Stop Making Multi-speed Kids Bicycles

Those multi-speed kids bicycles end up at the curb for garbage pick
up. They should ban them from the stores and go back to single speed
bicycles for the cheap children's bicycle market. The kids never
change gears anyway. As soon as the derailers get banged up the
parents don't fix the bicycles they just throw them out for garbage
and get another ninety dollar bicycle. This is an immense waste. The
single speed bicycles would do the job much better and last longer. If
the kids want multi-speed derailers, just put on a plastic fake one
that looks good and can go in the recycling bin once they break it
off. But once they break it off the bicycle still works and we have a
'greener' system of children's bicycles.

Those multi-speed kids bicycles end up at the curb for garbage pick
up. They should ban them from the stores and go back to single speed
bicycles for the cheap children's bicycle market. The kids never
change gears anyway.

Good idea! Let's ban all wasteful and stupid products!

--
mac the naïf

Alex Colvin wrote, On 7/22/2008 3:19 PM:
Those multi-speed kids bicycles end up at the curb for garbage pick
up. They should ban them from the stores and go back to single speed
bicycles for the cheap children's bicycle market. The kids never
change gears anyway.


Good idea! Let's ban all wasteful and stupid products!


Like computers and newsgroup reader software... ;-)

--

Paul D Oosterhout
I work for SAIC (but I don't speak for SAIC)

On 22 juil, 12:40, wrote:
Those multi-speed kids bicycles end up at the curb for garbage pick
up. They should ban them from the stores and go back to single speed
bicycles for the cheap children's bicycle market. The kids never
change gears anyway. As soon as the derailers get banged up the
parents don't fix the bicycles they just throw them out for garbage
and get another ninety dollar bicycle. This is an immense waste. The
single speed bicycles would do the job much better and last longer. If
the kids want multi-speed derailers, just put on a plastic fake one
that looks good and can go in the recycling bin once they break it
off. But once they break it off the bicycle still works and we have a
'greener' system of children's bicycles.

Stop making these stupid kids

Sholl

jp0708 wrote:
On 22 juil, 12:40, wrote:
Those multi-speed kids bicycles end up at the curb for garbage
pick
up. They should ban them from the stores and go back to single
speed
bicycles for the cheap children's bicycle market. The kids never
change gears anyway. As soon as the derailers get banged up the
parents don't fix the bicycles they just throw them out for
garbage
and get another ninety dollar bicycle. This is an immense waste.
The
single speed bicycles would do the job much better and last
longer.
If the kids want multi-speed derailers, just put on a plastic
fake
one that looks good and can go in the recycling bin once they
break
it off. But once they break it off the bicycle still works and we
have a 'greener' system of children's bicycles.

That's what made BMX bikes so great for kids -- they were
indestructible.

Sometimes I've been volunteered for "tune up" duty before our
school's bike-a-thon. The kids don't / can't maintain the bikes.
The parents don't have skills or time. There's a lot of parts on
some of these bikes and they aren't made well. It's hard to mentally
adjust to paying shop labor fees for a bike under $100.

I don't, though, think this is a serious enough problem for them to
be banned from stores. The government has bigger issues to mess up.

Locally (Chicago), a lot of the cheap mountain bikes are donated and
shipped abroad (see www.workingbikes.org). There, time is in
abundance and basic mechanical skills are more likely to be both
widespread and affordable. There are similar groups in other cities.

In article ,
jp0708 writes:
On 22 juil, 12:40, wrote:
Those multi-speed kids bicycles end up at the curb for garbage pick
up. They should ban them from the stores and go back to single speed
bicycles for the cheap children's bicycle market. The kids never
change gears anyway. As soon as the derailers get banged up the
parents don't fix the bicycles they just throw them out for garbage
and get another ninety dollar bicycle. This is an immense waste. The
single speed bicycles would do the job much better and last longer. If
the kids want multi-speed derailers, just put on a plastic fake one
that looks good and can go in the recycling bin once they break it
off. But once they break it off the bicycle still works and we have a
'greener' system of children's bicycles.

Stop making these stupid kids

I adored my 3-speed Raleigh Sport, back when I
was in my pre/early teens. It was at first a
fixer-upper, but my older brothers and father
"helped" me fix it up, and edified me about
basic bike maintenance & repair. Well, they
did some of the more difficult tasks for me
(with running commentary) but allowed me a lot
of hands-on, as well. I was, and wouldn't ever
allow that to go to waste.

It helped that I grew up in a family where everybody
was into making stuff, and creativity. About that
same period in my life, my oldest brother, who worked
in an automotive shop at the time, used to bring me
home "write-off," blown Briggs-&-Strattons (as heaps
of separated parts in cardboard boxes) for me to
repair and remarket. So among other skills I learned
how to do manual valve-grinds, (sort of) fix scored
crank spindles with babbit metal, and mfg brass
carbeurator (Canadian spelling) jets on my dad's old
Simpson screw-cutter lathe.

Stop making kids stupid. Well not stupid, but ...
deprived, and kept ignorant of what they can
really achieve.

Disposability has rendered society decadent.

We buy it, use it until it breaks, throw it away
or leave it in the back lane for some poor schmuck
to take it off our hands and subsquently throw it
away somewhere further down the street, and then
we buy another one, that'll suffer the same
eventual fate.

That sux. /That's/ what's stupid. That's what
we're teaching kids, by our examples.

If you're going to complain about disposable bikes,
you should also complain about plastic shopping bags
and water bottles clogging the biosphere. And then
there's "disposable" diapers, obsoleted electronics,
over-packaging in general, and nuclear waste. And more.


cheers,
Tom

--
Nothing is safe from me.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca

jp0708 ??? wrote:
On 22 juil, 12:40, wrote:
Those multi-speed kids bicycles end up at the curb for garbage pick
up. They should ban them from the stores and go back to single speed
bicycles for the cheap children's bicycle market. The kids never
change gears anyway. As soon as the derailers get banged up the
parents don't fix the bicycles they just throw them out for garbage
and get another ninety dollar bicycle. This is an immense waste. The
single speed bicycles would do the job much better and last longer. If
the kids want multi-speed derailers, just put on a plastic fake one
that looks good and can go in the recycling bin once they break it
off. But once they break it off the bicycle still works and we have a
'greener' system of children's bicycles.

Stop making these stupid kids

Indeed. I grew up in the "Driftless area" [1], and while the hills are
not that tall, grades of 10 to 15% are not uncommon. A single-speed
bicycle does not cut it there. My mobility was greatly expanded when I
got a cheap AMF 10-speed in 5th grade, since I could then ride to visit
people that lived 5 to 10 miles away. Despite being cheap, I never had
any problems with that bike for the couple years I rode (and out grew) it.

My next bicycle in junior high school was a Peugeot P-8, which was a
major step up in price and quality, though an entry level LBS bike at
the time. When I out grew it, another relative used it for commuting for
another 15 years, until wrecked by a driver running a stop sign.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driftless_Area.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
"People who had no mercy will find none." - Anon.

Tom Keats wrote:
...
Disposability has rendered society decadent.

We buy it, use it until it breaks, throw it away
or leave it in the back lane for some poor schmuck
to take it off our hands and subsquently throw it
away somewhere further down the street, and then
we buy another one, that'll suffer the same
eventual fate.

That sux. /That's/ what's stupid. That's what
we're teaching kids, by our examples.

If you're going to complain about disposable bikes,
you should also complain about plastic shopping bags
and water bottles clogging the biosphere. And then
there's "disposable" diapers, obsoleted electronics,
over-packaging in general, and nuclear waste. And more.

This is why it is better for children to grow up in poverty, so they
would learn the hard way not to be wasteful. You lose or break something
through carelessness or disinterest, it is NOT getting replaced.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
"People who had no mercy will find none." - Anon.

wrote in message
...
Those multi-speed kids bicycles end up at the curb for garbage pick
up. They should ban them from the stores and go back to single speed
bicycles for the cheap children's bicycle market. The kids never
change gears anyway.

Maybe in your neighborhood. We live where it's very hilly. If you banned
gears, you would kill the bike for kids completely.

--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky
http://www.bicyclemeditations.org/
See the books I've set free at: http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky

Tom Sherman wrote:

This is why it is better for children to grow up in poverty, so they
would learn the hard way not to be wasteful. You lose or break something
through carelessness or disinterest, it is NOT getting replaced.


It doesn't seem to be working for my kids. They just expect me to fix it.