"NYC XYZ" <
[email protected]> wrote in
news:
[email protected]:
>
> Andy Gee wrote:
>>
>>
>> Notwithstanding how I feel about people who use Segways in the bike
>> lane (love them politically, hate them for hogging the whole lane at
>> 12 MPH) how do people feel about sharing resources with motorized
>> bikes? In New York, a vehicle with any sort of motor must be
>> registered as a motor vehicle to be ridden on a road, and if not, the
>> rider is subject to a fine (and possible wood shampoo) and the bike
>> subject to confiscation.
>
> NEVER happens. Go to Bushwick on any summer day or night and see if
> them kops do anything about ghetto ragamuffins on their scooters and
> toy motorcycles. One day I was in the Allerton section of the Bronx
> and somebody was zipping through the park there in an ATV. Right
> outside, well within earshot, was a patrol car with two ghetto female
> kops sitting in the AC. Their excuse for not doing anything? The
> perps just keep coming right back, assuming they even manage to corral
> them in the first place -- just not worth the time and effort.
>
> (I now know that kop kulture frowns on non-major crimes arrests or
> mere quality-of-life summonses: they like their paperwork glorious.)
>
>> The next poster downthread said that the guy died. Shouldn't we be
>> boycotting Chinese bikes, accessories, frames, and parts?
>
> How does one do that, exactly? The only way for a boycott to work, it
> seems, is to get the whole supply chain involved. Do we all just
> write letters to all the bike mags, shops, manufacturers, and
> distributors? I'm not being facetious, I'm serious. How does one
> protest meaningfully and effectively against this outrage?
>
I'm going to guess that the best way is to persuade the UCI to
"accredit" or certify manufacturers and establish minimum standards for
working conditions, salaries, environmental contraols, etc. Then the
slave labor and prison labor bikes would not be UCI acceptable in
competition, so mainstream bike shops won't carry the brands, the same
way they don't carry recumbents. Even if that doesn't work, at least
the non-Chinese bikes could carry big stickers saying UCI certified.
The next step would be participating in the action taking place to force
xmart to pay their people enough to keep them off Medicaid and food
stamps. They're the big source of the cheapest of the cheap, worst of
the worst bikes. A European or American bike stands no chance at all
against a $129 xmart special. But an $800 European or American bike
might have a chance against a $279 piece of ****.
I broke my personal boycott a few weeks ago, as an experiment. I bought
two Chinese accessories -- a lock and a light. In two weeks, the
mounting brackets for both of them broke, I've never had a mounting
bracket break before except once, a few years ago, a different Chinese
light, and that was one of the items that led me to a personal boycott.
--ag
