10 ms·
That 'raining, snowing, too hot, too cold' argument keeps coming up. You know, we humans are perfectly capable of dressing up appropriately and just enjoying th
by unglaublich 4y ago
That 'raining, snowing, too hot, too cold' argument keeps coming up. You know, we humans are perfectly capable of dressing up appropriately and just enjoying the fresh air, whether it's warm or cold. In fact, it makes you feel alive!
Get the nice warm gloves and raincoat out for winter, or the super light and loose shirt with sunglasses for summer.
- lzooz 4y agoGood luck convincing people to give up their cars and go to work soaked in a raincoat every day.
- iancmceachern 4y agoI'm an American visiting Paris and have noticed many folks on scooters and ebikes have these skirts that are fabric covers that cover the bike seat and also the legs of the rider when they ride. They also have these mitten like things that attach to the handles that allow you to operate the bike but also protect your hands from the elements. Between those two things, and a decent rain jacket (which you need anyway) it seems to protect folks well and allow them to do just about anything one would do with their car. It's not that far fetched.
- TeMPOraL 4y agoHave you seen any solution they're using for transporting things, like groceries or computers or extra clothes?
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y agoYes - a bike cargo rack. You have a waterproof bag that attaches to it. Problem completely solved. It rains quite a bit in Netherlands, and it's the biking capital of the world. It's almost as if rain isn't really that big of a deal.
- dghlsakjg 4y agoBaskets, racks, panniers, backpacks, delivery services, cargo bikes, trailers. A significant number of Parisians don’t own cars so this is no different than before for them.
- prmoustache 4y agoEven without a cargo bike, I carry 20 to 25kg of groceries using a standard step thru city bike equipped with a front and rear rack and dual bags front and rear + backpack.
- nephanth 4y agoIn Paris, you will see a lot of uber eats/deliveroo/etc. drivers on bikes and electric mopeds. It reduces their costs by orders of magnitude while not really changing their delivery times (probably shortening them actually. Unrelated to the question, they drive extremely dangerously (because of the way they're paid, they're doing all they can to cut times. do not expect them to stop at red lights)) They have those huge backpacks [1]. Some fasten it like a kind of top-case. [1]: https://images.app.goo.gl/XVyoMqpQiQFvC5EU8 https://images.app.goo.gl/XVyoMqpQiQFvC5EU8
- iancmceachern 4y agoYes, there are entire companies devoted to making them. Here are a few: https://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle-top-cases?gclid=Cj0KCQiAj4ecBhD3ARIsAM4Q_jFJONaon0YqJQ4grltbIjgON2G6gAlyet0HCGt2Ph02LbGlZFHcxGIaAlzXEALw_wcB https://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle-top-cases?gclid=Cj0KCQiA...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- lm28469 4y agoYep, reason #1 we're fucked, people became absolute cry babies about anythign resembling physical effort or inconvenience. They'd burn the planet twice over rather than move their asses anywhere else other than in a 3 tonne climatized metal cage
- lttlrck 4y agoCalling them cry babies is really not helpful. Considering we spend most of our lives trying to increase the standard of living for ourselves and for others it's not all that surprising people resist reducing it, is it?
- lm28469 4y agoIs it "increase the standard of living " when it decreases your life expectancy, physical shape, made the city unliveable for pedestrians, potentially fuck up the climate for the next few hundred years, &c ? At some point we have to look in the mirror and make choices for ourselves, and yes, lots of people became absolutely pathetic excuse of human beings, if you can't stand the rain I'm sorry but you definitely are a cry baby. What's the end goal of this pursuit of "quality of life" ? Living in a matrix style pod, being fed food through your veins while being sedated and transported into the metaverse ? If you can't imagine a world without cars and the idea of using a bike repulses you because "rain" you're the problem, or at least a very big part of it
- factsarelolz 4y ago> Is it "increase the standard of living " when it decreases your life expectancy, physical shape Yes, it increases the standard of living by pulling poor people out of poverty. So the rich consumer nation has their life decreased due to over consumption while increasing the standard of living of those from poorer nations. The rich consumer nation cannot consume AND increase life expectancy at an infinite rate.
- dghlsakjg 4y ago
- elliottkember 4y agoHopefully, ever-increasing gas prices will do the convincing.
- unglaublich 4y agoWhile I am a big human-powered-transportation supporter, feeding a human is generally more expensive than paying for gas to have a machine do it. A human needs some 2kJ / kg / km to ride. That's 1.6MJ. A car needs ~15L gas per 100km, so that's 45MJ for a 10km ride. While the car uses 30x as much energy, it will only cost you $1.30. The human needs 1.6MJ of food. That's about a grilled chicken sandwich. Which will cost you $4.30...
- prmoustache 4y agoMost people commuting by cars need to exercise at least 2-3 times a week to be healthy anyway. Commuting by foot, bicycle or any human powered way allows you to do the exercising and commuting in one go.
- elliottkember 4y ago* at current gas prices
- fulafel 4y agoWhat about the e-bike, how many MJ goes to electricity and how many to human power? (Also for the human-powered case, biking often displaces some other exercise. And of course using gas is bringing about the climate catastrophe so it's unethical, money isn't everything)
- fulafel 4y agoReplying to myself, apparently a 25 km/h ebike does about 4.25 Wh/km of battery power which would be 0.15 MJ of electricity for 10 km. A bit more considering losses in charger.
- mgbmtl 4y agoWe don't need to convince everybody. Even just convincing 10% makes a huge difference in shifting the conversation, infrastructure, reducing energy usage, etc. I live in Montreal and winter cycling used to be a really hardcore thing. Not anymore. Winters are warmer now, just a bit, but enough to make winter cycling pleasant on most days. Dedicated, snow-plowed cycling lanes made a huge difference. (I use my car most of the time, because usually a daycare run with kid, but now we're equipped for maybe once a week by bike)
- leni536 4y agoMe and many of my collagues do this. We have a drying room at the workplace where we can hang our drenched raincoats.
- scajanus 4y agoYeah -- a lot of the problems presented here (proper clothing for the weather, showering/changing/drying your commuting gear at the office) have simple and quite affordable solutions as soon as even a few people do it. Office and apartment buildings here (Helsinki) even compete by providing convenient bike storage even for cargo bikes with easy access, washing spots for bikes/muddy or sandy gear, drying cabinets etc.
- thiht 4y agoExcept when you go to work and have to spend the day with your pants and shoes drenched. And if you have glasses, you quickly can't see anything.
- wreath 4y agoOr worse, sweaty and smelly. Be friendly to your colleagues
- johnisgood 4y agoWear appropriate clothes. Do not wear Converse sneakers when it is raining outside (or alternatively, have a pair of shoes at the workplace that you switch to once you are in, or whatever). Take a shower before work. Apply a deodorant, or an antiperspirant (the latter has different instructions, you apply them after shower, before sleep, and wash it off in the morning). It is a solved "issue", seriously. The shoes I wear when it is rainy or snowy outside do not get drenched at all, and I go to work by bus and foot. Same goes to my jacket. Actually, same goes to my whole body, as I use an umbrella on top of all this, and I hide wherever I can at the bus stop while waiting, or just use the umbrella if I cannot.
- Xylakant 4y agoI go to work by e-bike. I have a pair of rain pants that I pull over my regular pants, and a rainproof jacket. I wear glasses, but my helmet has a visor. Would a car keep me drier? Yes, absolutely, but I’d still need to walk from parking lot to office, and I’d be stuck with all the other folks in traffic.
- tialaramex 4y agoYou just can't fix the extreme edges this way. Above about 300K that "super light and loose shirt" is still drenched with sweat unless your "assist" is doing all the work or there's a pretty stiff wind. Below about 250K the "nice warm clothing" needed to make this comfortable would become too bulky to make ordinary movement practical, so we skimp. We tell ourselves nope, we're just not going outside except to do stuff, and then we're coming straight back. Below 200K it's no longer practical to keep humans alive with anything resembling "clothing". You should use a building to keep warm instead. Earth is capable of both these extremes, although outside temperatures below 200K are usually only seen in the Antarctic interior during storms.
- DoesntMatter22 4y agoWhat is 300k? Are you using kelvin here?
- tialaramex 4y ago300K. Yes. I don't find it very convenient to work with these weird signed temperatures.
- missedthecue 4y agoNo one knows what you mean.
- tremon 4y agoThat's about an 86 on my scale of intelligibility.
- to11mtm 4y agoThere's some conditions that riding a bike are far less safe than a car. [0] I've had interest in an e-bike in the past, the problem I personally run into is that I'd still need a car for most trips due to the way my region is laid out. (I think I had -one- job where an e-bike was viable for a commute range-wise, but only based on published specs which probably wouldn't fit the real use thermals of my region.) [1] Speaking of, the 'too cold' argument holds a bit more water for e-bikes; I doubt many have the thermal protections of a BEV, which could lead to a destroyed pack. Also, IDK what it's like in other parts of the world, but in the US much of the population sees decent bicycles as a 'hobby/sport' rather than a mode of transport. Personally I blame big box stores and terrible, cheap, 'disposable' bicycles. Aside from having cheap, unreliable, unsafe components (my favorite: I was fixing one of these, while trying to run through the gears, the grip shifter broke in such a way it shot a plastic shard at my eye,) they are at time assembled by people that are paid based on production rather than hourly. [2] Bike shops, as a result, tend to cater to either the MB hobbyist or the Road folks. (At least in my region.) To be clear many of these are good reputable shops, but it means that oftentimes the items you would want to make daily riding practical (i.e. the right racks/bags for a reasonable grocery trip, are at best special order.) Honestly? If someone wanted to really give e-bikes a spiffy image in the US, I know exactly what to do. Take two Sun EZ Classics [3] and the SxS kit [4]. I also know at one point they made a middle 'rumble' seat as well as a special drape shroud for the SxS [5]. Redesign the SxS kit with an 'E-Motor' option (I'm not sure whether you could get by with just one or if dual would be required.) Bam. You have a comfortable e-bike that has some protection from the elements and has some room for crap in the back like groceries/etc. Additionally, you have the ability to have a 'passenger'. I'm -guessing- in volume you could sell the finished product for ~2000-3000 USD, but that would assume that you are doing enough volume to make it worth it to all involved parties. (Why the wide swing? Last I knew the SxS kit was done by a small, low-volume shop, making it almost as much as one of the bikes.) [0] - To be clear, safety is different than comfort/ease of ride. I've ridden through 3 inches of snow, and while it was a grueling ride, It was honestly safer than a typical ride due to everyone's reduced speeds. OTOH I've had times where there was no snow but enough (black) ice on the roads/sidewalks that snap physics calculations became important. [1] - As we have observed with BEVs and the like, cold weather has a pretty big impact on battery efficiency. Even in my Hybrid I can see a 5%-10% fuel economy difference between 28F and 40F [2] - At least, that's what happened at some of the stores around here. They would essentially abuse a system where infirm people can be paid less than minimum wage, by an 'output' system compared to how much a normal hourly worker would produce (easily rigged with the right person as a 'benchmark', of course.) [3] - https://www.sunseeker.bike/index.php/products/ez-classic-sx/ https://www.sunseeker.bike/index.php/products/ez-classic-sx/ [4] - https://www.sunseeker.bike/index.php/products/ez-classic-side-by-side-kit/ https://www.sunseeker.bike/index.php/products/ez-classic-sid... [5] - We actually did one of these full setups at the shop once for a family that had a child who had physiological/mental developmental issues but loved the feeling of riding. He could pedal when he wanted to. Them picking it up was the happiest sight in the world. Things you miss about working at a simple bike shop I guess.
- tejohnso 4y agoMy problem is the lack of infrastructure. We have a few streets in the entire city with decent bike lanes. Mostly you're on the road with cars going 90km/hr right beside you with no barrier or even road markings. I'm not going to do that in anything but perfect weather and even then not very often.
- unglaublich 4y agoThat's a perfect example of how we have allowed cars to endanger the public space. We all live in a constant fear to be hurt or killed by a motorist: watch both sides, do it again, are you _very_, _very_ certain? Then attempt to cross a street. And STILL 35.000 people die every DAY worldwide in traffic accidents. It's dystopian.
- lormayna 4y ago> too hot, too cold Ami don't have air conditioning or heating systems.
- oxfeed65261 4y agoAccording to the article, the base-spec model Ami has a heater and a “demister” but not A/C.
- kwhitefoot 4y agoIt has heating but not cooling.
- rich_sasha 4y agoI'm a keen cyclist but I still don't much enjoy cycling in moderate/heavy rain. Cold I don't mind.
- MonaroVXR 4y agoAgreed, the amount excuses that people have. I'm not talking about HN itself. Is too much.