Cities Turning to Bicycles - Page 11

Re: Cities Turning to Bicycles

Mon, 13 Sep 2004 12:28:00 -0500,
<S6Odndu7qdQ9RdjcRVn-rw@speakeasy.net>, russotto@grace.speakeasy.net
(Matthew Russotto) wrote:

>Trying to carry lumber on a bicycle isn't a good idea.

Your typical passenger scud is useless for carrying lumber because
there's nowhere to tie-down the load.
--
zk

Re: Cities Turning to Bicycles

russotto@grace.speakeasy.net (Matthew Russotto) wrote:
>
> Chalo <chumpychump@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >russotto@grace.speakeasy.net (Matthew Russotto) wrote:
> >>
> >> Chalo <chumpychump@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >I think it's strange that you don't see that owning two wasteful cars
> >> >and driving them to work twice a day is a form of extremism in itself.
> >>
> >> Extreme on what axis? Or are you just throwing "extremism" around as
> >> a general slur?
> >
> >How about the axis that runs from austerity to profligacy?
>
> Then you're not even close to the extreme. Donald Trump flies around
> in his own personal airliner; THAT is nearing an extreme.

Just like the ascetic who fasts for forty days at a time is more
extreme than the one who only fasts a week at a time. Multiple car
ownership, and driving to work twice a day when the distance is less
than five miles, is an extremist lifestyle.

Consider than most of the people in the world make their way on a
dollar a day or less, and you see how we have squandered our
productivity. We consume and destroy 100 times as much, but we are no
happier. We could have eradicated poverty and disease with the money
we waste on our cars and their infrastructure. We could have had
urban transit that would be the envy of the world. Instead we sit in
traffic and suck exhaust fumes.

You must be so invested in your car-centric extremism that it looks
reasonable to you.

Chalo Colina

Re: Cities Turning to Bicycles

"Chalo" <chumpychump@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:8b4b7de4.0409161521.224c416f@posting.google.com...
> Consider than most of the people in the world make their way on a
> dollar a day or less, and you see how we have squandered our
> productivity. We consume and destroy 100 times as much, but we are no
> happier. We could have eradicated poverty and disease with the money
> we waste on our cars and their infrastructure. We could have had
> urban transit that would be the envy of the world. Instead we sit in
> traffic and suck exhaust fumes.
>

What glorious drivel and lies. The average commute by car is 20 minutes.
Not much time to be stuck now is it? You can wait 20 minutes for your
subway to get there, not counting the walk time to the station and the walk
on the other end.

Re: Cities Turning to Bicycles

Frank Krygowski wrote:


> Heart attack? Ask any doctor whether cycling helps prevent heart attack.

An out of shape person who experiences chest pain at rest would have a
heart attack if he decided to ride a bicycle one day.

Re: Cities Turning to Bicycles

im with you but to me this sounds like if we would all go to bikes that makes us one step closer to communisim (which is just about the most worthless type of government "for the people of the country" that i have ever heard of.

Re: Cities Turning to Bicycles

Arif Khokar <akhokar1234@wvu.edu> wrote:
>
> The comparison is flawed because the vehicle weights differ greatly.
> I'd be interested in seeing a comparision that took that into account as
> well.

People who travel by more efficient, more technically demanding means
than automobiles use a concept you should familiarize yourself with:
payload.

A car with a single occupant has one of the worst payload mass
fractions of anything this side of a rocket. So if you take weight
into account, you must also take this horrible payload-to-weight ratio
into account. By that measure, the car comes out even worse.

The logical extension of your method of analysis is that we should all
go to work by ocean-going freighter or railroad train.

Chalo Colina

Re: Cities Turning to Bicycles

"George Conklin" <nilknoc@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:aYn2d.3680$n16.2445@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...

> Mass transit + bicycle riding assumes your TIME is worthless. For
> environmentalists, this may be true. But not for the rest of us.

Riding a bike to work saves time, because you are combining your exercise
time with your commute time. If you have a five mile drive to work that
takes 10 minutes, that's a 20 or 25 minute bike ride. So yeah, you spend 45
minutes commuting round trip rather than driving for 20 minutes. But then
you've done your 45 minutes of aerobic exercise that you're supposed to get
every day, and you then don't have to drive after work to the gym, work out
for those 45 minutes, and drive back. The other alternative was to become
one of those middle-aged women who "let themselves go", you know?

A job, husband, kids, home -- it's a lot to manage, especially if you also
do other things in your life. Bicycle commuting made sense for me precisely
because it was a time saver, as opposed to a squander.

Plus, if I live longer, or live my elderly years more healthily because of
the regular exercise, that's more time I've gained, too.

--
Warm Regards,


Claire Petersky
please substitute yahoo for mousepotato to reply
Home of the meditative cyclist:
http://home.earthlink.net/~cpetersky/Welcome.htm
Personal page: http://www.geocities.com/cpetersky/
See the books I've set free at: http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky

Re: Cities Turning to Bicycles

>But that doesn't include the energy costs of producing the oil and
>transporting it to the gas station where our driver filled up his SUV.
>If you want to be fair- and I know you do- then you'll have to add
>that to the equation.

Why didn't you add the cost of the food, and how it got there? I bet it didn't
get there by bicycle. Bicycling is great exercise, but you guys are getting
delusional utopian fantasies. There's no way most people in northern states are
going to bicycle in the winter time.

Re: Cities Turning to Bicycles

>Subject: Re: Cities Turning to Bicycles
>From: "Claire Petersky" cpetersky@mousepotato.com
>Date: 9/16/2004 6:54 PM US Eastern Standard Time
>Message-id: <gJp2d.2173$0i5.1385@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>
>
>"George Conklin" <nilknoc@earthlink.net> wrote in message
>news:aYn2d.3680$n16.2445@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
>
>> Mass transit + bicycle riding assumes your TIME is worthless. For
>> environmentalists, this may be true. But not for the rest of us.
>
>Riding a bike to work saves time, because you are combining your exercise
>time with your commute time. If you have a five mile drive to work that
>takes 10 minutes, that's a 20 or 25 minute bike ride. So yeah, you spend 45
>minutes commuting round trip rather than driving for 20 minutes. But then
>you've done your 45 minutes of aerobic exercise that you're supposed to get
>every day, and you then don't have to drive after work to the gym, work out
>for those 45 minutes, and drive back. The other alternative was to become
>one of those middle-aged women who "let themselves go", you know?
>
>A job, husband, kids, home -- it's a lot to manage, especially if you also
>do other things in your life. Bicycle commuting made sense for me precisely
>because it was a time saver, as opposed to a squander.
>
>Plus, if I live longer, or live my elderly years more healthily because of
>the regular exercise, that's more time I've gained, too.
>
>--
>Warm Regards,
>
>
>Claire Petersky



Well, that's nice, but not everyone has bike friendly roads on the route to
work, or live close enough to commute to work.
I don't want to get up that early, or be sweaty and need to change my clothes
when I get to work. I prefer to bicycle on the quiet roads near my house after
work.
No, I would not plan my entire life on my bike trip to work. People switch jobs
far too often these days antway. Enjoy your cities and suburbs, folks, I'll be
at my quiet lake house, driving my 25 miles one way to work on the highway.
Seriously, some of you must have alternative plans when it's pouring down rain
or 20 below zero, be realistic. I love bicycling, I love exercise, but it's not
a political thing

Re: Cities Turning to Bicycles

hey man thats really great that you want to stay in shape but most of these people are only thinking inside the box you haev to think outside of the box and think about the people who cannot ride bikes to work or w/e i know im only 17 and have alot to learn in and about life still but you have to think as simple as possible . too many people on this post are thinking about people who are fit and younge enough to still ride a bike.

Re: Cities Turning to Bicycles

>Subject: Re: Cities Turning to Bicycles
>From: "Eric S. Sande" esande@erols.com
>Date: 9/16/2004 7:54 PM US Eastern Standard Time
>Message-id: <414A35CB.420695BD@erols.com>
>
>>Well, that's nice, but not everyone has bike friendly roads on the
>>route to work, or live close enough to commute to work.
>
>Quite.
>
>But assuming ideal (or semi ideal) conditions, I ran a back of the
>envelope calculation on the average one way commute length (10 miles),
>the average commute time (20 minutes), and the average cost of car
>ownership (based on what got reported on CNN Money today).
>
>Excluding parking costs and health benefits, as nearly as I can
>determine, given the same hourly income for the car commuter and the
>bicycle commuter, the break even point is 10 miles, assuming the
>cyclist can average 15 mph.
>
>Anything shorter than 10 miles, the cyclist wins.
>

yeah, but many people need a car for inclement weather, hauling goods, or doing
things such as <gasp> transporting their bikes somewhere, hauling a kayak, etc

Re: Cities Turning to Bicycles

>Well, that's nice, but not everyone has bike friendly roads on the
>route to work, or live close enough to commute to work.

Quite.

But assuming ideal (or semi ideal) conditions, I ran a back of the
envelope calculation on the average one way commute length (10 miles),
the average commute time (20 minutes), and the average cost of car
ownership (based on what got reported on CNN Money today).

Excluding parking costs and health benefits, as nearly as I can
determine, given the same hourly income for the car commuter and the
bicycle commuter, the break even point is 10 miles, assuming the
cyclist can average 15 mph.

Anything shorter than 10 miles, the cyclist wins.

--

_______________________ALL AMIGA IN MY MIND_______________________
------------------"Buddy Holly, the Texas Elvis"------------------
__________306.350.357.38>>cwhitman@texastwr.utaustin.edu__________

Re: Cities Turning to Bicycles

Bob in CT wrote:

> I can find many, many instances of cyclists dying of non-congenital
> heart disease. If cycling "eliminates" heart disease, then why do
> people who used to be cyclists die of heart disease.

Your quotation marks indicate you're distorting what I've said. IOW,
you're making a transparent straw man argument.

Check my post. I never said cycling eliminates heart disease. I said
"Ask any doctor whether cycling helps prevent heart attack."

Any competent doctor will, I believe, tell you cycling helps. No
competent doctor will tell you it's 100% protection - because absolutely
nothing is.

But cycling is certainly better at preventing heart disease than sitting
in a car adding to your girth and frustration level!


--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

Re: Cities Turning to Bicycles

"Chalo" <chumpychump@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:8b4b7de4.0409161521.224c416f@posting.google.com...

>
> Just like the ascetic who fasts for forty days at a time is more
> extreme than the one who only fasts a week at a time. Multiple car
> ownership, and driving to work twice a day when the distance is less
> than five miles, is an extremist lifestyle.

Who cares how many cars I own? I can only drive *one* at a time.
I own four vehicles, the last one is a nice 300sd so I can start to
experement making Bio-diesel.

Is that more wastful than if I "only" owned one H2?

>
> Consider than most of the people in the world make their way on a
> dollar a day or less, and you see how we have squandered our
> productivity.

No one in the US lives on that, so unless you plan to move to Mogadishu,
that
is pretty irrelivant, huh?

We consume and destroy 100 times as much, but we are no
> happier. We could have eradicated poverty and disease with the money
> we waste on our cars and their infrastructure. We could have had
> urban transit that would be the envy of the world. Instead we sit in
> traffic and suck exhaust fumes.

What is your proposal to fix that situation then?
Piss and moan? alianate some more moderate people by taking
your own extremist positions?

>
> You must be so invested in your car-centric extremism that it looks
> reasonable to you.
>

Or perhaps they want to get from point A to point B and a car is
the most reasonable way to do it.

Bernard

Re: Cities Turning to Bicycles

Matthew Russotto wrote:

>
> It's self-sufficiency to depend on a friendly neighbor with a truck?
> What if he's not so friendly after the eco-friendly type has been
> haranguing him about his wasteful means of conveyance?

Personally, I don't value self-sufficiency as much as I value community.

Too many Americans (males, especially) have a fantasy view of the world,
based on a myth of the rugged man going out solo into the wilderness.
So of course, they buy a 4x4 in case they have to haul in some
provisions over a dirt track. They also buy a chainsaw in case they
need some firewood to make it through a tough winter. A lawn tractor in
case they want to plow a subsistence garden. A snow blower in case the
drifts reach the windows... and on and on. And of course, a _few_ guys
really live in situations where that makes sense.

But the vast majority of them live in suburbs where the township plows
the roads as soon as the first flake hits, where the gaseous fuel comes
through underground pipes, where the pavement would stay smooth a lot
longer if the 4x4s weren't so heavy, and so on. Still, the fantasy
lives on.

A friend of mine in just such a neighborhood once counted up the value
of the lawn care equipment in the surrounding five McMansions. It was
well over $10,000. As he said, it would make more sense for one guy to
buy a lawn tractor, one guy to buy the chain saw and snow blower, one
guy to buy the 4x4 (talk the dumbest guy into that one), and promise to
help each other out when necessary.

Community. They could share a beer afterward.

But it doesn't fit with the Marlboro Man image, and it deosn't help sell
4x4s. So, it's un-American!

--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]