can illegally disable the speed limiter - sometimes there's even a switch)
There are some interesting adult tricycle options in both upright and recumbent forms, some with substantial cargo baskets built in. You might have to resort to an aftermarket e-wheel to get an assist on
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I'm pretty sure (I'm an American, but a lot of the cool news in e-bikes is in Europe and especially China) that I've heard you can get higher-speed e-bikes, they're just not legally classified as bicycles and require a license (or you can illegally disable the speed limiter - sometimes there's even a switch)
They might be too fast to count as e-bikes, insufficiently robust to be e-motorcycles.
There are some interesting adult tricycle options in both upright and recumbent forms, some with substantial cargo baskets built in.
Whilst recumbents are great for cycling efficiency I'd be concerned about visibility to other road users, especially larger vehicles, and survival.
You might have to resort to an aftermarket e-wheel to get an assist on the model you like, but there's lots of options for those.
That's something I've considered.
Of course the down side to a tricycle is that it's only more stable in a straight line and at low speed - they're far less stable turning at speed since you can't bank into the turn and keep your center of acceleration over the wheels. Though there are some of those two-wheels-in-front tricycles that help the problem considerably.
Maybe two in front, two in back, and some sort of weatherproof shell...
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Few people do or can live close enough to work to bike.
That is purely perception. 15km seems like a long way and takes a long time when stuck in traffic. Yet it is a perfectly manageable daily commute. Sure the *average* American lives 25km from work, but that doesn't account for the fact that 99.9% drive instead of ride.
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Many people simply do not have a choice. It's either unaffordable to live where they work, or they own a home and have a family and simply picking up and moving isn't feasable.
I myself live downtown in a city, and walked to work whenever possible... before I got laid off. my most recent job was a 90 minute series of bus rides away. Moving way out west of my immediate area and leaving the life OUTSIDE WORK that I had built for myself wasn't an option. I didn't have confidence that I'd be there more than a co
Distance is all in your mind... (Score:1)
As for bitter cold.... 27F... https://connect.garmin.com/mod... [garmin.com] To work 13.3 miles
Super Hot... 97F... https://connect.garmin.com/mod... [garmin.com] From work 18.9 miles
In the rain... https://connect.garmin.com/mod... [garmin.com] although I took the shortest way home 9.3 miles.
If you want to commute by bicycle, there is nothing stopping you. I own 5 cars, one Ford mini-van and 1 Honda CBR 600 motorcycle. I prefer a bicycle.
Re:I'd rather they didn't (Score:5, Interesting)
As a long time cyclist, I don't think that all the newbs I see riding around now have been much of a problem. They're generally pretty casual.
The real problem has always been college students and hipsters (not to mention a small subset of lycra-clad riders who seem to be going for some kind of elapsed time goal in traffic). They have always been overconfident, recklessly riding and ignoring traffic laws, and they're still the ones causing the most problems with road rage.
Now, what really bothers me these days is all the extra dog walkers, each of whom wields a potentially vicious animal that's allowed to range over a ~10-foot radius. Then they look annoyed because they have to reel in their precious lunging beast so it doesn't physically attack me on a public right-of-way. It's as if I'm trespassing on their portable 20-foot circle.
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But yeah, the dog-walkers who act like you're the one in the way, and you're the one creating a safety hazard.
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I've never seen that rule. But I'm sure that bicyclists never break rules, so let's make it universal, institute really nasty penalties, and change nothing else.
How dare someone occupy too much space with some vehicle that I disdain. Now, give me sole occupancy of a 13 foot wide traffic lane for my bicycle.
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Your are, on both counts. And I expect you to never complain about drivers' sense of entitlement again, Mr. Pot.
Absolutely not. In pretty much any jurisdiction, you are 100% responsible for what your dog does in public and you are expected to keep your dog under your control at all times. That's why leash laws exist. If you have a dog that is constantly pulling at the end of its lead, barking and lunging at people or jumping on them, or running out and tangling around the legs of pedestrians, you need to get that dog some obedience training and are responsible for any consequences that result. If not, that dog doesn'
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You're conflating "The dog walkers (with their more-than-six-foot leads, clearly against park rules)," with "the little kids who are too young to understand that they can't just run all over the place." Unless you consider little kids to be a dogs, because you're a MONSTER.
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In most places, bicyclists only have the right of way over pedestrians if you're on the street (some places even prohibit bikes on sidewalks, u
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At least here sidewalks and pathways don't have formal rules like roads do. Like even if there's markers in the road indicating a flow of traffic it's just a guidance. What it does say is a vague description that shared paths can be used by bicycles when there's little traffic and that passing pedestrians should be done at a reasonable distance and close to walking speed. In practice those rules are interpreted so conservative that it's always your fault. And since you don't know know how much line the dog
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In most places, bicyclists only have the right of way over pedestrians if you're on the street (some places even prohibit bikes on sidewalks, unless ridden by a child).
I'm mainly concerned about multi-use paths. (I don't ride on sidewalks, and roads are usually wide enough to veer out of range of almost any leash.) On these paths, pedestrians have the right-of-way, but only on their half of the path. You can't just block the whole thing with a leash and-or slobbering menace. It's a rare dog indeed who respects this.
And referring to all dogs as "potentially vicious" is like referring to all males as "potential rapists" or all bikes as "potentially deadly projectiles".
Well, I'm sorry about being a speciest. Maybe I'm not "woke" enough for you, but just going with the odds. I estimate that about 25% of dogs being walked would
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If the multi-use path isn't explicitly divided, there's no "their half of the path" and pedestrians always have the right of way.
Yeah, people aren't doing that.
Re:I'd rather they didn't (Score:4, Insightful)
The bicyclist complaining about dog walkers is so ironically rich. "I demand at least three foot clearance from your mechanized death machine." "I can occupy an entire 13 foot wide traffic lane because I'm a vehicle too." "How dare a pedestrian walk an animal and require any clearance for their pet." "They're unpredictable and make mean faces at me."
You're riding on a machine, traveling far faster than pedestrians that also have a right to use the right of way, and complaining that they act like they own the place.
Welcome to drivers' complaints about bicyclists on the road. Nobody's going to get rid of the pedestrians so that you can ride in a bicyclist's utopia. Ride patiently. Give them enough space. Grow up and deal with it.
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Their right of way does not include the whole width of the damned *multi use* path along with the grassy margins on both sides.
Unlike you, even the dog owners know this. That still doesn't prevent them from acting annoyed that they actually have to reign in their dangerous animals into an area vaguely closer to their actual right-of-way.
BTW, in my area bicycles have to keep as close as reasonable to the right side, which I do. So I would never be blocking your critically important car errand. A dog walker,
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So besides switching from "the public right of way" to "their right of way" in a poor attempt to reframe the argument, you're ignoring the fact that if you're not in a dedicated bike path, you must yield to pedestrians. Period.
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So you really think that a pedestrian and/or their mongrel have the unfettered right to blockade a whole multi-use path in both directions?
You really are an idiot.
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I think that you're creating a strawman in an attempt to defend your blanket complaint about dog walkers.
"Now, what really bothers me these days is all the extra dog walkers, each of whom wields a potentially vicious animal that's allowed to range over a ~10-foot radius."
Keep building dog walkers up into a bigger and bigger obstacle, with more and more viscious dogs, and
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Keep building dog walkers up into a bigger and bigger obstacle, with more and more viscious dogs, and of course they all block the entire multi-use path in both directions.
I didn't say that. Instead, it's you that have been claiming that's their unalienable right.
Like I said more than once, they generally eventually comply with their obligations to not maul their fellow citizens, but begrudgingly.
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You've said exactly what I've quoted you as saying.
Yes, and you apparently begrudgingly comply with your obligation not to run down living things that are in your way. You're a moral hero. We should celebrate you.
Jesus Christ, you're an ass.
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You've said exactly what I've quoted you as saying.
Look, you god damned moron. Here's what you quoted me as saying:
Keep building dog walkers up into a bigger and bigger obstacle, with more and more viscious dogs, and of course they all block the entire multi-use path in both directions.
Did I compose that? No, you did.
Go learn to think before you barf out more nonsense.
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No that's not what I quoted you as saying, which you could readily determine by the fact that it was not blockquoted. You disingenuously cut out the blockquote.
Did I claim that you composed that? No, I did not. You composed the blockquoted
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Now, what really bothers me these days is all the extra dog walkers, each of whom wields a potentially vicious animal that's allowed to range over a ~10-foot radius. Then they look annoyed because they have to reel in their precious lunging beast so it doesn't physically attack me on a public right-of-way. It's as if I'm trespassing on their portable 20-foot circle.
So what you're really saying is that dogs make the perfect social distancing enforcement so that others won't get too close to you! :-P
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we don't need more unskilled people who think they're cyclists
Pretty much everyone has ridden sometime in their life. The best part about picking it up again later is that it's like riding a bike, in the literal and literary sense. After 10min they'll be just like every other cyclist out there.
Also these are people who normally drive to work, I think their understanding of traffic laws will be just the same as they always have been.
If you must insist then please get some education on how to be safe on a bike and some bike handling training so you're not pissing off drivers and not creating a safety hazard.
Can we get you some education on not being a presumptuous twat?
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Where I live it is ILLEGAL for anyone over the age of 12 to ride a bicycle on the sidewalk. That mean EVERYONE 12 and older is required BY LAW to ride on the road.
About once every 2 months I get someone intentionally trying to run me off the road. 2 or 3 times a month I get someone screaming at me to "Get the
That was the plan all along. (Score:2, Funny)
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just like the chinese
No. Just no. I've seen the videos.
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Now we're all riding bikes, just like the chinese. Coincidence?
Where you all the bike parts come from? Coincidence? ;-)
Fontain Pens and Bikes. (Score:1)
Remote working catching on, bike riding increases (Score:2)
... people waking up to the dangers of pandemics ... and I'm beginning to think this Covid-19 thing might actually have some positive effects.
Huge second-hand bike sale in ~2 years' time (Score:2)
One Additional Bike, One Fewer Car (Score:2)
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If they could afford a car they'd have one already
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Not necessarily. I have only ever owned one car in my life because I didn't need one most of the time. Biking is not only a way to avoid traffic jams, finding parking, polluting and the cost of registration/insurance, it's also great exercise.
At 42 years of age, I'll bet I'm in a lot better shape than people who drive. Health should be the number one priority because it affects every other aspect of life.
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Most people who can afford a car buy at least one. Whether it makes sense or not is another question.
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Not in densely populated cities where owning a car can be more hassle then its worth.
Then there's the people who barely need their car and have cancelled their insurance for financial reasons.
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"Not in densely populated cities where owning a car can be more hassle then its worth."
Where it's less affordable for it to be convenient because you have to pay for storage and where you don't use it to commute so you can't justify paying for it... Unless you have more money. So again, they can't afford it. But people still prefer to have their own car to make trips out of the city.
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Well it's true that multi-millionaires can afford to buy a car, put it in storage and use it once a year, or more likely buy another one as cars in storage deteriorate but for working people who only make a few hundred thousand a year, it's often not worth it. This is going to vary on the city, and all but one are cheaper to live in then here (before the pandemic).
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That only means that you can't afford to have a car shipped where you're going, which is expensive at best and which gets more expensive the faster you need it to get there.