Bicycle related YouTube videos

On Tue, 23 Feb 2021 23:17:42 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 2/23/2021 4:51 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
While waiting for the current political discussion to run its course
and die out (Yes, I know I'm part of the problem), I thought it might
be distracting to watch some recent and interesting bicycle related
YouTube videos:

Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU (15:13)

There's no shortage of videos claiming the world will be transformed if
we just install segregated bike paths everywhere. That particular
video's a bit unusual in using a town in Finland as an example; most use
Amsterdam or Copenhagen.

As one good friend of mine once told me about a different but similarly
idealistic solution* to a purported bike problem: "Frank, it's so
simple!!" (The solution was made of styrofoam. And she has since changed
her mind.) I believe that most such "simple" solutions are both
simplistic and wrong.

My first question for the author might be "If this is all so obvious,
why have only a few places in the world implemented it?" I believe the
answer is that where segregated bike lanes cause lots of biking, they
are not the cause; they are more of an affect. That is, other influences
have predisposed a large percentage of the citizens toward bicycling.
Those citizens then, effectively, agreed that the local government
should spend unusual amounts of money to make cycling more pleasant.
(Like it or not, building an independent network of segregated and/or
separated bike paths is damned expensive. Plowing it reliably in winter
is a continuing expense. For an American city where perhaps 0.5% of its
citizens ride in winter, that plowing is the first item on the "no
money" chopping block.)

My next question is "Why ignore the places where this has been tried and
has failed?" In Britain, Stevenage and Milton Keynes are famous for
having separate path networks that reach all parts of town,
purpose-built when the towns were founded. Their bike mode shares are
less than one seventh that of Oulu, despite much better climate.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2...pped-stevenage
That makes the video's claim at 12:14 false: "It's a proven fact that
people of all ages will ride a bicycle in the winter, but only if the
city's designed for it." Maybe some people will, but that number is more
likely to be very small. Other factors will likely prevent mass cycling,
and the most important may be simple fashion. (IIRC, even Portland's
bike mode share has dropped in recent years.)

BTW, at https://youtu.be/Uhx-26GfCBU?t=606 the speaker touts
Yellowknife's impressive bike infrastructure. Gosh, you can ride for
dozens of feet before the bike path runs into a curb!

Someone said the key to happiness is low expectations. The corollary is
"Any bike facility is a good bike facility." But I don't buy that.

I believe that if you look into the matter you will find that nobody
implemented some change in the highway system and thus encouraged the
use of bicycles in great number, I believe that in every case where
bicycles are used in great numbers it is a matter of bicycles being
used in great numbers and subsequently highways were adapted to
accommodate this use.
--
Cheers,

John B.

On Wed, 24 Feb 2021 12:03:54 +0700, John B. scribed:


Bicycle mounted troops date back to, at least, the end of the 19th
century when both the British and French experimented with bicycle
mounted infantry. In fact the French even developed a folding bicycle
and by 1900 each French line infantry and chasseur battalion had a
cyclist detachment, intended for skirmishing, scouting and dispatch
carrying.

The first U.S. Army bicycle troops seem to be the 25th United States
Infantry. Using a variety of cycle models, they carried out extensive
bicycle journeys covering between 800 and 1,900 miles In 1896 the Unit,
stationed in Montana rode bicycles across roadless landscapes for
hundreds of miles at high speed. The "wheelmen" traveled the 1,900 Miles
to St. Louis Missouri in 40 days with an average speed of over 6 mph.

We've done all this before gus & gals.

Websearch 'Jim Fitzpatrick's The Bicycle in Wartime.'
An illustrated guide with lots of pictures and information.

On Wed, 24 Feb 2021 00:22:33 -0500, Joy Beeson
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Feb 2021 22:43:02 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

Do
hunting magazines constantly broadcast tales of accidental gun deaths?

It would be more to the point to broadcast tales of falling out of
tree stands -- that's the most-common way to be injured while hunting.

When I lived in Maine there were often reports of accidental shootings
during deer season. Hunter sees flash of white and fires thinking it
is a white tail deer, only to discover it was their father-in-law who
blew his nose on a white handkerchief.
--
Cheers,

John B.

On 2/23/2021 8:51 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Tue, 23 Feb 2021 16:18:44 -0600, AMuzi wrote:

On 2/23/2021 3:51 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
While waiting for the current political discussion to run its course
and die out (Yes, I know I'm part of the problem), I thought it might
be distracting to watch some recent and interesting bicycle related
YouTube videos:

Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU (15:13)
Jan 25, 2021
The authors channel has many interesting bicycle related videos:
https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes/videos

How Bicycles Caused the Downfall of the British Empire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IMEJgbZfLk (16:30)
Feb 23, 2021
Spoiler: Japanese invasion of Malaya in 1941.

Thanks.

You're always welcome. I've been short on time to read Usenet for
about 2 weeks. Upon my return, I noticed that there was very little
in the way of bicycle related content on rec.bicycles.tech. Unless
you want something on bicycle lighting and electronic gadgets, I can't
offer much in the way of original content. So, I borrowed some recent
additions to YouTube as a substitute. The author of the "Not Just
Bikes" channel seems to be into urban planning, with some emphasis on
planning for bicycle usage. He doesn't appear to have an agenda or
represent an organization, which makes him somewhat unique. The
mechanics, logic, and options available for traffic control have been
a mystery to me. Some of his videos offer enlightenment into those
areas, along with others things I'm not very familiar with (rain,
snow, ice, etc).

I resisted linking the only 'cycling' news I saw today as it
involves a death and a certain fraught personal protection
device. We have enough troubles.

I didn't want to say anything, but you do have the habit of posting
what amounts to bicycle related obituaries and crime reports. While
these might be of interest to some readers, I find them rather
depressing and often not worthy of being called news. It's bad enough
that some newsgroups, forums, and blogs are plagued with well meaning,
but thoroughly misguided individuals intent on informing the
readership of every minute detail on some fashionable topic, such as
Covid-19, election fraud, and their personal problem of the moment.
It's as if they believe that the readers are not sufficiently
competent to find such information without assistance. Cycling will
be much the same with or without these topics. When in doubt, leave
it out.



Good point, thanks.
I read a selection of news web sites across the nation and
around the world for an hour right after coffee so I see a
lot of 'weird'.

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

On 2/23/2021 11:03 PM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 23 Feb 2021 22:51:21 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 2/23/2021 4:51 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
While waiting for the current political discussion to run its course
and die out (Yes, I know I'm part of the problem), I thought it might
be distracting to watch some recent and interesting bicycle related
YouTube videos:

Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU (15:13)
Jan 25, 2021
The authors channel has many interesting bicycle related videos:
https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes/videos

How Bicycles Caused the Downfall of the British Empire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IMEJgbZfLk (16:30)
Feb 23, 2021
Spoiler: Japanese invasion of Malaya in 1941.

I found the third one very interesting. But while there were other
situations in which the military employed bicycles (e.g. folding bikes
for paratroopers -
https://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...ing-bicycles/),
and I've seen examples at the Bicycle Museum of America
http://www.bicyclemuseum.com/bicycle-history/
there must have been many more where the concept failed. I remember
seeing a charming play, _Spokesong_, in which one bike-infatuated hero
returns home from war depressed about one such failure. He said
something like "We never anticipated the mud."

Bicycle mounted troops date back to, at least, the end of the 19th
century when both the British and French experimented with bicycle
mounted infantry. In fact the French even developed a folding bicycle
and by 1900 each French line infantry and chasseur battalion had a
cyclist detachment, intended for skirmishing, scouting and dispatch
carrying.

The first U.S. Army bicycle troops seem to be the 25th United States
Infantry. Using a variety of cycle models, they carried out extensive
bicycle journeys covering between 800 and 1,900 miles In 1896 the
Unit, stationed in Montana rode bicycles across roadless landscapes
for hundreds of miles at high speed. The "wheelmen" traveled the 1,900
Miles to St. Louis Missouri in 40 days with an average speed of over 6
mph.


The exemplar was Britsh bicycles on the veldt in the Boer wars.

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

On Wednesday, February 24, 2021 at 10:12:59 AM UTC-8, AMuzi wrote:
On 2/23/2021 11:03 PM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 23 Feb 2021 22:51:21 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 2/23/2021 4:51 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
While waiting for the current political discussion to run its course
and die out (Yes, I know I'm part of the problem), I thought it might
be distracting to watch some recent and interesting bicycle related
YouTube videos:

Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU (15:13)
Jan 25, 2021
The authors channel has many interesting bicycle related videos:
https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes/videos

How Bicycles Caused the Downfall of the British Empire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IMEJgbZfLk (16:30)
Feb 23, 2021
Spoiler: Japanese invasion of Malaya in 1941.

I found the third one very interesting. But while there were other
situations in which the military employed bicycles (e.g. folding bikes
for paratroopers -
https://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...ing-bicycles/),
and I've seen examples at the Bicycle Museum of America
http://www.bicyclemuseum.com/bicycle-history/
there must have been many more where the concept failed. I remember
seeing a charming play, _Spokesong_, in which one bike-infatuated hero
returns home from war depressed about one such failure. He said
something like "We never anticipated the mud."

Bicycle mounted troops date back to, at least, the end of the 19th
century when both the British and French experimented with bicycle
mounted infantry. In fact the French even developed a folding bicycle
and by 1900 each French line infantry and chasseur battalion had a
cyclist detachment, intended for skirmishing, scouting and dispatch
carrying.

The first U.S. Army bicycle troops seem to be the 25th United States
Infantry. Using a variety of cycle models, they carried out extensive
bicycle journeys covering between 800 and 1,900 miles In 1896 the
Unit, stationed in Montana rode bicycles across roadless landscapes
for hundreds of miles at high speed. The "wheelmen" traveled the 1,900
Miles to St. Louis Missouri in 40 days with an average speed of over 6
mph.

The exemplar was Britsh bicycles on the veldt in the Boer wars.

Even though California has a lot of bike lanes they are poorly planned: traffic signals detect bicycles only on roads that traffic engineers commonly travel or in small towns where the traffic engineer is a bicyclist himself. Bike lanes are commonly not swept and build up broken glass and tree branches etc.

Bicycle troops were found not to be very effective because while horses were a pain in the ass, they could charge into battle much faster than bicycles. So while bicycles were good at moving fairly large numbers of troops from place to place relatively rapidly (as opposed to marching) they were no form of attacking vehicle.

On 2/24/2021 12:54 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Wednesday, February 24, 2021 at 10:12:59 AM UTC-8, AMuzi wrote:
On 2/23/2021 11:03 PM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 23 Feb 2021 22:51:21 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 2/23/2021 4:51 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
While waiting for the current political discussion to run its course
and die out (Yes, I know I'm part of the problem), I thought it might
be distracting to watch some recent and interesting bicycle related
YouTube videos:

Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU (15:13)
Jan 25, 2021
The authors channel has many interesting bicycle related videos:
https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes/videos

How Bicycles Caused the Downfall of the British Empire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IMEJgbZfLk (16:30)
Feb 23, 2021
Spoiler: Japanese invasion of Malaya in 1941.

I found the third one very interesting. But while there were other
situations in which the military employed bicycles (e.g. folding bikes
for paratroopers -
https://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...ing-bicycles/),
and I've seen examples at the Bicycle Museum of America
http://www.bicyclemuseum.com/bicycle-history/
there must have been many more where the concept failed. I remember
seeing a charming play, _Spokesong_, in which one bike-infatuated hero
returns home from war depressed about one such failure. He said
something like "We never anticipated the mud."

Bicycle mounted troops date back to, at least, the end of the 19th
century when both the British and French experimented with bicycle
mounted infantry. In fact the French even developed a folding bicycle
and by 1900 each French line infantry and chasseur battalion had a
cyclist detachment, intended for skirmishing, scouting and dispatch
carrying.

The first U.S. Army bicycle troops seem to be the 25th United States
Infantry. Using a variety of cycle models, they carried out extensive
bicycle journeys covering between 800 and 1,900 miles In 1896 the
Unit, stationed in Montana rode bicycles across roadless landscapes
for hundreds of miles at high speed. The "wheelmen" traveled the 1,900
Miles to St. Louis Missouri in 40 days with an average speed of over 6
mph.

The exemplar was Britsh bicycles on the veldt in the Boer wars.

Even though California has a lot of bike lanes they are poorly planned: traffic signals detect bicycles only on roads that traffic engineers commonly travel or in small towns where the traffic engineer is a bicyclist himself. Bike lanes are commonly not swept and build up broken glass and tree branches etc.

Bicycle troops were found not to be very effective because while horses were a pain in the ass, they could charge into battle much faster than bicycles. So while bicycles were good at moving fairly large numbers of troops from place to place relatively rapidly (as opposed to marching) they were no form of attacking vehicle.


Trains are useful, tanks are useful, horses are useful and
bicycles are useful.
They are all different things, better or worse for different
purposes with different support requirements.

Peruse some period accounts of the immense support structure
(farriers, grooms, feed etc) for cavalry in the US civil war
and bicycles start to look pretty damned efficient when
viewed with total aggregate resource cost in mind.


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

On Wed, 24 Feb 2021 10:54:34 -0800 (PST), Tom Kunich
wrote:

Bicycle troops were found not to be very effective because while
horses were a pain in the ass, they could charge into battle much
faster than bicycles. So while bicycles were good at moving fairly
large numbers of troops from place to place relatively rapidly
(as opposed to marching) they were no form of attacking vehicle.

Bicycles were never intended to be used as an attack vehicle.

My parents were both from Poland. Among those emigrating with them
from Poland to the US was a former Polish soldier who was at Krojanty,
where the Polish cavalry allegedly attacked German tanks. Contrary to
various creative modern accounts, it was not a cavalry charge. The
Polish troops were mounted infantry. The horses were to be ridden to
the designated battlefield, the troops dismount, and then fight as
infantry, not as hussars (shock cavalry). The idea was to keep the
horses away from the battle as they tend to make very large soft
targets. As a clue, my father's friend mentioned that they were never
taught to fire their rifles while riding their bicycles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_at_Krojanty
Bicycles were treated much the same as horses. They were intended to
be a fast way for infantry to arrive at the battle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_infantry

I recall my father's friend mentioning that they did have a major
problem with using bicycles. They had been training to ride them in
all manner of weather. Visibility was always good so that the
officers running the training and maneuvers, as well as the observers,
could see what was happening. During the opening days of WWII, the
battlefield was obscured by the smoke from shells, burning forests,
tanks, etc that the bicycle troops could not easily see the road.
There were plenty of obstacles on the dirt roads of Poland which I
assume produced some casualties. He mentioned something about having
to walk the bicycles. Also, riding at night was impossible because of
the lack of lighting which would have made a perfect target.


--
Jeff Liebermann
PO Box 272 http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Ben Lomond CA 95005-0272
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Wed, 24 Feb 2021 14:03:40 -0800, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

On Wed, 24 Feb 2021 10:54:34 -0800 (PST), Tom Kunich
wrote:

Bicycle troops were found not to be very effective because while
horses were a pain in the ass, they could charge into battle much
faster than bicycles. So while bicycles were good at moving fairly
large numbers of troops from place to place relatively rapidly
(as opposed to marching) they were no form of attacking vehicle.

Bicycles were never intended to be used as an attack vehicle.

My parents were both from Poland. Among those emigrating with them
from Poland to the US was a former Polish soldier who was at Krojanty,
where the Polish cavalry allegedly attacked German tanks. Contrary to
various creative modern accounts, it was not a cavalry charge. The
Polish troops were mounted infantry. The horses were to be ridden to
the designated battlefield, the troops dismount, and then fight as
infantry, not as hussars (shock cavalry). The idea was to keep the
horses away from the battle as they tend to make very large soft
targets. As a clue, my father's friend mentioned that they were never
taught to fire their rifles while riding their bicycles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_at_Krojanty
Bicycles were treated much the same as horses. They were intended to
be a fast way for infantry to arrive at the battle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_infantry

I recall my father's friend mentioning that they did have a major
problem with using bicycles. They had been training to ride them in
all manner of weather. Visibility was always good so that the
officers running the training and maneuvers, as well as the observers,
could see what was happening. During the opening days of WWII, the
battlefield was obscured by the smoke from shells, burning forests,
tanks, etc that the bicycle troops could not easily see the road.
There were plenty of obstacles on the dirt roads of Poland which I
assume produced some casualties. He mentioned something about having
to walk the bicycles. Also, riding at night was impossible because of
the lack of lighting which would have made a perfect target.

The technical term for mounted infantry who use horses for
transportation but fight on foot is "Dragoon". The name is perhaps
derived from a type of firearm, called a dragon, which was a handgun
version of a blunderbuss, carried by dragoons of the French Army.
--
Cheers,

John B.

On Wednesday, February 24, 2021 at 5:03:48 p.m. UTC-5, wrote:
On Wed, 24 Feb 2021 10:54:34 -0800 (PST), Tom Kunich
wrote:

Bicycle troops were found not to be very effective because while
horses were a pain in the ass, they could charge into battle much
faster than bicycles. So while bicycles were good at moving fairly
large numbers of troops from place to place relatively rapidly
(as opposed to marching) they were no form of attacking vehicle.
Bicycles were never intended to be used as an attack vehicle.

My parents were both from Poland. Among those emigrating with them
from Poland to the US was a former Polish soldier who was at Krojanty,
where the Polish cavalry allegedly attacked German tanks. Contrary to
various creative modern accounts, it was not a cavalry charge. The
Polish troops were mounted infantry. The horses were to be ridden to
the designated battlefield, the troops dismount, and then fight as
infantry, not as hussars (shock cavalry). The idea was to keep the
horses away from the battle as they tend to make very large soft
targets. As a clue, my father's friend mentioned that they were never
taught to fire their rifles while riding their bicycles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_at_Krojanty
Bicycles were treated much the same as horses. They were intended to
be a fast way for infantry to arrive at the battle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_infantry

I recall my father's friend mentioning that they did have a major
problem with using bicycles. They had been training to ride them in
all manner of weather. Visibility was always good so that the
officers running the training and maneuvers, as well as the observers,
could see what was happening. During the opening days of WWII, the
battlefield was obscured by the smoke from shells, burning forests,
tanks, etc that the bicycle troops could not easily see the road.
There were plenty of obstacles on the dirt roads of Poland which I
assume produced some casualties. He mentioned something about having
to walk the bicycles. Also, riding at night was impossible because of
the lack of lighting which would have made a perfect target.
--
Jeff Liebermann
PO Box 272 http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Ben Lomond CA 95005-0272
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

That battle myth of Polish cavalry attacking German tanks was created after a battle where Polish cavalry attacked German INFANTRY and were in turn attacked by German tanks. Germans used the result as propaganda and I believe images of the aftermath of that battle were taken by a Johnny come lately to the scene photographer.

There are videos on YouTube debunking that myth. Also there's a Wikipedia article about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_at_Krojanty

Cheers