11 ms·

A bike is a great mode of transportation when you don't need to carry anything heavy, bulky, passengers etc. and when weather permits. It's not a replacement f

A bike is a great mode of transportation when you don't need to carry anything heavy, bulky, passengers etc. and when weather permits. It's not a replacement for a vehicle, nor will it ever be.

drsim 4y ago
Narrow thinking. Cargo bikes come in a variety of shapes and sizes to carry children, adults, parcels, moving boxes, and more. As for the weather... well, as we say in Denmark: there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.
- mattw2121 4y ago
  Denmark - max temp 72F/22C Florida - max temp 100F/38C Have fun biking in Florida, unless there is a shower ready for you at each end.
  - acdha 4y ago
    If you're doing something dressy, you need that shower anyway unless you're never spending more than a couple of minutes outside — or you dress appropriately for the weather and it's not an issue. Florida is also an interesting example given that it's both the southernmost point of the continental United States and at significant risk of catastrophic damages from the climate change caused in no small part by driving cars. Whether or not you prefer the status quo, continuing it isn't an option.
    - ioslipstream 4y ago
      - acdha 4y ago
        Let me simplify it for you: scientists have been concerned about global warming since the early 20th century. In the 1970s the prevailing concern was warming but a couple of papers hypothesized that cooling might be possible under certain circumstances, but that was disproven before 1980. The predictions of warming made over the last 40 years have been increasingly precise, too. https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/that-70s-myth-did-climate-science-really-call-for-a-coming-ice-age/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/that-70s-myth-did-cl... https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/06/how-well-have-climate-models-done-in-the-upper-atmosphere/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/06/how-well-have-climat... https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/12/ipccs-climate-projections-on-target-so-far/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/12/ipccs-climate-projec... Unfortunately, the reason you’re Just Asking Questions™ about science which has been settled since the Carter administration is because the fossil fuel industry also knew the science was accurate, and their internal researchers supported it, so they started pouring money into spreading denial and securing political allies to help prevent actions which would harm their business interests: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-...
    - dylan604 4y ago
      >Florida is also an interesting example oooh, now do Texas. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Southern California or, flip it. Do any of the states bordering Canada during winter.
      - acdha 4y ago
        I grew up in Southern California. You can bike year round, except for a couple of days a year when you have severe rain (which also floods a lot of roads) or wildfires. The primary reason people don’t are that the roads are unsafe by design and opposition to dense housing has pushed people into unsustainable lifestyles.
      - PpEY4fu85hkQpn 4y ago
        Minneapolis consistently has one of the highest rates of bike commuting of US cities. Build the infrastructure and people ride bikes.
    - mattw2121 4y ago
      I believe you are discounting the fact that a shower is not always available at the place you are going. Take for example, you need to go to a job interview. I skip the shower at home, bike to the job interview, sweat profusely during the ride, and now I shower where exactly? What about needing to go multiple places during the day? Should I now shower 4 times because I have 4 stops that require me to interface with people and appear clean? Biking in Florida (substitute most of the southern US) for 7-8 months of the year is simply not possible unless it is acceptable to be a sweaty mess at each destination.
- dagw 4y ago
  as we say in Denmark: there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. That's easy to say in Denmark, since the weather is virtually always pretty OK. It basically never gets below -10 or above +35. Without looking at the data I would guess 300ish days a year are between 5 and 25.
  - dagurp 4y ago
    We use that expression in Iceland too
    - dagw 4y ago
      Yea, we use it Norway as well. However the expression really only works in cool-moderate climates. You can easily dress to be active and comfortable when it's -10 and snowing, you really can't for +40 and humid.
closeparen 4y ago
The Netherlands would like a word.
- 988747 4y ago
  It only works for short trips. No one rides a bicycle if they have to go to another town, 50 miles away. Also, do not mention: "you can take your bicycle on a train" - if you need to use the train then again you are dependent on public service and traceable.
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    Passenger cars also don’t work for containers or industrial timber transport. No specific vehicle needs to fit every single use case, if your day to day life involves commuting from a town 50 miles away in the middle of nowhere, so be it. More people live in cities than rural areas, but it doesn’t mean they’ll come to take away your car.
  - andrepd 4y ago
    > It only works for short trips. No one rides a bicycle if they have to go to another town, 50 miles away. 1. Ride your bike into a train 2. Wait 20 minutes 3. Roll out of the train and ride into your destination See, it isn't that hard. What part of this process requires you to be tracked? You don't need any ID to purchase train tickets.
    - tremon 4y ago
      > You don't need any ID to purchase train tickets. The Netherlands would like a word ;) Most people here have a public transport pass in their own name, linked to their bank account.
      - InitialLastName 4y ago
        Is there no way to buy a train ticket without ID?
jefftk 4y ago
All vehicles have things that they are better or worse at, but you overstate the case against bicycles. For example, with passengers, you can add a child seat or trailer to an ordinary bike, or you can use a longer bike designed for bringing others. Cars also have situations they're a poor fit for: places without good parking, if you have to take part of your journey by another mode (bus, train, etc...) and need your vehicle on the other end, if you can't afford them (including fuel, insurance, etc), if there aren't good roads, if you're too young, etc.
- csunbird 4y ago
  All vehicles are better at some things and worse at some things. That is why replacing all cars with bicycles won't work at all, and we should stop pushing this idea. We just need to use more bicycles.
  - jefftk 4y ago
    I don't see anyone here proposing replacing all cars with bicycles?
myself248 4y ago
Or people with asthma or any number of other disabilities. Bike-centric design is transparently ableist.
- acdha 4y ago
  > Bike-centric design is transparently ableist. There are many disabilities which don't allow driving, not to mention that in countries like the United States which don't take care of people there are many disabled people who cannot afford to own a car. Accessibility doesn't have a single solution but if you look at areas which are welcoming to bicyclists they are also much better for a wide variety of disabilities because they have things like sidewalks, safe vehicle speeds or limited vehicle access, curb cuts, etc. You'll see people in electric wheelchairs or tricycles using bike lanes/paths, blind/deaf people don't have to worry as much about getting hit by a speeding car they were unable to notice, etc. If you don't like bicycling, think of them as safe mobility lanes — the users certainly do, and we should all back having more of them because if we're lucky we'll live long enough to need them.
- carlob 4y ago
  Bullshit: a city designed around bikes is a city designed around wheelchairs. Not to mention asthma never prevented anyone from cycling. Maybe you won't win the Tour, but you can definitely commute cycling with asthma if your city is designed around humans and not cars.
  - acdha 4y ago
    Asthma is an especially tragic claim since pollution from cars is believed to be responsible for millions of cases of asthma annually: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpla/article/PIIS2542-5196(19)30046-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpla/article/PIIS2542-5...
  - myself248 4y ago
    Speak for yourself, if you can bike with asthma I'm happy for you. Mine is exercise-triggered and anything above a walk lays me right out. Being anything other than a pariah on a bike path requires a minimum level of energy output beyond what I can sustain. Or are you my doctor now?
acdha 4y ago
> A bike is a great mode of transportation when you don't need to carry anything heavy, bulky, passengers etc. and when weather permits. My family uses our cargo bikes as our primary mode of transportation year round. It turns out that children were allowed to leave the house prior to the invention of cars and continue to be capable of wearing jackets in the winter. Many even like the snow. The key thing to understand is that while sometimes you need more than a bike can carry, that's a small fraction of all of the vehicle trips Americans make. The average trip we take has 1.2 people in the car, is a relatively short (half of them are under 3 miles, a distance my son could do on his own as a 2 year old), and carries negligible cargo. Buying a vehicle for your 99th percentile needs is a significant expense for capacity you use only a handful of times a year — the average American spends $11k/year to own a car according to AAA, and for that much money you could buy and discard a new cargo bike every couple of months and still have plenty left over to rent a truck on the few occasions when you need landscaping or building supplies.
- hunterb123 4y ago
  I don't really disagree with your points, but your usecase is nowhere near the norm where I live or how I live. I'm perfectly fine with city dwellers having more bikes (if they so choose), whatever helps the traffic and parking in the cities. My point still stands that in no way is a bike a replacement for all the utilities of a vehicle, whether you're offloading that by renting, borrowing, etc. I'll drive my vehicle, you can ride your bike. The power of choice! No conflict needed.
  - acdha 4y ago
    Yes, choice is good - my point was simply that the vast majority of American vehicle miles traveled are not doing things which can only be done by a large, expensive car or truck. I suspect in the future we’re going so see a lot more electric LSVs, too, since an awful lot of trips don’t need to go over 30mph and saving $20-30k plus maintenance is appealing to a lot of people.
    - hunterb123 4y ago
dagurp 4y ago
A lot of people all over the world get by fine without a car. They have stores in walking distance so they don't need to buy in bulk. They can easily have things delivered and if they really need a car they can hire one for a few hours at a time.
dylan604 4y ago
>It's not a replacement for a vehicle, nor will it ever be. The majority of my use of a vehicle was commuting to work. After that, it was shopping for groceries. I'm 2.5 years into having no vehicle. I'm 1.5 years into using a cargo bike. There are very few things that are not doable on my cargo bike as it is now. With a few DIY modifiations, I could narrow that even further. The remaining I can settle with ride shares from an app or even more old skool the use of friends.

A bike is a great mode of transportation when you don't need to carry anything heavy, bulky, passengers etc. and when weather permits. It's not a replacement for a vehicle, nor will it ever be.

drsim 4y ago

Narrow thinking. Cargo bikes come in a variety of shapes and sizes to carry children, adults, parcels, moving boxes, and more. As for the weather... well, as we say in Denmark: there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.

mattw2121 4y ago
Denmark - max temp 72F/22C Florida - max temp 100F/38C Have fun biking in Florida, unless there is a shower ready for you at each end.
- acdha 4y ago
  If you're doing something dressy, you need that shower anyway unless you're never spending more than a couple of minutes outside — or you dress appropriately for the weather and it's not an issue. Florida is also an interesting example given that it's both the southernmost point of the continental United States and at significant risk of catastrophic damages from the climate change caused in no small part by driving cars. Whether or not you prefer the status quo, continuing it isn't an option.
  - ioslipstream 4y ago
    - acdha 4y ago
      Let me simplify it for you: scientists have been concerned about global warming since the early 20th century. In the 1970s the prevailing concern was warming but a couple of papers hypothesized that cooling might be possible under certain circumstances, but that was disproven before 1980. The predictions of warming made over the last 40 years have been increasingly precise, too. https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/that-70s-myth-did-climate-science-really-call-for-a-coming-ice-age/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/that-70s-myth-did-cl... https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/06/how-well-have-climate-models-done-in-the-upper-atmosphere/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/06/how-well-have-climat... https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/12/ipccs-climate-projections-on-target-so-far/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/12/ipccs-climate-projec... Unfortunately, the reason you’re Just Asking Questions™ about science which has been settled since the Carter administration is because the fossil fuel industry also knew the science was accurate, and their internal researchers supported it, so they started pouring money into spreading denial and securing political allies to help prevent actions which would harm their business interests: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-...
  - dylan604 4y ago
    >Florida is also an interesting example oooh, now do Texas. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Southern California or, flip it. Do any of the states bordering Canada during winter.
    - acdha 4y ago
      I grew up in Southern California. You can bike year round, except for a couple of days a year when you have severe rain (which also floods a lot of roads) or wildfires. The primary reason people don’t are that the roads are unsafe by design and opposition to dense housing has pushed people into unsustainable lifestyles.
    - PpEY4fu85hkQpn 4y ago
      Minneapolis consistently has one of the highest rates of bike commuting of US cities. Build the infrastructure and people ride bikes.
  - mattw2121 4y ago
    I believe you are discounting the fact that a shower is not always available at the place you are going. Take for example, you need to go to a job interview. I skip the shower at home, bike to the job interview, sweat profusely during the ride, and now I shower where exactly? What about needing to go multiple places during the day? Should I now shower 4 times because I have 4 stops that require me to interface with people and appear clean? Biking in Florida (substitute most of the southern US) for 7-8 months of the year is simply not possible unless it is acceptable to be a sweaty mess at each destination.
dagw 4y ago
as we say in Denmark: there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. That's easy to say in Denmark, since the weather is virtually always pretty OK. It basically never gets below -10 or above +35. Without looking at the data I would guess 300ish days a year are between 5 and 25.
- dagurp 4y ago
  We use that expression in Iceland too
  - dagw 4y ago
    Yea, we use it Norway as well. However the expression really only works in cool-moderate climates. You can easily dress to be active and comfortable when it's -10 and snowing, you really can't for +40 and humid.

closeparen 4y ago

The Netherlands would like a word.

988747 4y ago
It only works for short trips. No one rides a bicycle if they have to go to another town, 50 miles away. Also, do not mention: "you can take your bicycle on a train" - if you need to use the train then again you are dependent on public service and traceable.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  Passenger cars also don’t work for containers or industrial timber transport. No specific vehicle needs to fit every single use case, if your day to day life involves commuting from a town 50 miles away in the middle of nowhere, so be it. More people live in cities than rural areas, but it doesn’t mean they’ll come to take away your car.
- andrepd 4y ago
  > It only works for short trips. No one rides a bicycle if they have to go to another town, 50 miles away. 1. Ride your bike into a train 2. Wait 20 minutes 3. Roll out of the train and ride into your destination See, it isn't that hard. What part of this process requires you to be tracked? You don't need any ID to purchase train tickets.
  - tremon 4y ago
    > You don't need any ID to purchase train tickets. The Netherlands would like a word ;) Most people here have a public transport pass in their own name, linked to their bank account.
    - InitialLastName 4y ago
      Is there no way to buy a train ticket without ID?

jefftk 4y ago

All vehicles have things that they are better or worse at, but you overstate the case against bicycles. For example, with passengers, you can add a child seat or trailer to an ordinary bike, or you can use a longer bike designed for bringing others. Cars also have situations they're a poor fit for: places without good parking, if you have to take part of your journey by another mode (bus, train, etc...) and need your vehicle on the other end, if you can't afford them (including fuel, insurance, etc), if there aren't good roads, if you're too young, etc.

csunbird 4y ago
All vehicles are better at some things and worse at some things. That is why replacing all cars with bicycles won't work at all, and we should stop pushing this idea. We just need to use more bicycles.
- jefftk 4y ago
  I don't see anyone here proposing replacing all cars with bicycles?

myself248 4y ago

Or people with asthma or any number of other disabilities. Bike-centric design is transparently ableist.

acdha 4y ago
> Bike-centric design is transparently ableist. There are many disabilities which don't allow driving, not to mention that in countries like the United States which don't take care of people there are many disabled people who cannot afford to own a car. Accessibility doesn't have a single solution but if you look at areas which are welcoming to bicyclists they are also much better for a wide variety of disabilities because they have things like sidewalks, safe vehicle speeds or limited vehicle access, curb cuts, etc. You'll see people in electric wheelchairs or tricycles using bike lanes/paths, blind/deaf people don't have to worry as much about getting hit by a speeding car they were unable to notice, etc. If you don't like bicycling, think of them as safe mobility lanes — the users certainly do, and we should all back having more of them because if we're lucky we'll live long enough to need them.
carlob 4y ago
Bullshit: a city designed around bikes is a city designed around wheelchairs. Not to mention asthma never prevented anyone from cycling. Maybe you won't win the Tour, but you can definitely commute cycling with asthma if your city is designed around humans and not cars.
- acdha 4y ago
  Asthma is an especially tragic claim since pollution from cars is believed to be responsible for millions of cases of asthma annually: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpla/article/PIIS2542-5196(19)30046-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpla/article/PIIS2542-5...
- myself248 4y ago
  Speak for yourself, if you can bike with asthma I'm happy for you. Mine is exercise-triggered and anything above a walk lays me right out. Being anything other than a pariah on a bike path requires a minimum level of energy output beyond what I can sustain. Or are you my doctor now?

acdha 4y ago

> A bike is a great mode of transportation when you don't need to carry anything heavy, bulky, passengers etc. and when weather permits. My family uses our cargo bikes as our primary mode of transportation year round. It turns out that children were allowed to leave the house prior to the invention of cars and continue to be capable of wearing jackets in the winter. Many even like the snow. The key thing to understand is that while sometimes you need more than a bike can carry, that's a small fraction of all of the vehicle trips Americans make. The average trip we take has 1.2 people in the car, is a relatively short (half of them are under 3 miles, a distance my son could do on his own as a 2 year old), and carries negligible cargo. Buying a vehicle for your 99th percentile needs is a significant expense for capacity you use only a handful of times a year — the average American spends $11k/year to own a car according to AAA, and for that much money you could buy and discard a new cargo bike every couple of months and still have plenty left over to rent a truck on the few occasions when you need landscaping or building supplies.

hunterb123 4y ago
I don't really disagree with your points, but your usecase is nowhere near the norm where I live or how I live. I'm perfectly fine with city dwellers having more bikes (if they so choose), whatever helps the traffic and parking in the cities. My point still stands that in no way is a bike a replacement for all the utilities of a vehicle, whether you're offloading that by renting, borrowing, etc. I'll drive my vehicle, you can ride your bike. The power of choice! No conflict needed.
- acdha 4y ago
  Yes, choice is good - my point was simply that the vast majority of American vehicle miles traveled are not doing things which can only be done by a large, expensive car or truck. I suspect in the future we’re going so see a lot more electric LSVs, too, since an awful lot of trips don’t need to go over 30mph and saving $20-30k plus maintenance is appealing to a lot of people.
  - hunterb123 4y ago

dagurp 4y ago

A lot of people all over the world get by fine without a car. They have stores in walking distance so they don't need to buy in bulk. They can easily have things delivered and if they really need a car they can hire one for a few hours at a time.

dylan604 4y ago

>It's not a replacement for a vehicle, nor will it ever be. The majority of my use of a vehicle was commuting to work. After that, it was shopping for groceries. I'm 2.5 years into having no vehicle. I'm 1.5 years into using a cargo bike. There are very few things that are not doable on my cargo bike as it is now. With a few DIY modifiations, I could narrow that even further. The remaining I can settle with ride shares from an app or even more old skool the use of friends.