Re: This will be a good decade for bicycling!
Edward Dolan
"DougC" <dci...@norcom2000.com> wrote in message
news:XMt%m.88$nR...@newsfe01.iad...
> On 1/1/2010 2:26 PM, Tom Sherman �_� wrote:
>> Why you ask? As the plutocracy consolidates their power and wealth, the
>> existing and new working poor will not be able to afford private
>> motorized transportation. Therefore, fewer motor vehicles on the road,
>> and more bicycles ridden for transportation by the new class of de-facto
>> serfs.
>>
>
> So you mean that everywhere will be as nice to ride as Detroit is?
Doug, although I know you are an idiot from previous posts, you also
approach sheer genius at times. Indeed, cycling is a proclivity of an elite,
but one not based on income. Americans will never resort to cycling to get
around. If they are as poor as church mice, they will either walk or take
public transportation.
Cycling only becomes a mass transportation thing in a society where it is
culturally ingrained such as it was in China of recent decades. The
socialist-communist serfs of the former Soviet Union never took to cycling
because it was not in their culture to do so and it most certainly is not in
the American culture ever to resort to cycling no matter how dire the
circumstances. Only a cultural elite ever gets into cycling. Very funny that
Mr. Sherman does not realize this very elementary fact of life.
Regards,
Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota
delboy
> "DougC" <dcim...@norcom2000.com> wrote in message
I get the impression that most Yanks will only travel in great big gas-
guzzling V8 SUVs, even if it's only to go 100 yards down the road to
the nearest Burger Bar. That is why they do so much damage to the
planet and why so many of them are grossly overweight!
DC
Edward Dolan
"delboy" <del.co...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote in message
news:a547d631-6f11-4bca...@m16g2000yqc.googlegroups.com...
>> I get the impression that most Yanks will only travel in great big gas-
guzzling V8 SUVs, even if it's only to go 100 yards down the road to
the nearest Burger Bar. That is why they do so much damage to the
planet and why so many of them are grossly overweight!
That is substantially correct. But if the Europeans had more elbow room they
would not be any different. We humans live only in our own time and take no
heed for whatever problems we might be creating for future generations.
Life is for the living and let the dead bury the dead!
Unlike most Americans I use my bicycle to go almost everywhere in town. I
use it for all chores as well such as grocery shopping (I have a trike with
a large basket in the rear). But I am the one and only who does any of this.
I put my car into mothballs for the winter months (November through March).
Tom Sherman °_°
> [...]
> I get the impression that most Yanks will only travel in great big gas-
> guzzling V8 SUVs, even if it's only to go 100 yards down the road to
> the nearest Burger Bar. That is why they do so much damage to the
> planet and why so many of them are grossly overweight!
>
--
Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.
TheTibetanMonkey showing-the-path-of-enlightenment-in-the-jungle
>
> - Show quoted text -
Well, they also walk at the shopping malls. But there's a lot of hope
things will change in the next 100 years.
delboy
wrote:
> delboy wrote:
> > [...]
> > I get the impression that most Yanks will only travel in great big gas-
> > guzzling V8 SUVs, even if it's only to go 100 yards down the road to
> > the nearest Burger Bar. That is why they do so much damage to the
> > planet and why so many of them are grossly overweight!
>
> Given your user name, do you drive a Reliant Robin?
No, and my surname starts with C rather than T, so it's not Trotter.
DC
TheTibetanMonkey
> "delboy" <del.copel...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote in message
I beg to disagree. The SUV is a vehicle for the brutish and
uneducated.
Now the ghetto boys all want them, but not the kids going to college.
Edward Dolan
"TheTibetanMonkey" <comandan...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:269dadbd-1fb0-4244...@c3g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...[...]
> That is substantially correct. But if the Europeans had more elbow room
> they
> would not be any different.
>> I beg to disagree. The SUV is a vehicle for the brutish and
uneducated.
>> Now the ghetto boys all want them, but not the kids going to college.
It is all a question of what works. You do not see many SUVs in Europe
because of the high taxes on gasoline and also because the streets are often
not wide enough for them. Many European villages do not even have streets
wide enough for a typical American sized car.
Kids going to college do not need any kind of car. They can walk, take
public transportation or ride a bicycle.
delboy
>
> It is all a question of what works. You do not see many SUVs in Europe
> because of the high taxes on gasoline and also because the streets are often
> not wide enough for them. Many European villages do not even have streets
> wide enough for a typical American sized car.
>
> Kids going to college do not need any kind of car. They can walk, take
> public transportation or ride a bicycle.
>
I agree about the high levels of motor fuel taxation issue. In the UK
motorists are just regarded as tax cows for the Government, who seem
to forget that motorists are also voters. We also have a 'green'
agenda where the owners of large cars have to pay much more in Vehicle
Excise Duty, and the owners of large SUVs have been made into social
pariahs.
However, we do have SUVs in the UK, and many of their owners live in
rural areas where they are often a necessity of life for off-road and
farming use. They do fit quite comfortably into our roads, so you must
have been watching too many ancient movies.
Our class warfare New Labour Government have a social mobility program
that means that children from poor areas have to attend schools in
richer areas and vice versa. Children therefore often have to travel
some distance to school, and so we have the phenomenom of the 'School
Run Mummies' (Scrummies) who drive their children to school by car or
SUV, which clogs up our roads in the morning and evening rush hours.
So much for the green agenda and joined up thinking!
DC
TheTibetanMonkey showing-the-path-of-enlightenment-in-the-jungle
When you mean large SUVs, you mean Rovers or something filthy like
this...
http://www.fordvehicles.com/trucks/superduty/
But they ain't pariahs here. They are a symbol of prestige and having
money to burn. And you are expected to drive it to the corner if you
don't want to be pushed around on foot.
delboy
>
> - Show quoted text -
I don't think we have anything quite as gross as that huge Ford
picktruck on sale in the UK (Thank God!). Most of our SUVs are Land
Rovers, Range Rovers, Jeeps, Mitsubishis, Toyotas, Nissans, Lexus and
BMWs.
They are the only road vehicles that have been able to get around in
the mini Ice Age we seem to be suffering in the UK at the moment.
Where is Global Warming when you need it?
DC
Tom Sherman °_°
> [...]
> I don't think we have anything quite as gross as that huge Ford
The Ford F-450 dually is actually useful when you have a 6 to 8-ton work
trailer to haul around - the standard single-wheel F-350 gets kind of
squirrelly with that heavy of load.
Tom Sherman °_°
> [...]
> rural areas where they are often a necessity of life for off-road and
Can you still get them with low-range, a crawler gear, and a PTO so you
can work the fields with them, like the original Land Rover?
delboy
wrote:
Most of them come with low range 4WD, but not PTOs. They are likely to
be used for towing trailers.
DC
Ian Smith
On Tue, 5 Jan 2010, delboy <del.co...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
> Most of our SUVs are Land Rovers, Range Rovers, Jeeps, Mitsubishis,
> Toyotas, Nissans, Lexus and BMWs.
>
> They are the only road vehicles that have been able to get around
> in the mini Ice Age we seem to be suffering in the UK at the
> moment.
That's funny. I thought I had cycled to work on my normal bicycle. I
was overtaken, as is normal, by busses, lorries, and lots of perfectly
normal cars.
When I arrived at work I thought I locked my bike up next to the
normal bicycle of the chap that normally locks his next to mine (his
is a small-wheel shopper, mine a hub-gear hybrid). I walked through
the car-park past the normal selection of normal saloon and hatchback
cars.
In Surrey, where we are apparently in the grip of a flash severe
weather warning from the met office.
I must have imagined it.
regards, Ian SMith
--
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TheTibetanMonkey showing-the-path-of-enlightenment-in-the-jungle
Are you living the "Day After"? ;)
Anyway, here you need something filthy like that Ford to be someone at
the top of the food chain. Imagine how "safe" everybody else out there
is. :(
TheTibetanMonkey showing-the-path-of-enlightenment-in-the-jungle
That type of filthy vehicle finds a use when you own an equally filthy
motorboat and you need to tow it around. Luckily you see the filthy
vehicle by itself most of the time --with the driver alone.
delboy
> ["Followup-To:" header set to uk.rec.cycling.]
>
I can only imagine that the owners of these cars were lucky enough to
travel on roads that had been cleared and gritted. I live on a
steepish hill that has not been cleared, or gritted, and most two-
wheel drive cars are struggling to get up it. Rear wheel drive BMWs
with wide low profile tyres seem to be the worst: Serves their owners
right for buying an expensive German status symbol!
DC