Critical Mass - Fundamentalist Plonkers?

Theo Bekkers wrote:
brucef wrote:
TimC wrote

I have never been on a CM ride. I have never seen it on TV. I have
never
heard a radio commentator's opinion on the subject and I have never
read about it in a newspaper. If it were not for previous postings in
this
newsgroup I wouldn't have the faintest idea what you guys are talking
about.
My opinion coincides with Zebee, on the basis that she is making
sense.

She does that all the time. Bloody annoying.

Most of the pro-CM folks sound like they are foaming at the mouth.
In fact they sound like fundamentalist plonkers.

But the anti-CM numbers seem to be growing. Soon they'll have critical mass.

Theo



I was taught that Easter and Christmas were the critical masses. You
could get away with not attending the others.

Dorf

"Theo Bekkers" wrote in message ...
Tomasso wrote:

There used to be zero cars on Oz and quite a lot of bikes, then even more
bikes and a few cars, and
even in the early 1960s, an awful lot of bikes and not many cars.

Umm, I take it you weren't there and you're just making this up. I was
riding to work in the early sixties mate, and I can assure you the
percentage of bicycles to cars is higher now. There were damn-all bikes on
the road.

Theo

The history is well known. Early 60s were the end of the era. BhP Newcastle had many
acres of bicycle sheds up to the early 60s. By 68 the sheds had been removed and
replaced by acres and acres of car parks.

T.

"Terryc" wrote in message ...
Theo Bekkers wrote:
Tomasso wrote:


There used to be zero cars on Oz and quite a lot of bikes,


Actually, you're fantasising about that too. The penny-farthing was never
much more than a toy for the indolent and rich young. Working people never
got onto bikes for transport in a big way until 'safeties' were invented,
and cars predate the safety bicycle by nearly ten years.

Yawn, there are no so silly as those that do not open their eyes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_bicycle
"The safety bicycle is a type of bicycle that became very popular
beginning in the late 1880s. The first safety, using a diamond frame,
was invented by John Kemp Starley in 1885. "Safeties" are characterized
by having two wheels of identical - or nearly identical - size, and a
chain-driven rear wheel."

There's a very impressive one in the Powerhouse Museum. Second one to
circumnavigate Australia (via the coast, not in the water). I can't recall the
year, but it was something like 1895 or 1898.

So when were cars "invented"?
Considering the early cars used bicycle technology.

The problem is Theo is that you do not know what you are talking about
for this newsgroup. UK.bicycles maybe.

If google was any good, then I could show you plenty of photographs of
working people who used the bicycle as transport throughout Australia.

An excellent book is The Bicycle and the Bush by Jim Fitzpatrick. Man &
Machine in Rural Australia. ISBN 0 19 554 231 2.first published in 1980.

it is an excellent investigation of the rural use of bicycle in
Australia. Also makes the highly telling point that there is very little
research into the use of bicycle by working people anywhere in the world
concening the early part of the 20th Century.

"Terryc" wrote in message
...
Zebee Johnstone wrote:

besides - if the point is "effect on opinions" then all effects have
to be counted.

lol, crawl back into your hole of ignorance. It will be safer.

If CM holds a ride and gets more participants, then it doesn't give a damm
about the ignorant cagers who blame CM for their lack of satifaction in
the cagers life.


Ok, so what you're saying is that CM has nothing to do with promoting
cyclists as traffic to those who make up the vast majority of the traffic
because it doesn't matter what they think or how they react to cyclists on
the road. Well done.

"Theo Bekkers" wrote in message ...
Terryc wrote:
To go back to Tomasso's statement "There used to be zero cars on Oz and
quite a lot of bikes", do you agree with that? Lots of bikes and zero cars?


There were a lot of horses then, too.

"Terryc" wrote in message
...
Theo Bekkers wrote:

The questions were, "What have they achieved"? and "What pro-cycling laws
have been passed as a direct result of CM"?

Lol, for one who claims to be older than many here, you really are
ignorant. Haven't you learn't anything from the years you have been alive?

You are looking under the wrong rock. Of course, I expect that your reply
is going to be WHOOSH, but that is your loss.

Sigh, all those years wasted, when you could have learnt so much.

Yeah I thought it'd be about that many.

G-S wrote:

[1] 2 wheels vehicles, whether they be cycles, mopeds, scooters or
motorbikes have much more in common with each other and experience a
much closer road user experience than do 4 wheeled vehicles.

lol, dream on. Motorised vehicles have nothing in common with
unmotorised vehicles.

Zebee Johnstone wrote:


It's not about powered vs unpowered.

It's about what works in road safety,

RIGHT, so I can follow the same guidleines on my bicycle that I followed
on my motorcycle. Yer, sure.


and in dealing with the government.

lol, you really do have a lot to learn., but hey, you're entitled to
your dreams. chuckle.

G-S wrote:

Then you will see nothing wrong with CM. At least people are getting
off their arse and making a statement and actually getting more bums
onto bicycle seats.


What I see wrong with CM is that the only thing it accomplishes is
"getting exisiting bike rider bums onto bikes". Not that anything with
that but a better goal is getting "new rider bums onto seats".

You're splitting hairs to negate its effort.

In your opinion, every kids who ever learnt to ride a bike, would not
count as a new bum on a bicycle seat.

Whereas I see that some who probably only ever road on the footpath or
bicycle path, now starts riding on the road as a new bum on a bicycle seat.


Rather than all those tutt tutters who think people sholdn't "rock the
boat" and should "work through the system".

Rocking the boat is fine, as long as the benefit outweighs the cost. The
benefit of CM is making existing riders who attend feel good, the cost
is annoying motorists. That isn't a good cost/benefit situation.

Lol, get real. Those annoyed motorists are "miswired", to borrow your
term. If it wasn't CM, then its motorbikes, if it isn't motor bikes,
then it is pedestrians, if it isn't predestrians, then it is buses..and
on and on and on.


I'm not trying to stop anyone doing anything (honestly), I'm just
pointing out that CM doesn't accomplish anything much except make people
feel good *shrug*.

Well, frankly, there is just about bugger all mass bicycle wise that
does that.

It seems that you are trying to 'control' people who are putting forward
views different from yours, to 'control' people by stopping their comments.

Doesn't seem to be too successful does it. {:-).

Zebee Johnstone wrote:

Pictures are what tells the story,

Not always. Given that pictures were expensive to take, photographers
hardly ever photographed the common place. bicycles were common place,
ergo, not many picures were taken of them


Given the explosion in motorcycles between the wars, and the cheap
cars after, any bicycle boom would have to have been short in
duration.

lol. There are some very interesting heritage photographs that puts a
lie to that.