It's important that you don't wear helmets or funny shoes

According to one cycling labour MP who rides a .. er .. blue ? bike.

http://motoring.independent.co.uk/co...icle351086.ece

...d

David Martin wrote:

According to one cycling labour MP who rides a .. er .. blue ? bike.

http://motoring.independent.co.uk/co...icle351086.ece

She's right though - if cycling is to be accepted as sensible,
practical transport and a serious option to the car for nipping round
town, it has to be regarded as something you do in ordinary gear, not
fancy shoes and saftey helmets.

The fetish for bikes with no mudguards needs to be got rid of too - no
sane car manufacturer would attempt to sell a mass-market supermini
that left the occupants covered in muck every time they used it in the
rain, so why are bike shops stuffed full of guardless bikes?

Ok, I'm biased having just ordered one, but what we need if cycling is
to truly become mass-transport again is a return to comfortable upright
bikes that are intended to be ridden in normal gear, rather than sports
machinery. Legions of cyclists Amsterdam style all going at 12mph to
replace the hordes of single-occupancy cars. The sports cyclists will
gain as well, from better motorist familiarity with cyclists.

Pyromancer wrote:
... what we need if cycling is
to truly become mass-transport again is a return to comfortable upright
bikes that are intended to be ridden in normal gear...

Comfortable /upright/ bikes? I'm sure there's something wrong there ;-)

--
Danny Colyer URL:http://www.colyer.plus.com/danny/
Subscribe to PlusNet URL:http://www.colyer.plus.com/referral/
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest." - Thomas Paine

Pyromancer wrote:

what we need if cycling is
to truly become mass-transport again is a return to comfortable
upright bikes that are intended to be ridden in normal gear, rather
than sports machinery.

I own both types. Don't forget that sports bikes are a way into transport
cycling for a lot of people (as are Sustrans routes, but that's another
story). It works both ways.

On Wed, 15 Mar 2006 19:20:35 +0000, Danny Colyer wrote:

Pyromancer wrote:
... what we need if cycling is
to truly become mass-transport again is a return to comfortable upright
bikes that are intended to be ridden in normal gear...

Comfortable /upright/ bikes? I'm sure there's something wrong there ;-)

Dr. Moulton invites you to step this way -

I now have 3 Moultons as well as just the one 'bent, and for some trips
one or other of the Moultons will be better, for some rides the Speed Ross
will twist their knickers.

It's nice to have the choice ;-)


Mike

On 15 Mar 2006 01:47:08 -0800 someone who may be "David Martin"
wrote this:-

According to one cycling labour MP who rides a .. er .. blue ? bike.

http://motoring.independent.co.uk/co...icle351086.ece

An MP with common sense, excellent. As it says at
http://www.cicle.org/cicle_content/p...try.php?id=436

================================================== ============

Q: When I was viewing the photographs in The Amsterdam Project
series, what immediately struck me was the seemingly laid back or
just everyday approach to bicycling. I mean, for the most part,
there seemed to be no apparent preparation or use of
cycling-specific gear when bicycling. We see women in heels and in
flip flops, men in business suits, and so on...Then there are the
bikes... almost all of them are upright, and what we in the U.S.
might consider clunkers, outfitted with racks, crates, fenders,
etc... Almost no where to be found is the SPD cycling shoe, Lycra
outfit, or bike that emphasizes speed or performance rather than
comfort and utility. [snip]

Cycling in Amsterdam is not a specialized activity. It’s a daily
mode of transportation. People don’t dress special to ride their
bike any more than we dress special to drive our car to the grocery
store. They are wearing business suits and high heels because
they’re on their way to work and that’s what they wear to do those
activities. When you drive to the store you don’t think “I’m going
for a drive;” you think “I’m going to the store”…or to work, or to
the park, or wherever. Culturally it’s a reflection of cycling not
being an activity in and unto itself, but an enabler of daily life.

================================================== ============



--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54

in message .com,
Pyromancer ') wrote:

The fetish for bikes with no mudguards needs to be got rid of too - no
sane car manufacturer would attempt to sell a mass-market supermini
that left the occupants covered in muck every time they used it in the
rain, so why are bike shops stuffed full of guardless bikes?

Because most people who are currently buying bikes are not buying utility
bikes. And also because bikes come part-assembled, and assembling
mudguards is relatively time consuming when measured against the
perceived added value.

But currently, the bike market is as if Mazda MX5s and Lotus Elises - and
also stripped out custom landrover mud-racers - outsold mass-market
superminis by ten to one. For every sensible adult utility bike a bike
shop sells it sells eight more-or-less serious mountain bikes and three
more-or-less serious drop bar bikes. Not because bike shops don't want
to sell utility bikes, but because the public at large no longer see
bicycles as practical utility vehicles.

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; It appears that /dev/null is a conforming XSL processor.

"David Hansen" quoted somebody

...Then there are the
bikes... almost all of them are upright, and what we in the U.S.
might consider clunkers, outfitted with racks, crates, fenders,
etc... Almost no where to be found is the SPD cycling shoe, Lycra
outfit, or bike that emphasizes speed or performance rather than
comfort and utility. [snip]

It's the universal rule of thumb, round the world, that people would
cycle four times as far as they would walk The area you can reach
goes up as the square of the radius of the circle round your starting
point, so if you travel four times as far, you are able to reach
sixteen times as many places.

In the Netherlands, though, they use a different rule - on a Dutch
bike you can travel only three times as far as you can walk (1).
Thus a Dutch bike is only 9/16 times as useful, about 56%, as a
normal bike
----------------------
(1) see for example, the Dutch Directorate General for Passenger
Transport, "the Dutch Bicycle Master Plan" March 1999, p107

Jeremy Parker

but because the public at large no longer see
bicycles as practical utility vehicles.

And never will until traffic levels decrease or urban speed limits are
lowered (or our climate gets better).

On Wed, 15 Mar 2006 23:43:50 GMT, Mark Thompson wrote:

And never will until traffic levels decrease

Or until they increase to semi-permanent gridlock levels.

Graeme