Cycling

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
i hate how cycling has been upsold, so all the protection and padding, the kit people have, the ridiculous expensive bikes, strava, special water bottles, pouches, all that shit. take a nice simple thing, build a whole bastard system round it.

yes i feel the same. and those modern bicycles look like shit. they look like transformers or fighter jets. the thing i find even more bizarre is people going around on racing bikes thinking they're in the tour the france. except they're in a chaotic city with street lights, narrow streets and traffic everywhere. it hurts my eyes seeing how they have to bend their backs and necks in order to look ahead. plus half of the time they can't drive because streets are paved with big cobbles.

i drive my bicycle everyday and i regularly receive death threats from car drivers. another thing they sometimes do is to "pretend" they want to hit me, making a sudden move so it looks they are crashing into me and turning back on the last moment, its psychopathic really.

burn all cars.
 

catalog

Well-known member
(in reply to jenks and luka)i am being facetious again, i will give myself 50 lashes... it's only cos i ride my wife's bike, have no proper kit, plastic fruit n veg basket bungee tied to the back, overbalanced with my bag. and get a few smirky looks off the MAMILs at the bike lockup in the station.

even there, they've made a mountain out of a molehill, with this weird double stacking system that is really hard to work. it's cos i'm a total wimp.

i would love to buy in, but something stops me.
 

catalog

Well-known member
like, at my work, there is cycle to work scheme, where they will pay total cost up front, and you pay them back monthly, but to get invovled, you have to commit to at least 400 quid bike, with all accessories, so loads of people don't bother.
 

catalog

Well-known member
re cycle lanes and all that, there's some proper bike lane perverts at my work, always banging on, sending petitions round. cos its manchester, so flat, its a no brainer that it really could solve a lot of problems, but there's something in the psyche of brits i think, they've got a hardon for the car. that whole castle/shopkeeper thing in mobility. i know i'm stereotyping massively. it's one of the things i do despair of, like glass beer bottles. why can't we do it? whats wrong with us? why can't we make sensible decisions at big level? its gotta be the lobbying power of all the car people. big car fucking us all up.
 

luka

Well-known member
What's the glass beer bottles thing? Aren't your beer bottles made of glass in Manchester?
 

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
Car drivers victimise cyclists who victimise pedestrians. Cars and pedestrians have a friendlier relationship - the benefit of a greater inequality.
 

droid

Well-known member
like, at my work, there is cycle to work scheme, where they will pay total cost up front, and you pay them back monthly, but to get involved, you have to commit to at least 400 quid bike, with all accessories, so loads of people don't bother.

Unless you get a single speed, 400 quid is about the minimum you would need to pay for a decent new bike of any kind. Dutch step over, utility or racing bike, doesnt matter. Spending less is a false economy as something important will break as soon as you put some miles in.
 

catalog

Well-known member
What's the glass beer bottles thing? Aren't your beer bottles made of glass in Manchester?

no, we discussed this somewhere else im sure, maybe on the red and white laters thread? talking about how we don't/can't recycle glass beer bottles in this country. in europe, they do, and you get not insignificant money back to incentivise it. here. we just smash and bin them, total waste.
 

catalog

Well-known member
Unless you get a single speed, 400 quid is about the minimum you would need to pay for a decent new bike of any kind. Dutch step over, utility or racing bike, doesnt matter. Spending less is a false economy as something important will break as soon as you put some miles in.

i mean yeah, i get your point, but if you work in a uni and are grade 2 or something, 400 quid on a bike is a lot of money. so people dont bother.
 

catalog

Well-known member
and leave the broken glass on the bicycle lanes out of spite

you do see a lot of smashed glass on our streets. if people knew there was a bit of instant cash, 20p back or whatever, if you returned a whole empty glass bottle, i think it would not be so prevalent. it winds me up that we cant do it. its a total no brainer, quick win
 

catalog

Well-known member
yeah but still. i mean, its not a business model, but it does mean you prob wont smash the bottle up. 10 = nearly a pound
 

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
True. Some people get really resourceful. On the weekends and throughout summer, they wait til 2am or so, take a torch and a shopping/bike trolley and scour all the major hangout spots around the city. You can actually leave your empty bottles on the floor pretty much anytime, anywhere safe in the knowledge they'll be picked up and redeemed by someone in need.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Now I've started considering getting a bike I see bikes everywhere.

It's all mysterious to me. Where you get them. Which one you should get. Etc.
 

luka

Well-known member
a friend of mine has been trying to buy a bike recently but theyve all sold out. its very hard unless you want to spend over £1000.
 
Top