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>How exactly do you propose a cyclist train falling?
The same way most people learn to ride without training wheels. Slow, wobbly, tilting, and falling often.
>How exactly do you propose a cyclist train falling?
The same way most people learn to ride without training wheels. Slow, wobbly, tilting, and falling often. Except this time, it's on purpose. I suggest using safety pads.
>That is an amazingly dickish comment and shows me you're not even attempting to see my side.
I'm sorry, but I don't think maintaining balance on a bike, even at slow speeds, is a problem for the majority of the population. It's a problem that usually only presents itself in children and those learning how to bike. If you suffer from an innate lack of balance (ie. most people would consider you a 'clutz') I would suggest walking over biking for you own, and other people's, safety.
>Do note that the important point is not the question of "how to stop in time?" but of "ugh, the procedure of stopping here is quite annoying, i'd rather go on".
Rotating the pedals backwards or squeezing in the right handle isn't what I'd call a "procedure" anymore than moving your foot from the gas to the brake in a car is. Does it suck to have to stop at intersections? Sure. That's not an excuse to blow right through it (not that it seems you think it's an excuse either).
Driving a stick-shift car is far more of a hassle to brake. Especially when going up hill. Yet cars are still expected (and often do) come to a stop.
You:
> a problem
Me, earlier:
>> a little annoying
See the difference? You're arguing against something i never said, and you're being a dick while doing so, instead of stepping back and considering whether you misunderstood the seemingly unreasonable thing someone else said.
> The same way most people learn to ride without training wheels. Slow, wobbly, tilting, and falling often. Except this time, it's on purpose. I suggest using safety pads.
Not usefully feasible. Primarily because even a simple sideways fall would likely damage the bike, even if only a little. Training would definitely compound damage. And if you used something soft enough to protect the bike, the training would so far removed from reality to be useless. Plus, generally with a bike you don't fall all the way unless you've already completely lost control in such a way that you're already ouside the bounds of any training.
Honestly, i don't even know what movements you'd recommend bikers learn in "fall training".
Note also the lack of such videos on youtube. The only one i found to that effect even said "advice can be only very general, as every fall on a bike is different".
> The same way most people learn to ride without training wheels.
Also on that one: In all cases of this i've seen someone was holding the bike and making sure the learner won't just crash uncontrollably. I'm wondering whether you ever learned how to ride a bike.
> Rotating the pedals backwards or squeezing in the right handle isn't what I'd call a "procedure"
You don't actually seem to have a mental model of what stopping on a bike at an intersection entails.
> Driving a stick-shift car is far more of a hassle to brake.
One last comment on this: Yes, it may be a hassle, but it never changes. The procedure is always the same. For a biker every intersection requires different steps, especially in cities with a wide variety of intersection types.
>it's the physical AND mental effort required to evaluate all the possible options for stopping and then balancing the bike, then choosing and encating the right one.
My argument against this is that it takes very little physical effort and almost no mental effort to come to a stop when biking for the majority of the population beyond the training stages of riding a bike, in which it takes a lot more mental effort to maintain balance and come to a safe and complete stop.
I wasn't focusing on your "a little annoying" statement but on this mountain of a mole hill you created after saying it was only "a little annoying" by making it sound like a long and arduous problem that was mentally straining and physically difficult where every possible option (what option besides "apply brakes" is there?) has to be considered while maintaining balance on the bike (something not difficult for the general population) and properly selecting from these many options (1?), selecting the proper course of action (of the only course of action?) and after all of that mental effort (that had to be done in mere moments!) to actually physically act upon it without screwing it up!
Now, I would like to repeat myself, I don't think many people find deciding whether to brake or not or the act of braking on a bicycle to be that mentally or physically taxing beyond the training stages. In fact, I would say it's more reflexive and "muscle memory" ingrained within them that their subconscious is able to take care of a majority of the process without much conscious thought of the cyclist.
>In all cases of this i've seen someone was holding the bike and making sure the learner won't just crash uncontrollably. I'm wondering whether you ever learned how to ride a bike.
I was presented a bike on my 5th birthday. My father removed the training wheels on the 2nd day against my mother's wishes and offered no supervision beyond watching me fall. By the end of the day I was riding around, although rather scraped up. I still ride my 21 speed around the canyon I live in because skateboarding on these canyon roads is suicidal - too many rocks and there isn't even an official "bike lane" to ride in. You share the same lane as the cars. Really impatient cars who are going 80mph in a 55mph. I'd rather not risk hitting a rock.
>You don't actually seem to have a mental model of what stopping on a bike at an intersection entails
Slow down while approaching the intersection. Tilt the bike towards the curb (right-hand side in the U.S.A) and place your right foot down to create a tripod.
Braking a bike isn't rocket science.
Cyclists blow through red lights because it takes energy to get going again if you stop. That's it. Call it laziness, but if you're commuting it can save a lot of energy for whatever you're doing when you get there.
You continue to insist that your opinion of "one only has to brake and there's nothing else to consider" is a fact, going so far as to ask the right question in parens, but then immediately barging on to indicate you don't even care to hear or consider what else there might be. Unless you show signs of actually caring to learn, i won't go in great detail, but do yourself a favor and consider these bullet points: Pedestrians, other bikers, visibility when stopped, space available for tilt, viability of tilt aids (curb, poles, rails, trees), car parking gaps, street vs bike path.
It's not a giant problem, but it's also not nothing either.
> canyon roads
So, nothing like this? https://goo.gl/maps/gYhhk https://goo.gl/maps/gYhhk https://goo.gl/maps/NxGza https://goo.gl/maps/NxGza https://goo.gl/maps/YcGHN https://goo.gl/maps/YcGHN
> Tilt the bike towards the curb (right-hand side in the U.S.A) and place your right foot down to create a tripod.
You're making the mistake of assuming that that kind of condition is universally present. See above for a non-exhaustive list that may change your situation wildly.
My "continued usage of my 21 speed in the canyons" does not mean I've never cycled anywhere else in my life or in more "difficult" (I struggle to use the word difficult here) scenarios. I don't define "difficult" as "showing absolutely no regard for your own and other's safety by maintaining a speed not suitable for the area".
What that translates to is I go faster on the open canyon road and I go slower in areas with more pedestrians. It isn't more physically or mentally taxing, but simply requires me to maintain a safer speed. Similar to how the speed limit on a freeway is 100-120km/h but on a residential street is 40km/h.
To me, your argument sums up to "I want to go 120km in the residential". Which indeed would make safety more difficult.
You should treat your bike like a car. Sure it doesn't weigh 1,500 kilos and won't necessarily kill someone if you strike them; you're still a potential hazard for walking pedestrians and should respect that by maintaining a safe speed. Not the one you desire to go simply because you aren't in a car. (That's the entitlement I was mentioning earlier.)
https://goo.gl/maps/8OpD7 https://goo.gl/maps/8OpD7 https://goo.gl/maps/c82C3 https://goo.gl/maps/c82C3
I have no idea what you're trying to say there. It reads like non-sequitur to me.
Are you saying you've biked on that intersection in Akiba and didn't find it difficult? Are you saying you were in that place in Nara and were still enable your "tilt right" protocol?
How would you deal with the intersections in my links?
Edit on your edit:
> To me, your argument sums up to "I want to go 120km in the residential".
Holy shit, how did you even get that. I bike on average between 15 and 21 kmh. I'm saying that on some intersections the situational complexity can be so high that simply going on is actually tempting.
"Tilt opposite of traffic" protocol. Yes, it has held true regardless of which country or where I biked, regardless of complexity of the intersection or how crowded the area was with other cyclists and pedestrians. Your immediate side needs to be vacant and you need to have a general awareness of your surroundings (which is irrelevant to your speed, you should have a general awareness of your surrounding whether you are going 5km or 20km).
You brought up pedestrians and "more complex intersections than canyon roads". I brought up examples of streets I've cycled on that weren't a canyon road and were packed with pedestrians.
You mentioned that (1) I had never learned how to bike and (2) That town/city intersections greatly differ from canyon roads.
I demonstrated (1) to be false and asserted that I continue to bike to this day. My mental model of what it is like to stop is still fresh, not 10 years outdated. My argument is that (2) is false, the only difference between the two is the acceptable safe speed of travel; hence the speed limit reference.
Braking (and the "difficulty of doing so" being even a "slight problem") is bullshit. That's my assertion after nearly two decades of biking. It's a slight inconvenience that the cyclist should respect laws that are in place to prevent them from being hit by a car or prevent them plowing into a pedestrian/other cyclist. But because of laziness or entitlement they choose to ignore these laws and don't brake where and when they should.
There is a reason why cyclists are perceived as "entitled pricks". It's because, as a whole, they generally act like entitled pricks and then try to explain away why they act so entitled.
I've approached intersections where a pedestrian can walk in front of me from behind a bush. I exercise caution and slow my speed as I approach; such that in the event a pedestrians walks in front of me at the last moment I can brake in time to avoid hitting them. I've had to bike on a single-width bi-directional street where I have to avoid cars turning in blind T-intersections and avoid getting in the way of other pedestrians and cyclists. Intersections where my only knowledge of upcoming potential hazards comes from an intersection mirror [0] 15 meters ahead.
None of these scenarios change the difficult of coming to a safe and complete stop when exercising one's best judgement to maintain a reasonable and safe speed. If one isn't going "120 in the 40" there is no reason why they cannot come to a safe and complete stop.
[0] http://www.thejapanfaq.com/mirror.jpg http://www.thejapanfaq.com/mirror.jpg
Two things:
> You mentioned
Don't assert that. I asked questions to figure out your depth of knowledge because it was unclear.
Secondly, you're incredibly full of yourself and entirely lacking both empathy and the ability to perceive subtlety.
You're incapable of grasping the simple notion that what happens in your perfect world does not work the same in everyone else's brain.
Yes, there is no excuse for running a red light. On the other hand: No, telling them "you shouldn't bike at all" instead of making an earnest good-faith effort to find out WHY they do it, is bound to be incredibly fruitless.
In summary, i hate people who run red lights, in any vehicle. I have never done it myself, even though i can understand why people do it, at least in my town. On the other hand, i hate you too, because all you do is think in binary terms, instead of even being able to perceive degrees.
Lastly, you also argue in a highly inconsistent manner. First you claimed an intersection stop is always just "hit the break, lean on curb"; then you proceed to show me a picture of an intersection that has no curb.