9 ms·

Cargo bikes as symbolic markers of egalitarian gender roles

68 points by okket 8y ago

bluejekyll 8y ago
I bike around SF with my kids in a Cargo bike all the time. The bike is freeing in the city, and the kids love it. As they’ve gotten bigger and older, I had to put a motor on it for the hills. I hate that bikes are controversial in the City, as they are such a great way of increasing mobility around town. eBikes, are also amazing for this aspect of mobility. With all the new scooters and rental bikes though, it’s stressing our already limited bike lane capacity, pointing toward what’s been set aside as far too shortsighted.
- TomK32 8y ago
  Just give it a few years, the rental bikes and scooters will disappear. OBike has gone bankrupt and many more are to follow. Which is a bit sad of course because the whole thing is such a waste of precious resources for shitty bikes.
  - 21 8y ago
    Rental bikes exist in London and NY for many years now. I'm not sure if the city pays for them or not. Scooters are also amazingly convenient - see the many articles about them where the author started unconvinced (and don't tell me all of them are submarine). They will survive in one form or another, maybe with subvention by the city.
    - fyfy18 8y ago
      Here in London the docked bike scheme - currently called Santander Cycles, over their main sponsor - have been going since 2010. Last year 17% of its operating costs came from public funding, but most came from sales and sponsorship. The bikes compared to Mobike (the only dockless scheme I’ve tried) are a lot more comfortable and easier to ride. The only issue of course is finding somewhere to park it, which at peak times can be difficult.
- extralego 8y ago
  I hope u have a big flag. Cargo bikes scare me so much when they are on the road and kids are in them.
  - extralego 8y ago
    Interesting a comment concerned with child safety would get downvotes. How curious.
- dominotw 8y ago
  > I hate that bikes are controversial in the City, as they are such a great way of increasing mobility around town. Doesn't this assume that you live in the city though?
- u801e 8y ago
  > As they’ve gotten bigger and older, I had to put a motor on it for the hills. How steep are the ones you have to deal with? I take mine up a short 6% grade in my second to lowest gear without too much difficulty, but I imagine that if the hill was much steeper, I wouldn't be able to make it up without getting a granny gear on my bike's cassette.
  - bluejekyll 8y ago
    it wasn’t really a capability, so much as a speed thing. I didn’t like being so slow compared to the cars when going up hills. With a bionix I we can cruise up minor grades at a much better clip.
21 8y ago
Can someone explain why the title and abstract is in 3 languages (English, French, Spanish), but the article just in English? Is this a new thing?
- rabboRubble 8y ago
  I'm guessing it's an EU thing to make the article easily discoverable for 3 main EU languages (how the English language thing will work after Brexit, no idea. EU may still have English as an official language for cross border communication). Many academic people speak English well enough to read the article. I'm guessing from my own struggles while Googling stuff in a different language, that is a different art.
  - Symbiote 8y ago
    English is an official language of Ireland and Malta, so it will retain that status. It's currently a procedural language of the EU, and is likely to retain that position as its so well understood in the North and East of Europe.
  - Freak_NL 8y ago
    I don't think it's that; German would have been chosen instead of Spanish if that was the case.
    - rabboRubble 8y ago
      True. The strange thing is the site overall has other journal articles with the same English, French, Spanish abstract set up. May be a convention for that site. I'm guessing that the article itself isn't translated into those other languages due to cost. The site provides paid translation services.
  - Bromskloss 8y ago
    What does the European Union have to do with this?
    - 8y ago
kaitai 8y ago
This is a really interesting read for me, as I'm considering the purchase of a cargo bike. Apparently, I fit the stereotype pretty well -- highly-educated urban coffee-drinker (no yoga, no vegetarianism, though). The cargo bike would solve the problem of hauling hardware-store purchases home with kid and sans car. But they're expensive! 1.5 or 2 thousand dollars! So for now we're making do with the bus and the stroller we found with a "free" sign on the side of the road. It is important to be thoughtful about the roles various types of transportation play for people of different socioeconomic groups in the US. I take the bus and train often in my town, and it's generally a very mixed population. The train/light-rail is becoming a de facto homeless shelter at night, though. At the same time light rail gets criticized for being for the upper class, rather than efficiently serving the poor, because it goes between downtowns/to the airport/to the suburbs/to the sports complexes. Biking, as well, has huge class and race divides. In the US the weekend spandex-wearer is a huge set of the bicycling public. Everyday commuters are a segment too, and then family weekend bikers, and then people who've lost their drivers' licenses due to DUI/DWI or other entanglement with the criminal justice system. How these communities interact and how they use our infrastructure differently is worth considering when planning new investments or thinking about how to encourage bicycling. The weekend warrior wants a nice scenic 45-mile continuous route; I want a seamless path across the city that doesn't involve battling any cars at highway speeds to get into the left-turn lane; neither of us wants to run over a 5-year-old getting the hang of the bike.
- Symbiote 8y ago
  Check the resale value. In Denmark, cargo bikes hold their value very well in the second hand market.
- TomK32 8y ago
  yes, they are expensive, but once you have a cargo bike you can carry home a tig welder, alu pipes and all the other stuff to build a cargo bike :D No seriously, they are expensive but if you look at craigslist and similar, they keep their value if you take care of your bike. and regarding road safety, ride in the right tire-mark left by the cars. you'll be safe from dooring and cars have to slow down and change lanes to overtake you instead of squeezing through.
st26 8y ago
Does anyone know why dads riding these are called "soft"? I've never ridden a cargo bike, but it takes strong legs & constitution to regularly tow a kid or utility trailer more than a few miles. Is it just that whole notion that fathers who are involved with their children are not masculine?
- rgrieselhuber 8y ago
  I'd imagine it has to do with symbolically giving up the role of predator to nurture children.
  - whatsstolat 8y ago
    Yep seems like pecking at a keyboard is the alpha thing to do.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- Freak_NL 8y ago
  It may have to do with not using a car instead. Even here in the Netherlands, a car can be a status symbol in certain circles — particularly among the yuppie office crowd. There is also the fact that this is a certain subclass of cargo bikes with a bench in the 'cargo hold' that tends to be specifically designed to hold two young children. These bikes are marketed at yuppies (in both price and design); people who can't afford one of these, or who are more pragmatic about it tend to settle for attachable seats (mounted behind the handlebars or behind the saddle on the ubiquitous rear luggage rack above the rear wheel) on a normal bicycle, so riding a special cargo bike just for the few years that the kids can't ride their own bicycle may come across as overly luxurious and soft.
- monkeywork 8y ago
  Never heard anyone call anyone soft for being involved with their kids nor for riding a bike ... ignore and move forward.
- 8y ago
gburt 8y ago
This is merely a series of opinions in academic article form.
- black6 8y ago
  Taking something as innocuous as a utility bicycle and applying classist and sexist connotations to its use is so progressive.
whiddershins 8y ago
Although bikes are well protected in Dutch cities, for American cities, I intuitively see taking kids around on a bike as extremely risky.
- kccqzy 8y ago
  It's definitely a regional thing. I've seen people carrying their kids on a bike trailer several places in Palo Alto.
- djsumdog 8y ago
  I don't. So long as they have helmets in States with helmet laws, the risk isn't any greater than having them on one of those kid sets behind you or in one of the single wheel things you can attach to your bike.
pasta 8y ago
As a Dutch man owning a cargo bike I have no idea how they came to this conclusion. There are some stange parts of this study. For example: because the website Geenstijl is linking cargo bike owners to the party Groen Links it is suddenly true what Geendtijl says? It's like saying that electric cars are bad because Top Gear said so. A cargo bike is just a way to move stuff and kids around in a city. People with low income buy used ones, people with high income buy new ones. It has nothing to do with status. It's just very convenient.
bullfightonmars 8y ago
I have been commuting with my son on a cargo bike to school and to work for the past year. It has a canopy/fairing on the front that keeps him dry and warm in the winter rain so that we can commute year round. We are up to about ~3500 miles. It has been the best purchase I've ever made.
40acres 8y ago
I see more and more parents out there with cargo bikes in Portland, especially no with young kids. Personally the risk is not the reward for me...
novaRom 8y ago
Let's say following: all the urban infrastructure is car-centric, period. Even in most developed European cities the car drivers are privileged. Why should we bike riders use side lanes/walks and not main lanes for example? On rare sundays when vehicles traffic is nearly absent in my town, we do really enjoy cycling the main roads - it is much faster to get to any place even if my town is relatively good place for bicyclists - there are many separate cycling-only roads and bridges.
jacknews 8y ago
This seems like fake research to me. It's simply gethering some news articles and saying that the stereotype of cargo bike owners is of liberal upper-middle-class families of a certain stripe, and implying that they are also possibly riding them to signal virtue and status as much as for practical purposes. ie dressing up a commonly held stereotype in the garb of an academic paper.
burntrelish1273 8y ago
Whatever. Subtle "toxic masculinity" "slut-shaming" of men whom don't act meeker than women.
- dang 8y ago
  We've banned this account for posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait and ignoring our requests to stop. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll use the site as intended in the future.
erric 8y ago
The major problem with biking in the US, is cyclists are not first class citizens. Having lived in The Netherlands for two years and Portland Oregon (which has a fairly progressive bike culture) for sixteen years, there is no comparison. There is no political or financial willpower to make the kinds of changes that would make cycling more pervasive and safe for both drivers and cyclists in the US.

68 points by okket 8y ago

I bike around SF with my kids in a Cargo bike all the time. The bike is freeing in the city, and the kids love it. As they’ve gotten bigger and older, I had to put a motor on it for the hills. I hate that bikes are controversial in the City, as they are such a great way of increasing mobility around town. eBikes, are also amazing for this aspect of mobility. With all the new scooters and rental bikes though, it’s stressing our already limited bike lane capacity, pointing toward what’s been set aside as far too shortsighted.

TomK32 8y ago
Just give it a few years, the rental bikes and scooters will disappear. OBike has gone bankrupt and many more are to follow. Which is a bit sad of course because the whole thing is such a waste of precious resources for shitty bikes.
- 21 8y ago
  Rental bikes exist in London and NY for many years now. I'm not sure if the city pays for them or not. Scooters are also amazingly convenient - see the many articles about them where the author started unconvinced (and don't tell me all of them are submarine). They will survive in one form or another, maybe with subvention by the city.
  - fyfy18 8y ago
    Here in London the docked bike scheme - currently called Santander Cycles, over their main sponsor - have been going since 2010. Last year 17% of its operating costs came from public funding, but most came from sales and sponsorship. The bikes compared to Mobike (the only dockless scheme I’ve tried) are a lot more comfortable and easier to ride. The only issue of course is finding somewhere to park it, which at peak times can be difficult.
extralego 8y ago
I hope u have a big flag. Cargo bikes scare me so much when they are on the road and kids are in them.
- extralego 8y ago
  Interesting a comment concerned with child safety would get downvotes. How curious.
dominotw 8y ago
> I hate that bikes are controversial in the City, as they are such a great way of increasing mobility around town. Doesn't this assume that you live in the city though?
u801e 8y ago
> As they’ve gotten bigger and older, I had to put a motor on it for the hills. How steep are the ones you have to deal with? I take mine up a short 6% grade in my second to lowest gear without too much difficulty, but I imagine that if the hill was much steeper, I wouldn't be able to make it up without getting a granny gear on my bike's cassette.
- bluejekyll 8y ago
  it wasn’t really a capability, so much as a speed thing. I didn’t like being so slow compared to the cars when going up hills. With a bionix I we can cruise up minor grades at a much better clip.

21 8y ago

Can someone explain why the title and abstract is in 3 languages (English, French, Spanish), but the article just in English? Is this a new thing?

rabboRubble 8y ago
I'm guessing it's an EU thing to make the article easily discoverable for 3 main EU languages (how the English language thing will work after Brexit, no idea. EU may still have English as an official language for cross border communication). Many academic people speak English well enough to read the article. I'm guessing from my own struggles while Googling stuff in a different language, that is a different art.
- Symbiote 8y ago
  English is an official language of Ireland and Malta, so it will retain that status. It's currently a procedural language of the EU, and is likely to retain that position as its so well understood in the North and East of Europe.
- Freak_NL 8y ago
  I don't think it's that; German would have been chosen instead of Spanish if that was the case.
  - rabboRubble 8y ago
    True. The strange thing is the site overall has other journal articles with the same English, French, Spanish abstract set up. May be a convention for that site. I'm guessing that the article itself isn't translated into those other languages due to cost. The site provides paid translation services.
- Bromskloss 8y ago
  What does the European Union have to do with this?
  - 8y ago

kaitai 8y ago

This is a really interesting read for me, as I'm considering the purchase of a cargo bike. Apparently, I fit the stereotype pretty well -- highly-educated urban coffee-drinker (no yoga, no vegetarianism, though). The cargo bike would solve the problem of hauling hardware-store purchases home with kid and sans car. But they're expensive! 1.5 or 2 thousand dollars! So for now we're making do with the bus and the stroller we found with a "free" sign on the side of the road. It is important to be thoughtful about the roles various types of transportation play for people of different socioeconomic groups in the US. I take the bus and train often in my town, and it's generally a very mixed population. The train/light-rail is becoming a de facto homeless shelter at night, though. At the same time light rail gets criticized for being for the upper class, rather than efficiently serving the poor, because it goes between downtowns/to the airport/to the suburbs/to the sports complexes. Biking, as well, has huge class and race divides. In the US the weekend spandex-wearer is a huge set of the bicycling public. Everyday commuters are a segment too, and then family weekend bikers, and then people who've lost their drivers' licenses due to DUI/DWI or other entanglement with the criminal justice system. How these communities interact and how they use our infrastructure differently is worth considering when planning new investments or thinking about how to encourage bicycling. The weekend warrior wants a nice scenic 45-mile continuous route; I want a seamless path across the city that doesn't involve battling any cars at highway speeds to get into the left-turn lane; neither of us wants to run over a 5-year-old getting the hang of the bike.

Symbiote 8y ago
Check the resale value. In Denmark, cargo bikes hold their value very well in the second hand market.
TomK32 8y ago
yes, they are expensive, but once you have a cargo bike you can carry home a tig welder, alu pipes and all the other stuff to build a cargo bike :D No seriously, they are expensive but if you look at craigslist and similar, they keep their value if you take care of your bike. and regarding road safety, ride in the right tire-mark left by the cars. you'll be safe from dooring and cars have to slow down and change lanes to overtake you instead of squeezing through.

st26 8y ago

Does anyone know why dads riding these are called "soft"? I've never ridden a cargo bike, but it takes strong legs & constitution to regularly tow a kid or utility trailer more than a few miles. Is it just that whole notion that fathers who are involved with their children are not masculine?

rgrieselhuber 8y ago
I'd imagine it has to do with symbolically giving up the role of predator to nurture children.
- whatsstolat 8y ago
  Yep seems like pecking at a keyboard is the alpha thing to do.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
Freak_NL 8y ago
It may have to do with not using a car instead. Even here in the Netherlands, a car can be a status symbol in certain circles — particularly among the yuppie office crowd. There is also the fact that this is a certain subclass of cargo bikes with a bench in the 'cargo hold' that tends to be specifically designed to hold two young children. These bikes are marketed at yuppies (in both price and design); people who can't afford one of these, or who are more pragmatic about it tend to settle for attachable seats (mounted behind the handlebars or behind the saddle on the ubiquitous rear luggage rack above the rear wheel) on a normal bicycle, so riding a special cargo bike just for the few years that the kids can't ride their own bicycle may come across as overly luxurious and soft.
monkeywork 8y ago
Never heard anyone call anyone soft for being involved with their kids nor for riding a bike ... ignore and move forward.
8y ago

gburt 8y ago

This is merely a series of opinions in academic article form.

black6 8y ago
Taking something as innocuous as a utility bicycle and applying classist and sexist connotations to its use is so progressive.

whiddershins 8y ago

Although bikes are well protected in Dutch cities, for American cities, I intuitively see taking kids around on a bike as extremely risky.

kccqzy 8y ago
It's definitely a regional thing. I've seen people carrying their kids on a bike trailer several places in Palo Alto.
djsumdog 8y ago
I don't. So long as they have helmets in States with helmet laws, the risk isn't any greater than having them on one of those kid sets behind you or in one of the single wheel things you can attach to your bike.

pasta 8y ago

As a Dutch man owning a cargo bike I have no idea how they came to this conclusion. There are some stange parts of this study. For example: because the website Geenstijl is linking cargo bike owners to the party Groen Links it is suddenly true what Geendtijl says? It's like saying that electric cars are bad because Top Gear said so. A cargo bike is just a way to move stuff and kids around in a city. People with low income buy used ones, people with high income buy new ones. It has nothing to do with status. It's just very convenient.

bullfightonmars 8y ago

I have been commuting with my son on a cargo bike to school and to work for the past year. It has a canopy/fairing on the front that keeps him dry and warm in the winter rain so that we can commute year round. We are up to about ~3500 miles. It has been the best purchase I've ever made.

40acres 8y ago

I see more and more parents out there with cargo bikes in Portland, especially no with young kids. Personally the risk is not the reward for me...

novaRom 8y ago

Let's say following: all the urban infrastructure is car-centric, period. Even in most developed European cities the car drivers are privileged. Why should we bike riders use side lanes/walks and not main lanes for example? On rare sundays when vehicles traffic is nearly absent in my town, we do really enjoy cycling the main roads - it is much faster to get to any place even if my town is relatively good place for bicyclists - there are many separate cycling-only roads and bridges.

jacknews 8y ago

This seems like fake research to me. It's simply gethering some news articles and saying that the stereotype of cargo bike owners is of liberal upper-middle-class families of a certain stripe, and implying that they are also possibly riding them to signal virtue and status as much as for practical purposes. ie dressing up a commonly held stereotype in the garb of an academic paper.

burntrelish1273 8y ago

Whatever. Subtle "toxic masculinity" "slut-shaming" of men whom don't act meeker than women.

dang 8y ago
We've banned this account for posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait and ignoring our requests to stop. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll use the site as intended in the future.

erric 8y ago

The major problem with biking in the US, is cyclists are not first class citizens. Having lived in The Netherlands for two years and Portland Oregon (which has a fairly progressive bike culture) for sixteen years, there is no comparison. There is no political or financial willpower to make the kinds of changes that would make cycling more pervasive and safe for both drivers and cyclists in the US.