Who is a real cyclist ?

On Wednesday, September 5, 2018 at 4:58:46 PM UTC+1, jbeattie wrote:
Come here, you guys, you deserve a big hug! Stay strong my brothers. Fight the power!

Ride tall!

Andre Jute
Too true

On Wednesday, September 5, 2018 at 9:15:06 AM UTC-4, Emanuel Berg wrote:
sltom992 wrote:

People have been propagandized NOT by the
helmet industry but of all things by other
riders that "My helmet saved my life".
And they finally grow to believe it.

Maybe it is a natural thing to say if you hit
your head and the helmet has a dent to show it.
Like people say in the hook-up ads, "I'm always
happy and positive". No one is always happy and
positive. It is just a matter of speaking.
It is more natural to say "my helmet saved my
life" than to say "my helmet saved my head from
an injury of unknown ramifications". Maybe one
should just stick with, "I'm sure glad I had my
helmet!" if that's the way one feels.
But actually I think that is what the original
statement amounts to.

--
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

"I'm sure glad I had my helmet"

Say that on this newsgroup and within a post or two our resident anti-helmet poster will attack you quite strongly. One common reply is: "If you weren't wearing a helmet you wouldn't have hit your head (on the pavement)in the first place".

Cheers

On Wednesday, September 5, 2018 at 9:31:39 AM UTC-4, Emanuel Berg wrote:
Tim McNamara wrote:

A friend of mine has a standard response- if
someone asks him "where's your helmet?" his
reply is "where are your manners?"

Err... how about "I left it in my other pants?"

Snipped
--
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

I was once on a long organized ride when the weather turned very hot and very humid. I took off my helmet and attached it to a long strap and then slung it over my shoulder. Someone told me that the form I signed in order to participate in that ride stated: "I promise to wear an approved helmet on this ride". I t old that person that it was true but nowhere on the form did it state that the helmet had to be worn on my head.

Cheers

On Wed, 5 Sep 2018 11:03:27 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 9/5/2018 9:31 AM, Emanuel Berg wrote:
Tim McNamara wrote:

A friend of mine has a standard response- if
someone asks him "where's your helmet?" his
reply is "where are your manners?"

Err... how about "I left it in my other pants?"

I don't know if that happens in other
countries, but in the US [...]

Here, people use bikes to do almost anything,
often several times a day. Kids go to school,
young adults go to the university and to
parties thru the night, everyone else go to
work or to get food or to do sport or just
about anything. So no one riding a bike feels
he or she is part of a shunned minority, and
there is no reason to acknoledge or even notice
if someone else is "doing it" as well.

To illustrate the U.S., at least, some years ago:

Sometime in the 1980s, I rode my bike as usual to the bank where we did
business. That was back in the days when I wore a bike helmet.

I was always pleased that the bank had a bike rack at its door. That was
_extremely_ unusual. (And the rack has since been removed.) Anyway, I
finished my business at the bank and was retrieving my bike when an
older-middle-aged lady emerged from the bank.

She looked at me with obvious disgust, shook her head and said "Well, at
_least_ you're wearing a helmet." Clearly, she thought riding a bike a
couple blocks was absolutely foolhardy.

I think things have improved a bit, partly because I'm seen riding the
bike everywhere. But it's still considered very unusual. I was
interviewed in 1993 and in 2011 about my biking to work. Those were
almost full-page articles each time. I was also interviewed in the 1990s
about my summer project, to ride to each of the county's 18 library
branches and check out a book at every one.

If simply riding a bike is newsworthy, I'd say something is wrong with
society. :-(

It does seem rather strange as when I grew up practically every boy
had a bicycle and rode it everywhere. An "older - middle aged" person
in the 1980's would probably have been old enough to have some
recollection of those times.

But even as late as the 1970's, kids in Riverside California, where I
lived at the time, had bicycles and rode them daily.

On 9/5/2018 8:03 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 9/5/2018 9:31 AM, Emanuel Berg wrote:
Tim McNamara wrote:

A friend of mine has a standard response- if
someone asks him "where's your helmet?" his
reply is "where are your manners?"

Err... how about "I left it in my other pants?"

I don't know if that happens in other
countries, but in the US [...]

Here, people use bikes to do almost anything,
often several times a day. Kids go to school,
young adults go to the university and to
parties thru the night, everyone else go to
work or to get food or to do sport or just
about anything. So no one riding a bike feels
he or she is part of a shunned minority, and
there is no reason to acknoledge or even notice
if someone else is "doing it" as well.

To illustrate the U.S., at least, some years ago:

Sometime in the 1980s, I rode my bike as usual to the bank where we did
business. That was back in the days when I wore a bike helmet.

I was always pleased that the bank had a bike rack at its door. That was
_extremely_ unusual. (And the rack has since been removed.) Anyway, I
finished my business at the bank and was retrieving my bike when an
older-middle-aged lady emerged from the bank.

She looked at me with obvious disgust, shook her head and said "Well, at
_least_ you're wearing a helmet." Clearly, she thought riding a bike a
couple blocks was absolutely foolhardy.

I think things have improved a bit, partly because I'm seen riding the
bike everywhere. But it's still considered very unusual. I was
interviewed in 1993 and in 2011 about my biking to work. Those were
almost full-page articles each time. I was also interviewed in the 1990s
about my summer project, to ride to each of the county's 18 library
branches and check out a book at every one.

If simply riding a bike is newsworthy, I'd say something is wrong with
society.Â*Â* :-(

Heh. When I was newly married, many years ago, we stopped on a ride at
a store that was about to open. As we waited, a severely obese woman
drove up and came to the door, also waiting. She then announced to the
air, pointing at our (tandem) bike, "I think bike riding [or the riding
position, perhaps] is just unnatural," or some words to that effect. No
other words were spoken by anyone present, before or after. It was
pretty bizarre. I looked at her and just smiled.

Mark J.

On Wednesday, September 5, 2018 at 4:58:18 PM UTC-7, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Wed, 5 Sep 2018 11:03:27 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 9/5/2018 9:31 AM, Emanuel Berg wrote:
Tim McNamara wrote:

A friend of mine has a standard response- if
someone asks him "where's your helmet?" his
reply is "where are your manners?"

Err... how about "I left it in my other pants?"

I don't know if that happens in other
countries, but in the US [...]

Here, people use bikes to do almost anything,
often several times a day. Kids go to school,
young adults go to the university and to
parties thru the night, everyone else go to
work or to get food or to do sport or just
about anything. So no one riding a bike feels
he or she is part of a shunned minority, and
there is no reason to acknoledge or even notice
if someone else is "doing it" as well.

To illustrate the U.S., at least, some years ago:

Sometime in the 1980s, I rode my bike as usual to the bank where we did
business. That was back in the days when I wore a bike helmet.

I was always pleased that the bank had a bike rack at its door. That was
_extremely_ unusual. (And the rack has since been removed.) Anyway, I
finished my business at the bank and was retrieving my bike when an
older-middle-aged lady emerged from the bank.

She looked at me with obvious disgust, shook her head and said "Well, at
_least_ you're wearing a helmet." Clearly, she thought riding a bike a
couple blocks was absolutely foolhardy.

I think things have improved a bit, partly because I'm seen riding the
bike everywhere. But it's still considered very unusual. I was
interviewed in 1993 and in 2011 about my biking to work. Those were
almost full-page articles each time. I was also interviewed in the 1990s
about my summer project, to ride to each of the county's 18 library
branches and check out a book at every one.

If simply riding a bike is newsworthy, I'd say something is wrong with
society. :-(

It does seem rather strange as when I grew up practically every boy
had a bicycle and rode it everywhere. An "older - middle aged" person
in the 1980's would probably have been old enough to have some
recollection of those times.

You don't need to be that old. I was a kid in the '60s, and I rode a bike everywhere, including school. I think the '80s was the end of the free-range kid era.

It was unusual in the '60s for an adult to commute to work by bike -- or to ride a bike at all. I knew one adult who commuted to work by bike, and that was my fifth grade teacher. He was also the national road champion at the time. http://www.usbhof.org/inductee-by-year/88-bob-tetzlaff The bike boom and Earth Day and all that stuff hit in the '70s, and you started seeing more adults riding. https://www.curbed.com/2017/6/28/158...sign-bike-boom Even my WWII dad started riding -- for a while. I don't know if my mother could even ride a bike. The urbanites of that generation were more likely to be smoking and drinking Scotch than riding a bike.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Wed, 5 Sep 2018 17:45:30 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie
wrote:

On Wednesday, September 5, 2018 at 4:58:18 PM UTC-7, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Wed, 5 Sep 2018 11:03:27 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 9/5/2018 9:31 AM, Emanuel Berg wrote:
Tim McNamara wrote:

A friend of mine has a standard response- if
someone asks him "where's your helmet?" his
reply is "where are your manners?"

Err... how about "I left it in my other pants?"

I don't know if that happens in other
countries, but in the US [...]

Here, people use bikes to do almost anything,
often several times a day. Kids go to school,
young adults go to the university and to
parties thru the night, everyone else go to
work or to get food or to do sport or just
about anything. So no one riding a bike feels
he or she is part of a shunned minority, and
there is no reason to acknoledge or even notice
if someone else is "doing it" as well.

To illustrate the U.S., at least, some years ago:

Sometime in the 1980s, I rode my bike as usual to the bank where we did
business. That was back in the days when I wore a bike helmet.

I was always pleased that the bank had a bike rack at its door. That was
_extremely_ unusual. (And the rack has since been removed.) Anyway, I
finished my business at the bank and was retrieving my bike when an
older-middle-aged lady emerged from the bank.

She looked at me with obvious disgust, shook her head and said "Well, at
_least_ you're wearing a helmet." Clearly, she thought riding a bike a
couple blocks was absolutely foolhardy.

I think things have improved a bit, partly because I'm seen riding the
bike everywhere. But it's still considered very unusual. I was
interviewed in 1993 and in 2011 about my biking to work. Those were
almost full-page articles each time. I was also interviewed in the 1990s
about my summer project, to ride to each of the county's 18 library
branches and check out a book at every one.

If simply riding a bike is newsworthy, I'd say something is wrong with
society. :-(

It does seem rather strange as when I grew up practically every boy
had a bicycle and rode it everywhere. An "older - middle aged" person
in the 1980's would probably have been old enough to have some
recollection of those times.

You don't need to be that old. I was a kid in the '60s, and I rode a bike everywhere, including school. I think the '80s was the end of the free-range kid era.

It was unusual in the '60s for an adult to commute to work by bike -- or to ride a bike at all. I knew one adult who commuted to work by bike, and that was my fifth grade teacher. He was also the national road champion at the time. http://www.usbhof.org/inductee-by-year/88-bob-tetzlaff The bike boom and Earth Day and all that stuff hit in the '70s, and you started seeing more adults riding. https://www.curbed.com/2017/6/28/158...sign-bike-boom Even my WWII dad started riding -- for a while. I don't know if my mother could even ride a bike. The urbanites of that generation were more likely to be smoking and drinking Scotch than riding a bike.

-- Jay Beattie.

When I was a kid and riding a bicycle everywhere, I seem to remember
that they were banned at the school, probably due to space or
liability for the school, but during the same period my father
habitually walked to work - slightly over one mile - and usually home
again in the evenings, and of course, to a restaurant for lunch. From
memory, while a lot of men walked to work I don't remember ever seeing
a grown-up on a bicycle. But then, those were the days when people
didn't regard walking as a novelty, no such thing as "hiking shoes",
it was simply a means of transportation.

But too, there were a lot more shops. There was "Down Town" where the
big stores - Woolworth's, A&P, etc. - were but in addition there were
small shops, usually selling a mix of groceries and general household
supplies, scattered around the fringes. All gone now.

On 9/5/2018 7:45 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, September 5, 2018 at 4:58:18 PM UTC-7, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Wed, 5 Sep 2018 11:03:27 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 9/5/2018 9:31 AM, Emanuel Berg wrote:
Tim McNamara wrote:

A friend of mine has a standard response- if
someone asks him "where's your helmet?" his
reply is "where are your manners?"

Err... how about "I left it in my other pants?"

I don't know if that happens in other
countries, but in the US [...]

Here, people use bikes to do almost anything,
often several times a day. Kids go to school,
young adults go to the university and to
parties thru the night, everyone else go to
work or to get food or to do sport or just
about anything. So no one riding a bike feels
he or she is part of a shunned minority, and
there is no reason to acknoledge or even notice
if someone else is "doing it" as well.

To illustrate the U.S., at least, some years ago:

Sometime in the 1980s, I rode my bike as usual to the bank where we did
business. That was back in the days when I wore a bike helmet.

I was always pleased that the bank had a bike rack at its door. That was
_extremely_ unusual. (And the rack has since been removed.) Anyway, I
finished my business at the bank and was retrieving my bike when an
older-middle-aged lady emerged from the bank.

She looked at me with obvious disgust, shook her head and said "Well, at
_least_ you're wearing a helmet." Clearly, she thought riding a bike a
couple blocks was absolutely foolhardy.

I think things have improved a bit, partly because I'm seen riding the
bike everywhere. But it's still considered very unusual. I was
interviewed in 1993 and in 2011 about my biking to work. Those were
almost full-page articles each time. I was also interviewed in the 1990s
about my summer project, to ride to each of the county's 18 library
branches and check out a book at every one.

If simply riding a bike is newsworthy, I'd say something is wrong with
society. :-(

It does seem rather strange as when I grew up practically every boy
had a bicycle and rode it everywhere. An "older - middle aged" person
in the 1980's would probably have been old enough to have some
recollection of those times.

You don't need to be that old. I was a kid in the '60s, and I rode a bike everywhere, including school. I think the '80s was the end of the free-range kid era.

It was unusual in the '60s for an adult to commute to work by bike -- or to ride a bike at all. I knew one adult who commuted to work by bike, and that was my fifth grade teacher. He was also the national road champion at the time. http://www.usbhof.org/inductee-by-year/88-bob-tetzlaff The bike boom and Earth Day and all that stuff hit in the '70s, and you started seeing more adults riding. https://www.curbed.com/2017/6/28/158...sign-bike-boom Even my WWII dad started riding -- for a while. I don't know if my mother could even ride a bike. The urbanites of that generation were more likely to be smoking and drinking Scotch than riding a bike.

-- Jay Beattie.






mmmmm. Scots whisky. And bicycles, too. Life is good.

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

On Wed, 5 Sep 2018 17:39:12 -0700, "Mark J."
wrote:

On 9/5/2018 8:03 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 9/5/2018 9:31 AM, Emanuel Berg wrote:
Tim McNamara wrote:

A friend of mine has a standard response- if
someone asks him "where's your helmet?" his
reply is "where are your manners?"

Err... how about "I left it in my other pants?"

I don't know if that happens in other
countries, but in the US [...]

Here, people use bikes to do almost anything,
often several times a day. Kids go to school,
young adults go to the university and to
parties thru the night, everyone else go to
work or to get food or to do sport or just
about anything. So no one riding a bike feels
he or she is part of a shunned minority, and
there is no reason to acknoledge or even notice
if someone else is "doing it" as well.

To illustrate the U.S., at least, some years ago:

Sometime in the 1980s, I rode my bike as usual to the bank where we did
business. That was back in the days when I wore a bike helmet.

I was always pleased that the bank had a bike rack at its door. That was
_extremely_ unusual. (And the rack has since been removed.) Anyway, I
finished my business at the bank and was retrieving my bike when an
older-middle-aged lady emerged from the bank.

She looked at me with obvious disgust, shook her head and said "Well, at
_least_ you're wearing a helmet." Clearly, she thought riding a bike a
couple blocks was absolutely foolhardy.

I think things have improved a bit, partly because I'm seen riding the
bike everywhere. But it's still considered very unusual. I was
interviewed in 1993 and in 2011 about my biking to work. Those were
almost full-page articles each time. I was also interviewed in the 1990s
about my summer project, to ride to each of the county's 18 library
branches and check out a book at every one.

If simply riding a bike is newsworthy, I'd say something is wrong with
society.** :-(

Heh. When I was newly married, many years ago, we stopped on a ride at
a store that was about to open. As we waited, a severely obese woman
drove up and came to the door, also waiting. She then announced to the
air, pointing at our (tandem) bike, "I think bike riding [or the riding
position, perhaps] is just unnatural," or some words to that effect. No
other words were spoken by anyone present, before or after. It was
pretty bizarre. I looked at her and just smiled.

Mark J.

I don't know how old you are but there was a period when doctors
blamed prostrate problems on riding a bicycle and in the early days
females straddling a bicycle seat were equated with a lowering in
morals.

On 06/09/18 11:22, John B. Slocomb wrote:

I don't know how old you are but there was a period when doctors
blamed prostrate problems on riding a bicycle
Lived through that. nmow they blame other causes.

and in the early days females straddling a bicycle seat
were equated with a lowering in morals.

Sex Sells. It was just a line to get more men to buy a bicycle to go
looking for these "loose' women.