Can you make it to the market on a bike?

On Aug 2, 12:02 am, "Tom \"Johnny Sunset\" Sherman"
wrote:
Pat who? wrote:
...If you don't like it, go talk to the lawmakers.

That is not a practical suggestion for those of us who can not afford to
attend $1000/plate fund-raising dinners.

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

--
Posted via a free Usenet account fromhttp://www.teranews.com

Weird. Our State Assemblyman and Senator are both VERY accessible.
I've met with them often on things. You call, make an appointment and
you go see them. If you're in Albany on a trip or whatever, it's
easier to get in because they have so few constituents see them there.

It takes a bit longer to get into see our Congressman, but he does set
up "Town Hall" meetings once-a-year that are well publicized. He
stops makes 6 or 7 stops in the county in the day he is there, so you
never have to go very far to see him. But few people bother to show
up. But he makes the effort. I don't terribly like the guy, but he is
accessible and he tries to get out into the district (which is quite
large).

Our Senators, though, are a bit more distant. Schumer travels the
state pretty regularly. I think you it's pretty easy to get to see
Hillary, too, as long as you travel to Iowa to do it -- but still
under the $1000 ticket threshold.

I did pay to go to an event to see Spitzer, but it was only $60 for
the conference. He's shorter than he looks.

On Aug 1, 5:49 pm, William wrote:
On Aug 1, 2:28 pm, William wrote:



On Aug 1, 11:12 am, Pat wrote:

On Aug 1, 11:54 am, William wrote:

On Aug 1, 10:25 am, Pat wrote:

On Aug 1, 10:43 am, donquijote1954
wrote:

On Aug 1, 4:00 am, Peter Clinch wrote:

Yes, there are some idiots who'll sit behind you and honk at you, but
they won't run you down, because it might scratch the paintwork. If you
push people off into bike lanes as a rule they will be far more maligned
and looked down upon on the instances where they have no choice to use
the roads, if they're typically in a bike lane instead.

They don't help. We know they don't help as we can see them not
helping. *HAVE YOU GOT THAT YET?*

You still avoiding my question: BIKE LANES OR NO BIKE LANES, HOW DO WE
BRING BIKE RIDERSHIP FROM THE AMERICAN OR BRITISH LEVES TO THE DUTCH
OR DANISH LEVELS?

You see, you are thinking about the problem from the wrong direction.
You are saying "biking is great, what is wrong with everyone else".
Instead, you need to examine why other people don't bike and address
that.

Predominantly, I would think it is the combination of "no time to bike
& no place to bike to". Most people won't bike to work if they get
sweaty or if they work the night shift, etc. Bike lanes might
partially address the "no place to bike to" issue, but not really.

For example, I need to run out and get my kid some things for football
practice. While we're at it we need to do some back-to-school
shopping. Okay, that's simple and the kid is in great shape. I just
need to run to the nearest sporting goods store. Fortunately, there's
a small mall across the street. This trip is a bit unusually because
I do 90% of my shopping at the nest Walmart. So ideally, this is
bikeable. But the problem is, the nearest sporting goods store is
about 45 miles away. That's about 15 miles past the Walmart. So at
10 mph (because of the hills and the purchases), you're talking at 9
hour bike ride.

I don't blame you, biking works best
when everything is
more central and dense like a metro area.

So I think your idea has merit, it just needs to be tweeked. The
community didn't allow a Walmart because of a DOT right-of-way issue.
But maybe if we had more Walmarts, so that they were closer to people,
the people could bike to them easier. Plus if they put in
SuperCenters with groceries, then more shopping could be done in 1
trip.

So I guess bike lanes are part of the problem, but having a place to
go is the other part. Therefore, maybe you should lobby for more
Walmarts -- and have them tied into bikeways -- to encourage shopping
by bike.

Have you no sense of quality Pat? I guess that is implied when your
from nowhere land.

I don't follow your logic. Of course I am from the middle of
nowhere. That's great. Clean air. Clean water. Mountains in the
background (okay, the Allegany's aren't exactly the Rockies). It is a
nice, simple life. What else to I need. This is a great lifestyle.
What "quality" am I missing? The Kleenex from Walmart is somehow
worst than the Kleenex from the Kleenex Boutique? The $18 Harry
Potter book I bought last week has different words in it than $32
version in your corner bookstore? My backyard swimming pool is
somehow less wet than your municipal one? My fruit-of-the-loom
underwear are somehow less fruity than yours from the mall. Does a
Timex keep different time than a Rolex -- it doesn't really matter to
me, because I don't wear a watch.

You might crave some imported, organic, fresh pasta only made by
virgins on the hillsides of Italy. But regular pasta is fine by me.
You don't need that stuff to live well. You only need it to fill the
hollow spots in your sole. There's nothing wrong with simplicity.
I'm not exactly a monk, but this definitely isn't Madison Ave. But
that's what makes it nice.

On Friday, a friend and I are thinking of throwing a canoe on the
Allegany River and going a few miles, just for the heck of it. That's
excitement around here.

Besides, the Walmarts around here are pretty generous when it comes to
youth sports. We'll hit up each of them during fundraising for each
of the sports. It's not a lot, but they'll throw in $25 to $50 (each)
any time they are asked -- and we ask them quite often. That buys
stuff for the concession stand or for a raffle.

So what about this "quality" thing?

Pat, Walmart is McDonalds department stores. In every way. If you wanna
call that quality go right ahead. Just keep that bull **** out of the
city.

To be more specific, ever notice how a lot of things, not
ALL things but a lot, are a heck of a lot crappier at walmart as
apposed to the other extreme like William-sanoma or crate and barrel?
I'm not saying that every place should be as expensive and *high tech*
for a lack of a better word as those places are. But ever notice how
theres a lot of poor people at Walmart? I guess you would'nt since
thats all you have in nowhere land but here in the cities when people
have more options then the lowest and crappiest, we tend to shoot for
the happy medium between excessive and contemptible.

I prove via internet: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...uct_id=2403033

Wal*Mart:Lowest Common Denominator
Look at this cool set of pots and pans and the mounted rack. Only
34.32!!!
But in reality,look at cheap and thin the metal on the cooking
utensils and the pots is. Don't expect those to get through a
thanksgiving dinner....

Kohls: A Happy Mediumhttp://www.kohls.com/products/product_page_vanilla0.jsp?PRODUCT%3C%3E...
A good medium, not to bad it gets the job done. 170$ is pretty
reasonable, closer on the low end of things but again it will get the
job done.

William-Sonoma: When brains collide with class and stlye Bet you don't
have one of these at "The Rez" do you Pat?http://www.williams-sonoma.com/produ...x.cfm?pkey=cck...
600 dollars and just for the pots. Yea I would say this would out live
the competition in ever way by a large margin. Still, nothing to there
1,400$$$ one. ttp://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/sku8991465/index.cfm?pkey=cckwseti
Hey, you get what ya pay for!

Now, cheap prices may seem all good, but why not just pay a little
extra for the one that will last?
(Ahem* because your either poor or have no options or you just have no
sense of quality)

Now Pat, you may be saying to yourself that those other sets of pots
are expensive only for more profit, but if that was true, do you
REALLY think William-Sonoma would still be around?

Umm, eh eh, shhh, but go look again. For Walmart, you compared the
price of the pot RACK to the cost of the pots in the other stores.

Second, I've hear of Kohls but have no idea what they sell. Sorry.
I've never hear of William-whatever and there probably isn't one with
a few hundred miles of here. Sounds like one of those too-much-money
and too-little-brains stores for people who have a cook do their
cooking for them.

$1200 for pots is ridiculous. Anyway, you wouldn't believe the stuff
I use. On the rare occasion that I need to buy cookware, I swing by a
restaurant supply store in Buffalo and get what I need. Strictly
utilization, but great quality. You can beat on the stuff with no
damage. My teflon frying pan, which I use all the time, is probably
over 5 years old and the teflon is still perfect. Oh, and the stuff
is pretty cheap.

My tea pot is from K-Mart and is probably going on 10 years old. It's
Revereware. Great stuff.

What you have to understand about rural areas is the simplicity of the
place. If you wanted $1200 pots, you wouldn't live here. You can get
almost anything you want at Walmart. You just want different things.

Here's a better comparision for you:
http://www.kohls.com/products/produc...18608 0661287
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...uct_id=5673563
But I suppose the ones from Walmart are somehow inherently inferior..

On Aug 2, 3:24 am, Ace wrote:
On Thu, 02 Aug 2007 08:14:13 +0100, Peter Clinch

wrote:
donquijote1954 wrote:

Letting bikes loose out on the roads can be dangerous. Better channel
them through bike lanes.

Bike lanes don't have a better safety track record than the roads.

Go tohttp://www.cyclecraft.co.uk/infrastructure.htmland actually do
some reading around the subject.

Alternatively, you could just stop feeding the troll. It's fairly
clear that he's not listening, and I doubt that anyone will seriously
take any notice of him, as he's such an obvious monomaniac.

Bike lanes and thus people riding bikes and saving gas is such
monomaniacal idea. Reasonable people just drive a country to war and
get more oil. They all want to be like Napoleon. Isn't that a clinical
case?

On Aug 2, 5:08 am, Tony Raven wrote:
Ace wrote:

Alternatively, you could just stop feeding the troll. It's fairly
clear that he's not listening, and I doubt that anyone will seriously
take any notice of him, as he's such an obvious monomaniac.

Its also fairly obvious he won't be around for long before he gets
killed by one of the many thousands of cyclicidal SUV drivers in his
neighbourhood ;-)

A real possibility for me, like that of you getting killed by
terrorists. Well, they are both terrorists, right?

On Aug 2, 5:27 am, Mike Clark wrote:
In message .com
donquijote1954 wrote:



On Aug 1, 1:13 pm, Mike Clark wrote:
[snip]
In contrast to the 'idea' of ever more separate lanes being good for
improved safety there is the contradictory data that shows that in
places where you remove all the lane markings, signs and junction
priorities you often get a measurable increase in safety.

Should we erase the car lanes too? I think we could have bike lanes
and still enforce those breaking the law, so they can pay for more
bike lanes. Are you parked in the bike lane? You got a fine for 100
bucks...

Yes the data is based on situations where all the lane markings and
junction priorities, traffic lights etc are removed. Basically people
stop driving as if they have a known priority and instead start looking
out for and avoiding other road users.

OK, either lanes for all or lanes for none. When do we start that
campaign?

On Aug 2, 5:28 am, Tony Raven wrote:
Ace wrote:
On Thu, 02 Aug 2007 10:08:26 +0100, Tony Raven
wrote:

Ace wrote:
Alternatively, you could just stop feeding the troll. It's fairly
clear that he's not listening, and I doubt that anyone will seriously
take any notice of him, as he's such an obvious monomaniac.

Its also fairly obvious he won't be around for long before he gets
killed by one of the many thousands of cyclicidal SUV drivers in his
neighbourhood ;-)

That'd be a shame.

Or an exaggeration.

Well, *I* exaggerated. My risk of getting killed by road terrorism is
greater, much greater, than you getting killed by the other type of
terrorism.

I saw a bumper sticker today that here is quite revolutionary: SLOWER
TRAFFIC KEEP TO THE RIGHT... AVOID ROAD RAGE! That must be a communist
attempt at bringing regulation to our roads. We want to zigzag if we
please, and drive our SUVs while on the phone if we want, so we can
remain a free nation!

Rage is part of life in the jungle, and the strong shall survive.
Hallelujah!

donquijote1954 wrote:

Letting bikes loose out on the roads can be dangerous. Better channel
them through bike lanes.

I think letting you loose out of your cell would be dangerous.

Wayne

"Jack May" wrote in message
. ..
"Jens Mller" wrote in message
...
How many people get killed with bikes on the carriageway each year? Here
in Germany, you can count them on one hand. But there are dozens getting
killed by turning cars whose drivers don't look at the bike path.

In the US bikes and pedestrians have the highest death rates of all forms
of transportation except motorcycles. I think the rate is two and times
higher than cars according to a recent news report. I have not tried to
find the statistics.

And, of course, the leading cause of death for bicyclists and pedestrians is
getting hit by a car -- not that it's included in car fatalities, like it
would be if they were hit by a train.

For motorcycles, it's probably a toss-up between rider stupidity and car
drivers.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "Those people who think they know everything
CCIE #3723 are a great annoyance to those of us who do."
K5SSS --Isaac Asimov


--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Joe the Aroma WHO? wrote:
"Johnny Sunset aka Tom Sherman" wrote in message
oups.com...
However, I stand by my statement that the free-market has failed,
since there is no real free-market health care system in the US.

Seeing as it's never really been tried, except perhaps many moons ago when
health care was nowhere near as complex and expensive as it is now, I think
it's hasty to make that conclusion.

My point exactly. The FREE MARKET is failing to provide free market
health care in the U.S.

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

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

"donquijote1954" who? wrote:
On Aug 1, 9:55 pm, "Tom \"Johnny Sunset\" Sherman"
wrote:
"donquijote1954" who? wrote:
...
Thank you for explaining so well what I have in mind. Actually that's
the idea behind...
http://www.cafepress.com/burncalories
I think a better solution would be two jerseys [1]. In the morning [2],
the jersey worn would say in large letters on the back "RIDING TO WORK".
The afternoon jersey would say "RIDING HOME FROM WORK".

[1] Or a reversible sign for recumbents.
[2] Reverse for night shift workers.

Yeah, but then you need more like, "RIDING TO THE MARKET," "RIDING TO
HAVE A DATE," etc.

The point is the motorists (with half a brain) will understand that you
are just another poor schulb going to work.

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

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com