Bikes are cool and all, but no AC. And no good for a 40 mile highway commute. I also enjoy comfy seats and being able to easily and comfortably transport multiple people with a nice sound system etc…
Cars are obviously good for long distances but maybe cars could be banned from city centres (perhaps with exceptions for disabled people who rely on cars, and goods vehicles should probably be allowed). For getting around a city, people can use public transport, or bicycles, or their feet to walk.
Also in cases where cars are used, electric cars are probably a good idea because it results in cleaner air.
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I wish our downtown banned them. They take up the whole damn downtown and are way too big now for the original main street.
My town is too spread out to not use any vehicles, and we have 2 huge interstates going through it. Not bikeable.
By those metrics, a tram wins.
And no good for a 40 mile highway commute.
Your infrastructure sucks.
You’re not wrong, but am trapped here. 🧐 Bikes will still never be as comfortable or have entertainment like a car unfortunately. There’s just something different about driving and playing music.
What’s even better is sitting in an even-more-comfy chair, listening to a better stereo system… at home.
What’s interesting is that when everybody went to remote work during the pandemic, lots of bike commuters would start their day with a ride to the office and back, because the ride itself was fun. I didn’t hear of car commuters doing that, or people at any time enjoying the process of commute driving. We have to add plush lounge chairs and entertainment systems and sensory-friendly interiors to cars to make the experience somewhat palatable, and even then, the distraction of a phone is irresistible for many drivers. Hell, the tech bros promise that they can even automate away the actual driving part, and people are excited by the prospect.
Sounds to me like a car will never hold a candle to a simple bike as far as enjoyment.
Headphones exist.
And confort of trains will always be categorically better because you literally only have to get in and do nothing until you’re there.
Headphones are nowhere near equivalent to good stereo. I don’t hate bikes, I just think cars are better and more enjoyable to use in general. I’m a bit lazy, also, to be honest. I don’t want to have to exercise to get wherever I’m going all the time.
Cars do have the advantage of seats being comfier. I say this as a person without a drivers license that enters a car maybe twice a year.
Having to concentrate on driving does seem worse than just being able to sleep though
Just dodge the screaming homeless people, tweakers and the occasional pile of vomit.
Transit quality is region dependent. If you’re not fortunate enough to live in an area where transit is well looked after it is not “categorically better.”
This is true but it only shows that transit is seriously underfunded and treated as the bad step child in many areas, something which could theoretically be changed easily.
You are absolutely correct there.
I do my best to vote for better parties man, but I am out-numbered by the stupids who think the answer to fixing problems caused by conservative governments is to elect more conservatives.
During a year where there was a transit stabbing every other week, our mayor took a trip on transit to “combat the perception that transit is unsafe.” She had a full police escort… They’re more concerned with optics than with actually solving problems.
I feel like you’re arguing with someone that’s actually on your (our) side here… Trust me, this doesn’t sound like the guy that agrees with an extra lane replacing a sidewalk, or the guy that hates the tram line that takes up a lane…
We should consider not being this aggressive in our speak with someone that’s actually a friend…
Yeah im sure all the trams and busses go exactly where I need them to.
Also, you cant carry anything with a bike outside of a few grocery bags.
Im all for bikes. But cars are insanely useful . what needs to happen is banning of anything larger than a Ford focus, special license required for a pickup (unless its a tacoma size) and better infrastructure supporting bikes and cars together.
Me driving around in my 99 miata is the least of our car problems. Its soccer moms in 100,000 pickups that they are almost always driving alone and never hauling a thing.
My town is 200k, and there’s no way you could bike around it, there’s no shoulders or sidewalks on most roads. Thats a problem of city planners being absolute dumb shits.
“Equipped with this tool, man outstrips the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well.”
Ivan Illich on the bicycle. Energy & Equity
So for people criticising with rain, wind, snow, and groceries - none of these are nearly the issues you think they are, and there are a wide variety of bike configurations and gear that address these challenges.
The real issue is having to share the road with cars. I’ve just had too many close calls, and the growth of self-driving vehicles makes me more nervous to be on the road than ever.
Because of cars I hate being on the road whether in a car or on a bike, and every car that passes by automatically makes me tense up these days. I hope a new Carrington event makes all of them useless.
Bitch it’s negative 40 I’m not taking a bike. I’m not walking. That’s insane.
You are part of the less than 1% and probably not the target audience.
I’ve made bike commutes in those temperatures, and yeah, I would say it’s dangerous and most people shouldn’t do that unless they’ve got some kind of fully enclosed, motorized bike with active heating.
It is worth noting that with proper winter gear, since biking is more physically demanding than driving, it is possible and likely that most winter bike rides will cause you to generate enough of your own body heat that you might actually feel the need to remove your jacket. At negative 40? Absolutely not. But I’ve done so at temperatures as low as zero.
And to be fair, you shouldn’t be expected to drive at temps as low as negative 40 either. If you’ve got a long car commute and your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, you are dead. At least with a bike-centric lifestyle it pressures you to prefer jobs that are closer to home, so it might actually be less dangerous.
Well just keep on burning your fossil fuels, and you won’t have to worry about it getting that cold again :3
Negative 40 (yay, I don’t have to clarify whether it’s Celsius or Fahrenheit!) is navigable. Take proper clothing!
Source: living and walking in a northern city
until it’s not, i wouldn’t want to be out in that at all
anything past like -10 is crazy cold
Where the fuck do you live that it gets -40?? Antarctica??
Most people aren’t driving in that weather either. Temperatures like that happen very rarely even in very cold places.
I don’t share the road, I take the road. You will overtake me like you would overtake a car, plus it gives me the space I need to swerve around the craters in the road. Some roads are bumpier than Paschendale.
Vehicular cycling is a bad meme
I used to do that, then a car flew by and damn near killed me.
People generally don’t like losing their license here
Could have fooled me, given how utterly stupid motorists routinely get every time they drive around bicyclists.
Traffic accidents happen so frequently it is one of the top causes of yearly deaths. Humans are not responsible enough to deserve to drive.
Yes, weather is just a matter of gear, and these days the wet and cold weather gear is amazing. The best bike gear isn’t cheap, but it’s much cheaper than the typical repair on a car when something breaks. Panniers are an easy way to carry a lot of groceries with minimal effort. If someone has a huge family there are also cargo bike options. But, of course, with modern American cities, there might not be a grocery store in a reasonable biking range. There used to be mom-and pop grocery stores all over the place. And, in Europe it’s pretty common for there to be a small grocery store within a 5 minute walk of your house.
But, North American roads are designed only for cars. Bicyclists and commuters pay taxes to maintain roads, but the roads are built for cars and trucks. To really feel safe on a bike, you need separated bike lanes. You build those, and people will use them.
In many places in North America, a bike lane is merely a thin strip of pavement that’s centimetres from passing cars, and in the door zone of parked cars. Even in good weather that’s dangerous. In bad weather it’s truly awful. But, people still use those bike lanes. In fact, some people even bike and share the road with cars where the bike lanes don’t exist. That should be a clue that people are dedicated to cycling, and if you built actual good bicycle infrastructure, a lot of people would use it.
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Snow and rain, but mostly snow.
Hills. I’m 60, and not getting younger, my knees are going.
Some people just can’t. But, when I could, I did.
I love the deluge of people trying to convince you to use a bike anyway. I’m getting old and live where it can hit -20° or worse, with snow and ice. Cold is almost half the year. There’s no fucking way I’d ride a bike for almost two hours each way in the cold when I have to go into the office, over a nice heated 18 minute car ride. Plus every day I bring a bag to and from the office, and some days 2-3 bags of stuff I pick up to bring home. I keto on that here or when I was on Reddit and some asshole will inevitably be like “YOU CAN HANDLE THE COLD AND ICE AND FOUR HOURS OUT KF YOUR DAY UR JUST WEAK” and those people are bad people I don’t like.
ride a bike for almost two hours each way … [or a] 18 minute car ride.
That’s the problem we want to fix.
I am SOOOOO with you when it comes to that sentiment. I shouldn’t have a 18 minute car ride that’s also a two hour bike ride. That’s fucked up.
Have you thought about getting an ebike instead? My old folks got a pair and it completely changed the game for them
You don’t even have to be old. Ebikes are car replacements and can tow children, groceries, and furniture with ease. They flatten hills, get you to work on time and without sweat, and significantly extend the realistic travel radius around your home/work/last transit stop. Expect to pay pennies to recharge it, rather than two or three figures for a full tank of gas.
Any fitness benefits you get are just a cherry on top. Ebikes just make it so much easier to skip the car trips in your village or city.
“tow furniture with ease” is complete bullshit lmao
Have you seen the new electric motors coming out? 120 nm of torque is a lot.
My ebike has 80nm of torque, and that’s enough to hit 21% grade hills at 9mph. On flats, that’s enough to lift 235 lbs and do a wheelie, haha.
It doesn’t necessarily mean fast, but it does mean it can haul gear.
tow a couch with a bike and tell me its easy, e bike or no
also i have a couple decent e bikes and theyre sick but i straight up would never move furniture with them lol
Depends a bit on the furniture, a couch wouldn’t even fit in my car. But a futon or some leather barstools? Absolutely.
Telling Grandma/grandpa to use an ebike in the snow or in lethal wet bulb temperatures isn’t a real solution. It’s great that it worked for your folks but it cannot work for mine.
The air can be so saturated with water that you cannot evaporate sweat which is the primary way your body sheds heat.
It is unsafe for anyone, let alone the elderly, to travel in these conditions unless you have a vehicle with climate control.
Yes when that happens don’t leave the building, whatever reason. Transportation is inadvisable. But that happens rarely.
Wheels with spikes work pretty well if it comes to hard packed snow and ice. Normal mointainbike wheels work well enough for me in the snow though, I was always just a bit careful and nothing ever happened so far.
Also family and groceries.
I wouldn’t ask my 9YO on a bike at 7:30 am on winter to go to school everyday. Also no family trips. The place we go to the most is on the other side of mountains 3 hours away by car.
Groceries would have to be more regular. I currently fill the car and go like once a month or month and a half
You can just take some other transportation for long trips.
Cars and bikes take you wherever you want, whenever you want. Cars are just faster.
Other transportation methods don’t go whenever nor whenever.
Cars are not perfect. And for short trips don’t make sense. But they are the most useful.
Cars are also a major contributor to the climate crisis and exacerbates social issues like increased anxiety via noise pollution and social isolation.
The only level head in this thread lol.
Im convinced most people on here live in a closet sized apartment and buy 1 bag of groceries a week. Its sad.
I just used my car to go 3 blocks away and I’m so disappointed in myself.
Also the way back was like 10 blocks
I used my car today to go about 2km away. I picked up a couple heavy packs of drinks, a box of litter, and and five bags of groceries. The travel maybe cost me 1USD. There is no fucking way I could lug all of that home for my family with something that isn’t a car.
I am not disappointed in myself. I just have to play with the cards I’m dealt.
If you measure in blocks and not miles, youre already likely in bike country! Im at least a 15 min drive from any grocery. So an hour bike.
I don’t measure in miles because I live in a metric country. So I used blocks that we all understand.
I have a lot of options for gfocieries nearby. They are just more expensive than the large sellers. ( 3 in a 2 block radius)
I wouldn’t ask my 9YO on a bike at 7:30 am on winter to go to school everyday
Why not? In a lot of the world that’s pretty normal.
When I was a kid I walked 30-40 minutes to and from school in the winter. I would have preferred to bike, but they didn’t clear the bike lanes. In places in Europe they make plowing the bike lanes a priority, so everybody can count on being able to commute by bike.
The place we go to the most is on the other side of mountains 3 hours away by car.
You shouldn’t have to rely on a car to get somewhere that’s that far away. It’s more reasonable to take a train to get that kind of distance.
Groceries would have to be more regular. I currently fill the car and go like once a month or month and a half
Do you not like fresh food? Do you ever eat fruit or vegetables? Or meat that hasn’t been frozen?
I know this might sound pedantic but I will try to write with love. 90% of the world population buy groceries weekly or more often. Many European countries buy fresh food on the daily. Yes, from the grocery downstairs, or across the road. Car centric urban design fucked you up. It’s built for the car, not for human beings. Your perception and expectations are completely out of wack with normal human existence.
For example, Costco style mega stores are not a thing in almost all of the world. No, no one needs a 3 year supply of mustard for a family of 4. Most businesses don’t need a heavy duty truck, why would a middle class family need one just to get to the school and office. You don’t need a 4x4 for the two trips a year you take to the mountains, on an asphalt road.
It’s all bizarre, it is all out of proportion. But it is not a personal failure, oil corporations and car manufacturers created this weird mar on the planet that is suburban sprawl and car dependent infrastructure. We just live with the consequences.
It’s less disability-friendly than a car, can’t carry cargo, and can’t transport passengers. You try to have a suburban family with just bicycles - especially if one of the kids has balance issues from early childhood onward. It’s not possible. The automobile is viewed as the ultimate symbol of freedom because it can serve multiple roles and has a massive variability in speed.
E-bikes are great for people with disabilities who can balance and the elderly. I see old people zipping along on e-bikes a lot here in LA. For everyone else, public transit or para transit is often a better option than a car. A car that can accommodate a wheelchair or disabled driver is usually expensive.
Ebike trikes are a thing too.
Adult tricycles are great for people with balance issues.
The main reason wheelchair-accessible vehicles (usually a minivan) are so expensive is because no major manufacturers construct them in the factory. So you’re paying for the original vehicle, plus a third party to remove the middle seats (what happens to them, I’d like to know!) cut the sides and lower the floor, adding sections to the doors and rerouting the wiring, install a ramp and “kneeling” capabilities, plus tiedowns and in some cases special controls for driving. Also the driver’s and front passenger seats are set into removable raised platforms. The automatic doors have become standard but used to also be part of the conversion. If the body were constructed with these differences from the start, perhaps in a dedicated factory, the savings would be considerable.
The savings are even greater if you take public transit, which is much roomier than any van and has no associated fuel/repair costs that you’re responsible for. It sucks everywhere doesn’t have such options.
Even places with otherwise-decent public transportation often don’t have adequate disability-accessible public transportation. In fact it’s often the longest-established systems that are the worst for disabilities.
That’s part of why I’m so thrilled with LA transit! I’ve literally never seen anywhere better for people with disabilities on the general public transit (as opposed to paratransit). In other cities I know bus drivers will tend to skip stops with a wheelchair user waiting because it slows them down. Here in LA the driver will get up, make sure they’re secured if they need it, and double check what stop they’re getting off on so they don’t get stranded. And I see a lot more wheelchair users just out going about their day here than I did in other cities, which I don’t think is a coincidence.
It was a huge deal for us the first time we flew back into LAX and there were accessible taxis at the taxi stand. In the old days there were like 2 vans for the whole city and we’d wait hours. Of course LAX is fucked right now but it’s temporary and there’s still lots of the cabs, because they’ve realized they’re also great for hauling luggage. The Metro stations also seem pretty accessible although we haven’t had much occasion to use them. Maybe once they finish the Westwood station.
Not everywhere has public transit. Also, the people with families can’t spend 2 hours each way getting to work. I’m for bikes and public transit, it’s just not the answer to everything. You’re comments are being naive about this.
Thanks for emphasizing the last part of my comment: it sucks everywhere doesn’t have such options. Good public transit isn’t going to take 2 hours each way, and it sucks transit isn’t decent everywhere.
Seattle’s transit is getting better, but it’s still a long haul. If you live in a suburb and your work is in Seattle, but not close to the transit, you’re in for a slog.
Yeah, honestly the “just get a bike” rhetoric is general pretty ablist.
If everyone except for those with disabilities switched to public transport, bikes, it’d be a massive improvement.
I don’t think anyone wants to outlaw motor transport, especially for those without other options.
Everything is ableist if you think about it enough. “Just get a car rhetoric” is ableist against blind people. Even “just take public transit” is ableist against immunocompromised people.
A society should make accommodations for those with special needs, but we don’t have to give those accommodations to everyone who asks. Some people will need a car, that doesn’t mean your average able bodied person should be driving one, and most of the “just take a bike” rehtoric is directed towards those people.
“you try to have a suburban family with just bicycles”
Almost like those suburbs were designed around cars at the exclusion of all other transport
Almost like those suburbs were designed around cars at the exclusion of all other transport
Absolutely true, but it’s still where we are.
This is true but not entirely.
My parents have mobility issues so we modified some Schwinn tricycles with 1200W motors and they can zip around our city on those all day long with no issues.
As far as kids go, I have 4 and we cycle everywhere we need within our city. I manage this by using bicycle trailers and having my kids ride their own bikes when they wish to. A cargo bike and trailer combination would allow me to tow 4 kids without issue though that gets limited as the kids get bigger.
On the topic of bike trailers, my cargo trailer has always ensured I can carry plenty of cargo with my bike when needed. It was actually instrumental when we moved earlier this year as the move was around 2-3 miles and even towing crates to the new house I could beat our vans while giving whichever van I would’ve ridden in the ability to carry two more crates itself.
The biggest limitation with bike trailers (at least the type I use) is how the weight affects the bicycle. Too much weight over the hitch and the front wheel of the bicycle becomes unweighted. I think a seat post mounted hitch would be able to handle more weight without this issue.
There are 3 wheel trikes that help with some disabilities and balance issues, you absolutely can carry cargo with a bike and while you can’t carry a family of 4 on a single bike you can on 2 bikes. I literally can’t imagine being a contrarian about freaking bicycles.
Get your lazy ass on a bike, ya bum!
If I even look sideways at it, I end up with at least broken nose, probably broken knees.
Nonsense, you can absolutely have standard cargo bikes like this:
Or cargo bikes with gunner seats mounted in them
And there are recumbent and adaptive ebikes and normal bikes too, for people with disabilities or balance issues. Heck, you can even attach trailers to virtually any standard bike, and many different trailer options exist, from pet carriers to cargo, to food service to fully adult men.
Bikes shouldn’t be going above 28mph anyways. We have high speed rail if someone wants to do 150mph through a city.
Cars are definitely the present, but they absolutely don’t need to be the future.
less disability-friendly
Trikes exist, and some even have a bench seat and storage behind the driver
can’t carry cargo
The humble milk crate begs to differ. Also you can buy a cargo trailer if you need to haul more than a panier’s or a milk crate’s worth of stuff
can’t transport passengers
Hook up a trailer. They start at just $100 on Amazon or get one from a garage sale or local buy/sell listings or even the local bike shop might have used ones. The one I use for all of the kids school pickups and dropoffs I got at a garage sale for $20 and it’s also got space for cargo as well as children
You try to have a suburban family with just bicycles - especially if one of the kids has balance issues from early childhood onward
Mom and dad each ride a normal grownup bike, then each kid rides what’s appropriate for their age, needs and abilities, whether that’s a trailercycle, riding in a trailer, their own bike or even a trike
The automobile is viewed as the ultimate symbol of freedom because it can serve multiple roles and has a massive variability in speed.
Ehhh. Cars are great at what they do, but they’re expensive as fuck to own and completely suck when too many people want to drive to/from/through the same place.
Honestly in the car dependant hellscape that is America I think the best possible balance is one car and a family of bikes for every family. You can usually take bikes on the bus, bikes don’t require any meaningful amount of fuel (ebikes take like one laptop’s worth of energy to charge) and they’re freaking fun to ride as well as being good for fitness and mental health. But you also have the car for longer trips or trips on roads that you can’t safely/legally bike on. Bikes are freaking awesome, and you can throw so many attachments onto them to make them carry just about anything
Try having a disability that prevents you from driving and you may see just how shit car dependency is.
My unfortunate blend of disabilities means that I can neither drive nor bike. I’m at my best in places with good taxis/rideshares supported by buses. Trains, light rail, and the like are nice ideas, but I have to take a cab or a bus from the station anyway, so I might as well go door-to-door in the cab. So I do want car dependence, because as we become less car dependent, we lose mobility.
Suppose it depends on where you live and disability, someone I went to school with couldn’t drive but could walk, bike or bus for free. Had to pay for the train like everyone else though.
“Less disability friendly than a car”
I completely disagree but it’s debatable.
What kind of handicap can allow you to drive but not bike ? Bike are extremely adaptable to any kind of handicap, to the point that they can basically be turned into an electric wheelchair.
can’t carry cargo
I disagree again, it does carry way less cargo but can still carry cargo.
can’t transport passengers
Why do we need to carry passagers ? Because a lot of people (child, elderly people, people without license) cannot drive and because car are expensive. If everyone can use a bike and the bike are so cheap that you can have a few aroumd for guests it greatly reduces the need for carrying assengers.
And you can still carry passagers on a bike, the best example is longtails bike that can carry an adult or several kids as passagers.
kid with balance issue
Longtail and tricycles.
Cars are amazing pieces of technology, they do have unique capabilities like doing unscheduled, flexible long distance drive, or carry a lot of cargo at once.
But for a lot of the daily living a bike (and proper bike infrastructure) would be way better suited to the situation.
I want to add my experience to this :
I’m disabled, on a good day I just get tired pretty fast. On a bad day even walking hurt and I need to rest every 15 min or so. I can’t drive because I have narcolepsia.
You would think that I would love getting around car but I don’t. When everything is made for car I need to walk a lot more even if someone drives me because parkings tend to not have a lot of benches and everything is farther because parking take space. It also makes crossing street horrible because I have to wait a long time for cars to stop.
If everything is bike friendly dedicated transport is faster and can afford to stop exactly where I need it and when I need it. I can take the bus, tram or train if something is too far, and I can stop when I need because bus stop have benches. On top of that everything is closser together since there little or no parking so a 15 min walk get me to more places. If i need to take a lot of grocerie I can just take a chariot, the only downside is sometimes there is noisy kids in the bus but this is solved by noise canceling headphones.
I know this is my experience ( which is obviously not universal ) and public transit / bikes are not a silver bullet that fixes everything mobility wise but earing the “bike centric infrastructure is ableist” rant feels downright insulting when it’s the thing that allow me to not depend on friends driving me.
The barriers to mobility are the giant, dangerous roads and parking lots between everything that car dependency requires. Cycleable/walkable places with good public transit are easier to get around for everyone with or without a car, regardless of disabilities.
Also, disabilities exclude more people from being able to drive than from walking/cycleing/using public transit. Not to mention people excluded from driving due to age. Or finances. Or not being able to get a license due to lack of English literacy. Or not having a permanent address. Or people that just would prefer to not drive. All these people deserve the right to be able to get around, and car dependency denies them that right.
real freedom is heelys
I don’t miss falling on my face… that would probably hurt a lot more now than it did two decades ago.
I miss cycling. I live in the middle of goddamned nowhere, so driving in mandatory to get anywhere relevant. I hate that this is the case, but there’s just about fuck all I can do about it.
I will comment that I take issue with bikes being “cheap”. If you ride a bike even remotely seriously, your bike is not cheap… It might not be expensive, but you quickly realize why cheap bikes are cheap.
If you ride a bike even remotely seriously, your bike is not cheap… It might not be expensive, but you quickly realize why cheap bikes are cheap.
Spot on. I’ve got about $3k into my bike, but it’s not a fancy race bike (it’s a steel fixed gear), so I invested in bombproof parts that could end up outliving me. Once a year I’ll replace the tires/chain/brake pads, service the bearings, and strip/regrease a few parts, so the running cost is maybe $15/month. If you’ve got a road bike with a 2x drivetrain, or if you’re paying people to service your bike that might go up to $30/month, but still negligible compared to a car.
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That’s exactly how I arrived at this theory. Went on a particularly nice bike ride last summer and suddenly remembered that feeling of freedom I got from owning my first bike.
i grew up in Barcelona with a bike.
never in my life I’ve felt that sense of freedom.
even with a car. not even close
Car go fast
I wish I could still ride a bike. I walk for most of my errands and just enjoying the local nature trails, but bike seats are agony after both a bike accident 40 years ago (thrown 10 feet after an RV sideswiped me) and catastrophic car accident 11 years ago. Both made my existing lower back issues far more urgent and exceptionally painful before getting on a bike.
I’ve heard full suspension bikes enable some people who have back pain. Might be worth giving it a shot, depending on your pain levels.
I honestly love walking, despite my screwed up back and panoply of other issues. I can mostly manage without a car for anything but large shopping at this point. And since kids and grandkids moved out, most shopping is reasonable and amenable to backpack or cart.
Is there any kind of rehab you can do? One thing I’ve found with modern medicine is that they focus on getting someone healed until they can do basic things like sit and walk, which allows them to sit in an office, and sit in a car. But, they don’t address the other needs someone might have, like if they’re a dancer, or a martial artist, or a cyclist.
I’ve had some severe injuries over the years, and they basically called my rehab done when I could sit, stand and walk. But, on my own I’ve worked on my range of motion and strength to do more than just those basics.
Part of the problem is that I’ve learned to accept and work around so much chronic pain that I just realize there are activities I can’t engage in. I really need to do something as this has gotten markedly worse in the past couple years despite being quite active (I walk at a very brisk place for 5-8 miles per day).
I hope I never have to deal with chronic pain like that. It sounds awful. I hope there’s something you can do to work on reducing the pain.
Oh noooooo
So sorry
Is sitting on seats hard as well? I imagine it probably is so some kind of recumbent trike, besides being very expensive, wouldn’t be a way to get you back riding…
In which case I’m glad you’re able to enjoy those trails even in spite of the tragedies!
I’ve had scoliosis since before those accidents, so it’s a whole host of back issues. Sitting sucks, but is ameliorated by a quality cushion (a very thick memory foam pad I’ve had for a while now). I can’t sit on benches or hard seats for any length of time at this point.
I had to get a recumbent due to pain issues with a regular upright bicycle seat. I’ve owned a couple of them over the past 20 years or so, and they’re great.
💪
Bikes are good for short distances of say 5-20km. Try to bike 500km in 5 hours? Or haul a couch on a bike? Yeah, much freedom.
Bikes are good for short distances of say 5-20km. Try to bike 500km in 5 hours?
Ride bike to station, take bike onto train, ride from station to your final destination.
Or haul a couch on a bike? Yeah, much freedom.
Have 3 friends help you out with a sofa, or, listen to me for a sec, have a vehicle that can do that by design.
Fuck cars, and all. Ofc they are not good for environment and are a cause of millions of deaths but you cant be saying bicycle is superior to a car while having a straight face. Apples to oranges ffs.
Not sure what car you drive but 99.9% of cars normal people drive (at least here in Europe) don’t fit a sofa, so it’s a complete non-argument. Even if you did have one that does, are you saying you can load a sofa into your car by yourself?
If you buy a new sofa, you have it delivered. The delivery guys will deliver it to your living room. No hassle at all. They don’t use a car either, they use a truck (not one of those surrogate penisses americans call trucks but an actual truck).
Most people in the US, if they don’t have a truck, they have an SUV or crossover with a hatchback and seats that build down. I drive a Subaru Crosstrek, their smallest US crossover, and I have loaded/moved/unloaded a couch by myself with it.
Yeah it hangs out the back a little but you click a mini carabiner into the door mechanism at the upper part of the hatch and tie some rope to that and down to the metal bar it normally closes onto. That keeps the couch from falling out, and keeps the hatch down at the couch level so the hatch door isn’t sticking up extra tall.
Here, most places will deliver said sofa to you cheap or even free, and even bring it up to the umpteenth floor your apartment is on.
Buying a car in cities here would be an insane money drain for literally no benefit. Even if you want or need to drive, you can rent an almost-new German car for single trips for super cheap.
I’ve lived a couple of years in Germany and the Netherlands and I know the options you have, it’s very nice. I’m on the outskirts of a good size city. There are bikeable places when you get more urban closer to downtown, but there are no options other than car in the area I live in. Even most homeless people have a car here, or they have someone they rely on with a car who is willing to help them out.
I guess it was the same in Budapest, Hungary. It didn’t make sense for me to get a car there either.
How often are you hauling couches, most cars can’t take one either. Mine came with free delivery.
bike 500km in 5 hours
haul a couch on a bike
Skill issue.
Looks like a moped to me. I’d also be weary of what this will do to that fridge’s compressor.
Motorbike.
Should refrigerators be transported like this? (This isn’t even in the top 5 most loaded bikes I’ve seen, washing machine+dryer in the paniers, then a refrigerator on top isn’t that uncommon)
One sudden stop and theyre crushed
This is why it’s nice to split a car and hitch with friends and neighbours (and other lending library stuffs while you’re at it). Just like the lawn mower you might share, no one (well no one with access to quarter-decent infra) needs a car every day, but it’s handy to have access for hauling big stuff.
short distances of say 5-20km.
That’s like 95% of all trips.
500km in 5 hours?
Take a train. Even if trains are not available, those trips are rare enough, for average people, that renting a car for them is cheaper than buying.
haul a couch.
Unless you’re a professional furniture mover, you’re going to do this so rarely that it would be cheaper to just hire a professional furniture mover, than to buy a truck.
I live in a major German city, have a car, bicycle and a public transport subscription. I use public transit daily, ride bycicle 2-3 times a week and drive car 2-3 times a month. I do transport heavy loads when driving car. I use bike in my area to get to shops. I go with public transit to and from work.
Inter-city trains are fast, but fuck schedules and interruptions. I’d rather wake up, pack my backpack and hit the Autobahn for 4-5 hours and be there rather than go though a hellhole of trying to reach central station on time in the middle of the night just to save me 20-40 euros one way cause later time tickets are more expensive.
I don’t want to rely on a tram in the night that not supposed to be there, but schedule says it will, and then it still doesn’t arrive just to run quick to a nearby parking lot and try to pickup a Carshare and drive to central station under time pressure and spend shit ton of time trying to find a parking spot in the night.
I don’t want to get a ticket with a connection train just to have my or connection train to be late for the connection schedule and then wait god knows how much for the next train and pray that won’t happen during cold weather.
One time I took Flixtrain to save some money and that shit was extremely noisy even my noise cancelling headphones didn’t help much.
One time I took bus that would go 15h one way. I will never take a bus in my entire life again for this much time. I value my painless back much more over money.
I still would fight for much more better public transportation in any city of the world. But that is bullshit to think that bike of all things gives much more freedom than a car.
Inter-city trains are fast, but fuck schedules and interruptions.
Yeah, Deutsche Bahn is legendary. You are excused.
It helps if you have an old car that doesn’t cost a lot of money. In terms of cost vs renting. And a trailer hitch so you can just rent a trailer for furniture and stuff. I’ve used mine a lot. Doesn’t need to be a truck for that, even a small car can do a normal sized trailer.
I don’t live anywhere near an airport so no rental cars available to me either, it’d take at least 2-3 hours to get to one via public transit
Can… Can you haul a couch in your car? Isnt that whar moving vans are for? Or trains?
I live in Utrecht, The Netherlands. I can’t park anywhere, my bike will be removed if not stalled in a bike parking spot. I do need insurance, my bike was 4k. There are bike traffic jams sometimes. The rest is all true. No parking fees, no road tax, etc. Just a bit wet sometimes. But my city has one of the best, if not the best bike infrastructure in the world. It’s stupid it’s not standard everywhere.
Inexpensive? In THIS economy?
We can’t sell a bike for any price around here. People just leave them out for whoever wants them.
Compared to a car they are damn near free for a used one.
