less cars : roll on $2 per litre

Zebee Johnstone wrote:
In aus.bicycle on Wed, 16 Aug 2006 07:52:29 +1000
dave wrote:

Now its interesting that a couple of people at work are talking about
these. I promised one staff member that I would take him in on the Kat
and test ride one of em for him. While my own feeling is that the
things are lethal all the evidence seems to be against me. But the
people talking about the things are the big mercedes owners at work who
would never own a pushbike or a motorbike. And that is a major major
culture change.



Don't knock it till you have tried it.

Mind you - you'll have to get over the "power out of trouble" mindset
if you are afflicted with it


Hummmphhhhhhpppppppppphhhh

A 125 can perfectly happily do what cars do plus lanesplit. They aren't
much chop 2 up, and they don't smoke a car at the lights if the car is
trying, but they don't hold up the ones that aren't and they perfectly
happily take one person and a briefcase at speeds up to 100km/h. And
when was the last time a nominal 100km/h road was doing 100 at peak
hour?

They are cheap to run, easy to ride, and don't have the greasy lout
image[1] of the motorcycle.

Oy . You in the leathers. On the eytalian thingy. WHo you calling a
lout???????????????????????????



For someone who wants a commuter to save
wear and tear on the expensive car and money on petrol while being
able to park in all sorts of free[2] places they are brilliant.

Sort of where I was going.

Plus once someone has got used to 2 wheels of any kind, they are more
receptive to 2 wheels of any kind. If they ride a scooter they'll
notice powered and unpowered two wheelers when they are driving the
car.

Still think that might be a stretch, but we can hope

Win/win really.

Wot I said!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Zebee
- whose 180cc scooter smokes most things, but it's got a fair few
more ponies than your 125 vmoto and they are much friskier.

Hmnmmmmmmphhhh.
I think I will keep the Kat forever. I wish I could get oggies for it
, otherwise... its perfect. Sexy stable, quicker than an awfull lot
of things and not so quick as to bite without warning. Cares not the
tiniest bit about pillions or luggage. Everyone lovs Kats.

[1] or the cashed up retiree trying to pretend he's rebelling image...
[2] although how long that will stay true is hard to say. The
drawback of the scooter boom is more bikes competing for the same
resources.


Better than more 4wds

Dave

In article . com,
"Travis" wrote:

I hate those damn silicon veggies they sell down at Coles
these days

So don't buy fruit and vegetables from supermarkets. Surely there are
green-grocers left in WA.

--
Shane Stanley

Marx SS wrote:

But I don’t think that everyone should use p/t & ride a bike tomorrow.

Good lord. Why ever not? Good gearing and a load bike will solve lts of
problems and you end up fitter.

I suppose people will need to gradually consider modifications in
lifestyle to account for lesser dependence on the car. Things like,
living in denser, more central areas to work & family.

Yep, the mantra is "village communities".
AKKK, imagine choosing "your village" based on which fast food chain has
the allocated spot.

Trend away from going across town for dinner/shopping/etc.
Nonsense, there are plenty of local restaurants of a wide variety and
this area isn't know for cheek by jowl restaurants.

Bleve wrote:

That depends on your point of view. When petrol costs so much that
people have to *seriously* look at alternative means of transport,
that can have a positive effect as well as negative. Cars *are*
unsustainable, car culture is *deadly* How many die each year in
cars? more Australians have died in car crashes than in all the wars
we've ever been involved in etc etc.

That doesn't sound like a lot, does it. What are we talking about here, 1500
people a year die on the roads, that's one in 13,000. Three times that many
people die in hospital "accidents". Maybe we should ban hospitals, they are
unsustainable too. I hear several people got killed on bicycles last year
when there was no car involved. Let's ban bicycles too. Get real!

Oh, you given up motorcycling yet?

The kids can ride their bikes to wherever they want to go,
unless it's stupidly far away, in which case, the consequences of
unsustainable choices are going to smack the people that have made
those choices, and they have no-one to blame but themselves.

So you want us all to live in 20 storey apartment blocks, next to the
factory we work in, which is, of course, next to the docks or major rail
line. Welcome to the 1850s.

Theo

dave wrote:

Funnily enough while the murder rate has remained almost static in
australia since 1880 you wont find a single parent who doesnt think
the world is a far more dangerous place than when they were kids. It
isnt. The romans had serial killers.

I thought I readd recently that the murder rate in Oz had halved since the
early 1900s.

Theo

On 2006-08-15, Shane Stanley (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
In article . com,
"Travis" wrote:

I hate those damn silicon veggies they sell down at Coles
these days

So don't buy fruit and vegetables from supermarkets. Surely there are
green-grocers left in WA.

Hey Travis, I thihnk your joke went over Shane's head.


Me, I'm just going to keep drinking my organic scotch.
Mmm, C_2H_5OH.

--
TimC
Truth decays into beauty, while beauty soon becomes merely
charm. Charm ends up as strangeness, and even that doesn't last, but
up and down are forever." - The Laws of Physics

On 2006-08-16, TimC wrote:
Me, I'm just going to keep drinking my organic scotch.
Mmm, C_2H_5OH.

I mixed this water myself. Two parts H, one part O. I don't trust
*anybody*.

--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@" to "usenet".

Random Data wrote:

Boy have we got off-track here. I carelessly obscured my point with
personal information. It's not about me, it's about people wishing for
harm to others. Whether you agree or not about points of economics,
there are many people who are suffering badly out of rising petrol
prices. Wishing that on them I find 'odd' for want of a better word.

Donga

dave Wrote:
deejbah wrote:
I find it amazing that parents today are willing to drive their kids
around almost to the detriment of their own lives, even when their
kids
are able to either walk or cycle to where they are going. The same
goes
for people flogging themselves to death at work so they can pay
exhorbitant private school fees and clothes. I can't see how that is
healthy for either parents or the children. I remember when I was a
kid
that whenever we played away games, there was usually car pooling or
a
roster system between the parents. At home games, we would often walk
or ride to games.



Funnily enough while the murder rate has remained almost static in
australia since 1880 you wont find a single parent who doesnt think the
world is a far more dangerous place than when they were kids. It isnt.
The romans had serial killers.

SO they drive the kids everywhere, becoming themselfs the biggest
single
risk to the safety of them in so many different ways. And if you dont;
then you would be the 'evil' parent.

As I said in another thread. 2 13 yo kids camping out of a sailing
dinghy on the shores of a lake and shooting bunnies for the hols would
probably get dad charged with neglect these days. I so miss my dad.

Dave
Wow... I don't know which parents and kids you know, but we really mix
in different circles Do you really think that the reason parents
mightn't want their youngsters roaming independently is murderers?
Trust me, when in the past answering a question "can I ride there?"
murderers really isn't the first concern I have had (Nowadays they
just tell me - that's what happens when they get taller than their
parents!)

I have three kids, granted we live in PT nirvana (or as close as it
gets to it in Melbourne), but neither they nor their friends have ever
got driven everywhere. I'm not sure who thinks this rather extensive
but loosely connected group are evil.

I also grew up in a time and place where heading off with my friends
camping wasn't a worry - but these days I hear the local police enforce
restrictions about under-aged kids driving the paddock ute on the
road...

ali


--
alison_b

In aus.bicycle on Wed, 16 Aug 2006 08:47:22 +1000
dave wrote:
Zebee Johnstone wrote:

They are cheap to run, easy to ride, and don't have the greasy lout
image[1] of the motorcycle.

Oy . You in the leathers. On the eytalian thingy. WHo you calling a
lout???????????????????????????

Heh. Me with my 30yo collection of rattly old roundfins? My cafe'd
dirt bike? My hooligan scooter? Greasy and lout, got 'em both
covered!

Hmnmmmmmmphhhh.
I think I will keep the Kat forever. I wish I could get oggies for it
, otherwise... its perfect. Sexy stable, quicker than an awfull lot
of things and not so quick as to bite without warning. Cares not the
tiniest bit about pillions or luggage. Everyone lovs Kats.

They are a very nice bike. I can't find anything built after 1980
that I really like (except the Mighty Scooter and the Griso) but I'm
known to be odd.

I think thin (therefore cheap) tyres and real world power are all
anyone really needs.

But translate that to bicycles and what do you get? What's the
bicycle equivalent of an R1?

Zebee