Zebee Johnstone wrote:
> In aus.bicycle on 30 Apr 2006 17:46:46 -0700
> Bleve <[email protected]> wrote:
> > There's heaps, you're just not looking, and then blaming the shops who
> > want to sell high margin or high price stuff for catering to their
> > market.
>
> Oh they sell it, that's true, and for that reason, also true.
>
> But if they aren't out there being obvious, then most people aren't
> going to think about them, let alone buy them.
>
> How would people start to think about these things?
This is what BV (or BNSW etc) is supposed to do. Ride to work days,
school programs etc, but we're getting confused between the
availability of generic utility bikes and bikes as transport. One is a
subset of the other (sorta)
The LBS's won't do it, it's not worth their time to do it on a large
scale - *especially* as this is about cheap shitters that if they get
popular, will get sold by kmart etc and the LBS won't benefit from it
(except to fix the k-mart shitters all the time, and cop flak from
punters whinging that the repairs cost more than the bike!).
> > And yes, most people drive because it's easy. There's *nothing* we can
> > do about that except to make it harder for them to drive. We can't
> > make bikes easier to ride, 150 years of bicycle evolution has topped
> > out, HPV's are as advanced as they can get and have been for decades -
> > all that changes now is a few grams here and there on racebikes.
>
> I agree with that too, but there has to be incentive both ways.
> people will keep driving while driving is easy, but they also won't
> think about not-driving while there's no obvious alternative.
For what it's worth, I doubt that most joe averages don't think bikes
are viable, I think joe is just lazy (or some more politically correct
expression for the same thing
) Joe does what's easiest that he can
afford. Cars are easy. And, really, for doing the shopping, on a
dark, cold and rainy evening after work with 2 kids or a hot day with a
nasty northerly and you want the icecream to get home without melting,
cars *are* easy and bikes are hard. Always will be until petrol gets
unfeasably expensive. Airconditioning, heating ... a big boot ... etc
etc. Cars win for most people purely on the fact that they're
comfortable in any weather and don't get upset by hills. Heck, I'm a
loony cyclist and today I rode my motorbike to work ... it's easier and
I felt lazy and didn't feel I had the legs to make it up the hill to
get home. Tonight I'm scunging a lift to the shops in a friends car to
get some big, awkward stuff and it'll be cold and wet and I don't feel
like riding and towing stuff around.
> There's got to be a tipping point somwhere, where enough people and
> machines are seen that bikes are on the agenda, even if at the bottom,
> rather than not on the agenda at all.
I don't think that bikes have ever been invisable or not considered
viable by a lot of people, just that cars are easier. Bikes are on the
agenda, which is why we're awash with bike lanes, bike paths etc. This
is why city councils are trying to find ways to get less people
driving, they know that they can't just keep making roads bigger and
carparks bigger anymore.
> Chicken and egg I suppose - won't get lots of people riding as transport
> without having lots of people riding as transport.
Lots of people *do* ride as transport. I can't make any observations
about where you live, but here, in my office, 50% of the staff ride to
work. Around here (Southbank, Melbourne) a -lot- of people ride to
work. A lot of my friends ride places rather than drive when they can.
I go to client sites and am often pleasantly suprised to see bikes
parked all over the place by commuters. One of my clients (who I would
have -least- expected to be full of commutter cyclists) has a 10%
cyclist commuter poplulation. Most of my friends ride to work at least
when the weather's good.
> It's a major change of culture, to have a significant number of people
> think of bikes as transport.
So here's an interesting one, Dutchy et al talk about how much more
people ride in Europe than here (Amsterdam etc). Why is that? Is it
the lanes and the support, the very high cost of petrol? The higher
population density so everyone's closer to where they work? The nice
cycling weather? What's fuel a litre in Holland? I believe it's around
twice what it is here? Cars are a luxury, and if they're very
expensive, they're a luxury less people can afford. Our unsustainable
credit fueled outer suburban growth is part of the problem too. My Dad
lives 50km from where he works, because at the moment he can afford the
fuel. Not sustainable ...
