No they don’t. Most drive because they are lazy. Simple as.
A few need to drive. The majority don’t.

A family of four, 4 people to get between 2 jobs, 2 schools, one or two weekly shops, football for lad, taekwondo for lass, the odd errand, maybe even book club for mum and squash for dad… If all of those destinations are cyclable with regards to home and each other then sure, you’re right. Most likely they aren’t.

People, including those here, need to decide exactly what cyclists are.

If they share the *rights* to the road, they share the *responsibilities*. Stopping at a red light is one of those. Opting in and out moment by moment as it suits isn’t on.

And not quite on thread, but: people who drive to work aren’t selfish planet hating willful cyclist murderers and people who cycle to work aren’t enlightened out the box thinking wonder-angels. People drive because they must, others cycle because they’re *lucky* it worked out that they can. (I was just so lucky for ten years. And probably pretty smug about it too! 😆 )

If it’s well within your means to buy it as a toy classic, buy it.
While/if the paperwork fails, do classic scrambles or hillclimbs.

Jeeves, bring pistols for two and coffee for one.

The Canadian Dudes I bought my setup from said (somewhat tongue in cheek) that the order of importance was – Buy good bindings and boots (*that match up in intended purpose*) and then nail the bindings to a door.

I don’t know point they were trying to get across, but the board is the big bit with the visible logos so I spent a grand on that, then bought some bungie cords and a pair of wellies. So should you.

Run them in schools and make them so accessible outside of schools that not having taken one would be weird. I did cycling proficiency at school, it was a bit rubbish. Training needs to be better than that.

When I first learned to drive (or motorcycle, in fact) my cycling changed dramatically, and for the better, because I’d been trained in how to use the road, on the road, and experienced life as a motorist. (An interesting counterpoint to the idea of drivers being required to experience what it’s like on a bicycle.)

If I’d done what the OP’s daughter did when I was a little girl (long story) my father would have seized the phone and demanded: “What be this strange device? Whereforth cometh ye voices!?” before pounding it to dust with a bible.

HTH.

I wonder if he accepts magic beans as payment

Nah, but he’ll let you manipulate his wallet to restore its natural intelligence in order that it can grow it’s own money.

One thing to bear in mind with “rips offs” for small jobs is that 6 ten minute jobs will take more than an hour to do, and with bicycles a lot of jobs are “small”.

My cousin is a Po Po and has been getting driving training, and he described some of it as driving around and getting people to move via use of “body language”. I don’t know why, whether it’s a training technique, operational technique, or what.

I’ve come really close to a nasty crash with a crosser climbing the legal Roman road in hope as I was descending…very very scary moment.

You were descending slowly, of course. (You might well have been, but if you had to pick your way down, he’d be having to pick his way up.)

We like to hurl our silly little bikes down hills and get out of control, we should be careful moaning about speed.

For all this emotive and partisan sniping, if the landowner says he is or isn’t ok with any particular group, it’s their land. But some user groups might be less “allowed” and more “too hard to police”. Don’t mistake getting away with it as having a right!

From my Sig. Oth.
“But there’s no gravity on the moon.”
[a look from me]
“That’s why they wear moon boots!”

“But our bikes don’t have brake pads.”
[a look from me]
“They have brake disks!”

An old housemate:
“Is that fire gas or electric?”
[straight faced] “Electric, that’s why the flames are blue.”
“Oh of course.”

At no point when I was learning to drive was I told: “By the way, even if your eyes are in perfect working order, they barely work. Objects that you aren’t staring directly at are practically invisible. If your eyes are swivelling everything is invisible. And you won’t know because your brain will just make up the scene you’re looking at and it’ll look real. Here’s the techniques to get around this…”

(Also, this explains why I can spin round the house and not find my keys despite “looking at them” half a dozen times!)

So, if that that cyclist was flying through the air, right in front of the woman’s eyes, but her eyes were simply *moving*, then biological physics science fact says she COULDN’T SEE IT HAPPEN. Look, Cyclist there, look around, cyclist not there, experience tells her he’s up the pavement and gone while she looked the other way. She failed to assume he might be laying under her car. Do we all here get out the car and peer under the bumper before moving off?

I now feel even less confident in my internet warrior super abilities ensuring that this could never *have* happened to me. (Having seen it, I hope it would be less to likely in the future.)

Remember that woman who was on youtube running over the cyclist who got knocked off to finish under her car?

These threads always make me shiver… I ate a double decker AND a viennese whirl today. 😥

I’m thin, but there’s a phenomenon called TOFI, Thin Outside, Fat Inside… ie: weighs not a lot but has organs of pate, retired pancreas, and micro bore arteries. Might describe me!!

Once, I was alone in the house, and the whole place went deathly silent, like REALLY spookily quiet. But when I searched the house THERE WAS NO-ONE THERE!!!

Although I’m (obviously) not a believer, I really hate that cowled monk photo; I mean, what the hell!?!?

Holidays with the parents, navigating with a MAP, preferably on singlelane B roads in Wales or Devon. Particularly with my mum holding the map up and rotating it to match the road (or not).
“Which way?”
“Left.”
“Which left?”
“That one.”
“So right?”
“Oh. Yes.”
<turn>
“No!! THAT left!”
“You said that way, woman!”
“That way’s right!”

Boardman.

I’m not 100% sure but I think they have as much legal right to ride the woods as there is to cycle the woods, none

Possibly exactly. If this place is a forestry run MTB trail center then they shouldn’t be there. If it’s a case of “some yobs have been trespassing where we like to trespass, and have cut ruts through the bits we dug up”… Well. Make sure it’s an *anonymous* phone call to the plod!

Cheers chaps.

[people and bicycles] don’t [rip trails to shreds]. they have an impact, yes, but the damage caused by motorised traffic is exponentially greater

If you made mountain bikes all ride just the same 5% of the network (as opposed to 100%, plus trail centers, plus trails that don’t even officially exist) their ruts would be so deep there’d be lava in the bottom.

Well done for bringing it to our attention, now we can act in support of them. You can make do with using the other 98% of the trails the 4x4s and trailbikes don’t get to if you really hate them so much.

And people and bicycles DO rip trails to shreds, and unlike 4x4s and trail bikes they don’t stick to their assigned RoW either. The ONLY reason bicycles don’t suffer from more enforcement is it would be hard – pray THAT never changes. (Though compared to a night or two of heavy rain none of us wheeled or hoofed types manage much harm at all.)

Were these any good in the snow??

😈

In this situation, one should NOT (repeat *NOT*) throw away the NIP (if it has arrived), move house, *then* re-register the license, maybe a week or two late on account of all the hassle of re-settling. If they were to do so, they might get away with it, which would be WRONG. Or they might just get the fine anyway but slightly late, but it’s not worth running the risk of getting away with it – which would be WRONG.

Tenacious D, Tribute. Look out for Dave Grohl and Ben Stiller cameos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4an3rpucSos

“Be you Angels..?”
“Nay, we are but men. ROCK!! Ahhhhh, ahhhh, ah hahahaha” etc.

Won’t they end up liberally scattered with sleeping homeless??

That said, as a motorbikelist I’ve often thought a heated road network would be great. When stopped at the lights you could dismount and press your hands against it! Ahhhhhhhhh…. 😀

Mountain biking.

He should buy a boardman full susser for 1k. (Unless he actually doesn’t want suspension rather than just being prepared to do without – in which case he shouldn’t.)

3pm.

Scandal! Wood, 16 inches, in lady garden!

As pieces of modern art I don’t mind ’em, generally.

But to preserve the landscape (as it is currently, natural or otherwise) we need to build incredibly energy dense facilities that aren’t overly fussy about location[1], not large fields of towering sculptures that can only produce anything at all – and then not much – when slapped in the middle of what we generally consider to be a Nice View.

[1] – We already know what that means.

Got a Kona five-0. I’ve never seen another one on the trails, ever, and never heard anyone else mention one on here so it’s actually the most Niche bike on STW, even though it has a bomber fork, gears, and 26 inch wheels. 🙂

(Thought I was getting seriously unmotivated/unfit until I replaced the entire 4 yr old drivetrain and wheels (races were kaput in the rear), and suddenly I was ok again.)

Now me, I’d no more decide that my next bike must have a certain size of wheel than I’d decide it must have a certain size of rotor, or a certain number of gears. I’d buy the whole bike, not some wheels with a bike coincidentally attached.

http://freeformcomment.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/windows-8-perspectives-power-user-and.html

Scroll to The Teenager Perspective

This is SOOO much better than my iPad

Apparently to have one aircraft carrier you need three.

One on station, one in refit, and one on the way from one to the other. So those nations with less than three don’t really have any!

(I read that on the internet.)

I’ve been riding for 19 years (when the hell did that happen!?!) and it’s a better time than it was in some ways, worse in others.

Better because motorbikes are more mainstream. More people are using midrange twins for their commute so more people understand bikes and everyone’s ‘coming to terms’ with them, due in part to “Think Bike” and similar campaigns. Worse, cos the police forgot their half of the unspoken deal we had; we’ll go easy in the towns and villages, they generally leave us alone on a quiet Sunday road.

I still commute by bike (and enjoy it) but riding purely for fun only happens on a MX/Enduro track. If my main bike was the KTM Duke I lust after I could ride on the roads for fun again, cos they ain’t that quick. 🙂

Now me, I’d no more decide that my next bike must have a certain size of wheel than I’d decide it must have a certain size of rotor, or a certain number of gears. I’d buy the whole bike, not some wheels with a bike coincidentally attached.

I think go the whole hog, or not at all. The hog being, legalise and regulate.

Who here would buy a bottle of whisky from some guy on a street corner, unlabelled and made by god knows who, rather than from the off license?

So, when drugs are available from the pharmacy, made to known standards and strengths, who the hell is gonna buy from the street corner? And they’re taxed, so drug use is now creating not draining government revenue. It’s also NOT contributing to criminal revenue or driving dealer turf wars. The pharmaceutical companies making them now have more money to spend on curing disease. (We’ll add some Laws that blah percent of party drug revenue must be spent on medicinal drug research.)

(Seriously, why am I not in charge yet?)

Clean what moves, ignore the rest.
Special attention to chain and drivetrain with a stiff brush and blast out with the hose, and brakes – soak all over the callipers with muc off and blast out with the hose. Get ALL muck away from suspension rotating and sliding parts.

Various post wash potions include WD40, clear grease round suspension pivots, light oil round suspension seals (wipe off before riding). I’m not getting into the chain lube debate.

Bear in mind that in singletrack forum universe, turning the bike upside down un-bleeds the brakes and “anyone else’s preferred detergent” is made of acid that dissolves metal (especially hardened bearings) in seconds. 😆