so here's the secret: they sometimes say stupid things that they do not believe, because they're funny
You’re probably right this is a touchy topic for me; like I don’t literally think will wants to murder cyclists but I still think it’s insight into their internal carbrain. “Disgusting” was probably overboard I had a shitty morning but it bothered me
Sorry, I can understand how it would be upsetting to hear. I'll be honest I hate car-centric society, but I drive for my delivery job and it has definitely given me carbrain.
This is hard for my ND brain. Felix's comments on The Blues Brothers movie at the Chicago live show got me pretty good. It's a good film and doesn't deserve to be called racially problematic, it's the opposite!! :angery:
EDIT: I hate Illinois Nazis.
In my experience all Americans are unhinged about cyclists. Even when I speak to other cyclists they say shit like “yeah when I’m driving I can understand why people hate us”
It’s disgusting that your driver’s license is a license to kill cyclists here
I wish I had more of a bit to post but I’m never surprised to hear people speak so casually about killing cyclists. I genuinely wish I could crush all cars into tiny cubes with these people locked in the trunk
They can't handle the truth. I wrote a """satirical""" parody of Falling Down but from a cyclist's perspective and car-brained freaks on here couldn't handle it and called it fascistic.
I heard that bit and I felt it was honest about what driving a car does to the human brain. Everything around you becomes a threat or an obstacle.
I feel far more relaxed when I'm on my bike or walking, I feel angrier when I drive. It happens. It's a big reason why car dependency should stop.
I find this site is really strangely lukewarm on bicycles, definitely out of step with IRL leftists I know.
I don't think many HBs want to kill cyclists but I've definitely read more than a couple comments where they think it's the domain of spandex-wearing dentists on $12000 bikes instead of just a normal cheap and awesome way that people can get around.
Don't get me wrong I love trains, but this site is 99% train and 1% bike when both should have expansive and well-developed infrastructure.
I feel like there's a distinction between cyclists and whatever I should call the spandex people.
And being in America I think most people encounter the dentist variety of cyclist far more often than the transportation type. I've been cycling to work for a year now and only twice have I encountered another cyclist who was clearly commuting. I've had near daily encounters with fitness oriented cyclists in the spats with the expensive fixed gear road bikes.
And they're far more fearless too. The fitness folks will absolutely go out into the middle of the lane. I'm a lot more cautious and will ride on grass or through ditches if I have to.
being in America I think most people encounter the dentist variety of cyclist far more often than the transportation type
This sounds absolutely wild to me.
I'd be surprised if the number of Americans who cycle to work is above 0.5%. Almost any given adult American on a bike is doing it for leisure or fitness, not to get somewhere.
I don't doubt that figure even where I live, but people do a lot more than just go to work and go home. Like most of my friends ride their bikes to go visit other friends, to go to the pub, to go to the movie theatre, to go to the park to hang out, like we have bicycle commuters but most people here are just riding their bikes to get around.
people do a lot more than just go to work and go home
Yeah, I sometimes forget other people have lives :(
expensive fixed gear road bikes
The fixed-gear people are hipsters, not dentists. Fixed-gear bikes only have one gear, which makes them obviously suboptimal for KOMing.
And they’re far more fearless too. The fitness folks will absolutely go out into the middle of the lane. I’m a lot more cautious and will ride on grass or through ditches if I have to.
On the contrary, taking the lane is actually the safest way to ride. Almost all of the listed examples of car-bike crashes involve the bike riding too far to the right.
Taking the lane on a bike is a way to ensure that you do not get buzzed by passing cars. It's actually dangerous to force yourself into the edge of the road where there is debris or car doors. If you do not have any space to yourself, you cannot avoid hazards on the road (you have no space to swerve).
It's doubly dangerous to be hugging the edge of the road when approaching an intersection. When you ride in the middle of the lane, you are visible to motorists. When you're on the edge of the road, you're invisible.
Also, riding on the edge of the road makes overtaking cars on the right a natural move at intersections. You should never do this as you place yourself into the blind spot of cars.
Riding on the sidewalk feels safe but is in actuality unsafe. Sidewalk riding is actually twice as dangerous as riding on the road because you are invisible to motorists.
Thank you. I'm still kinda new to biking on the roads and I'll keep all this in mind.
You should check out the https://bicyclesafe.com/ site if you haven't already, it's a really useful resource for staying safe (from cars) in traffic.
A Chevy Tahoe can’t tell the difference between a “good little obedient cyclist” and a bad one, so you probably shouldn’t either.
The best cyclist from a cager's point of view is no cyclist.
Sorry I didn't mean to sound like I think the spandex people are bad cyclists or anything. The road should cater to cyclists and pedestrians of any type.
Will: cyclists should grow up and get a job
Will 30 seconds later: Felix tell us about the sword you bought
Not even a normal sword but a fucking video game sword. It was either exactly this or another replica based on the same imaginary sword.
I'm not even going to listen to it and I don't care if it's ironic or "ironic" or whatever, stuff around transportation or urban planning is a field where many otherwise fairly reasonable leftists absolutely shit the bed time and time again. This being the official fansite of well theres your problem is sort of a noteable exception from my experience.
public transport good usually but you listen to your average leftist around cycling and it's basically chud arguments leftwashed or something. I often get the feeling that on this issue the perfect communist utopia to many is a house in the suburbs and cheap gas prices because "you need it to live" or something, just 0 vision for a better world there
Going to rage-listen and then rage-post about it here in 10 minutes, probably.
Cyclists should wear a full suit of samurai armour and carry katanas when they ride though.
Strap empty propane tanks to the sides. Drivers won't know they're empty.
A game where a cyclist uses a katana for self defense against cars, slicing them up like a block of cheese like in Revengeance, would genuinely be a pretty cool game, especially if it included big trucks and hogs.
I was kinda hoping they'd go more down the "samurai mindset" part, thats always a good bit
:theory-gary: one-handed speargun
It's the modern samurai bow
fuck cars and car brain. is mutually assured destruction the only way to teach these folks?
I stopped listening to the podcast back in the summer of 2020 when they responded to the first revolutionary situation in the USA in pretty much all of our lifetimes by making fun of shitty ABC dramas.
https://www.theonion.com/congested-values-1819590506
:kelly:
The boys at Pod Damn America did an episode a week or 2 ago about cycling, specifically in NYC, with pro cyclist takes and experienced riders and messengers, if you'd like some leftist humor that isn't irony poisoned about the subject
Yup, plus I recall two previous PDA episodes that hinge on a story involving a bike. One where Jake's bike was stolen on New Years Day, and I think the other involved cops ruining his bike during the George Floyd protests.
I think it's a mix of being facetious and what others were saying about how cars condition you to hostility. Felix especially seemed to be pro-bike or at least very anti-anti-bike. In any case it makes sense that you wouldn't enjoy it, that's a different matter.
They're obviously joking, so I thought it was funny.
I like bikes and would like bike friendly infrastructure. However, in my area my actual experience with bicyclist is mixed.
I'm usually a pedestrian and bicyclists are often trying to run me off the sidewalk/trails and are very entitled. If we had good bike infrastructure, this problem would be solved.
Then there's the other group of bicyclist in my area who are very vocal and completely against bike lanes etc because they say bikes have as much right to the road as cars so they don't want any accomodations/infrastructure.
That last group is basically a PSYOP by anti-infrastructure US libertarian from the '70s. Forget his name, but it's bullshit idea and doesn't work by design.
Found it. It was John Forrester.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2020/04/23/death-of-a-dinosaur-anti-cycleway-campaigner-john-forester-dies-aged-90/
Forester was a suburbanite, with no interest in getting more people on bikes. For him, cycling was a “minority activity and I didn’t expect it to be any more than that because I knew the difficulty. It was real fun, but on the other hand it had its costs, time and social opprobrium and such.”
This elitism put Forester, and some of the other hardcore VCers, at loggerheads with those who wanted to see more “bums on saddles,” such as the bicycle industry and most bicycle advocates.
Former transportation planner and bicycle historian Bruce Epperson calls this parting of the ways “the Great Schism,” and it’s still very much alive, with cycleways proponents saying the only way to grow cycling is to provide separated cycleways, and some right-to-the-roaders being opposed to any and all supposedly sidelining cycle infrastructure.
Further talk on helmets and cycling on the road with cars being used to avoid infrastructure, for bicycles, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhzH6mEpIps
