Fwd: [CSI Group] Terminology

[Jim Baross]

Gary, also a CABO member, is looking for some ideas. 

Let's help out.

Jim Baross

Board Member, League of American Bicyclists

President, Calif. Assoc. of Bicycling Organizations

Board Member, San Diego County Bicycle Coalition

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Gary Cziko <gcz...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jun 30, 2022 at 10:04 AM
Subject: [CSI Group] Terminology
To: CyclingSavvy Instructors <cyclingsavvy...@googlegroups.com>

People,

I’m looking for suggestions for good terms to describe:

1. Bicyclists who are not or less comfortable bicycling in traffic.

2. Bicyclists who are comfortable or at least more comfortable bicycling in traffic than no. 1.

I’d prefer neutral terms that don’t obviously cast a judgement on which might in any way be “better” than the other.

Some starters.

1. traffic shy; traffic averse; traffic intolerant; less traffic tolerant

2. traffic confident; traffic skilled; traffic tolerant; more traffic tolerant; traffic savvy; traffic smart

Please don’t suggest “strong and fearless” vs. “Interested but concerned”!

—Gary

--

Gary Cziko ("ZEE-ko"), Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Board of Directors, California Association of Bicycle Organizations (CABObike.org)

CyclingSavvy Instructor (CSI)

Board of Directors, American Bicycling Education Association (March 2015 - August 2021)

Expert Witness for Cyclists' Rights

Author:

Without Miracles: Universal Selection Theory and the Second Darwinian Revolution (MIT Press, 1995)

The Things We Do: Using the Lessons of Bernard and Darwin to Understand the What, How, and Why of Our Behavior (MIT Press, 2000)

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06/30/22, 10:50:36 AM

[bike...@att.net]

Hi: I don’t like such characterizations, but this one is getting some usage by bike professionals:

https://blog.altaplanning.com/understanding-the-four-types-of-cyclists-112e1d2e9a1b

 

Rick

Santa Cruz

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[William Sellin]

The underlying fallacy of Geller's typology is that they are not static;

Building permanent infrastructure to serve a population that shift’s its operational skills and comfort level unfairly removes incentives to improve infra for the ‘fit and fearless’ and sets up disparity where only affluent customers (remember to follow the $ from badvocates back to manufacturers and sellers of bicycles)

I also reject Geller’s inclusion of no way - no how as a viable customer base for getting them to ride. You can build a "protected bike lane” cycle track from their hom eto work or school and they still won’t bike. "No Way - No How" is not a category of cyclist we should build infrastructure for.

here is my take on the typology - base it on actual riding behavior, not subjective and shifting ‘comfort’

[Frank J. Lehnerz]

Rick,

Haha! That's an understatement. Geller's categorizations are gospel in that domain and are in many of the government design guidelines, manuals, standards, etc. To even attempt to argue otherwise to them is to try to tell someone (well most of us) that the earth is flat.

I do agree with your dislike for such characterizations. The "strong and fearless" label is often used as a slur to dismiss the arguments (and often character based on immutable characteristics) of  experienced and knowledgeable cyclists in much the same way that "vehicular cyclist" is used or "Fred" or "MAMIL."  Such are used to divide people just as common-enemy identity politics does and this along with "intersectionality" have really rocked the bicycling world over the past few years. It's a grotesque rhetorical game. 

Jan Heine, who runs Rene Herse (formerly Compass) Cycles tried to tackle this issue a few years ago and came up with "Competent and Confident." But even that, IMO has it's bugaboos. John Forester used to use "competent" and "incompetent" back in his day which to probably no one's surprise, didn't go over too well. 

https://www.renehersecycles.com/who-are-you-calling-fast-and-fearless/

The iamtraffic.org website had a few essays about this but it appears that page mostly redirects to Cycling Savvy. 

Frank 

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[Frank J. Lehnerz]

Bill,

Thank you for this. Mind blown!

Would you mind expanding a bit on this? I think it's important to unveil the incentives here. 

Building permanent infrastructure to serve a population that shift’s its operational skills and comfort level unfairly removes incentives to improve infra for the ‘fit and fearless’ and sets up disparity where only affluent customers (remember to follow the $ from badvocates back to manufacturers and sellers of bicycles)

Frank

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Another typology study:  

Dedicated Cyclists; Path-Using Cyclists; Fairweather Utilitarians; Liesure Cyclists

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and another scale of alignment I like a lot to pigeon hole us all:

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William Sellin (Bill)

District 12 Area Director

wase...@gmail.com

714 943-3678

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[petevannuys]

Please, please, please don't ever resurrect Geller and his BS self serving categories of bicyclists. 

  No genuine bicycle advoc, by which I mean someone who is not a Badvocate, would give an ounce of credence to his descriptions. He conducted no credible investigations into the real time behavior of his subjects. Similar surveys take at face value the stated intent of subjects who say, "Oh sure, I'll ride more if tax money is spent on infra projects I don't know or understand."

  His self serving model disenfranchises people who actually ride so he and Badvocates can cash in on Advocacy Industrial Complex money streams, ostensibly to increase butts on bike seats. The cheap Chinese Ebike boom has done more, infinitely faster, to put 10s of thousands of butts( albeit ignorant) on bike seats than all the infra geeks ever could. 

   THIS IS A WATERSHED, where accommodation of wannabe bicyclists is no longer the real concern. Cities and Badvocates must now focus on the real challenge of How Do We Accommodate Brainless Ebike Hoards?

  Perhaps we actual bicyclists can retire from the front lines, defend what rights to the street we now have, and watch with amusement as know nothing engineers try to deal with masses of know nothing Ebike voters. They're not "interested but concerned," they are on your friggin streets and sidewalks now, baby.

Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone

[Ramon Zavala]

My two preferred spectrum (Knowledge and Confidence) combine to make a pretty decent quadrant system.

Misinformed to Knowledgeable (re: law, policy, rights, mechanics, best practices)

Fearful to Confident (re: collisions, hazards, own skills, the unforeseen, etc.)

• Knowledgeable & Fearful: May be skittish on the road due to bad experiences or a lack of experience. Could use a role model and/or some more mile son the road putting that high knowledge to use.
  
• Misinformed & Confident: At risk of reckless behavior.
• Misinformed & Fearful: Likely best on paths and sidewalks until they've had some bike education and or experienced some good role-modeling.
  
• Knowledgeable & Confident: Safe and prepared
  

Ramon

[Ramon Zavala]

Echoing Pete, do read this from Roger Geller himself (https://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/article/264746). This shows that The entire concept was based on Gellar's understanding (prejudices and stereotyping?) of Portland's bicycle subculture and he took the echo chamber of other bicycle planners as validation.

Thank you, Bill, for pointing out that "no way, no how" cyclists don't bike and thus aren't cyclists.

Ramon

[Frank J. Lehnerz]

They absolutely were his prejudices and stereotyping. He provided nearly zero data - or at least didn't cite many of his sources - for his claims. It doesn't seem as if anybody pushed back via a peer-review process or anything. 

It's the "Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" of bicycling advocacy. Both written by completely unqualified people in the respective fields who essentially wrote diary entries based on their feelings. 

It's mind-boggling it's been taken so seriously especially as a foundation for policy and engineering "standards" but that's how far our epistemic systems have fallen off the cliff. The Sagans, Feynman, and Poppers are probably rolling in their graves. Well, so is Orwell. 

Related:

https://steve-patterson.com/our-present-dark-age-part-1/

https://doomberg.substack.com/p/wide-awake/

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[William Sellin]

Alta & other BAdvocates are in “cahoots" with industry - 

selling plans to locals who may or may not ever secure funding to build out & find out how they work in the real world…

Getting more butts on bikes helps the industry, but education, regulation, encouragement - it’s not going to save the world where the EPA can’t even control coal burning power plants.  

Local politicians get our support touting expensive infrastructure schemes ( from Class I bikeways that end up being sub-standard shared use paths to nowhere  - to crazy expensive bridges to get across Caltrans city dividing freeways, to “protected bike lanes” to address the level of discomfort of un educated, unskilled and inexperienced cyclist - {fear mongering gets votes}) and instead of working with a local BAC and their own certified staff engineers - a RFP gets put out and some company will update the logos on the same-old-same-old and sell them a ‘plan’ good enough to get all those ‘no-way,no-how’ cyclists to skip driving or couch sitting and join us…

Ultimately funding never comes through, or does after that politician / city manager / director gets moved up and no one remembers what was ‘planned’ - all that money to the contracted planners could have been spent on existing staff improving local pavement for cyclists and other road users, put into traffic calming and reduced lethal speeds to make it less ’stressful’ fro all and education/enforcement of and by the local police.  

IMO

The answer is in supporting the local engineers and educating them on every hazardous condition they ignore while dreaming up career building plans to make their directors look good the the current city manager or council. (At least that keeps me motivated to be a squeaky wheel!)

William Sellin (Bill)

District 12 Area Director

wase...@gmail.com

714 943-3678

[Gary Cziko]

Back to the terminology

All,

Thanks for all the suggestions.

So far, I like best descriptors with tolerant and shy. 

Here's an example of a context in which I'd use this.

This infrastructure provides options for both (a) slower and/or traffic-shy cyclists as well as

(b) faster and/or more traffic-tolerant cyclists, including e-bike and group cyclists.

--Gary