Do you feel like biking makes you a loser?

On Jul 3, 6:08 pm, Tom Sherman
wrote:
[Unrelated groups rec.bicycles.rides [1] and uk.rec.cycling snipped]

KingOfTheApes aka Comendante Banana aka donquixote1954 aka WHO? wrote: ...
So how do you feel about it, jumping [off] the San Francisco bridge?

Was not considering it, but if I keep on reading these posts I might.

Please take a course on statistics so you will understand that cycling
is a relatively safe activity, even in the USA.

[1] This is for ride reports and discussion of routes, etc. dude.

Biking is so safe in America that as much as 0.4% of the commuting
population does so by bike.

Actually, it's pretty good on paper (and probably safer than doing the
tour in Afghanistan)...

Let's see what this folk has to say:

'Hi,

The Pennsylvania DOT has a website advocating what I believe is that
standard doctrine about narrow roads: take the middle of the lane. The
main advantage of this, aside from the fact that the road is better
and the car doors more easily avoidable, is that cars and really big
trucks are not encouraged to "share" the lane with you. So I tried it.

It's led so some pretty aggravating situations, with drivers leaning
on their horns under the impression, obviously, that you're doing it
to slow them down. (Like all brain surgeons and supreme court
justices, their time is obviously very important.)

On top of that, I actually worry more than anything else that people
drive without actually looking in front of them. That may be
(slightly) irrational, and I've never seen anyone mow a cyclist down
just because they weren't looking, but I've certainly seen them ignore
stop signs because they weren't looking (as opposed to not caring), so
lately I've moved back to the side of the road.

Unless there's a major information campaign and general change in
attitude I can't actually see the middle of the road position ever
being really that viable in this country. For the side of the road
position to work all (?) you really need is something to get people to
give you your rightful three feet of space. The only solutions I can
think of are (a) again, a public awareness campaign (b) those flag /
lollipop things (c) jerseys with "give me three feet please" on them.

Does anyone have any better ideas? I don't suppose the Leader of the
Free World reads the fora. Pity. '

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=437461

On Jul 4, 4:29*pm, wrote:
THE REVOLUTION WHERE SMALL IS BETTER
The chihuahua says: "Yo quiero revolution!"

Yeah, look at how successful it's been in a small country like Cuba.

By the way, I don't feel that biking makes me a loser.
I'm a loser because I'm a loser, biking is my escape.

Bike, bike, bike, meow,
ABS

I'd consider it an escape if I could do it on a bike path in the
middle of nowhere, but not in traffic.

Actually I'd feel myself like a cat among the dogs.

On Jul 5, 4:28 am, Tadej Brezina wrote:
KingOfTheApes schrieb:

Well, society doesn't hold cyclists in high esteem. Perhaps bicycles
are associated with homelessness if used with baskets that make them
practical, and bikers always risk the stigma of tree-hugger,
underemployed, immigrant, laborer, etc. among the general population
if used for other uses other than recreation.

So how do you feel about it, jumping the San Francisco bridge?

No, why should I?

No you shouldn't, but it's a metaphorical escape by those who can't
take so much humiliation riding a bike on American roads.


"Bicycles are often seen as having low status, associated with the
poorer classes or underdeveloped nations. Even in bicycle-friendly
Copenhagen and Amsterdam, pedestrian and bicycle officials talk about
difficulties in dealing with planners and engineers who think only in
terms of motorized solutions."

It's a matter of education and personal perception. For my country:
hardly any civil engineer will be found, that hasn't got a
car-dominating point of view, with just a little bit of recreational
cycling. Same is valid for politicians, so no one has to wonder, that
pro-cycling measures taken are hardly useful from the everyday cyclers
point of view.


Well, here it's the same but multiplied by 100. But there's hope the
situation will improve in the next century.

Originally Posted by crhilton
'Another way to do financial incentives is through gasoline. The
Europeans do this: Put a big tax on gasoline, pay for most of your
road construction with it, and then add an environmental tax. If $4
has people talking, $7 might have them doing.

I'm not offering any of these as a preferred solution. I'm simply
throwing out ideas. I recognize how distasteful and offensive $7 a
gallon sounds to most Americans: That's what makes it a powerful
incentive.

The stupid's dilemma: "How do you get a stupid to change if he doesn't
see the need for change because he's stupid?'


Some of these solutions make a lot of sense, but remember the stupid's
dilemma above. Likely Americans will fight to death among each other,
before considering a bike. That was the scenario put by a documentary
about the day oil runs out (in 2017), and the last SUV owners fight
for dwindling gas.

As you say, only solution may be coming from TV, and TV lives off big
money, which is not associated with bikes. Yep, the idiot's box holds
the last hope.

KingOfTheApes aka Comandante Banana aka donquixote1954 wrote:
...I don't suppose the Leader of the Free World...

Who is that?

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

On Jul 6, 5:41*pm, Tom Sherman
wrote:
KingOfTheApes aka Comandante Banana aka donquixote1954 wrote:

...I don't suppose the Leader of the Free World...

Who is that?

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

I think is some sort of powerful monkey who holds the key to the
survival of all other monkeys (some 6.5 billion of them)...

http://www.ukuleleman.net/uploaded_i...an-718799..jpg

(someone who doesn't understand my metaphors, do you?)

Originally Posted by donnamb
"I'm a pretty common person and I still have no idea what you are
talking about."

Well, it goes this way.

In this jungle where we live there's a king of the jungle (the lion)
that runs the kingdom according to his tastes and appetites (leaving
no room for the monkeys to ride bikes), but there's a monkey that had
it, and challenged the Law of the Jungle (SUVs rule). He's got two
choices: use violence (become another lion) and risk being eaten,
or... share his banana with the hungry lion...

Thus the Banana Revolution becomes the way of the nonviolent, clever
monkeys figthting for survival in the jungle. "Never go in the jungle
without a banana!" That's another T-shirt slogan...

Originally Posted by Treespeed
"Can you say tangent? No one brought up the bible and your banishment
from the garden of eden metaphor has nothing to do with cycling
advocacy. This seems to be a logical fallacy that you engage in with
some regularity; it doesn’t follow that because one metaphor is bad,
that your metaphor is good. You haven’t established your main argument
that demonizing SUV drivers gets more people to ride bicycles, or
worse yet that confused animal metaphors convinces people to ride
bikes."

That I have convince you, dude, to ride bicycles would be stupid. This
is a Bicycle Forum which you seem to forget when defending SUVs so
much.

This is for the 99.6% who don't ride bikes to work and elsewhere,
possibly because they feel intimidated. Many of them are "survivors,"
in the economic sense of the word.

My metaphor is also perfect because the cars and particularly the SUVs
keep the lion's share of the road, and then often roar (honk, shout)
to intimidate you. It's not demonizing them, but showing they are
playing the game of the corporations, which is making you buy their
"wares," ie. Stupid Unnecessary Vehicles, Oil and Insurance, not Smart
Utility Bikes, which are truly utility vehicles --only that they don't
feed the system as much. Thus the name of Hungry Lion becomes
evident.

Then the selling point to the poor is obvious:

"The bike is the vehicle to financial freedom in a jungle where the
lion is after you..."

Hey, grab a banana and hit the road in an organized way!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The monkey can live on peanuts and banana (a bicycle would do), but
the lion wants the monkey to be a big spender (big houses and SUVs) so
he gets fed.

Originally Posted by Bekologist
"i was controlling the lane yesterday morning on the way to work,
approaching a left turn in a left turn only lane, and a motorist,
peturbed I was slower and ahead of him, guns it, crosses the double
yellow approaching a blind corner, drove over a raised barrier and cut
ahead of me halfway thru the intersection, then did the paltry 'bumper
dive' threat to show me I wasn't supossed to be inhibiting his
speed...."

That's INTIMIDATION, but you are not the only one.

This one says, "You are not the only one being intimidated by the
predators!"

http://www.finksphotos.com/images/bi...elle%20web.jpg

On Jul 3, 3:23 pm, KingOfTheApes wrote:
Well, society doesn't hold cyclists in high esteem...

I would think that it would be motoring about that would make one feel
like a loser (with a capital L)... the sort of weak and infirm git
that couldn't haul their own ass across the surface of the planet to
save their soul. The sort of incorrigible lout that actually buys
into Madison avenue's drivel about how owning a particular brand of
auto will make them feel good about themselves and earn them the envy
if not respect of the other people that witness them driving. The
sort of murderous ******* that kills 44,000 USofAliens every freaking
year.

Yeah, going about on a bike causes me to think less of myself than if
I drove a car, you bet... keep talking like that and you'll never
evolve into a sentient being you stupid monkey.