[ervine]

My love of cycling in every form is one of the greatest gifts my dad gave to me. I wish everyone was so lucky to find an activity they were obsessed with that has only upsides.

So much North American rhetoric is focused on hatred of the cyclist - while that bums me out, what bums me out even more is that all the haters are missing out on the wonderful world of cycling. Commuter, road, gravel, mountain, track, indoor, fixed, single speed, folding, electric, uni, cargo, whatever.

I'm gonna go ride now.

[matsemann]

Yeah, so weird how biking has become an identity politics thingy. (Not sure if it translates well into English).

I enjoy how it's fast and easy to commute, and I keep healthy. Works even in hilly and snowy Norway. I love how fun it is to use my road bike to go fast and get a good workout. I love my gravel into the woods and the serenity.

This weekend I'm bikepacking 6 hours into the woods,sleeping a night in a hammock, and bike back. Can't wait!

[PorterBHall]

What saddens me about this topic is the large amount of hatred coming at cyclists from drivers in the opinion page of the local newspaper (Seattle Times). Why not have some gratitude they are not contributing to traffic, not taking up parking, not polluting, etc. It comes across as pure madness.

[whateveracct]

seattle cyclists are gigantic PITAs. they pick and choose when to be cars and when to be pedestrians. and they are always bad at being both LOL

[Cpoll]

I think this is probably a bit selective, but I understand the sentiment. When I'm cycling I keep seeing awful drivers, and when I'm driving I keep seeing reckless and inconsiderate cyclists.

The awful infrastructure (poorly considered bike lanes, at best) doesn't make it easy to co-exist, either.

[eliaspro]

If they had proper infrastructure, they wouldn't have to choose between "being cars or pedestrians", they could simply be cyclists.

[mrgoldenbrown]

Usually this happens when there isn't dedicated bike infrastructure, both physical and legal and cultural. Of course they have to pick and choose.

[antonvs]

> … has only upsides.

The three most avid cyclists I know have all had life-changing accidents on their bicycles - my best friend who introduced me to cycling, my brother in law, and an ex-business partner who I introduced to cycling. All broke their hips and various other bones, and all had to have surgery and extensive rehab. So “only upsides” is perhaps a little too rosy.

[whateveracct]

no, you see / those downsides are due to cars

those shouldn't exist. therefore, they are free.

[antonvs]

One of the accidents was due to trains. He lost control riding over railroad tracks. Another was due to a pothole, which I suppose indirectly may have been due to cars.

[thefz]

American rhetoric is anti exercise, anti sport, pro GLP, pro car, anti human being, at least in this forum.

[__mharrison__]

Recumbent...

[ervine]

Nah, they’re freaks.

[bluebarbet]

But unbelievably ergonomic. A decade ago I rented one to do a week's touring (in France and Switzerland). On a standard bike the first two days of such outings were invariably spoiled by sore butt and shoulders. On the recumbent I knocked off 80km on the first day with not the slightest ache. A total revelation.

[7e]

Recumbent bikes can promote over flexion of the neck, sometimes. Your neck isn’t neutral, it’s bending forward slightly, like tech neck. That’s not to say a recumbent isn’t ergonomic on the whole, but there are trade offs.

[bluebarbet]

Yes, absolutely. Although the neck issue is mostly solved by a 3/4 recumbent (which is what I used), where you are not completely flat.

A potentially worse problem is that recumbents allow enormous force to be applied through the legs (because you can push against the lower back, as in rowing). This is one of their superpowers but you need to be aware of it to avoid knee issues.

[mrgoldenbrown]

Yep, i switched to a under seat steering recumbent to avoid any pressure on my (startup workload damaged) wrists. I almost immediately hurt my knees because it was so fun to go really fast by pushing against the seat back.

[mmooss]

> So much North American rhetoric is focused on hatred of the cyclist

My impression is that only people in the bicycling social world believe that. It seems like a victim mentality that they reinforce by repeating it to each other. It's always possible I just haven't seen it, but localities around the country are building bicycling infrastructure, which doesn't correspond to hatred. Where do you see it?

I hardly ever hear someone expressing hatred of cyclists. People who ride obviously like it. The great majority don't care about it - it has little impact on their lives. In cities, on streets I see people honk at, yell at, and flip off cyclists just like they honk, flip off, and yell at other drivers. IME the cyclists generally 'drive' as well/poorly as the automobile drivers.

I do notice that people in spandex racing outfits on road bikes tend to behave with attitude problems toward everyone - pedestrians, non-racing cyclists, cars, etc. They are aggressive and fly by people, often with little margin, at dangerous speeds without warning. It's as if they think they own the road. I was just talking to a bike mechanic I know who brought it up. If people don't like them, it's obvious why.

[impendia]

Some drivers seem to resent the idea that they should have to share the road, or slow down for anyone. Even if cyclists do everything right, they're still slower than cars, and so will present at least a minor inconvenience for drivers.

In Canada the fight has gotten nasty, with governments in Alberta and Ontario putting forward legislation that could remove existing bike lanes.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-ford-bike-lan...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-government-b...

Maybe "hatred" is too strong of a word, but if I were a cyclist in Toronto or Edmonton I'd feel rather victimized.

[mmooss]

While I think cycling is great - environmentally, for health, apparently for mental health - bikes and cars don't mix unless they are going approx. the same speed in 1-2 lanes.

Driving a car, bicycles are hard to see - I wouldn't be surprised if visibility in cars is specified to be sufficient to see other cars. Bicycles appear out of nowhere and disappear. Also, cyclists - no better or worse than their automobile counterparts - don't always drive well, and they do things that cars don't such as weaving through small spaces between cars; running lights as if they are pedestrians, but on the road; appearing from sidewalks and other places - really anyplace. I don't object to creative driving - as I said, (city) drivers aren't much different in their way - but it makes bikes unpredictable and hard to see. Then there's the speed difference - bikes much slower than traffic are as dangerous as cars driving that speed (again, except I can see the cars). As long as there's one lane - and if cyclists 'own the lane' and don't let cars squeeze by - it's safe: you can see the bike; multiple lanes and the bike ends up in blind spots, weaving back and forth itself, etc.

I read that in (Belgium? The Netherlands?) the law is that if there is a small (10 km/h?) difference in speed between cars and bikes, they cannot share the road.

[7e]

Cyclists never do everything right, though. Contested stop signs are a prime example. For every cyclist who stops properly, 99 blaze through with attitude. They are lawless, and cause safety issues for drivers who have to deal with it.

You’ll also see them run red lights, cut off pedestrians, bike right into oncoming traffic (in the same lane, no less), cut across three lanes of without blinking. All in the name of laziness, not safety.

[mmooss]

> All in the name of laziness, not safety.

Bikes are different machines with different capabilities and parameters. That they aren't used like cars isn't laziness or even lack of personal safety, but maybe lack of discipline to operate as if it has the capabilities and parameters of a car.

Whatever the motive, it's still dangerous because everything on the road needs to operate in an integrated system of rules. Bikes acting like bikes are unpredictable and using different rules.

But consider the functional differences:

> Contested stop signs are a prime example. For every cyclist who stops properly, 99 blaze through with attitude.

Bicycles both stop much more quickly than cars and take more effort to restart. Restarting from a stop and accelerating to full speed takes energy and wears on tired muscles - and it's not just one intersection but 100 in one ride.

So many times I've seen bikes approach the intersection at moderate speed. That's dangerous in a car - you might need to stop short, you might hit someone or something with your 2,000 lbs metal object which could cause serious harm even at slow speeds. On a bike it's fine - you can easily stop your 200 lbs object, which is also much smaller and more maneuverable and thus avoids collisions easily, and which does little harm at slow speeds.

So the bike does the bike thing, but the car sees a car thing: The car see the bike moving at a normal rate, and assumes it will act like a car and drive right into the intersection. The car stops and lets the bike go first.

> run red lights

At lights, bikes are like (very fast) pedestrians. On foot, at least in the US and many parts of the world, if the road is clear people don't wait for the light, they just cross. Functionally, there's no reason for bikes to do differently. That's dangerous to do in a car because their size and lack of maneuverability makes them big targets and makes accidents hard to avoid, and because they cause serious harm even at slow speeds.

> cut across three lanes of without blinking

Again, bikes are much smaller (able to fit in small spaces) and much moremanueverable. It makes some sense for a cyclist; it would be far more dangerous in a car.

[jz391]

I do understand it takes effort to stop and re-accelerate, but isn't making effort (exercise) part of the purpose of cycling in the first place? My main objection is to cyclist failing to stop at pedestrian crossing lights: as a pedestrian, when I see a green light, I expect to cross without having to dodge moving vehicles on the road. I do check the the road to make sure that cars have stopped, but cyclists (who rarely stop at crossings, at least in London) are harder to see, as they are smaller and often obscured by the traffic.

[pandaman]

>Bicycles both stop much more quickly than cars

They really don't. Even if you slam brakes and OTB on a bike you will still fly further ahead than a car doing double your speed will travel after applying brakes normally. This is the insanity of running stop signs on a bike - you can't stop, you cannot swerve nearly as quickly as a car and you will take much more damage when T-boned than a car driver would yet you believe it's safer because:

> take more effort to restart.

Yeah, it's not laziness, it's science and shiet.

[mmooss]

I think that's just wrong. Bikes stop on a dime (unless going high road-bike speeds), and are much more maneuverable due to their mass and two wheels, and are effectively much more maneuverable because their dimensions make it much easier to avoid objects and fit into the many more spaces than cars can fit in.

[malicka]

s/[Cc]yclists/drivers/g

You have crazy bikers, and you have crazy drivers. I’ve seen way more of one in my life, and that one’s definitely more dangerous.

[joenot443]

It’s pretty usual for cars to run straight through a hard red light in NYC

Cyclists quite literally do it every single day

I don’t think the behavior is equally distributed

[hoherd]

I'm sure lots of cyclists have anecdata about that hatred. My personal favorite was somebody in a Santa Clara neighborhood a block from the DMV shouting at me to "get off the f***ing road!" Clearly they didn't read the part of the DMV manual that mentions that bicycles must "not ride on the sidewalk"[1], and missed that cyclists are allowed full use of the lane.

I now live in rural suburban Michigan, and even on these rural backroads I have jerks in trucks yelling at me on my e-bike going 20+ mph to "get out of the f***ing way".

Maybe those people do not represent the majority, but it feels like they do, and those actions feel threatening when coming from a multi-ton vehicle directed at a 75 pound vehicle. (Fat-bike ebikes are heavy.) It's also odd to experience this on a rural road on a lake shoreline because isn't the countryside supposed to be slow paced?

1. https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/handbook/california-driver-han...

[DangitBobby]

My personal favorite was someone shouting "go back to California!" our their window. I'm a TN native born and raised.

Second favorite was, a truck did an illegal pass maneuver around me on a blind turn (another 15s and we'd be around the curve) and almost hit another truck head on, then raced off. The driver of the truck that almost got hit rolled down his window and asked me "do you really have to ride here?"

[8note]

i feel like you should have a petition ready in hand for that moment to respond

> not if you sign this to get dedicated infrastructure put in

[mrgoldenbrown]

Look at the recent Boston mayoral election. Kraft used bike lanes as a wedge issue to try to unseat our incumbent mayor. It worked well enough that she tore out flexposts from a bunch of lanes.

[rcxdude]

As a general rule, with this kind of thing, if you're not in a group that's targeted by such comments, you are probably not going to see those comments. Even if the majority don't care, it only takes a small hateful minority to create a lot of hate aimed at a given group.

[DangitBobby]

You clearly haven't spent much time on YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, FaceBook, or really anywhere there is a huge community. Americans fucking HATE cyclists.

> The great majority don't care about it

My own dad will take any opportunity to actively bitch about perceived annoyances perpetrated by cyclists and opine about how useless bike lanes are expensive and not actually productive because people only use them for exercise. Why don't you try actually bringing up cyclists and bike lanes somewhere, especially in the south, and then you tell me what people think.

[Fricken]

Drivers mostly hate on other drivers, but they make time to hate other road users as well.

[mmooss]

> Americans fucking HATE cyclists.

I haven't met those Americans, somehow. Maybe it's just more social media nonsense - people joining the mob fun and far overestimating the loud voices?

[snayan]

This feels more like a the company you keep situation than social media nonsense.

You happen to have a social circle that doesn't have any issues with cyclists, perhaps there are a number of them in your group.

But there are almost assuredly social circles that feel otherwise, that revel at the opportunity to roll coal as they pass a group of cyclists, that joke about running them off the road.

A quick google indicates there have been numerous studies on the subject that seem to support the idea that bicyclists are often reviled by some portion of the population, correlated with those who rely heavily on automobiles.

And, I mean, just scrolling this thread seems to show plenty of anecdotes to support the idea. Seems pretty systemic given the breadth of the anecdata.

[mmooss]

I could be wrong, but ...

> just scrolling this thread seems to show plenty of anecdotes to support the idea. Seems pretty systemic given the breadth of the anecdata

That reasoning is the epitome of social media self-deception.

[snayan]

I mean sure, if you just ignore the rest of my comment and take that piece in isolation, then I suppose it could further support your claim.

[DangitBobby]

Did you ask them? Lots of things I don't like don't come up until it's relevant.

[8note]

i certainly dislike that roads everywhere are so wide so as to support two rows of parked cars and then also two lanes of car traffic.

that could easily be another row of houses or a pretty big park, over and over and over again through the whole city.

its an incredible amount of government money and city land tied up in black top that needs regular resurfacing, cleaning, plowing, etc

[sl_convertible]

We just had a death on the road, from a driver hitting a cyclist in a group. I'm a life-long cyclists, and I now am somewhat fearful about cycling on the road. I see so many groups that take an entire lane and not even care about the cars behind them - it's easy to understand the frustration of the drivers. It's a knotty problem, I wish we had more bicycle lanes.

[DangitBobby]

Obviously I wasn't there for the "taking the lane" circumstances you've seen, but where I live there are very few sections of road where it would be safe for a vehicle to attempt to occupy the lane while a group of cyclists are in it, and cars should be overtaking instead. It's no more difficult for a car to overtake when the cyclists are "taking the lane."

[7e]

Yes, many bicyclists are straight up obnoxious and unsafe, and without any license plates on the bikes, it’s hard to hold them to the proper lawful behavior.

[ervine]

None of this has been my experience.

[antonvs]

I love the way you start out claiming there's a victim mentality and then end up expressing your hatred of cyclists. The truth will out...