Why bikes are bad for the environment

From the sunday telegraph..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/...005/04/09/mrma
y09.xml&sSheet=/motoring/2005/04/09/ixmot.html

As seen on TV: Get off your bike to save the world
(Filed: 09/04/2005)

Far from being an eco-friendly transport solution, bicycles simply encourage
car ownership, argues James May

The other week I took part in a radio debate about cars, congestion, the
environment, blah blah blah. Inevitably, the talk turned to alternative
transport and, equally inevitably, someone piped up with: "Well, what about
the bicycle?"

*

Impractical: bicycles just give us a taste of the mobility we crave

Well, what? The bicycle as we know it - that is, with two equally sized
wheels (Chopper excepted) and pedals driving the rear wheel via a chain -
has been with us for 120 years, and its advantages and limitations are well
established.

Far from being an unrealised technology, cycling was, in the late 19th
century, a craze of such massive proportions that whole societies grew up
around it. It was celebrated in woodcuts and etchings that these days, like
Monet's Poppy Field, have made their way on to biscuit-tin lids and place
mats. Cycling is nothing new.

I like a good bike. I own several, and love the purity of their purpose. The
bicycle must number as one of humankind's all-time great inventions, being a
machine to improve the efficiency of the human engine without any extra
input, although if you're going for a really big ride you might want a Mars
bar first.

But they're not perfect. For local shopping trips and light haulage duties,
they're great. But you would struggle to bring home a new coffee table on
one, and while they might be fast over a few miles, getting from Bristol to
Edinburgh by bicycle is not really a viable proposition. And I should know,
because I've done it.

So the bicycle is not the solution to our supposed transport woes. In fact,
I would like to go further than that. The bicycle is at the root of the
problem perceived by the car's detractors. I would like to suggest that
every time a bicycle is minted, the desire for a car is born.

It begins in childhood, when the stabilisers come off and permission is
granted to go, alone, beyond the boundaries of the garden. It is either a
very witless or extraordinarily fit child who does not realise that the
bicycle would be much more liberating with an engine slung in the vacant
diamond of its frame, and from there it is a small step to the realisation
that the whole contraption would be better with a roof, a radio and four
wheels to prevent it from falling over at junctions.

As you grew, you owned bigger and better bikes, rode further afield, fitted
a horn, experimented with centre-pull brakes, built a scrambler, learnt to
do wheelies and generally exhausted the potential of the thing until, at 17,
you were foaming at the mouth in anticipation of that glorious day when you
could chuck the bike in the back of the shed and borrow your dad's car.

More significant, however, is that the bicycle has often been the first
tentative manufacturing step of people who went on, quite naturally, to make
cars. That machine with two equally sized wheels and a chain was the Rover
Safety Bicycle of 1885, designed by John Kemp Starley (whose uncle James is
generally considered the creator of the penny-farthing). The business he
founded went on to become the Rover car company.

In fact, the whole history of the motor industry is littered with bicycles.
Today, many so-called "premium" car makers produce fashionable bicycles made
from pure unobtanium and supposedly inspired by the brand attributes of
their cars. History shows the process generally worked the other way around.

Václav Laurin and Václav Klement, for example, were a pair of fledgling
industrialists who cut their teeth on bicycles and then progressed,
naturally enough, to motorcycles and cars. The company they founded is
better known today as Skoda, so the bicycle can be blamed for the Rapid
Coupé if nothing else.

Peugeot made bicycles before it made cars. It still does. Soichiro Honda
founded his empire by buggering about with bicycle components. Fiat made
bicycles. Nations strapped for cash climb aboard bicycles and use the
mobility they offer to invigorate their economies so they can move on to
cars. Look at China.

So there is something fatuous about rich bankers, scruffy media types and
sanctimonious environmentalists pedalling around believing they're doing the
decent thing and ridding the world of the menace of the car. The bicycle was
never the solution to an existing need.

Rather, it remains the potent symbol of some deep-rooted urge to move
around that will not stop with pedalling any more than it stopped with
primitive man's first dug-out canoe.

Consider this. Little more than 100 years ago, two men living in a crude hut
on a beach in North Carolina gave us the world's first powered and
controllable aeroplane. It should come as no surprise to learn that the
Wright brothers were bicycle makers.

On 10/4/05 1:03 pm, in article , "Jon
Senior" jon_AT_restlesslemon_DOT_co_DOT_uk wrote:

David Martin wrote:
From the sunday telegraph..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/...005/04/09/mrma
y09.xml&sSheet=/motoring/2005/04/09/ixmot.html

As seen on TV: Get off your bike to save the world
(Filed: 09/04/2005)

Far from being an eco-friendly transport solution, bicycles simply encourage
car ownership, argues James May

"James May presents Top Gear". Nuff said?

One of the more rational presenters.. It is an interesting view on
emancipation.. from the original introduction of the bicycle allowing
mobility of labour to the present age where mass mobility ensures we still
spend the same or even more of our time travelling to work.

...d

On Sun, 10 Apr 2005 12:03:17 +0000, Jon Senior
jon_AT_restlesslemon_DOT_co_DOT_uk wrote:

David Martin wrote:
From the sunday telegraph..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/...005/04/09/mrma
y09.xml&sSheet=/motoring/2005/04/09/ixmot.html

As seen on TV: Get off your bike to save the world
(Filed: 09/04/2005)

Far from being an eco-friendly transport solution, bicycles simply encourage
car ownership, argues James May

"James May presents Top Gear". Nuff said?


Do you have a rational counter-argument, or are you just suggesting
that his links to Top Gear invalidate anything he may write?

Agreeing with David Martin that it's an interesting and thoughtful take
on the desire for personal mobility.

On a related topic: does anybody know of any environmental audits of
contemporary bikes and parts? It's troubling me that I have taken the
bike as environmentally friendly as a settled issue - and yet, looking
at the short-life span of many frames and components, the use of exotic
materials, the costs of extraction, etc, and the number of air-miles
travelled by bike parts before they become a complete bike, I am
starting to wonder if that view needs some modification.

Lin

David Martin wrote:
From the sunday telegraph..

most of James May's article snipped

On the other hand, buying a second-hand bike (and I suppose a second-hand
car) ought to be better for the environment, since it would mean one less
new machine being made from the raw material. Except of course mass
production is rarely that flexible.

The point he makes about bringing home a coffee table (or some other
similarly large item) is interesting, because it's not something any one
person does all that often, but lots of different people trying to do it at
the same time. If home delivery was the stuff of a madman's dreams, what's
the difference between sweating the coffee table home yourself on a great
big bike trailer, and sweating big pieces of wood home yourself on a great
big bike trailer to make the coffee table yourself? Perhaps James May would
prefer specification of "Nope, sorry, home-delivery only" to stop people
using their cars to do it themselves since the bike is out of the question
and the bicycle means cars and cars ruin the environment.

Now, I don't have a bike trailer and I happen to need to bring home a load
of MDF sheets. Am I allowed to use my car or must I get B&Q to deliver it
for me? The last time I cycled to B&Q I had to lock my bike to the fire
escape handrail because of a lack of facilities at the store or anywhere
nearby.

Becky

Lin wrote:

Agreeing with David Martin that it's an interesting and thoughtful take
on the desire for personal mobility.

On a related topic: does anybody know of any environmental audits of
contemporary bikes and parts? It's troubling me that I have taken the
bike as environmentally friendly as a settled issue - and yet, looking
at the short-life span of many frames and components, the use of exotic
materials, the costs of extraction, etc, and the number of air-miles
travelled by bike parts before they become a complete bike, I am
starting to wonder if that view needs some modification.

Weight for weight, probably worse than cars by a long shot. They're
mostly made far away in Taiwan and joining methods like brazing use a
lot more energy than spot-welding. There's also no recycling scheme for
the parts at the end of their life.

The best course of action is probably to buy a steel or titanium frame
and keep it for life (of course, this is only possible when you're an
adult).

I find it staggering how few "older" (without suspension) MTBs of any
decent quality I see around. What happened to them all?

David Martin wrote:
From the sunday telegraph..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/...005/04/09/mrma
y09.xml&sSheet=/motoring/2005/04/09/ixmot.html

As seen on TV: Get off your bike to save the world
(Filed: 09/04/2005)

Far from being an eco-friendly transport solution, bicycles simply encourage
car ownership, argues James May

"James May presents Top Gear". Nuff said?

Jon

Zog The Undeniable wrote:

I find it staggering how few "older" (without suspension) MTBs of any
decent quality I see around. What happened to them all?

Two of them - a Rockhopper and a Stumpjumper - live in my garage; the latter
doing plenty of mileage these days. I was pleasantly surprised to see a
black Stumpy of the same vintage as mine (1991 I think) at work the other
day.

I don't know what's happened to the rest of the good bikes either, either
the Bike Station now has them all, or the really good ones remain in sheds
because they're *vintage* and of course one can't risk messing up a classic
bike. I haven't seen a Cindercone or a yellow Tufftrax for absolutely
years.

Becky

Arellcat wrote:

I haven't seen a Cindercone or a yellow Tufftrax for absolutely
years.

I haven't seen a rigid Cannondale - except mine - for nearly 10 years!

Zog The Undeniable wrote:
Weight for weight, probably worse than cars by a long shot. They're
mostly made far away in Taiwan and joining methods like brazing use a
lot more energy than spot-welding. There's also no recycling scheme for
the parts at the end of their life.

I'm not sure that it's that clear cut. How much of the same is true of a
car? While the manufacturing may be closer to home, the raw materials
are still transported from afar. The other point is that weight for
weight, the bike would have to be seriously poor to not compete on a
numerical scale. My bike weighs around 10kg. While this is on the
lighter side (Or was when I bought it!), you could get at least 150 of
them for the weight of one car. In overly simplistic terms that's 145
fewer cars (assuming the car carried a full compliment of passengers),
before the running costs are taken into account.

I find it staggering how few "older" (without suspension) MTBs of any
decent quality I see around. What happened to them all?

We have a fair few in the Bike Station in Edinburgh. I suspect a large
number are languishing in sheds up and down the country.

Jon