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Comment by kevincrane | Hacker News Reader

> Proponents of efforts to make roads safer for cyclists have always gotten pushback from people who think that cycling is a niche hobby of rich lycra-clad yuppies.

Which I think is misguided pushback btw (which I think you agree with based on the context).

I see it as a chicken and egg thing. The roads are unsafe for bikers, so the only people who bike are those who are super dedicated to it. Then when people ask for the roads to be safer, it gets pushed back as "only biking enthusiasts use the roads now".

Safer roads means more people will bike, which means biking will stop being seen as an elitist thing.

Edit: to add on, bikes are like 1-2 orders of magnitude cheaper than cars too, both in upfront and ongoing costs also. It’s super unfortunate that it still gets the stereotype as a “rich white people” activity when it’s really so much more financially accessible than a car.

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> It’s super unfortunate that it still gets the stereotype as a “rich white people” activity when it’s really so much more financially accessible than a car.

It's true that a bicycle is itself cheaper than a car, but housing within biking distance to job centers sure isn't. In my view this is the primary reason bicycle commuters are stereotypically rich folks. The bicycle itself isn't the expensive part; you need proximity, extra commute time, and infrastructure. That stuff just isn't accessible to many people.

> bicycle commuters are stereotypically rich folks

Stereotypes are only useful to the extent that they contain a kernel of truth, and this one is just false. The largest group of American bicycle-to-work riders lies in the $20-30k/year income group, i.e. poor people. With each increase of $10k/year income there are fewer riders.

https://i2.wp.com/cityobservatory.org/wp-content/uploads/201...

Housing within bicycle commuting distance (under 5 miles) in many cities is abundant, if you’re willing to forgo a car. Especially if you convert the car savings to rent or mortgage payments.

Basically, if you can be all-in on not driving, you save a lot. But once you even want to drive a little bit, the savings to driving only sometimes instead of all the time is not very large (and can in fact be negative, as you pointed out with needing closer housing with parking). Unless it allows you to go from a two to one car family.

5 miles is quite a distance for a bike commute. I've done about this distance for a while and I won't go back to doing it.

Interestingly, the average distance the Dutch ride is about 1.2 miles per day:

https://www.peopleforbikes.org/news/best-kept-secret-dutch-b...

A 5 mile commute on an eBike is trivial.

That depends on road conditions and layout, typical traffic, weather, general health (need decent balance, eyesight, hearing, ability to ride over potholes, enough toughness that a spill isn't life-threatening)...

I could go for "often doable".

>general health (need decent balance, eyesight, hearing

That’s a pretty uncharitable reading of their comment. It is obvious we are talking about people that are already physically capable of riding a bike and are discussing a specific distance for a commute.

Well, that comment is quite absolute in its assessment of a five mile e-bike commute as "trivial". It brooks no exceptions even for stoplights or congested traffic conditions. It is not at all obvious to me what assumptions I am supposed to make when reading it, and its ancestor comments do not establish context as to what assumptions to make either.

Even so, I tried to find common ground by merely softening the "trivial" language to "often doable" rather than contradicting. Because clearly it will sometimes be "trivial".

So, I disagree with your assessment of "uncharitable". And I am taken aback that there is so much bitter contention over this issue when it seems to me as though the important thing is that e-bikes have made commutes much easier in general.

I have a class 3 ebike (28 mph). I found the 5 mile commute exhausting even though I wasn't exerting myself much. Mentally exhausting, I guess. It's trivial once - it's a grind doing it 2x every day. This is in San Francisco. I'm in good shape, I run 4-5 miles a couple times a week.

I think the worst part is a stop sign every block.

As you’ve highlighted: it’s the infrastructure slowing you down. That’s why cities need to build good bike infrastructure, so it’s safe and easy to ride around.

> Mentally exhausting, I guess.

I used to commute by (ordinary) cycling and this is a huge part of it. It's stressful navigating on urban roads through taxis and vans who seem to see you as the equivalent of a preachy vegan on wheels and drive like complete arses as a result. I've been literally run off the road by people who either can't be bothered to check their mirrors or have some creepy notion that cyclists "deserve" to be scared off the road by their aggressive driving. The only deterrent seems to be wearing a camera because they know it's the only way they'll ever have a chance of facing prosecution for it.

I'd never dream of telling someone else how to live their lives, I'm not one of those moral crusaders who endlessly harrass people about giving up their cars in favour of bikes. I just don't want to get mowed down by Billy Big Bollocks because he's too important to wait ten seconds to overtake safely.

5 miles is a very easy bike commute, not sure what you're talking about. It's about 20 minutes each way.

Google maps estimates it about 35 minutes, so almost twice as long as you're thinking.

I do it every day. It depends on elevation gain (so it could take much longer depending on the route) but usually I'm closer to 15 minutes than 20. 15mph on average for a daily bike commuter doesn't seem unreasonable at all to me.

It depends on location, if you're biking in a city at rush hour you're stopping every other block, getting stuck behind other cyclists, and at least where I live, constantly slowing down to avoid getting killed by potholes. There's basically no way you're doing 5 miles in 20 minutes.

That's fair. I biked in San Diego last week and the lights/potholes were brutal.

On the other hand, if you are in heavy traffic stopping constantly at lights other traffic is also going to be travelling at that same slow speed.

You're claiming you can ride 5 miles in closer to 15 minutes than 20, and through a city?

If you commute you will mostly ride on dedicated bike lanes without many stops so you can go at full speed most of the way. I've commuted around 3 miles in a not so bike friendly city in Europe and it took about 15 minutes since there are dedicated bikeways without any traffic lights you can take most of the way.

If you commute in rush hour that is actually a lot faster than going by car, so biking is the fastest option available.

Edit: And that was at a leisurely pace, similar to the effort of walking.

That would be an extremely leisurely pace. If you commute regularly on a bike and are reasonably fit, you should be able to ride at about 12 mph without breaking a sweat, which gets you a time of about 25 minutes.

Sure, if you never have to wait for a stoplight.

Seems possible indeed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Atkp8mklOh0

Obtaining a speed of 12mph is not difficult for most reasonably fit people.

_Averaging_ a 12mph pace with signal lights, traffic, and stop signs is an entirely different story, especially in a busy cities.

I used to do a 5 mile commute. I didn’t have to deal with any major elevation changes, and it was about 35 minutes. Maybe a professional athlete could do it in 20, but they would still have to wait at stoplights occasionally. You will definitely arrive sweaty unless you are in a very cold climate. All that said, I consider 5 miles to be pretty reasonable for a bike commute.

Google maps pads their bike times by a huge amount. (I just googled 8km in 35 minutes and got results asking about that as a running pace).

That's due to the sES spamfest fitness blog driven results.

Google maps calculations are decided by Google and take into account padding plus some degree of inclination calculation

You are both right: 5 miles is about 20min on an electric bike, but 35min on a traditional bike.

I do a 4.8-mile trip on a class 3 ebike (28 mph) consistently in 14 minutes in San Diego north county.

YMMV. Google map estimates for cycling are very inaccurate in my experience.

It's a very easy bike commute for the kind of people who self-select as riding bicycles.

General population would struggle. I used to bike commute twice that distance regularly and think that'd take me more like 25, maybe 30 now that I haven't done it for almost 2 years.

Funny thing about exercise is you get better at it, people who have had ebikes for a while (especially the ones that assist based on pedal power) tend to be less overweight and fitter for a reason. Also trikes work just fine for someone with mobility or balance problems (although a decent e trike is by no means cheap, similar up front to a second hand car).

I live in a city with mediocre to poor bike infrastructure at best, and I see plenty of 50-70 year old women doing 25km/h on ebikes or 10-15km/h on regular bikes.

Granted I wasn't overweight when I started, but after 5 years of largely being a couch potato and doing office work, I averaged around 20km/h or ~12mph door to door over a commute of 10 miles on a 40lb trike.

After getting fitter I'm about the same speed but a shower and change of clothes at the other end is optional now even on a 32C day rather than being drenched.

Your experience can only be due to bike hostile infrastructure or laws. If you had to stop three times for 2-5 minutes a piece at each intersection in a car while the empty lane for bikes and pedestrians got a green light on the off chance they showed up, you'd probably be complaining about how inconvenient driving was.

> Your experience can only be due to bike hostile infrastructure or laws.

No, I'm just a person with very little natural fitness who happened to enjoy riding a bicycle.

That's what e-bikes are for.

> 5 miles is a very easy bike commute

Having done a similar distance in the cycling capital of the world for about a year I wouldn't exactly call it "easy". I was happy to exchange it for a bus + tram combination even though it added ~15 minutes. Though I'll admit it's nice to be able to commute that distance by bike once or twice a week; but to do it day in and day out gets tiring.

> to do it day in and day out gets tiring

Can confirm this: I'm doing a 14 km commute and yes, for the first few weeks it's really tiring. Wanted to go to sleep as soon as I got home every afternoon. However, after say 2 or 3 months, your metabolism sort of adapts to it and you do it "naturally", without thinking too much about it. The idea of taking the bus again makes me anxious, though.

On a quiet flat road 5 miles is a pleasant cruise, through a hilly busy city even 1-2 miles can be a huge pain.

It depends on where you ride. My commute is 5 miles, and it takes 30 minutes, even though I'm used to bike, because of the circulation, all the time I have to stop.

I agree it's easy if you're fit though. But I know it can be a pain for people who don't do sport at least weekly.

Well, first of all, if you bike regularly, you get all the training you need. The first couple of weeks are perhaps a bit hard, but that's about it for anyone in somewhat ok shape. And then there is the catch which is also the headline of the article we are discussing here: e-bikes. They allow anyone to go at a reasonable speed even uphill. That is, why they create a huge biking crowd.

Indeed!

8km is bad if the rider has to wait at a lot of stoplights or cross a lot of roads. But if there's a good cycle path, 8km is a comfortable and easy cruise. Even easier on an e-bike. I did a 9km commute down the west side bike path of Manhattan and I found it to be easy and relaxing compared to much shorter commutes through SF, for example.

The right way to drive a little bit is car share programs, or just eating a car rental fee occasionally. Mean cost of car ownership in the US is over $9000; you can buy a damn fancy e-bike and rent a car a few times in a year and still come out quite far ahead. (and you only need to buy the e-bike approximately once.)

https://www.aaa.com/autorepair/articles/average-annual-cost-...

I had a friend who used to rent a limo for first and special dates. Even that was cheaper than owning a car.

Limos (especially older ones) are surprisingly cheap. Growing up, my family of 5 used to take a limo to the airport for vacations. It felt kind of ridiculous, but it was actually about the same price as the 2 taxis we would've had to take (and obviously way more pleasant), which itself was cheaper than parking and leaving a car at the airport.

It probably says more about how expensive taxis were pre-Uber. I'm sure ride shares are a nontrivial part of living without a car today.

> Housing within bicycle commuting distance (under 5 miles) in many cities is abundant

Housing isn’t abundant within 50 miles of London and other similar major cities, let alone 5.

That's a fact about policy choices, not something that can't be changed. If building housing wasn't illegal it would be built. Developers love money and the Green Belt is quite big enough to spare one Mnahattan's area if it was politically possible to build a Manhattan's worth of housing on it.

> That's a fact about policy choices, not something that can't be changed.

Ok but now we’ve moved from ‘bicycling is relatively practical’ to ‘it’d be relatively practical if only everything about our politics and built environment was instantly completely different.’

Consider that a comparable amount of space is dedicated to car parking as parks in London.

And there are a lot of parks and green spaces in London!

The amount of on street car parking in zones 2-3 is insane. Now that actually IS a subsidy to rich people.

It's true, but with a folding bike your criteria for a house can now be "fewer than 5 miles away from a tube/train line" and let the public transport do the heavy lifting.

i heard that in US living in downtown is for poor people, and rich people prefer slrawling suburbs

That was the stereotypical pattern for decades, but gentrification has somewhat reversed it in first tier cities. Families with small children do still tend to move out to the suburbs in search of better quality schools and more living space.

I saw an article the other day about a woman in California who rents a studio apartment (i.e. no dedicated bedroom) for $1900 a month, and was worried it would jump up to the usual $2,300 a month after the covid special pricing ended.

Meanwhile, for $2,000 a month in the upper midwest you can rent a house with multiple bedrooms and bathroom on 40 acres of land, or a nicely remodeled house with a small yard and river views in a town if you prefer. Or, with enough for a minimum down payment saved up, you could also buy a small house on 5 acres in a forest.

Granted, you'll pay more for owning a car, but... deciding between studio, or a prime house for $300 less per month, and the car doesn't sound too unreasonable.

> Meanwhile, for $2,000 a month in the upper midwest you can rent a house with multiple bedrooms and bathroom on 40 acres of land,

Probably do that in rural CA, too (certainly you can get a nice single family home in many CA suburbs), and not be as far (but probably still too far) from the job the individual in question has that enables paying $2,000/mo in the first place. And similar work closer (to either rural CA or the upper Midwest) would pay less.

Eh, most people near me commute less than an hour to a metro area with pretty much any job you could want available, if you didn't like what nearby jobs were paying. I'm not quite rural, but not suburbia either (nearest burb is 15 minutes of driving once you get to the highway).

If you went really rural, you would be able to get much more for your money.

In urban areas I see a lot of the lowest income restaurant workers commuting by bike. Those people often live fairly close to work, but are in some kind of precarious semi-legal housing situation or actually homeless. Most aren't citizens and are basically invisible to politicians and urban planners.

For example check out the restaurants in Mountain View, CA patronized by affluent employees of Google and LinkedIn. Walk around back and you'll see a bunch of cheap bikes.

I think this is North American centric. In Asia and Europe housing to job centres is probably closer on average due to zoning. There’s less separation of “suburban housing areas” and “working areas”. There’s also less separation to shopping, etc so bikes are more feasible in general.

For these reason and I’m sure others, bicycles for commuting are more popular outside of North America.

This doesn't generalize to most cities though. In my Rust Belt city, the government has put a lot of effort into making cycling safer on the road. The people cycling from one neighborhood to the next are a diverse bunch. Kids are using cheap hand-me-down bikes to go to school. College kids are commuting to campus. Adults of all ages are riding to work at a service job or downtown office.

What it took was a focus on good quality bike lanes outside the affluent white neighborhoods, bike accessibility at transit stations/on busses, and expansion of bikeshare to poorer neighborhoods.

The rich lycra-wearing stereotype won't go away until we invest in equitable access to bike infrastructure.

» What it took was a focus on good quality bike lanes outside the affluent white neighborhoods, bike accessibility at transit stations/on busses, and expansion of bikeshare to poorer neighborhoods.

I've never been to Chattanooga, TN but once I realized I can work from home I've been curious about owning a home somewhere with gigabit fiber but without ridiculously expensive real estate within commuting distance to a Costco or Sam's Club (so clearly not Jersey City, NJ or Longmont, CO).

What I noticed just looking at Google Maps Street View was that any home within my price range lacked a sidewalk. Apparently, only the wealthy people in Chattanooga, TN need sidewalks. How do we talk about bike lanes when places lack sidewalks?

TN is a tax haven state. You're not going to get polished municipal services and infrastructure.

Western New York has cheap housing and older, 150+ year old urbanization that doesn't suffer as much from 20th century shortsightedness.

What are some other tax haven states I should know about?

Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, New Hampshire, and Wyoming

How are sidewalks "polish"?

In most of the world, they're the default thing - before a roadway suitable for cars, before piped water, before sewers, before electricity.

Because where you gonna walk to? Your gonna walk 5 miles to Target and back?

That'd why sidewalks is polish. Most sidewalks I see outside of tight downtowns are useless and barely used, and they aren't free to build and they don't generate anything if no one uses them...

I've been to and through Chattanooga a bunch of times. It is a city where you almost definitely need a car for basic subsistence.

The poor areas are super poor and semi-distant from goods and services. Biking somewhere from the poor areas, unless you have time and energy to spare, is going to be a big undertaking most of the time, not even accounting for the hills.

They are not a default thing anywhere in America that developed after WW2. Most car centric places dispense with them as an "unnecessary" cost or, where they do exist, they're disconnected decoration with limited utility.

riding a bike in Chattanooga takes some muscle! Sidewalks are pretty optional in most of the south east, even in "wealthy" areas.

Longmonts costco is in superior, not too far. Its pretty nice.

I've lived in Chattanooga long enough to call it home (decade+). First thing about Chattanooga is, it's built on the backbone of the Interstate system, in the valley between some mountains. It's a bigtime car city. Anyone outside our immediate downtown has to hop the highway to even get here, or brave treacherous mountain roads (our W Road is even a tiny bit famous... W not being a compass point, but a shape).

As you've noticed on Google, our downtown and close-lying (expensive) neighborhoods have sidewalks and bike lanes aplenty. They're fantastic. But there's no similar facilities in older, poorer, and outlying neighborhoods (many of which were simply suburbs until the city crept in). Nor any practical connection between neighborhoods for foot+pedal traffic.

But our internet's great.

> but housing within biking distance to job centers sure isn't. In my view this is the primary reason bicycle commuters are stereotypically rich folks.

Perhaps in some places (where the major newspapers are?), but there area I grew up in has residential, industrial, and commercial all mixed up in a way that solves that issue: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/50.8285/-1.0276

(Likewise Berlin, though Berlin also has much better public transport).

I think the zoning thing is more of a "US vs other places" issue.

I was thinking that at first and was originally going to suggest that, then I realised there’s a similar stereotype in the UK despite the mixed land use.

> Edit: to add on, bikes are like 1-2 orders of magnitude cheaper than cars too, both in upfront and ongoing costs also. It’s super unfortunate that it still gets the stereotype as a “rich white people” activity when it’s really so much more financially accessible than a car.

The thought that biking is only for the rich is especially galling when I hear it said about NYC cyclists. The person saying this is thinking of the lycra'd-up dentist riding a Pinarello Dogma. The Manhattan Bridge had 180,000 bike trips on it this June. Williamsburg had 230,000.[1] Cycling is much more prevalent than non-cyclers think.

1: https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/bike-counts.sh...

> The Manhattan Bridge had 180,000 bike trips on it this June.

That's not bad at all, close to 10% of car traffic, based on old numbers.

Throw into this confusion a badly implemented public transportation system that you find in most US cities.

Public transportation and city bike rental systems should be free to ride. We all pay taxes to keep roads maintained, we should all pay taxes to keep public transportation maintained.

Not charging would help busses keep their schedules with less queuing and waiting, tourists would be less likely to rent a car, and it could help that chicken and egg problem. The problem with charging people with riding public transportation is you are taxing the very people we should be rewarding. The people who are committing to taking up less space on the road and living with a smaller carbon footprint are being penalized for their hugely beneficial decision to society not to drive. Making public transportation better and free are the two things that can transform a city and make it more equitable. Poor people would have more money and more places available to spend it. Every city benefits from its people having more money to spend and more places to spend it.

> Public transportation and city bike rental systems should be free to ride.

This would depend on first fixing the poverty and homelessness that make theft, vandalism and antisocial behaviour so common. These things cost money to protect them from the impact desperate people otherwise have on them.

Now, I’d be thrilled to help pay for that to all happen, but the order should be respected; making trains and buses free isn’t as simple as it sounds.

"making trains and buses free isn’t as simple as it sounds."

It might be expebsive, but it's definately as simple as it sounds.

I do not see how vandalism will be any different than it is today

Simpler, really. There’s a whole bunch of complexity and crime related to public transit billing systems, fare gates, and fare gate accessibility. On busses, people who pay slowly add to the per-stop time.

Most cities make roads and abundant parking free, there’s no technical reason why other forms or transportation can’t be favored instead.

> This would depend on first fixing poverty and homelessness

How convenient for the car lobby that their luxuriously subsidized travel mode already excludes the poor, making them immune from this line of reasoning!

Ok, how about just busses, and trains?

Most bike thiefs are not homeless, especially high end bikes.

Not to many homeless have a bolt cutter in their worn packs, nor do they have a way to sell, or part out.

In my liberal wealthy enclave, it's middle class guys doing the stealing, or gangs.

(This whole blaming the homeless needs to stop. Most don't have the savy to steal a locked bike. Plus--riding a nice bike is a cop calling card. I know homeless guys who are afraid to carry their own prescriptions in their pack because they frisked so frequently.)

For some reason people accept cars as the natural order. Challenge that assumption. There are lots of deficient drivers too, why do we so heavily subsidize the road system? Because it's an investment that pays back in increased economic activity. The same argument applies to public transit. In many cases it costs more to collect the fare then they ever make in fare.

There are lots of deficient drivers too, why do we so heavily subsidize the road system? Because it's an investment that pays back in increased economic activity.

Also because when you are in separate cars, you can't get sick from, or harassed by, or groped by, other drivers. If another driver is bothering you, you can usually just speed up or slow down to increase distance.

To get true mass adoption of public transit in the US, as the parent comment said, you need to fix "the poverty and homelessness that make theft, vandalism and antisocial behaviour so common," or at least work around it. Maybe trains with a hundred doors leading to a hundred isolated seating areas would convince people.

Except deficient drivers can and do result in serious injury or death of other drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, etc. I’m still not too sure I understand your argument… Why should we so heavily subsidise car drivers?

At the very least it should be much cheaper than driving.

> The roads are unsafe for bikers, so the only people who bike are those who are super dedicated to it. Then when people ask for the roads to be safer, it gets pushed back as "only biking enthusiasts use the roads now".

Yup. Bit like how it's hard to argue for building a bridge by the number of people swimming across the river.

Yup. Bit like how it's hard to argue for building a bridge by the number of people swimming across the river.

It's even worse since the bridge will be built with connecting roadways on both sides so it will be instantly popular.

But often a few bike lanes will be constructed in isolation,t then people will complain "Look, we built these expensive bike lanes to nowhere and no one is even using them!" It takes a rich network of safe bike infrastructure to get average riders to use bikes. At least eBikes make hills less of an impediment.

What compounds the problem is that the bike lanes are often built where it is easy and non-controversial to do so... and so the actually difficult spots get left until last... which are often the key points that dissuade people.

Key example [0], the difference between the north and south entrances to the Sydney Harbour Bridge cycleway, which are under different local governments. The North Sydney council is actively fighting an upgrade [1], whereas on the south side it's smooth access expanding into a network of bike paths.

In my city, the major conflict points are all short stretches of busy narrow road, while paths are going in elsewhere.

[0] https://bicyclensw.org.au/a-tale-of-two-sydneys/ [1] https://architectureau.com/articles/sydney-harbour-bridge-cy...

This is a very important point. Bikeways, like roadways, are a system.

My South Bay commute has nice bike paths part of the way, but they stop just short of a major highway-freeway intersection. Sure, it would be tough to build a good bike lane through this busy, high speed intersection. So there isn’t one. So the bike path just… stops. And you have to navigate this scary section to proceed. So almost nobody does.

It’s such a shame since we have among the best bike-weather in the world, and a fairly flat basin to ride in. A little more infrastructure would help a lot. And e-bikes have their place for people going more than 20 mins and need to arrive feeling presentable.

Here’s a theory: road cycling is more available to those who live reasonably close to work and have time to spare, and that is relatively rich people. Poorer people literally cannot afford not to have a car because they have to travel long distances to work, and their areas are not well served by public transport.

That and they often work at night when it’s extremely unsafe to bike

> night when it’s extremely unsafe to bike

Not necessarily. There is often less traffic at night, for example. It depends on how well-lit the route is.

And it's really impressive what you can get for $35 in bike lights these days.

I use this set (with the 1000 lm):

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002708075115.html

The real difference is people working 9-5 see other commuters working 9-5 where students, working class, and poor people have a much wider range of schedules.

As to living near the urban core, inner cities have a lot of relatively poor people. Roommates and HUD style affordable housing add another dimension to housing that’s not obvious to most people. Twenty to Thirty percent of the units have been set aside for low or middle-income residents, which means the monthly rent is affordable to low or middle-income households and those households must qualify at the outset. https://www.residenewyork.com/faq/how-many-units-are-allocat...

This might be different in the US, but here in Berlin access to cars correlates very strongly with income. The majority of below-median-income households don't have a car, whereas the top earners have several.

You have a point, but the Lance Armstrong wannabes make everyone miserable. In my area, they “took over” a popular bike trail and now kids and more casual people are pushed aside.

It’s like dealing with serious lap swimmers.

Time for a Critical Mass of casual cyclists. ;-)

I don’t know where you live, but in the SF Bay Area the SF Critical Mass and East Bay Bike Party are both pretty casual events… To the point they attract the odd skateboarder or roller skater.

I think you meant a Casual Mass of critical cyclists. :)

Responsible bike riders should publicly condemn Critical Mass. They are the type of people that make drivers and pedestrians hate people on bikes, and go out of their way to escalate confrontations due to some bike rider victim complex.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflicts_involving_Critical_M...

I cycle to work on fairly rare occasions. My kids ride on city streets every so often. There is nothing that I’ve seen Critical Mass (or events like it) do that I think is positive.

I’m not sure why responsible riders wouldn’t want to see huge groups of riders asserting their equal right to public space?

Critical Mass helped spur NYC’s bike lane growth. If you’re against direct action that’s fine, but it’s hard for me to see what works better in initiating long term transformation than direct action protests like Critical Mass.

No doubt violence and intimidation is an effective way to get what you want, but isn't what is best for a civil society.

This one time a guy did like 35mph on a road for like 2 miles. I was ready to be annoyed when I saw him turning and accelerating, but that’s the speed I usually do, so they just kept up. Guy hit 40 at a couple points and legit could have gotten a speeding ticket. However, in general, a lot of cyclists in my area are extra aggressive and it creates conflict and the general sentiment is one of annoyance at them hijacking this one relatively busy road. But it’s also motorists not knowing how to pass them properly and share the road. We just need bike lanes on this road. Everyone just wants to get where they are going and the perception is cyclists are out there doing it for fun (most of them are just doing it for exercise on this road, not commuting).

That's fair, but (in my area at least) they're a lot more rare than asshole cars parking in bike lanes or driving too fast. I'd take over-aggressive bikes over thoughtless and negligent drivers any day of the week.

Absolutely agreed!

Overall it’s hard for different physical capabilities to share a resource. If the pandemic taught me anything, it’s that peoples perceptions and ability to act in the common good are wildly inconsistent.

If you think fast cycling "Lance Armstrong wannabes" are bad, wait until the trail is taken over by 30mph eBike riders that not only aren't experienced enough to ride safely at that speed, but they bolted on the eBike drive to a bike that was not intended for that speed.

Unless you’re on a major downhill, there’s no street legal e-bike doing 30 MPH.

That depends on the jurisdiction. In MA, it’s a point of ambiguity, but I think that’s resolved in favor of e-bikes being treated as mopeds today (with a max of 30mph): https://www.massbike.org/ebikes

I didn't say they were street legal, but it's not hard to find a 30mph capable kit:

https://www.electricbike.com/cheap-electric-bike/ http://myelectricbikemotor.com/category/30mph/ https://www.amazon.com/Folding-Electric-Bike-Adults-Enduranc...

I haven't seen it in the comments yet, but it will only be a matter of time before these ebikes will need to be registered, have a number plate, and can receive speeding tickets.

Right now there is no way to identify a speeding bicycle, no matter how fast its going. You could be doing 50 in a 40 zone and there is no way to issue a fine.

Bikes are frequently pulled over for speeding. I don’t know where you live, but cops like to set up bicycle stings at the bottom of hills in the Bay Area. Not to mention giving out tickets for things like missing bike bells. Oh, and if you don’t register your bike with the police good luck having them help with recovery.

I have a friend that got a speeding ticket on the back side of the Marin Headlands - it was a moving violation, he went to driving school to keep it off his record.

Where in the Bay Area are bells required? I've never heard of police there ever enforcing equipment requirements, not even lights at night.

Wait until you live in NYC and they go this speed in the wrong direction on a one way street and want you to brave the traffic so as to let them by.

30mph is often needed to keep up with cars in areas where the bike infrastructure is poor or nonexistent. If you can't maintain the speed of traffic, cars will try to pass creating a more dangerous situation for the ebike rider.

I fail to find the connection between speed and safety, especially from a completely unshielded pilot point of view. It's not a bike's job to maintain safety and traffic speed, but the opposite.

> It's not a bike's job to maintain safety and traffic speed, but the opposite.

It does not matter whose job it is. If increasing speed improves safety for the cyclist, in this case by reducing the incentive for car drivers to overtake, then a good number of cyclists will do it.

I'd like to see the proof that increasing speed improves safety for the cyclist.

There's no road I commute on (including 25 mph city streets) where a 30mph bike would keep up with traffic, riding a skinny tire 40 lb bike at 30mph in the road shoulder that passes for bike lanes around here sounds hazardous.

If I wanted to keep up with car traffic so I can ride in the road, I'd get an e-scooter or e-motorcycle that's designed for higher speed. But then I couldn't ride in bike lanes.

> in the road shoulder that passes for bike lanes

Bike lanes do not exist in most places. The poster had said that their comment was about:

> areas where the bike infrastructure is poor or nonexistent

If there are bike lanes, then being overtaken by cars is not as much of a problem. But in most places, cyclists have to use the same lanes as motorised traffic, so it is more important to be able to keep up.

When you're hit by a car, or passed by a bus, you realise quickly that it's your job. Because someone has to do the job, or you die.

They should, but OMG cars don't

I built a 35mph capable ebike from a lot on a MTB with dual disc brakes and the best s-pedelec tires I could find and I'm pretty stressed out already at 35kph. I can't imagine doing 50kph much less on a bike that isn't intended for it. You really would have to be almost suicidal.

I have to say though being able to keep up with cars when I can't have a bike lane is pretty nice.

Runners took over a popular route that has roads with a low speed limit and bike lanes on either side. They run with lien 4-5 people next to each other and will never yield. I’m forced to slow down to a stop if a car is near or swerve into the road. They have plenty of signs telling bikes to ride single file but the runners could care less.

Stand your ground or lose it to idiots, no need to let rude people take over something as universal as cycling

I think this is the same with every sport, in my experience, Seen in with swimmers cycelists. But also if you go cross country skiing during the winter here in Norway you meet the same kind of people.

The Atlanta Beltline is like this and it is crazy. I had some jerks tell me to "keep those kids on a leash" while they raced past us at 20 mph. I hope they fell down later.

> Safer roads means more people will bike, which means biking will stop being seen as an elitist thing.

I don't think it is just safety. Most people understand an e-bike is going to be more dangerous, but they are popular anyways.

The other factor is distance. e-bikes increase the distance that can be covered by a significant amount, which changes a lot of commutes from "too far" to acceptable. The only people who can afford to be within a bike commute are at least above-average income-wise.

Even satire news sites have caught onto this: https://www.thebeaverton.com/2020/09/i-bike-everywhere-brags...

> The only people who can afford to be within a bike commute are at least above-average income-wise.

No. The income bracket most likely to bike to work makes less than $10k/year.

https://i1.wp.com/cityobservatory.org/wp-content/uploads/201...

its like some minimalists you see bragging about how they only have 1 spoon and 1 bowl and have no need for any other cutlery. like yea that's really easy when you are living in a city and within a five minute walk of multiple cafes and restaurants or where you can order takeaway. try living with 1 spoon out in the middle of nowhere and get back to me please

Along similar lines, I think the fact that many cities aren't particularly bike-safe causes (some) cyclists to behave more assertively to the annoyance of motorists. This adversarial relationship hinders potential political cooperation. Admittedly, when I'm driving my car or riding my bike, I often find myself getting mad at people for doing things I know I also do when riding my bike or driving my car.

It's... complicated...

I rode a bike to school when my limited money would buy a very bad car or a nice bike. So I opted for the bike and had to ride it because that's all I had. I did that for a couple of years - even in the cold and ice. My commute distance varied in my biking days, from 6 to 20 miles.

I always obeyed all the traffic laws, though occasionally in the early AM I'd find lights that would not turn green for a bike no matter what I did.

I had people scream at me to get off the road, and otherwise be exceptionally rude. I occasionally had bike lanes and appreciated them, sought them out because it provided better spacing. But the busses on those routes were frequently in the bike lane and were, frankly, slower than I was. But navigating them was always a pain until I got well past them.

On slower roads (20-25 mph) with no bike lane I would take a lane to myself and keep up with traffic but only when I could reasonably keep up.

In the end, safety won out, and I abandoned the practice.

Now, as a driver, I am appalled at the behavior of cyclists. With my experience I take interest in and carefully watch their behavior.

Running red lights and not stopping for stop signs is the worst. And it's pretty universal.

Bad spacing in the lane, little to no accommodation for drivers when they could provide a bit more space for a comfortable pass. Sometimes they can't help it, and I get it, but when they can and don't... I always tried to be crystal clear about my messaging to the cars around me. I'm taking the lane here for my safety because there are parked cars in the bike lane or otherwise on the shoulder. I'm done now and look, I'm providing lots of space for everyone to safely pass me.

So the rude behavior I encountered was finally somewhat understood.

I really appreciated having good bike lanes. But cyclists do themselves no favors in how they conduct themselves, which will hurt them when pining for better road accommodations.

Even the cost factor is complicated. Everyone factors in the cost per mile of the bike, which is excellent, but the input calories are non-trivial and if you're not running the numbers on just ramen noodles it turns into quite a significant financial cost.

There are definitely health benefits.

Aren't people of lower economic means also more overweight? Some exercise doesn't seem like a bad idea.

There is a significant difference between recreational level exercise and work-every-day-because-you-have-no-other-method that's burning potentially >1000 calories per day and measurably increasing your food bill.

I have been explicitly told by my local bike coalition not to stop fully for stop signs. Stopping fully is not particularly safe and local motorists don't even expect it. Given that information, what do you think is the correct behavior for a beginner cyclist like me?

Rolling stops are fine, I have no problem with that. That's a good effort, gives you time to really examine the area. Don't blast through at full speed even if it looks clear. That's a bad unsafe habbit.

I don't know about the US, but a stop sign here in Australia means complete stop. If you fail to fully stop in your driving test it's an instant fail. If you fail to fully stop and there is an accident, you will be at fault.

In Australia, bikes are required to follow the same rules as cars when on the road.

In the US, the letter of the law is that cyclists must make a full stop, yes. But cycling activists often argue that this is a law that needs changing, and would help get more casual riders on bikes. Additionally, most bike riders in cities are on the lower income side; this would reduce how much they're cited for what is fairly accepted behavior.

In some US states rolling stops for bikes have been legalized as "Idaho stops".

I have used a bike as my primary transportation for 15 years. The majority of rides are in traffic - there's very little dedicated bike infrastructure (painted sharrows or gutters don't count)

Trust me when I say, in the US, an intersection is the most dangerous place to be. You are a sitting duck if you aren't moving when clear.

A lot of drivers straight up don't pay attention at lights, due to phones or spacing out, and don't give you space when coming up behind you. Mix in right-on-reds, unprotected left turns, and the general drivers failure to negotiate turns - if it's clear I'm going. It's also safer for me to stay at a relatively consistent speed for predictable passing than accelerating in mixed traffic with very different acceleration curves.

Stop signs here in Australia, like most of the world, are only placed where the visibility actually makes it necessary to come to a stop. They're far more common over in the US. Pick any random intersection, it probably has a stop sign or four.

If all the give way signs on my commute were replaced with stop signs, I'd sure feel like rolling through them.

Yeah, and it's generally bad for bikes. Stop signs are designed for cars - cyclists are approaching an intersection much slower, so have way more time to look, and can much more easily see around them than a driver (no pillars or vehicle parts around them blocking visibility), so most of the time are able to make a better decision about whether they need to stop or not than cars.

At the same time, it takes a cyclist far longer to start off from being stopped, so every time they stop when they didn't really need to, it puts them in a vulnerable position for much longer time than was necessary. So apparently it turns out a lot safer to let cyclists slow at stop signs but not have to fully stop if it's safe to continue.

In regards to bike-rider behavior on roads, of course cyclists appear "misbehaved" on roads. The roads are not designed for cyclists, so we have to fight with the design of the transport network to get anywhere

Car-oriented transport infrastructure has been a terrible mistake. Don't blame the cyclists for trying to salvage something from the wreckage.

Car-oriented infra structure was responsible for a sizable portion of the economical development for quite a while.

Because we made it that way, cars had nothing to do with it.

Hong Kong is not car oriented and it develop just fine…

Hong Kong is inserted on the global economy last time I've checked.

But it seems to produce economically terrible outcomes longer term... Induced demand is a good example - you get to the point where you need to pay huge amounts of money to expand road infrastructure, but as soon as you do it encourages even more use so after widening a highway, there is often an increase in travel times fairly soon after the upgrade after the initial short-term benefit!

Strong Towns also have some good examples of how car-oriented infrastructure can also be economically unsustainable in that it encourages low-density neighbourhoods with a lot of roads, so long term cities can't afford to maintain the roads without cross-subsidising it from new developments. So if the city stops growing, it often can't sustain the infrastructure it has! Whereas somewhat more dense areas (especially where retail and small business tenancies are mixed in with housing) can have much more property tax income per unit area as well as less road infrastructure to maintain which can tip the balance to being economically sustainable in itself.

I would argue the opposite actually. If the US had embraced trains as people movers early on, with local subway systems, I'd imagine we'd have seen even more economic growth than we did. Our cities would be far more prosperous, our people healthier, our energy footprint lower. Better social mobility..

It seems likely that cars actually hindered average GDP growth from '45 to today, rather than helping it.

There is no significant tax pool coming from cyclists to build or maintain said infrastructure.

I don't blame them for trying to salvage/use something from what exists, I've been there. I found the behavior of ignoring established traffic law as if it were optional to be dangerous and selfish.

> There is no significant tax pool coming from cyclists to build or maintain said infrastructure.

Don't they pay income tax? I think I read that most of the cost of roads in the USA is raised from income tax and sales tax.

> I found the behavior of ignoring established traffic law as if it were optional to be dangerous and selfish.

A lot of car drivers are out there too running lights, breaking speed limits and driving under the influence. People are the problem, not their transport.

running red lights is not 'fighting'. it's being an ass.

> Now, as a driver, I am appalled at the behavior of cyclists. With my experience I take interest in and carefully watch their behavior.

> Running red lights and not stopping for stop signs is the worst. And it's pretty universal.

Some areas have a yield at stop signs law for bikes so the stop signs could be legal, but I think a major driver of this kind of behavior is bike hostile infrastructure. If you've stopped for your 20th red light that prioritises non existent car traffic and that won't turn green today, or you're going past your fifth intersection that requires crossing at signals 3 times, waiting 2 minutes a piece on an empty road with visibility 500m in each direction it starts seeming pointless. Once someone is in the habit of disobeying clearly pointless (or in the case of many stop signs, actively unsafe because there is no visibility at the sign and accelerating up hill from a stop rather than 2mph causes you to spend far more time in the danger zone) signals and signage I can see it being easy to start ignoring others.

Respect works both ways, and when your city and laws clearly disrespect someone you shouldn't be surprised they stop respecting you.

The only cyclists I actively disliked were those who had stripped their reflectors and then rode around dressed in black at night. Scared me half to death when I finally saw them. That move agitated me quite a bit. Thank goodness I've only run into that once.

Seems to me that it's a very bad idea to disrespect in ways that actively make your own life less safe. Especially on something as fragile as a bicycle. Regardless of the disrespect heaped your way.

Rude behavior goes both ways, but one way is much deadlier than the other.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/43060/coal-rolling-teen-that-h...

>Coal-Rolling Teen That Hit Cyclists Charged With Six Felonies

>The 16-year-old was not arrested after the incident, but has now surrendered to authorities.

>On September 25, a group of cyclists riding near Waller, Texas, were hit by a Ford Super Duty driven by a 16-year old youth. Reports from witnesses indicated the driver had been "rolling coal" on the group immediately prior to striking six cyclists, four of whom were hospitalized due to injuries sustained. Now, news out of Texas is that the teen driver is finally in custody according to the District Attorney of Waller County, over a month after the incident occurred.

>[...] Cyclist Chase Ferrell, who saw the events unfold, told Fox 26 at the time that the crash happened "because [the driver] was accelerating to blow more diesel fuel on these cyclists," adding that the driver "ended up hitting 3 people before his brakes even started." Ferrell noted that the teen remained at the scene after hitting the cyclists, and spoke to police. However, the driver was not arrested in the wake of the crash. "I don't understand, if it was me who had struck someone else, I would be in jail," noted Ferrell.

https://www.thedrive.com/article/9930/colorado-bans-rolling-...

>Colorado Bans Rolling Coal: Hallelujah!

>It doesn't matter that it will be nearly impossible to enforce: this legislation is more than welcome.

>For those not in the know, rolling coal is the name for blasting black smoke out the exhaust of a diesel-engined vehicle. It is done by modifying the air and fuel mixture in forced induction diesel engines to make the engines run rich, the result of which is a cloud of soot blowing out the tailpipes. This is done for the childish sake of annoying people, typically anyone that a coal-roller doesn't like, which includes but is not limited to hybrid drivers, convertible drivers, bicyclists, pedestrians, and anyone who so much as looks like they don't attend the same evangelical megachurch. Why do people do it? Nobody one can say for sure, though it has been suggested that it has its roots in anti-environmentalism.

Another obvious point, I think, is that, no matter how much you like driving, crawling on the highway at rush hour is not the least bit enjoyable.

I didn't mind it, but I had a plush, quiet, comfortable car with an excellent sound system and that cruise control system that follows the car ahead of you. Would listen to music, a podcast, audiobook, or just enjoy some quiet solitude, all climate controlled. Some cars even have massaging seats now.

gets old quick when you've got a school run to do and not just sit back and relax.

In Sydney they have been adding cycle lanes to a lot of roads. I don’t bike because Sydney drivers are terrible. But it’s a real half measure. They need to aggressively push out drivers I think.

I think the issue goes further than that into being a societal problem.

Majority of America is overweight, staring down at their phones day and night, and dread physical activity. They also like to flex their position and wealth to others, one of the reasons why pickup trucks and big SUVs sell in great numbers. These people are in no hurry to transition to riding bikes.

The only way biking might work is if some popular celebrities on social media or otherwise started doing it, since many Americans just like to imitate what's popular.

Popular celebrities on social media already work out - why do you think Americans aren't already imitating it and why would they imitate bicycling?

They do imitate it, they do enough to take pictures of themselves and they buy into the sports clothing brands and entertainment. Few actually do regular and consistent exercise.

I think there would be an increase in biking if the celebs did it, but I say this imagining a new generation of Americana growing up watching a bunch of them doing it, not just one or two starting tomorrow and the nation follows suit.

I'd suggest starting with bike paths to schools. Kids don't have the problems you mention, they also don't have an alternative when they want to travel independently.

A lot of Americans are morbidly afraid of their children being away from adult supervision for more than a minute. I think suggesting 10 year olds ride a bike instead of taking a car or bus might infuriate more than a few people.

I remember discussion on reddit where people literally called mom neglectful because she refused to have car.

The issue was that she and 4 years old walked 20minutes to preschool and back. That is it, 40 min total walking time was assumed to be beyond 4 years old capabilities.

maybe it was, for their 4 year olds... which is a sad thought.

Well, it's scary, perhaps because drivers are the most likely people to kill your kid. But all the same I was very fortunate to have parents that let me roam free and explore from a young age.

Not irrationally; there are numerous well-publicized incidents, such as child protective services being called for a six-year old playing unsupervised in their own front yard. Or, and I do forget the state (though I think it was Maryland), a state official saying that children under fourteen should never be left alone unsupervised for any length of time. When I was twelve, I babysat my little sister all day and made us hot lunches. Nothing fancy - just your standard packaged noodles or similar - but yeah, I knew how to use a stove safely.

E-scooters might be a way in. They're not as fast or as safe (to the rider), but they're practical in way e-bikes aren't due to portability. You can carry one into the office and charge it under your desk. And they lack the cultural baggage of cycling. And it's possible to look suave on one in a way that bicycles make difficult.

They're horrifically expensive, but something like an electric brompton as most of those same advantages. You can also usually take them on a bus or train.

I'd disagree on the looking suave bit, it might just be because so many riders are clueless (and this perception being reenforced by selection bias), but someone on an escooter always looks far sillier to me than someone on a dutch style or folding bike, or even someone in lycra.

It's a little rich to criticise on grounds of cost and then suggest an electric brompton in the same breath - they're nearly 10 times as expensive as the cheapest bikes/e-scooters. You can spend that much on an e-scooter, but you don't need to. E-scooters are about as affordable as bicycles.

Regarding lycra - we can disagree on whether you look suave while riding, but a huge advantage of the e-scooter is that you don't need special clothing - don't even need to tuck your pants leg into your sock. You wouldn't turn up to a date clad in lycra - but you can ride an e-scooter to one.

> It's a little rich to criticise on grounds of cost and then suggest an electric brompton in the same breath.

Apologies, I was trying to say that the brompton was the horrifically expensive option.

Upsides is they are a bit better for carrying cargo, can handle slightly rougher terrain, are a little more comfortable at long range and are a little more compact than the more capable escooters.

Both have their place, I was just trying to mention another option that hadn't been included.

Yep. I keep my eyes out for the well-dressed people on Dutch style bikes.

i didn't know it was possible to look suave on one of those scooters but it's subjective i suppose!

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