Your gearing is obsolete

On Sun, 14 Jun 2020 15:56:39 +0200, Wolfgang Strobl
wrote:

Am Thu, 11 Jun 2020 16:18:02 -0700 (PDT) schrieb Sir Ridesalot

The biggest problem I see with bicycle paths is the LACK of infrastructure to bicycle to them.

The two biggest problems with bicycle paths are, these either go from
nowhere to nowhere, or they put the cyclist on the wrong side of
traffic.

This article and video illustrates 3 bicycle and pedestrian bridges in
Copenhagen that have those problems and others:

"Copenhagen's Latest Piece of Cycle Infrastructure Is a "Stupid,
Stupid Bridge""
https://www.archdaily.com/868904/copenhagens-latest-piece-of-cycle-infrastructure-is-a-stupid-stupid-bridge

"The Unholy Trinity of Bridge Stupidity in Copenhagen"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McvZ68qlho4

Bicycle path enthusiasts from all over the world have a solution,
though: just dig a canal from here to there, fill it with water, frame
it with bicyclce paths, and the bicycle traffic will come. It did work
in the Netherlands, so it certainly will work for the steep roads in
your home town, too!

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On 6/14/2020 11:25 AM, Wolfgang Strobl wrote:
Am Fri, 12 Jun 2020 10:05:27 -0700 (PDT) schrieb :

I can't see
the fun in getting groceries by bike if you don't have to.

I don't see much fun in that, either.

Interesting. I actually do enjoy it. And once we're in the process of
doing it, so does my wife.

Here's how it normally goes in our house:

Me: "Let's ride up to get groceries." Wife: "Are we taking the bikes
again?" [because sometimes we don't.] Me: "Of course" or "Yes, it's a
nice day" etc. She'll then sigh and say "OK." But there's often some
reluctance.

By the time we're halfway home, which is the downhill portion of the
trip, she's smiling and obviously enjoying herself. She likes passing me
on one short rise, which she easily can because I'm carrying most of the
load.

At home, I'll say "Now wasn't that fun?" and she always agrees.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Sunday, June 14, 2020 at 5:26:04 PM UTC+2, Wolfgang Strobl wrote:
Am Fri, 12 Jun 2020 10:05:27 -0700 (PDT) schrieb :

On Friday, June 12, 2020 at 6:55:38 PM UTC+2, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/12/2020 12:41 PM, wrote:
On Friday, June 12, 2020 at 4:41:57 PM UTC+2, Frank Krygowski wrote:
...
Of course you don't use your bike if your car is "more practical." And
as I recall, you mocked things like handlebar bags - so carrying more
than one liter volume means your car will almost always be "more
practical." For almost all Americans, that is also true. They will use
it as an excuse to never bike for utility.

Also, any trip requiring muscular exertion will make their car "more
practical." Temperatures above 22 C will be too hot to be practical.
Temperatures below 20 C will be too chilly. Rain, or the possibility of
rain will have the same effect. So will snow, of course. And darkness.

The U.S. will never be a bicycling nation. Your own preference for the
car, except for "sport" rides, even in a nation renowned for its cycling
culture adds evidence.

--
- Frank Krygowski

Last year:
mileage car: 7500 km
mileage bike(s): 12000 km.

Give me the numbers for utility riding, as opposed to sport riding.

Why? I don't log the mileage of the utility rides.

IMO, this sharp distinction between "utility rides" and "sport riding"
is an indication of your problem with cycling in the U.S.. I won't
claim that we don't suffer from a similar cognitive dissonance around
here in Europe, but like much nonsense, that seems to be an import of US
origin.

Ask somebody around here whether he or she is into "sport driving" or
"motor sport", when driving their family car. The certain answer is: of
course not! You'll instantly get that very answer, whether the car in
question is an old (20 years) Citroen station wagon, a new
Mercedes-Benz ML 55 AMG or that Smart fortwo for the daughter.

Everything below 25 km/hr doesn't count for me except off
road riding of course.

Well, I wouldn't and couldn't make that distinction, because it just
doesn't exist. My bicycles are my main mode of transport, just like
for many people, their car(s) are their main mode of transport. Whether
they do sports doesn't have anything to do with that. Neither is it of
any importance whether these people use a bicycle, a ball or a club for
practicing their sport, or whether I or somebody else uses a car, as
another mode of transport. I tried to avoid it, with varying success,
see below. I sometimes ride my race bike very slowly and rarely don't
exceed 25 km/h occasionally, when using my dutch type bicycle for
shopping.


If I have to make an estimate it will
be less than 500 km.

Sure. Your main mode of transport is the car.

Mine isn't. When excluding other modes of transport, like using the
train to get around in my job, or taking the bus or streetcar when
getting to work when riding the bike wasn't an option, my estimation is
as given below.

It is just an estimation, because like you, I didn't (could't) count
distances done for shopping and short distance cyling. Simply because I
don' carry my Garmin or some cycling computer when riding to one of the
local supermarkets. But I did while riding to my workplace or while
getting around in, for example, in the south of France for sightseeing
during holidays, so these kilometers are tracked just like the
kilometers done using the family car.

Over the last about fifteen years, this amounnts to round about 5000 km
per annum on the bicyle, and about 5000 km using the car.

Given the fact the car was mostly used for getting from my home town to
the south parts Europe once or twice a year, using fast roads like the
autobahn, this means that I cycled four to five times as much, in hours.
None of that qualifies as "sports".


I had a problem with my car for 3 weeks
(battery drained over night) so I had to do everything by
bike for that period. I even bought panniers. I can't see
the fun in getting groceries by bike if you don't have to.

I don't see much fun in that, either. It is somewhat faster with the
bike, though, and not that difficult. Ask my wife, she often jokes
about our neightbor for his shopping habits. When she is already done
getting the content of her two pannieres into the house, he is still
walking from and to the car, in order to carry not even half as much
stuff from the car.

Why did she shop instead of me doing that? Well, for many years, she
could walk to work, while I was somewhat too far from home, while
working, or sitting on the bike while riding to or from work. So for
her, it's more routine than for me. In addition, currently there still
is an enforced social distance rule around here, so shopping together
isn't really a good option. Under normal circumstances, we combined or
transport capacity, when necessary.

They invented a car for that. YMMV.

So you believe. I'd rather use the train for long distances and can and
do pay delivery services for heavy stuff. I have better things to do
than driving a car, it even pays better. I would prefer to be able to
use public transport to get our bicycles to France, Italy or Poland,
but, alas, that service has been thinned, so we use the family car for
that. But using a car to get a litre of milk, five kg potatatoes and
some apples from a supermarket, that's crazy.






--
Thank you for observing all safety precautions

Good, no problem with your choice. As for me I hate doing groceries so I do it only once per week. The car is then the best option for me.

Lou

Wolfgang Strobl wrote:
Am Thu, 11 Jun 2020 16:18:02 -0700 (PDT) schrieb Sir Ridesalot

The biggest problem I see with bicycle paths is the LACK of
infrastructure to bicycle to them.

The two biggest problems with bicycle paths are, these either go from
nowhere to nowhere, or they put the cyclist on the wrong side of
traffic.

Bicycle path enthusiasts from all over the world have a solution,
though: just dig a canal from here to there, fill it with water, frame
it with bicyclce paths, and the bicycle traffic will come. It did work
in the Netherlands, so it certainly will work for the steep roads in
your home town, too!



The mayor of the town I used to live in suggested building a canal from the
riverfront to the downtown centre, saying that it would promote tourism.
What he failed to account for was the grade between the start and end
points :-)

On Friday, June 12, 2020 at 9:41:21 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Friday, June 12, 2020 at 4:41:57 PM UTC+2, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/12/2020 6:09 AM, wrote:
On Friday, June 12, 2020 at 12:06:56 AM UTC+2, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/11/2020 4:32 PM, wrote:
On Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 9:35:56 PM UTC+2, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 11:13:38 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 7:23:34 PM UTC+2, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/11/2020 11:53 AM, AMuzi wrote:
https://bikerumor.com/2018/06/23/com...nx-gx-x01-xx1/


For those who fondly recall 13~17 freewheels, there's a new 10~50 cassette!

50 teeth! Wow, I never thought I'd see the day when my 34 tooth biggest
cog was considered too small.

I'm getting a little out of date. I gotta catch up.

--
- Frank Krygowski

Ah, you give us a voucher to make fun of your dorky handlebar bag and all the other stuff you bolted to your bike one more time. Keep up the good work.

You are not a true utility cyclist. Be quiet. You probably wear a helmet, also known as a head-shackle.

-- Jay Beattie.

I'm certainly not a true utility cyclist. Hauling gallons of milk or crates of beer seems silly to me if you have a car on your driveway.

That's interesting. The U.S. currently has an enthusiastic industry and
publicity machine saying we should build Netherlands-style bike paths
everywhere.

Why? Because then people will stop driving their cars!


--
- Frank Krygowski

What has that to do with the fact that I prefer using my car for groceries and not my bike. I only use my bike for non fun rides if it is more practical.

??? Your question amazes me. You are a direct rebuttal to their claims.

Of course you don't use your bike if your car is "more practical." And
as I recall, you mocked things like handlebar bags - so carrying more
than one liter volume means your car will almost always be "more
practical." For almost all Americans, that is also true. They will use
it as an excuse to never bike for utility.

Also, any trip requiring muscular exertion will make their car "more
practical." Temperatures above 22 C will be too hot to be practical.
Temperatures below 20 C will be too chilly. Rain, or the possibility of
rain will have the same effect. So will snow, of course. And darkness.

The U.S. will never be a bicycling nation. Your own preference for the
car, except for "sport" rides, even in a nation renowned for its cycling
culture adds evidence.

--
- Frank Krygowski

Last year:
mileage car: 7500 km
mileage bike(s): 12000 km.

Lou

I haven't put half of that mileage on my cars in 10 years. Most years I've doubled that on bike mileage. This year I'm getting close to 2,000 miles on the bike and 1,000 miles on the car.

On 6/14/2020 1:20 PM, Ralph Barone wrote:
Wolfgang Strobl wrote:
Am Thu, 11 Jun 2020 16:18:02 -0700 (PDT) schrieb Sir Ridesalot

The biggest problem I see with bicycle paths is the LACK of
infrastructure to bicycle to them.

The two biggest problems with bicycle paths are, these either go from
nowhere to nowhere, or they put the cyclist on the wrong side of
traffic.

Bicycle path enthusiasts from all over the world have a solution,
though: just dig a canal from here to there, fill it with water, frame
it with bicyclce paths, and the bicycle traffic will come. It did work
in the Netherlands, so it certainly will work for the steep roads in
your home town, too!



The mayor of the town I used to live in suggested building a canal from the
riverfront to the downtown centre, saying that it would promote tourism.
What he failed to account for was the grade between the start and end
points :-)

Oh come on! Locks in action are fun to watch! And they probably wouldn't
increase the cost more than 100 fold.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Sunday, June 14, 2020 at 9:42:52 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/13/2020 8:52 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, June 13, 2020 at 10:14:16 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/13/2020 1:02 PM, wrote:
On Saturday, June 13, 2020 at 6:50:45 PM UTC+2, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/13/2020 9:59 AM, AMuzi wrote:
On 6/12/2020 11:31 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/12/2020 2:51 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 6/12/2020 11:55 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/12/2020 12:41 PM, wrote:
On Friday, June 12, 2020 at 4:41:57 PM UTC+2, Frank
Krygowski wrote:
On 6/12/2020 6:09 AM, wrote:
On Friday, June 12, 2020 at 12:06:56 AM UTC+2, Frank
Krygowski wrote:
On 6/11/2020 4:32 PM, wrote:
On Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 9:35:56 PM UTC+2,
jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 11:13:38 AM UTC-7,
wrote:
On Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 7:23:34 PM UTC+2,
Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/11/2020 11:53 AM, AMuzi wrote:
https://bikerumor.com/2018/06/23/com...nx-gx-x01-xx1/





For those who fondly recall 13~17 freewheels,
there's a new 10~50 cassette!

50 teeth! Wow, I never thought I'd see the day when
my 34 tooth biggest
cog was considered too small.

I'm getting a little out of date. I gotta catch up.

--
- Frank Krygowski

Ah, you give us a voucher to make fun of your dorky
handlebar bag and all the other stuff you bolted to
your bike one more time. Keep up the good work.

You are not a true utility cyclist.ÂÂ* Be quiet. You
probably wear a helmet, also known as a head-shackle.

-- Jay Beattie.

I'm certainly not a true utility cyclist. Hauling
gallons of milk or crates of beer seems silly to me if
you have a car on your driveway.

That's interesting. The U.S. currently has an
enthusiastic industry and
publicity machine saying we should build
Netherlands-style bike paths
everywhere.

Why? Because then people will stop driving their cars!


--
- Frank Krygowski

What has that to do with the fact that I prefer using my
car for groceries and not my bike. I only use my bike
for non fun rides if it is more practical.

??? Your question amazes me. You are a direct rebuttal to
their claims.

Of course you don't use your bike if your car is "more
practical." And
as I recall, you mocked things like handlebar bags - so
carrying more
than one liter volume means your car will almost always
be "more
practical." For almost all Americans, that is also true.
They will use
it as an excuse to never bike for utility.

Also, any trip requiring muscular exertion will make
their car "more
practical." Temperatures above 22 C will be too hot to be
practical.
Temperatures below 20 C will be too chilly. Rain, or the
possibility of
rain will have the same effect. So will snow, of course.
And darkness.

The U.S. will never be a bicycling nation. Your own
preference for the
car, except for "sport" rides, even in a nation renowned
for its cycling
culture adds evidence.

--
- Frank Krygowski

Last year:
mileage car: 7500 km
mileage bike(s): 12000 km.

Give me the numbers for utility riding, as opposed to sport
riding.



You're back in the realm of taste and fashion there.

Who's to say that one cyclist's experience is better or
more pure or more admirable than another's? Not me.

My point immediately above was that America's dominant
"taste and fashion" will be driving cars for the foreseeable
future. That's true even if quasi-protected bikeways are
magically built to every destination.

If a 12000 km/year cyclist won't bike to the grocery in a
country famed for world-record bike facilities, the average
American isn't going to do it no matter what gets built in
the right-of-way.

That's fact. Whether it's good or bad can be discussed, but
the good or bad is beside the point.


I disagree.

I think you disagree because you're not understanding my point, or my
context. Perhaps I didn't write clearly enough.

The specific point I was making had nothing to do with practicality of
any type of bike. It was about the propaganda avalanche claiming that IF
we just build the right kind of bike lanes, THEN Americans will switch
from cars to bikes in temendous (or at least, very significant) numbers.
In r.b.tech, that's been espoused mostly by Scharf and by Joerg, but
there are organizations daily pumping out that sort of propaganda.


How did we end up with this discussion here? You brought it up again. I didn't see sms or Joerg show up in this thread. Was it too long ago that you could impose your opinion?

Hmm. Should I email you for prior permission regarding points of discussion?

Yes. I vote for Lou to moderate.

And I vote against. A moderator should be moderate. Someone who rails
against putting a bag on a bike used for long rides is in an extreme
fringe.

For you, Frank, everything is deceit or propaganda if it doesn't fit your agenda...

Baloney. You're constructing grossly over-generalized straw men.

which is sometimes opaque and/or contradictory. You want to increase utility cycling, but you rant against basically any facilities.

Really? And yet, I'm almost solely responsible for some local
facilities, and worked on a small committee that's responsible for
another. I've spoken publicly in favor of another besides those, and I
worked on a statewide committee that funded many more.

If you want to rationally discuss facility benefits and detriments,
let's do it. Don's snipe about them in a rambling rant.

Hardly rambling. I don't recall that you have ever endorsed a bicycle facility. Which ones do you endorse in your community versus which ones were actually built?

And unless you are very wealthy, I doubt that you were solely or primarily responsible for any facility. CABs and clubs give testimony, and elected or appointed officials and their staff make the decisions. Maybe your testimony was super-good.


Separated facilities are what account for the NL's high bicycle mode share. There is no question about that...

That's simplistic nonsense, and probably backward. Netherlands' history
and bicycle culture account for its separated facilities. It had high
bike mode share when it had almost no such facilities. And places with
Netherlands-style facilities but without its other attributes still have
tiny mode shares.

WTF? https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2...ng-kindermoord The bike facilities in the NL are of relatively recent origin.

All this has been thoroughly discussed. Check your notes.

Check your history.

-- even if Lou drives his car to the store. I'm sure that low-speed cycling in protected facilities also underscores the sentiment in NL that helmets are unnecessary. I have a close friend from the NL, and she's terrified of riding in Portland and simply doesn't -- helmet or not.

Jay, the sentiment that helmets are unnecessary is the world-wide
default. It's not just Netherlands. Absent persistent and insistent
helmet campaigns, the only riders that would have adopted these weird
hats are the same people who costume up like bike racers to go cruise on
country roads. Hell, even most bike racers didn't don those hats until
they were forced to!

Even now, after decades of constant promotion in which "Wear a helmet!"
is the very first (and often last) bit of safety advice, I counted
helmets on only about one third of local cyclists I saw during two years
running. And I'm sure it's much lower now that many more people are
(temporarily) riding bikes due to the shutdowns.

As to your friend: Yes, it's well recognized that if people ride only on
segregated bike facilities, they assume anything else is horribly
dangerous. Sadly, our club has quite a few timid new members who refuse
to ride anywhere but on bike trails.

I shouldn't have said anything. This is like holy water on a vampire. I make fun of timid people too, and I find that it really gets them on their bikes on busy streets!

Those countries with the highest mode shares are not chock-full-o vehicular cyclists. Most are riding in protected facilities of one sort or another or traffic calmed streets. The Amsterdam and Copenhagens of the world.

"The Amsterdam and Copenhagens of the world" is a laughably small
sample, Jay. Why not give an example where cycling culture was not
previously dominant, but where the city or country's traffic is now
dominated by bicycles instead of cars? And where a typical resident can,
and does, get to almost any daily destination via protected facilities?

I'll wait.

Uh (raising hand), Amsterdam. See above. I don't know this for a fact, but with the short commutes and added protected bike facilities in NYC and Brooklyn, adding infrastructure here has probably increased bike mode share. https://www.amny.com/transit/nyc-bic...ys-1.11763975/


(BTW, to further rebut your claim that I'm against facilities: I have
always been strongly in favor of traffic calmed residential streets.)

Excellent. Although traffic calmed streets are a different animal than the separate facilities I was discussing. But I like some traffic calmed streets, assuming they're not out of the way.

I saw plenty of cyclists dodging double-deckers in London, but on average, they were willing to take more risk than the average US cyclist.

There are good and bad facilities, and I may chose not to use some or all of them -- and I may chose to drive somewhere, even, but some facilities do bring out some new cyclists. The real question is whether the small increase justifies the expense.

Is that the real question?

"SOME facilities do bring out SOME new cyclists" is probably the lowest
bar possible. It's down there with "Well, helmets must prevent SOME head
injuries!" or "But riding a bike can cause SOME injuries!" or "But Trump
has done SOME good for the U.S." Heck, send me $100,000. I'll invest it
for you and guarantee SOME return.

I'd say the first real question is, what does the country want to
achieve with respect to bike ridership? How much do we want, and why do
we want to do it?

Then I'd ask what is really realistic? Strip away the dreams that more
bicyclists will remove city congestion (Portland is still congested as
hell) or greatly lower greenhouse gases (perhaps it will a tiny bit, but
it would be undetectable - too far down the list to bother with).

And what is realistically achievable? Even magically trendy Portland
can't reach 10% bike mode share among its hip residents. Cleveland,
Jacksonville, Detroit, Los Angeles etc. are absolutely never going to
become Amsterdam.

What are you suggesting? Do nothing but sneer at facilities, helmets, sport riders, etc., etc.? Many of the Portland facilities have drawn lots of riders. This one for the hospital. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjGaCG3k4jM&t=14s I ride through there all the time, and its miserable for me because I hate traffic -- bike, car, pedestrian, basically all traffic. I hate two way bike lanes. There's a lot to hate about it, but oddly, the utility riders -- the real cyclists -- seen to like it.

The BTA lawsuit got this one built: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9kOgPWHpB0

People like this on NW Naito:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE_9BtRaukQ I rode that one by choice today because you get to skip the lights. It's two way with pedestrian lane. It would make your head explode. I'd ride the road on a busy day, but lots of people use it.

In some PDX neighborhoods its 20% bike mode share. High citywide numbers would be hard because of distances and most people not wanting to do 10% climbs from the west side.


After all that, if you finally have a realistic bike mode share goal for
realistic reasons, ask what's the best way of achieving it. It's not
going to be spending a million dollars a mile for "protected" bike
chutes that violate fundamental rules of traffic movement.

If you weren't so intent on arguing with me, you'd admit that.

I'm not intent on arguing with you. Having done much of he same sort of advocacy work, albeit not bike club-based (because I hate the officiousness and showing up at meetings in the same dopey discount jerseys), and living in a city that is infrastructure crazy and has tons of cyclists, I know that some infrastructure is good and some is bad, and my views on what is bad are not necessarily shared by exactly the type of cyclists you champion -- plain folks out to buy a gallon of milk at the Piggly Wiggly. You think you're the only right one.

What is Youngstown's bike mode share? Not seeing Youngstown on the list. http://peopleforbikes.org/blog/2020-...ngs-ridership/ Its wet even in June, and although we don't have the dreadful Ohio winters, we still ride in snow. https://i1.wp.com/usa.streetsblog.or...8314be95bf.jpg Day in. Day out. We're hardy Americans.. So if you're not going to build facilities, how are you going to Youngstowners on bikes? Are you going to call them all Nancies and wussies? If so, can I help? That sounds like fun.

-- Jay Beattie.

On 6/14/2020 6:29 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/14/2020 1:20 PM, Ralph Barone wrote:
Wolfgang Strobl wrote:
Am Thu, 11 Jun 2020 16:18:02 -0700 (PDT) schrieb Sir
Ridesalot

The biggest problem I see with bicycle paths is the LACK of
infrastructure to bicycle to them.

The two biggest problems with bicycle paths are, these
either go from
nowhere to nowhere, or they put the cyclist on the wrong
side of
traffic.

Bicycle path enthusiasts from all over the world have a
solution,
though: just dig a canal from here to there, fill it with
water, frame
it with bicyclce paths, and the bicycle traffic will
come. It did work
in the Netherlands, so it certainly will work for the
steep roads in
your home town, too!



The mayor of the town I used to live in suggested building
a canal from the
riverfront to the downtown centre, saying that it would
promote tourism.
What he failed to account for was the grade between the
start and end
points :-)

Oh come on! Locks in action are fun to watch! And they
probably wouldn't increase the cost more than 100 fold.



Mechanical engineers are often driven and diligent about
cost and efficiency, and rightly so.

Civil engineers learn to get over it:
http://www.yellowjersey.org/photosfr...t/SCOTLOCK.JPG
http://www.yellowjersey.org/photosfr...t/SCOTLOCK.JPG

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On Sun, 14 Jun 2020 16:37:06 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie
wrote:

On Sunday, June 14, 2020 at 9:42:52 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/13/2020 8:52 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, June 13, 2020 at 10:14:16 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/13/2020 1:02 PM, wrote:
On Saturday, June 13, 2020 at 6:50:45 PM UTC+2, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/13/2020 9:59 AM, AMuzi wrote:
On 6/12/2020 11:31 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/12/2020 2:51 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 6/12/2020 11:55 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/12/2020 12:41 PM, wrote:
On Friday, June 12, 2020 at 4:41:57 PM UTC+2, Frank
Krygowski wrote:
On 6/12/2020 6:09 AM, wrote:
On Friday, June 12, 2020 at 12:06:56 AM UTC+2, Frank
Krygowski wrote:
On 6/11/2020 4:32 PM, wrote:
On Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 9:35:56 PM UTC+2,
jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 11:13:38 AM UTC-7,
wrote:
On Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 7:23:34 PM UTC+2,
Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/11/2020 11:53 AM, AMuzi wrote:
https://bikerumor.com/2018/06/23/com...nx-gx-x01-xx1/





For those who fondly recall 13~17 freewheels,
there's a new 10~50 cassette!

50 teeth! Wow, I never thought I'd see the day when
my 34 tooth biggest
cog was considered too small.

I'm getting a little out of date. I gotta catch up.

--
- Frank Krygowski

Ah, you give us a voucher to make fun of your dorky
handlebar bag and all the other stuff you bolted to
your bike one more time. Keep up the good work.

You are not a true utility cyclist.Â* Be quiet. You
probably wear a helmet, also known as a head-shackle.

-- Jay Beattie.

I'm certainly not a true utility cyclist. Hauling
gallons of milk or crates of beer seems silly to me if
you have a car on your driveway.

That's interesting. The U.S. currently has an
enthusiastic industry and
publicity machine saying we should build
Netherlands-style bike paths
everywhere.

Why? Because then people will stop driving their cars!


--
- Frank Krygowski

What has that to do with the fact that I prefer using my
car for groceries and not my bike. I only use my bike
for non fun rides if it is more practical.

??? Your question amazes me. You are a direct rebuttal to
their claims.

Of course you don't use your bike if your car is "more
practical." And
as I recall, you mocked things like handlebar bags - so
carrying more
than one liter volume means your car will almost always
be "more
practical." For almost all Americans, that is also true.
They will use
it as an excuse to never bike for utility.

Also, any trip requiring muscular exertion will make
their car "more
practical." Temperatures above 22 C will be too hot to be
practical.
Temperatures below 20 C will be too chilly. Rain, or the
possibility of
rain will have the same effect. So will snow, of course.
And darkness.

The U.S. will never be a bicycling nation. Your own
preference for the
car, except for "sport" rides, even in a nation renowned
for its cycling
culture adds evidence.

--
- Frank Krygowski

Last year:
mileage car: 7500 km
mileage bike(s): 12000 km.

Give me the numbers for utility riding, as opposed to sport
riding.



You're back in the realm of taste and fashion there.

Who's to say that one cyclist's experience is better or
more pure or more admirable than another's? Not me.

My point immediately above was that America's dominant
"taste and fashion" will be driving cars for the foreseeable
future. That's true even if quasi-protected bikeways are
magically built to every destination.

If a 12000 km/year cyclist won't bike to the grocery in a
country famed for world-record bike facilities, the average
American isn't going to do it no matter what gets built in
the right-of-way.

That's fact. Whether it's good or bad can be discussed, but
the good or bad is beside the point.


I disagree.

I think you disagree because you're not understanding my point, or my
context. Perhaps I didn't write clearly enough.

The specific point I was making had nothing to do with practicality of
any type of bike. It was about the propaganda avalanche claiming that IF
we just build the right kind of bike lanes, THEN Americans will switch
from cars to bikes in temendous (or at least, very significant) numbers.
In r.b.tech, that's been espoused mostly by Scharf and by Joerg, but
there are organizations daily pumping out that sort of propaganda.


How did we end up with this discussion here? You brought it up again. I didn't see sms or Joerg show up in this thread. Was it too long ago that you could impose your opinion?

Hmm. Should I email you for prior permission regarding points of discussion?

Yes. I vote for Lou to moderate.

And I vote against. A moderator should be moderate. Someone who rails
against putting a bag on a bike used for long rides is in an extreme
fringe.

For you, Frank, everything is deceit or propaganda if it doesn't fit your agenda...

Baloney. You're constructing grossly over-generalized straw men.

which is sometimes opaque and/or contradictory. You want to increase utility cycling, but you rant against basically any facilities.

Really? And yet, I'm almost solely responsible for some local
facilities, and worked on a small committee that's responsible for
another. I've spoken publicly in favor of another besides those, and I
worked on a statewide committee that funded many more.

If you want to rationally discuss facility benefits and detriments,
let's do it. Don's snipe about them in a rambling rant.

Hardly rambling. I don't recall that you have ever endorsed a bicycle facility. Which ones do you endorse in your community versus which ones were actually built?

And unless you are very wealthy, I doubt that you were solely or primarily responsible for any facility. CABs and clubs give testimony, and elected or appointed officials and their staff make the decisions. Maybe your testimony was super-good.


Separated facilities are what account for the NL's high bicycle mode share. There is no question about that...

That's simplistic nonsense, and probably backward. Netherlands' history
and bicycle culture account for its separated facilities. It had high
bike mode share when it had almost no such facilities. And places with
Netherlands-style facilities but without its other attributes still have
tiny mode shares.

WTF? https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2...ng-kindermoord The bike facilities in the NL are of relatively recent origin.

A bit more research might be in order as:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclin...he_Netherlands
" by the 1890s the Dutch were already building dedicated paths for
cyclists. By 1911, the Dutch owned more bicycles per capita than any
other country in Europe."

But yes, there was a later movement:
This protest movement was known as the Stop de Kindermoord [nl]
(literally "Stop the Child Murder" in Dutch). The success of this
movement, along with other factors, such as the oil shortages of 1973
and the publication of the CROW Design Manual for Bicycle Traffic
turned Dutch government policy around and the country began to
restrict motor vehicles in its towns and cities..."

As an aside, as of 2012 there are something like 35,000 kilometers of
bicycle paths... and 75% of secondary school students cycle to
school, rising to 84% riding for those living within 5 km of school.
Even for distances of 16 km (9.9 mi) or over, some 8% of secondary
school children cycle in each direction to school,


All this has been thoroughly discussed. Check your notes.

Check your history.

-- even if Lou drives his car to the store. I'm sure that low-speed cycling in protected facilities also underscores the sentiment in NL that helmets are unnecessary. I have a close friend from the NL, and she's terrified of riding in Portland and simply doesn't -- helmet or not.

Jay, the sentiment that helmets are unnecessary is the world-wide
default. It's not just Netherlands. Absent persistent and insistent
helmet campaigns, the only riders that would have adopted these weird
hats are the same people who costume up like bike racers to go cruise on
country roads. Hell, even most bike racers didn't don those hats until
they were forced to!

Even now, after decades of constant promotion in which "Wear a helmet!"
is the very first (and often last) bit of safety advice, I counted
helmets on only about one third of local cyclists I saw during two years
running. And I'm sure it's much lower now that many more people are
(temporarily) riding bikes due to the shutdowns.

As to your friend: Yes, it's well recognized that if people ride only on
segregated bike facilities, they assume anything else is horribly
dangerous. Sadly, our club has quite a few timid new members who refuse
to ride anywhere but on bike trails.

I shouldn't have said anything. This is like holy water on a vampire. I make fun of timid people too, and I find that it really gets them on their bikes on busy streets!

Those countries with the highest mode shares are not chock-full-o vehicular cyclists. Most are riding in protected facilities of one sort or another or traffic calmed streets. The Amsterdam and Copenhagens of the world.

"The Amsterdam and Copenhagens of the world" is a laughably small
sample, Jay. Why not give an example where cycling culture was not
previously dominant, but where the city or country's traffic is now
dominated by bicycles instead of cars? And where a typical resident can,
and does, get to almost any daily destination via protected facilities?

I'll wait.

Uh (raising hand), Amsterdam. See above. I don't know this for a fact, but with the short commutes and added protected bike facilities in NYC and Brooklyn, adding infrastructure here has probably increased bike mode share. https://www.amny.com/transit/nyc-bic...ys-1.11763975/


(BTW, to further rebut your claim that I'm against facilities: I have
always been strongly in favor of traffic calmed residential streets.)

Excellent. Although traffic calmed streets are a different animal than the separate facilities I was discussing. But I like some traffic calmed streets, assuming they're not out of the way.

I saw plenty of cyclists dodging double-deckers in London, but on average, they were willing to take more risk than the average US cyclist.

There are good and bad facilities, and I may chose not to use some or all of them -- and I may chose to drive somewhere, even, but some facilities do bring out some new cyclists. The real question is whether the small increase justifies the expense.

Is that the real question?

"SOME facilities do bring out SOME new cyclists" is probably the lowest
bar possible. It's down there with "Well, helmets must prevent SOME head
injuries!" or "But riding a bike can cause SOME injuries!" or "But Trump
has done SOME good for the U.S." Heck, send me $100,000. I'll invest it
for you and guarantee SOME return.

I'd say the first real question is, what does the country want to
achieve with respect to bike ridership? How much do we want, and why do
we want to do it?

Then I'd ask what is really realistic? Strip away the dreams that more
bicyclists will remove city congestion (Portland is still congested as
hell) or greatly lower greenhouse gases (perhaps it will a tiny bit, but
it would be undetectable - too far down the list to bother with).

And what is realistically achievable? Even magically trendy Portland
can't reach 10% bike mode share among its hip residents. Cleveland,
Jacksonville, Detroit, Los Angeles etc. are absolutely never going to
become Amsterdam.

What are you suggesting? Do nothing but sneer at facilities, helmets, sport riders, etc., etc.? Many of the Portland facilities have drawn lots of riders. This one for the hospital. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjGaCG3k4jM&t=14s I ride through there all the time, and its miserable for me because I hate traffic -- bike, car, pedestrian, basically all traffic. I hate two way bike lanes. There's a lot to hate about it, but oddly, the utility riders -- the real cyclists -- seen to like it.

The BTA lawsuit got this one built: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9kOgPWHpB0

People like this on NW Naito:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE_9BtRaukQ I rode that one by choice today because you get to skip the lights. It's two way with pedestrian lane. It would make your head explode. I'd ride the road on a busy day, but lots of people use it.

In some PDX neighborhoods its 20% bike mode share. High citywide numbers would be hard because of distances and most people not wanting to do 10% climbs from the west side.


After all that, if you finally have a realistic bike mode share goal for
realistic reasons, ask what's the best way of achieving it. It's not
going to be spending a million dollars a mile for "protected" bike
chutes that violate fundamental rules of traffic movement.

If you weren't so intent on arguing with me, you'd admit that.

I'm not intent on arguing with you. Having done much of he same sort of advocacy work, albeit not bike club-based (because I hate the officiousness and showing up at meetings in the same dopey discount jerseys), and living in a city that is infrastructure crazy and has tons of cyclists, I know that some infrastructure is good and some is bad, and my views on what is bad are not necessarily shared by exactly the type of cyclists you champion -- plain folks out to buy a gallon of milk at the Piggly Wiggly. You think you're the only right one.

What is Youngstown's bike mode share? Not seeing Youngstown on the list. http://peopleforbikes.org/blog/2020-...ngs-ridership/ Its wet even in June, and although we don't have the dreadful Ohio winters, we still ride in snow. https://i1.wp.com/usa.streetsblog.or...8314be95bf.jpg Day in. Day out. We're hardy Americans. So if you're not going to build facilities, how are you going to Youngstowners on bikes? Are you going to call them all Nancies and wussies? If so, can I help? That sounds like fun.

-- Jay Beattie.







--
cheers,

John B.

On Sunday, June 14, 2020 at 5:08:17 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 14 Jun 2020 16:37:06 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie
wrote:

On Sunday, June 14, 2020 at 9:42:52 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/13/2020 8:52 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, June 13, 2020 at 10:14:16 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/13/2020 1:02 PM, wrote:
On Saturday, June 13, 2020 at 6:50:45 PM UTC+2, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/13/2020 9:59 AM, AMuzi wrote:
On 6/12/2020 11:31 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/12/2020 2:51 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 6/12/2020 11:55 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/12/2020 12:41 PM, wrote:
On Friday, June 12, 2020 at 4:41:57 PM UTC+2, Frank
Krygowski wrote:
On 6/12/2020 6:09 AM, wrote:
On Friday, June 12, 2020 at 12:06:56 AM UTC+2, Frank
Krygowski wrote:
On 6/11/2020 4:32 PM, wrote:
On Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 9:35:56 PM UTC+2,
jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 11:13:38 AM UTC-7,
wrote:
On Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 7:23:34 PM UTC+2,
Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/11/2020 11:53 AM, AMuzi wrote:
https://bikerumor.com/2018/06/23/com...nx-gx-x01-xx1/





For those who fondly recall 13~17 freewheels,
there's a new 10~50 cassette!

50 teeth! Wow, I never thought I'd see the day when
my 34 tooth biggest
cog was considered too small.

I'm getting a little out of date. I gotta catch up.

--
- Frank Krygowski

Ah, you give us a voucher to make fun of your dorky
handlebar bag and all the other stuff you bolted to
your bike one more time. Keep up the good work.

You are not a true utility cyclist.Â* Be quiet. You
probably wear a helmet, also known as a head-shackle.

-- Jay Beattie.

I'm certainly not a true utility cyclist. Hauling
gallons of milk or crates of beer seems silly to me if
you have a car on your driveway.

That's interesting. The U.S. currently has an
enthusiastic industry and
publicity machine saying we should build
Netherlands-style bike paths
everywhere.

Why? Because then people will stop driving their cars!


--
- Frank Krygowski

What has that to do with the fact that I prefer using my
car for groceries and not my bike. I only use my bike
for non fun rides if it is more practical.

??? Your question amazes me. You are a direct rebuttal to
their claims.

Of course you don't use your bike if your car is "more
practical." And
as I recall, you mocked things like handlebar bags - so
carrying more
than one liter volume means your car will almost always
be "more
practical." For almost all Americans, that is also true.
They will use
it as an excuse to never bike for utility.

Also, any trip requiring muscular exertion will make
their car "more
practical." Temperatures above 22 C will be too hot to be
practical.
Temperatures below 20 C will be too chilly. Rain, or the
possibility of
rain will have the same effect. So will snow, of course.
And darkness.

The U.S. will never be a bicycling nation. Your own
preference for the
car, except for "sport" rides, even in a nation renowned
for its cycling
culture adds evidence.

--
- Frank Krygowski

Last year:
mileage car: 7500 km
mileage bike(s): 12000 km.

Give me the numbers for utility riding, as opposed to sport
riding.



You're back in the realm of taste and fashion there.

Who's to say that one cyclist's experience is better or
more pure or more admirable than another's? Not me.

My point immediately above was that America's dominant
"taste and fashion" will be driving cars for the foreseeable
future. That's true even if quasi-protected bikeways are
magically built to every destination.

If a 12000 km/year cyclist won't bike to the grocery in a
country famed for world-record bike facilities, the average
American isn't going to do it no matter what gets built in
the right-of-way.

That's fact. Whether it's good or bad can be discussed, but
the good or bad is beside the point.


I disagree.

I think you disagree because you're not understanding my point, or my
context. Perhaps I didn't write clearly enough.

The specific point I was making had nothing to do with practicality of
any type of bike. It was about the propaganda avalanche claiming that IF
we just build the right kind of bike lanes, THEN Americans will switch
from cars to bikes in temendous (or at least, very significant) numbers.
In r.b.tech, that's been espoused mostly by Scharf and by Joerg, but
there are organizations daily pumping out that sort of propaganda..


How did we end up with this discussion here? You brought it up again. I didn't see sms or Joerg show up in this thread. Was it too long ago that you could impose your opinion?

Hmm. Should I email you for prior permission regarding points of discussion?

Yes. I vote for Lou to moderate.

And I vote against. A moderator should be moderate. Someone who rails
against putting a bag on a bike used for long rides is in an extreme
fringe.

For you, Frank, everything is deceit or propaganda if it doesn't fit your agenda...

Baloney. You're constructing grossly over-generalized straw men.

which is sometimes opaque and/or contradictory. You want to increase utility cycling, but you rant against basically any facilities.

Really? And yet, I'm almost solely responsible for some local
facilities, and worked on a small committee that's responsible for
another. I've spoken publicly in favor of another besides those, and I
worked on a statewide committee that funded many more.

If you want to rationally discuss facility benefits and detriments,
let's do it. Don's snipe about them in a rambling rant.

Hardly rambling. I don't recall that you have ever endorsed a bicycle facility. Which ones do you endorse in your community versus which ones were actually built?

And unless you are very wealthy, I doubt that you were solely or primarily responsible for any facility. CABs and clubs give testimony, and elected or appointed officials and their staff make the decisions. Maybe your testimony was super-good.


Separated facilities are what account for the NL's high bicycle mode share. There is no question about that...

That's simplistic nonsense, and probably backward. Netherlands' history
and bicycle culture account for its separated facilities. It had high
bike mode share when it had almost no such facilities. And places with
Netherlands-style facilities but without its other attributes still have
tiny mode shares.

WTF? https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2...ng-kindermoord The bike facilities in the NL are of relatively recent origin.

A bit more research might be in order as:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclin...he_Netherlands
" by the 1890s the Dutch were already building dedicated paths for
cyclists. By 1911, the Dutch owned more bicycles per capita than any
other country in Europe."

But yes, there was a later movement:
This protest movement was known as the Stop de Kindermoord [nl]
(literally "Stop the Child Murder" in Dutch). The success of this
movement, along with other factors, such as the oil shortages of 1973
and the publication of the CROW Design Manual for Bicycle Traffic
turned Dutch government policy around and the country began to
restrict motor vehicles in its towns and cities..."

As an aside, as of 2012 there are something like 35,000 kilometers of
bicycle paths... and 75% of secondary school students cycle to
school, rising to 84% riding for those living within 5 km of school.
Even for distances of 16 km (9.9 mi) or over, some 8% of secondary
school children cycle in each direction to school,

snip

And in Portland we were building dedicated bike roads in the 1890s. https://tinyurl.com/y96hs5p6 The bike roads were better than the car roads. There was a bicycling craze in the 1890s in the US and Europe -- that craze basically vanished with the auto, at least in the US.

In the NL they did keep riding, but numbers dropped after WWII and dropped precipitously after the '60s, and apparently road deaths skyrocketed, resulting in the big infrastructure changes in the '70s and onward. https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2...nfrastructure/

It appears from the video that the modern separated facilities we associate with NL were built after the '70s. To quote the narrator "build it and they will come in the Netherlands." They won't come in Omaha and a lot of other places, and yes, I get it that the US is not the NL (for a lot of reasons), but that doesn't mean some infrastructure isn't worthwhile. It has improved my (pre-COVID) daily commute which is now all bike lane when before it was a painted fog line with 50mph traffic. There are some excellent rail-trials (except for the surge of COVID walkers) -- and some really bad facilities. I'm not sold on infrastructure, but then I'm not the target audience. I would go crazy in NL in a week.

-- Jay Beattie.