“The money is in the car,” Comrie insists. “Who’s the spender? Does a bicyclist go and buy sporting goods, or furniture, or clothing? Or are they just out for a ride?”
Does this guy think cyclists are sitting naked in empty apartments wishing they had clothes and furniture? Luckily he did not win the election.
OTOH it’s absolutely insane what new bicycles are costing these days - bikes can be money pits too. I bought my road bike 12 years ago for about $1800 and was kicking myself for years for spending that much. A modern road bike (with disc brakes, wi-fi controlled electronic shifters etc.) would be in the neighborhood of ten grand, more than my car cost. Meanwhile my favorite bike is the 25yo hybrid that I bought on Craigslist for $100.
Why would you ever want wifi controlled shifters‽ Maybe (ok definitely) I’m pilled on the whole anarchist bicycle repair scene, but I’ve got some decent trigger shifters that were like $30 and aside from the pain of calibration they’re great.
On one hand if it’s automatic it might be nice, but on the other hand I’d rather just have a separate tool that does that so I can share it with friends and we can all have easy shifter calibration. But also I’d dread someone being able to hack my shifters or being unable to shift when I forget to plug it in. But on the other hand my bike has probably cost me like $200-250 over the three years I’ve had it so I’m definitely not the target audience
The carbrained can’t see cycling as a form of transport, only as a type of exercise. In their minds people only cycle to cycle, not to fulfil other tasks. Only cars are for going places, like shopping.
Yeah, “serious” cycling — a sport where a $1k bike barely qualifies as a bike, $5k gets you something rideable, and $10k gets you a pretty decent bike — is so anti-consumer!
(I love cycling, and I’ll defend spending more on my power meter pedels than I would spend on a decent used bike. More bike lanes everywhere please!)
US here with bonus points for a conservative city in the bible belt. I see people literally just driving in circles around the block or up and down the street endlessly almost every day. Multiple times a week at least. Don’t fucking tell me drivers only do so with purpose. eyeroll.gif
We had some winners in my city a few years ago.
Here’s my favorite quote from that article:
Does this guy think cyclists are sitting naked in empty apartments wishing they had clothes and furniture? Luckily he did not win the election.
I have a lot more money to buy shit ever since i rid myself of that money pit we call a car…
OTOH it’s absolutely insane what new bicycles are costing these days - bikes can be money pits too. I bought my road bike 12 years ago for about $1800 and was kicking myself for years for spending that much. A modern road bike (with disc brakes, wi-fi controlled electronic shifters etc.) would be in the neighborhood of ten grand, more than my car cost. Meanwhile my favorite bike is the 25yo hybrid that I bought on Craigslist for $100.
Why would you ever want wifi controlled shifters‽ Maybe (ok definitely) I’m pilled on the whole anarchist bicycle repair scene, but I’ve got some decent trigger shifters that were like $30 and aside from the pain of calibration they’re great.
I was talking to a guy with an $8K bike the other day and he was proud of the fact that he could calibrate his shifters with his phone.
On one hand if it’s automatic it might be nice, but on the other hand I’d rather just have a separate tool that does that so I can share it with friends and we can all have easy shifter calibration. But also I’d dread someone being able to hack my shifters or being unable to shift when I forget to plug it in. But on the other hand my bike has probably cost me like $200-250 over the three years I’ve had it so I’m definitely not the target audience
He did say the money was in the car, he just didn’t mean to imply that a car is a hole in the road that you throw money into.
The carbrained can’t see cycling as a form of transport, only as a type of exercise. In their minds people only cycle to cycle, not to fulfil other tasks. Only cars are for going places, like shopping.
Why, the cyclist needs no clothes or food, for the cyclist is sub-human and is therefore an animal (what these car-brained people probably think)
Not “probably,” “certainly!” It’s proven by research: https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/more-than-half-of-motorists-view-cyclists-as-subhuman-cockroaches
Is that guy a blatantly lying piece of shit, or just a moron?
In factual reality, cyclists buy more stuff than motorists, not less!
See also:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-08/for-store-owners-bike-lanes-boost-the-bottom-line
https://cyclingindustry.news/why-cycling-is-good-for-everything-from-retail-sales-to-property-prices/
Yeah, “serious” cycling — a sport where a $1k bike barely qualifies as a bike, $5k gets you something rideable, and $10k gets you a pretty decent bike — is so anti-consumer!
(I love cycling, and I’ll defend spending more on my power meter pedels than I would spend on a decent used bike. More bike lanes everywhere please!)
US here with bonus points for a conservative city in the bible belt. I see people literally just driving in circles around the block or up and down the street endlessly almost every day. Multiple times a week at least. Don’t fucking tell me drivers only do so with purpose. eyeroll.gif
Yeah because someone who never exercises, you know the type of person who only moves around the city in a car, buys sporting goods frequently. Yep.
I really hate that that’s treated as a legitimate argument as opposed to a criticism of capitalism
They only think of cycling for sport and not cycling to a destination. That’s where the confusion lies.