5 ms·

Why do you need a cheater bike?

bigiain 10y ago
To clarify, my cheater bike" is a $50 eBay 2nd hand mountain bike that I use to commute to work - not something I ride dressed in lycra pretending to be faster than other people... I call it my "cheater bike", 'cause that what it _feels_ like riding it up hills... It makes me laugh everytime I ride it. (I do _occasionally_ enjoy passing mamils on bikes that weigh less then their brekfast going uphill on my way to work.)
- rhizome 10y ago
  Every spandex rider you pass is pretending?
  - bigiain 10y ago
    Nope - that was aimed at me not them - but I'm happy to let the stereotype burn stand ;-) I will say to a first approximation, 100% of the RadioShack lycra liveried carbon fibre Trek riders I see riding through Sydney traffic on a weekday morning are _not_ Lance Armstrong class riders. (Not any more than I'm a Carl Fogarty or Troy Bayliss class motorcycle racer when I put my racing leathers on and fire up my Ducati Monster...). It's mostly posing and toys, with an unhealthy dose of brand snobbery and wealth signalling (and being brutally honest, I'm guilty of a little bit of both of those myself - no matter how much I protest that "My Ducati is just a fun toy! I;m not a brand conscious poser! Not like those _other_ Ducati riders...")
    - clarry 10y ago
      Well, even among serious hobbyist cyclists, very very few of them are or can be fit for world class pro cycling. Still, it's perfectly okay to use whatever clothes and bikes they enjoy, and it has nothing to do with pretending to be world class. I imagine a nice lycra suit would actually be comfortable. I don't know, I go with jeans and a T-shirt (when the weather is warm enough for that) but proper cycling wear should help with chafing down there as well as stopping your clothes from dripping sweat while still keeping you warm enough for when you're starting to get exhausted or the weather gets chilly. These problems exist even for non-sporty people cycling to work as long as they ride fast enough for their bodies and have a long enough commute... Toys? I guess. I would say all hobby equipment is toys.
    - wobbleblob 10y ago
      A little off topic, but what's cycling like there? From what I've heard (never been there) Australia is about as close as it gets to the perfect society... except they hate cyclists like the plague?
      - ashitlerferad 10y ago
        > Australia ... the perfect society Hahaha
      - WatchDog 10y ago
        I commute to work on an e-bike in Melbourne. My route is mostly on trails and roads with dedicated bike lanes, so its pretty easy going. The hate towards cyclists might be a bit overstated. Some of it is justified as cyclists will often break road rules, I usually see multiple cyclists run red lights every day. Ive seen more aggression coming from cyclists then I have seen from drivers aimed at cyclists, but obviously aggressive drivers are much more dangerous than aggressive cyclists.
    - Strom 10y ago
      What a weird implication that you need to be the best to use good gear. The pro-style clothing isn't posing or brand snobbery. Jeans are way too hot, cotton clothes get uncomfortably sticky from sweat way too fast and let cold wind go through them. Proper bike clothes allow me to feel comfortable for a long time and won't get me sick. As for a good bike, it's just a better experience. I've owned a bunch of different bikes, starting with a old soviet fixed-gear Školnik, and ending with my current Trek road bike with fancy gear. Everything about riding the Trek is better than any of my older bikes. The gears change in a smoother fashion, I can roll on without cycling for much longer, and the effort-to-speed ratio is much better, allowing me to reach way higher speeds than ever before.
      - bigiain 10y ago
        Sure, but I see guys riding to work in "pro style clothing" with Rabobank and RadioShack logos all over them. My cynicism makes it hard for me to come up with justifications for that which are not super easy to make fun of... I get the "owning nice toys" thing - I even get the guys who are 20kg overweight spending $5k+ to get a bike that's 2kg lighter than a bike that costs 20% of that. To me though, it starts seeming weird when they do that while dressed up in sponsor logos for companies that sometimes don't even exist in this country... (And it's not just lycra wearing mamils either, I don't get the motorcycle riders who paint Repsol livery on their Honda or Aruba or Xerox logos on their Ducati...)
        Strom 10y ago
        Ah, you're talking about sponsor logos. I didn't get that at first. The only thing I know about RadioShack is that it's a store chain. I assumed they sell some rebranded bike clothes. Having sponsor logos on you that weren't put there by the clothing store seems indeed a bit quirky. I haven't seen that myself.
        rhizome 10y ago
        Does your cynicism carry over into teamwear for all sports? Baseball hats? Logowear in general? None of these people are pretending they are linebackers and point guards. One thing you may not know is that logowear is like 90% of available men's cycling gear. There's an element of market failure.
- wobbleblob 10y ago
  Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose? Why not ride a scooter? Not aimed at you personally, but in my commute I'm not happy with all these motorized bicycles on the bike lane nowadays. They're usually ridden by people who don't race seriously, and are now riding 30+ km/h, but doing it as though they're still going 15 km/h: not looking behind them before passing or turning, immediately ringing their bell if you're in front of them, without first looking if maybe there's a reason why you're slowing down, not keeping distance. One slammed into me when I stopped to yield for traffic. Yield? Why would one yield?
  - ascorbic 10y ago
    Surely the purpose is to get to work. The motor certainly doesn't defeat that.
  - bigiain 10y ago
    I also ride motorcycles, but the bicycle I can ride int the lobby and take up the lift to the office - it's quicker door-to-door (over 8km) than the motorcycle, which I sometimes get to park close by but if I don't come in early I end up parking a few blocks away (or _gasp_ paying for parking). I;m with you on the dangers of people who don't have good situational awareness zooming around on electric bikes - but I think I'm pretty good there, you don't survive 25 years as a motorcyclist doing 15-20k miles a year without being pretty good at knowing what's going on around you and riding accordingly... Another point, I know a lot of commuter bicycle riders, and some of _them_ think the skinny-wheeled-carbon-frame crowd doing 30+kmh in bike lanes should GTFO as well... (And I've got motorcycle friends who reckon the lycra-crowd should stay off the country backroads doing 50kmh when they want to zoom past at twice the speed limit... People, huh?) (Also, my cheater bike is _way_ cheaper than a scooter, it's a $50 eBay mountain bike with ~$130 worth of Chinese hubmotor/controller/stuff, and a $70 battery. And crucially, I can ride the cheater bike home from the pub after a few beers... )
    - wobbleblob 10y ago
      It's not so much a comment on their situational awareness, it's that they're riding one vehicle with the style of another. It's behavior that would probably be harmless if they were going half the speed. If you drive a car as though it is a motorcycle, you're also disrupting traffic and creating danger.

To clarify, my cheater bike" is a $50 eBay 2nd hand mountain bike that I use to commute to work - not something I ride dressed in lycra pretending to be faster than other people... I call it my "cheater bike", 'cause that what it _feels_ like riding it up hills... It makes me laugh everytime I ride it. (I do _occasionally_ enjoy passing mamils on bikes that weigh less then their brekfast going uphill on my way to work.)

rhizome 10y ago
Every spandex rider you pass is pretending?
- bigiain 10y ago
  Nope - that was aimed at me not them - but I'm happy to let the stereotype burn stand ;-) I will say to a first approximation, 100% of the RadioShack lycra liveried carbon fibre Trek riders I see riding through Sydney traffic on a weekday morning are _not_ Lance Armstrong class riders. (Not any more than I'm a Carl Fogarty or Troy Bayliss class motorcycle racer when I put my racing leathers on and fire up my Ducati Monster...). It's mostly posing and toys, with an unhealthy dose of brand snobbery and wealth signalling (and being brutally honest, I'm guilty of a little bit of both of those myself - no matter how much I protest that "My Ducati is just a fun toy! I;m not a brand conscious poser! Not like those _other_ Ducati riders...")
  - clarry 10y ago
    Well, even among serious hobbyist cyclists, very very few of them are or can be fit for world class pro cycling. Still, it's perfectly okay to use whatever clothes and bikes they enjoy, and it has nothing to do with pretending to be world class. I imagine a nice lycra suit would actually be comfortable. I don't know, I go with jeans and a T-shirt (when the weather is warm enough for that) but proper cycling wear should help with chafing down there as well as stopping your clothes from dripping sweat while still keeping you warm enough for when you're starting to get exhausted or the weather gets chilly. These problems exist even for non-sporty people cycling to work as long as they ride fast enough for their bodies and have a long enough commute... Toys? I guess. I would say all hobby equipment is toys.
  - wobbleblob 10y ago
    A little off topic, but what's cycling like there? From what I've heard (never been there) Australia is about as close as it gets to the perfect society... except they hate cyclists like the plague?
    - ashitlerferad 10y ago
      > Australia ... the perfect society Hahaha
    - WatchDog 10y ago
      I commute to work on an e-bike in Melbourne. My route is mostly on trails and roads with dedicated bike lanes, so its pretty easy going. The hate towards cyclists might be a bit overstated. Some of it is justified as cyclists will often break road rules, I usually see multiple cyclists run red lights every day. Ive seen more aggression coming from cyclists then I have seen from drivers aimed at cyclists, but obviously aggressive drivers are much more dangerous than aggressive cyclists.
  - Strom 10y ago
    What a weird implication that you need to be the best to use good gear. The pro-style clothing isn't posing or brand snobbery. Jeans are way too hot, cotton clothes get uncomfortably sticky from sweat way too fast and let cold wind go through them. Proper bike clothes allow me to feel comfortable for a long time and won't get me sick. As for a good bike, it's just a better experience. I've owned a bunch of different bikes, starting with a old soviet fixed-gear Školnik, and ending with my current Trek road bike with fancy gear. Everything about riding the Trek is better than any of my older bikes. The gears change in a smoother fashion, I can roll on without cycling for much longer, and the effort-to-speed ratio is much better, allowing me to reach way higher speeds than ever before.
    - bigiain 10y ago
      Sure, but I see guys riding to work in "pro style clothing" with Rabobank and RadioShack logos all over them. My cynicism makes it hard for me to come up with justifications for that which are not super easy to make fun of... I get the "owning nice toys" thing - I even get the guys who are 20kg overweight spending $5k+ to get a bike that's 2kg lighter than a bike that costs 20% of that. To me though, it starts seeming weird when they do that while dressed up in sponsor logos for companies that sometimes don't even exist in this country... (And it's not just lycra wearing mamils either, I don't get the motorcycle riders who paint Repsol livery on their Honda or Aruba or Xerox logos on their Ducati...)
      - Strom 10y ago
        Ah, you're talking about sponsor logos. I didn't get that at first. The only thing I know about RadioShack is that it's a store chain. I assumed they sell some rebranded bike clothes. Having sponsor logos on you that weren't put there by the clothing store seems indeed a bit quirky. I haven't seen that myself.
      - rhizome 10y ago
        Does your cynicism carry over into teamwear for all sports? Baseball hats? Logowear in general? None of these people are pretending they are linebackers and point guards. One thing you may not know is that logowear is like 90% of available men's cycling gear. There's an element of market failure.
wobbleblob 10y ago
Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose? Why not ride a scooter? Not aimed at you personally, but in my commute I'm not happy with all these motorized bicycles on the bike lane nowadays. They're usually ridden by people who don't race seriously, and are now riding 30+ km/h, but doing it as though they're still going 15 km/h: not looking behind them before passing or turning, immediately ringing their bell if you're in front of them, without first looking if maybe there's a reason why you're slowing down, not keeping distance. One slammed into me when I stopped to yield for traffic. Yield? Why would one yield?
- ascorbic 10y ago
  Surely the purpose is to get to work. The motor certainly doesn't defeat that.
- bigiain 10y ago
  I also ride motorcycles, but the bicycle I can ride int the lobby and take up the lift to the office - it's quicker door-to-door (over 8km) than the motorcycle, which I sometimes get to park close by but if I don't come in early I end up parking a few blocks away (or _gasp_ paying for parking). I;m with you on the dangers of people who don't have good situational awareness zooming around on electric bikes - but I think I'm pretty good there, you don't survive 25 years as a motorcyclist doing 15-20k miles a year without being pretty good at knowing what's going on around you and riding accordingly... Another point, I know a lot of commuter bicycle riders, and some of _them_ think the skinny-wheeled-carbon-frame crowd doing 30+kmh in bike lanes should GTFO as well... (And I've got motorcycle friends who reckon the lycra-crowd should stay off the country backroads doing 50kmh when they want to zoom past at twice the speed limit... People, huh?) (Also, my cheater bike is _way_ cheaper than a scooter, it's a $50 eBay mountain bike with ~$130 worth of Chinese hubmotor/controller/stuff, and a $70 battery. And crucially, I can ride the cheater bike home from the pub after a few beers... )
  - wobbleblob 10y ago
    It's not so much a comment on their situational awareness, it's that they're riding one vehicle with the style of another. It's behavior that would probably be harmless if they were going half the speed. If you drive a car as though it is a motorcycle, you're also disrupting traffic and creating danger.