Not at all.

Oh boy! another "But you couldn't ride a bike like that here" post. :rolleyes:

Portland is actually one of the few places in the US where city bikes are increasing in popularity, so be careful not to tell the people actually riding them there how impossible it would be.

Inside Springfield? Doubtful, but maybe. In the area surrounding Springfield? Don't bet on it. In the Ozarks, cities and towns developed in the places where the hills aren't terribly steep, relatively speaking. The hills may not be huge, but they can be pretty steep, and there isn't much flat land.

I wear cycling shorts if I anticipate riding for more than two hours. Until then, I get no noticeable benefit from them.

I've cycled in AMS as a tourist on several occasions. If you want to start a separate thread on AMS infrastructure I would be more than willing to voice specific impressions. In the context of this thread, your attempts to change the topic to "what spare_wheel does not like about cycling in AMS" is just rhetorical hot air.

Have you cycled in AMS, CPH, and MUC? If not, should I discount any opinions you might have on separated cycle paths, in lane cycle tracks, and/or buffered bike lanes?

I realize that there's lots that we don't understand about gravity, such as exactly what causes gravity. Whether it is or isn't a conservative force is not one of the unknowns.

We're a long way away from having complete cycling infrastructure, so that's not a credible threat.

Legs "get back the energy" on the downhills, which are "free" in terms of marginal costs. That is to say that once one summits the hill, they can typically coast back down with no additional effort, using only the potential energy stored from the climb.

The only real additional challenge hills provide is that the rider has to have enough energy to "pay for the downhills" in advance. For example, if we consider a ride that consists of one long climb and one long descent, with the summit at the midpoint. The rider has to be capable of expending enough effort in the first half of the ride. So, for the first half, climbing requires much more effort than riding the same distance in flat lands. For the second half, descending requires much less effort than riding the same distance in flatlands. But the rider must be capable of expending virtually all effort for the ride in the first half.

If we assume that riding on the flatlands is done at a constant speed, then the only difference in total energy expended is due to the difference in speed of climbing versus descending. Ironically, it is the descent where the extra energy is expended. If we allow the possibility that the rider in the flatlands is doing interval training instead of riding at a constant speed, we no longer have sufficient information to determine which ride required more energy.

I live here and see a few a year, at best. Cargo bikes and folders are another matter. Those are far, far more popular than city bikes.

Some pictorial evidence of what cyclists ride in PDX:

http://bikeportland.org/2013/01/23/p...s-circle-82171
http://bikeportland.org/2012/10/12/p...corridor-78788

Why not have one of your German speaking relatives translate your reference for you so you can report what those percentages represent?

I am not doing any Googling. I have personal experience in NL as well as Amsterdam, Munich as well as in many other areas of Germany. I know that the Munich cycling environment is not the same as other areas, any more than Portland cycling environment is representative of many other areas of the U.S.

Policy making of the ADFC represents the concerns of most German cyclists in the same sense that policy making of the League of American Bicyclists represents the concerns of most American cyclists. I suspect that in neither country is there is all that much concern in the general public bicycling population about what is the respective bicycling organization's stance on segregated infrastructure and mandatory sidepath. As a side note I doubt if you think LAB policy on bike infrastructure represents your views on the subject.

I doubt very seriously if one in 20 cyclists in either country has ever heard of the Big Controversy on Bike Lanes and Bike Infrastructure that is so popularly debated on blog sites of bicycling aficionados.

city sign urging cyclists to stop cycling on thriving commercial street and move to bike route:

http://bikeportland.org/2012/06/29/p...a-street-73999

Power is just energy divided by time, so there's no mistake. :)

You are right when you talk in terms of energy or total work. But very wrong when you imply that effort or hardness of a ride is the same if total work is the same.

Clearly one of us doesn't understand the physics involved, but it isn't me.

With the same average speed (i.e. the loops are ridden in exactly the same amount of time) and the same deviation from that average speed, a 150 km loop on flatland does, in fact, require the same energy as a 150 km loop with 2000 m of climbing (for the same rider+bike+load weight). It's just physics.

That's far more popular than they are in most other parts of the USA. Cargo bikes are also heavy.

Yes, it's a terrible thing that signs provide information about the location of bike infrastructure. Of course, nothing about the sign suggests that cyclists must, or even should, change their preferred route.

I've said in this thread that I rode in the Netherlands while I was working in Rotterdam. I commuted daily in town. And did longer rides to Delft, The Hague and Amsterdam and other outlying areas.


I have never ridden in Germany.

Since I'm just another internet poster I would suggest you weigh any and all opinions I express with a huge grain of salt.

Please don't take it as an offense but having followed some of your posts on BF you are far from having established yourself as an authority. You come across as someone hyped up by blog posts and Internet bike chatter with some cycling experience in a very specific region of the US.

So, yeah, it's entertaining to engage because I'm into bikes and all things bicycle but really I base my foundational opinions on my actual experience.

I guess you missed the section at the city of Munich "State of Biking" site:

"Elimination of cycle path compulsory use".
"Aufhebung der Benutzungspflicht von Radwegen".

I very much doubt one in 20 cyclists even bother to post on a bike blog.

Well, since "hardness" (in this context) is a purely subjective term, I haven't implied any such thing.

I've just called out B.S. on those who believe that riding in non-flat areas is too hard not to ride a super light bike in special cycling clothing. It just isn't true. Non-flat terrain does not imply a more difficult ride than flat terrain. Most any bike, including the heavy ones, can be set up to allow the rider to experience (what he/she perceives to be) a pleasant ride in the local terrain.

You know about elementary physics equations but reading skills are lagging.

Not at all.

I'm not the one having such difficulty understanding the implications of the science. But feel free to keep trying to rationalize why total elevation climbed isn't a wholly meaningless stat. Do you need another example to show the ludicrousness of that stat?

In the first post I quoted of you, you mention the "difficulty" of a ride from a perspective of energy required. Seems to me that you are saying that hills don't make a ride more difficult because the same energy is required.

Now I agree that hills don't have to make a ride more difficult with light enough gearing, you can just adjust the speed accordingly to produce the same power and your muscles wont know the difference. The entire energy argument is irrelevant.
The only problem is that if your comfortable power output is such that on the flats you go at 10-12 mph, a 5% or 10% incline will almost surely make you go at an uncomfortable high pace.

clearly, dutch infrastructure works very, very well in holland. as a USAnian i am very much entitled to have an opinion about what kind of infrastructure works best in the usa. portland has basically followed the german model (bike boulevards and bike lanes):
http://bikeportland.org/wp-content/u...cherlead21.jpg


erm...we are both "chattering" on an internet bulletin board.

i prefer links and citations to claims of "actual experiences" on the internet.

i was not aware that one needed to be an "authority" to have an opinion.

Every few months, I load up the recycling from my household and business and ride to the Glenwood transfer station. Overall, it's a fine ride on a segregated bike path along the river. After crossing under I-5, I pop out onto the roadway and am treated to a bike lane on a five-lane road with traffic traveling at about 45 mph for a bit. That is followed by a short stretch of take-the-lane (wide cart, otherwise the shoulder would work fine). It's a nice little errand that I enjoy.

As soon as funding becomes available, the last portion of that ride will change. I will be forced onto a sidepath by state law. It will have several driveways which will be points of heightened danger to me as cars careen off the main road into the businesses without looking at the sidepath/sidewalk. To make matters worse, I will be contraflowing with my load, which will lessen my maneuverability and some loads are high enough to prevent me from seeing cars that are overtaking at high speed.

Thus, I disagree with you. You seem to be implying that we will not be removed from the roadway until segregation is complete, but our right to the road is already being removed. Since segregation that involves intersections can only work with extensive driver training and law enforcement, neither of which we have or will have, the threat of removal from the roadway is of great significance to those of us with skin in the game.

Dude, check the thread, I did not start the gravity or Higgs Boson discussion.

At one time not too long ago, matter was conservative, could not be created or destroyed, just change form. Same with energy, could change form but not created or destroyed. Many with your type of attitude and certainty argued those very claims.

Then a man named Einstein came along with a theory that E=mc2.

There have been several instances, many even posted in BFs where politicians and the public have precisely argued for that. Maybe you should update yourself on the number of USA localities that have mandatory use laws, not to mention a town called Blackhawk.