General Cycling Discussion - transportation cycling and moral superiority

i was curious as to how people feel about this. what are your thoughts? does riding a bike earn you brownie/karma/moral highground points? should the very important person drive to work so they have more time to devote themselves to greater good? if i had the forum savvy to set up a poll, it might look like this:

1. transportation cyclists are better people than transportation drivers
2. the higher bike/drive ratio the better the person
3. a person's moral worth is inversely proportional to the amount of (resources consumed + pollution emitted)
4. i am a better person, morally, on days i bike than days i drive
5. a person should be judged only where they go and what they do there not how they get there
6. there's no such thing as a "better" person
7. there is such thing as a "better" person and it is a fixed value and can be determined
8. there is such thing as a "better" person and it is a variable value and can be determined
9. there is such thing as a "better" person and it is a fixed value but can not be determined
10. there is such thing as a "better" person and it varies but can't be determined
11. if there is such a thing as a "better" person surely they wouldn't be wasting their time on a thread like this
12. despite the inevitable cries of "none of the options quite fits my unique self" it is a waste of time to try and make a comprehensive poll
13. add your own

I am better than all of you, and I ride a bike.

Don't want to over analize it because I ride because I enjoy it and riding to work is one more oportunity to ride but if you think about it :

Riding a bike is very patriotic because it lessens the need for foreign oil.
(Try using that line on a republican driving a Lincoln Navigator.)

If you want to feel morally superior because you commute by bike, feel free to do so. But keep in mind that everybody has their own circumstances in life and what is easy for you to do may not be practical for your neighbor.

Many people live too far away from work to cycle. Many people have to pick kids up at school or daycare after work. Many people do not have the fitness to bike to work. Many people need to transport a bunch of stuff, are afraid of traffic, or just don't like to ride a bike. Maybe they have not yet achieved velo-enlightenment as you have. Be patient with them.

It's probably best to build your own moral foundations rather than tread upon others'. Besides, the guy who walks to work considers you his moral inferior.

Riding a bike is very patriotic because it lessens the need for foreign oil.
(Try using that line on a republican driving a Lincoln Navigator.)
Yes indeed. This is a devastating argument in my opinion. I also like to talk about self-reliance and rugged individualism, which I believe made America great.

Flummoxes all the SUV drivers I've had the balls to talk to about it :)

Wait! Let's call up Jean-Paul Sartre!

Remember the Monty Python skit where the ladies in the laundromat call up Jean-Paul Sartre?

Karma points? Heck no, I'm actually quite a selfish rider. I do it for my own enjoyment and for nobody else.

I could care less why others bike. I focus on what I get out of it for myself and try to focus on getting those around me to bike with me.

Koffee

It's probably best to build your own moral foundations rather than tread upon others'. Besides, the guy who walks to work considers you his moral inferior.

BAM!! Thats it! Bicycling works for me, and I suspect it works for a lot of others, and may work for others who just haven't tried it yet, but if I try to think of myself as better than them, then I'll just have farther to fall when someone goes one step beyond me.

peace,
sam

(Try using that line on a republican driving a Lincoln Navigator.)

Yeah, because Democrats NEVER drive SUVs... :rolleyes:

Yeah, because Democrats NEVER drive SUVs... :rolleyes:

Right, It's just my frame of reference since I work around a Lincoln-Mercury dealership. I know how the MPG rating of the Navagator really sucks and I know that there were far more Bush stickers floating around the dealership in '04. Of course I also live in Texas.

By the way I don't concider myself either a republican or a democrat. I see both parties as being equally full of B.S. and equally corrupt. When I vote I try to find the best of the worst. Not easy to do.

Right, It's just my frame of reference since I work around a Lincoln-Mercury dealership. I know how the MPG rating of the Navagator really sucks and I know that there were far more Bush stickers floating around the dealership in '04. Of course I also live in Texas.

By the way I don't concider myself either a republican or a democrat. I see both parties as being equally full of B.S. and equally corrupt. When I vote I try to find the best of the worst. Not easy to do.


Fair enough. I live in the Bay Area, which is WAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY to the left, and there are TONS of SUVs around here. There are also lots of Hybrids and ancient VW Bugs with "Free Tibet" and "Bush Lied, People Died" bumber stickers, but I also see many, many SUVs with Kerry stickers as well.

In my frame of reference the SUV issue is not about democrat or republican politics at all.

For the record, I own two bicycles and a Jeep Liberty SUV and I love all three of them.

Cycling is such an integral part of my life that I don't have to think about it. I am a legal road user alongside motorists, motor cyclists and pedestrians.

Well, that's how I'd like to think about it. I do have a certain degree of moral superiority, but I tend to keep it to myself.

i am a better person, morally, on days i bike than days i drive

I don't know about 'morally', but I certainly feel better on the days I bike. And I love when I walk into the office and people are staring at me in my spandex and jersey.

- Don

On days I ride instead of drive I am not better than you... though I tend to be holier than thou...

"... who cursed and swore at him from a moral high ground that cyclists alone seem able to inhabit."

Douglas Adams, Long Dark Tea-time Of The Soul.

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Feelings of moral superiority start wars.

At the very least they inflate the ego.

Niether of these things are very healthy.

A car's too much responsibility. If people want it they can have it.

I DRIVE A FORD EXCURSION AND IM BETTER THEN ALL OF U LAMERS WHO RIDE DUMB BIKES, WHO RIDES DUMB BIKES ANYWAY? ONLY LAMERS AND LOSERS AND BOTH.


...actually I don't have a car. lol

I think the only thing that makes you a good person is how much better you make the world and how well you treat others. what else is there? the rest is jsut material things. cycling is making the world better.

The advocacy of biking as part of a conservation and/or health suffers from the cycling zealots that come across as being morally superior and condensending to those that do not participate in the way or for the reasons they, the zealots think they should.

So many orginizations, not just limited to cycling, whose efforts to promote cycling as a transportation/commuting/ alternative healthy lifestyle are destroyed by these zealots.

Someone with a family and commitments and the SUV can contribute. Think, this being Bike Month and Bike to Work Week soon, if just some everyday regular folks didn't drive a vehicle for a week and were not ostercized by others for even owning a vehicle, we might have a better following in the bike as an alternative transportation realm.

I'm not morally superior, but I do fell smarter than many of my co-workers. Yes, some can't ride in because they live too far away, but I chose where to live partly to be close enough. Also, there are others who live within commuting distance and could commute. They spend a ton of $$$ on car payments, car maintenance, car insurance, gas, parking, and on the health club membership they need to make up for their lack of exercise. That's just wasteful, and not all that bright.

The advocacy of biking as part of a conservation and/or health suffers from the cycling zealots that come across as being morally superior and condensending to those that do not participate in the way or for the reasons they, the zealots think they should.

So many orginizations, not just limited to cycling, whose efforts to promote cycling as a transportation/commuting/ alternative healthy lifestyle are destroyed by these zealots.

Someone with a family and commitments and the SUV can contribute. Think, this being Bike Month and Bike to Work Week soon, if just some everyday regular folks didn't drive a vehicle for a week and were not ostercized by others for even owning a vehicle, we might have a better following in the bike as an alternative transportation realm.

A big part of the problem is that so many people view everyone who makes ANY kind of effort toward conservation as being snooty or holier-than-thou - there are a lot of people out there involved in environmental efforts who are NOT zealots, but the destructos have been very effective at making everyone on the conservation side seem like loonies.

I am morally inferior on the days I ride my bike. I love my bike. Riding my bike gives me great pleasure and I selfishly ride it as much as I can get away with, even to the point of riding it to work everyday. Sometimes when my wife asks me to go to the store to get some milk, I'll sneak out on my bike instead of using the car the way God intended.

Excuse me while I go to confession ("Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been a month since my last confession and in that time I've put 574 miles on my bike when I should have been driving a car.")

I don't own a car (never have) and hike, bike, walk everywhere I go...whats that get me...a medal or a chest? ;)

Seriously people driving don't bug me in the least and I sure don't feel superior to them in any way. They have their own reasons for driving and I don't. I am sure if you flipped this they might feel superior to me and actually think I am a nut for not owning a car. Doesn't matter to me and I hope it doesn't matter to them.

If the truth be known, I'm a bit of a scumbag.

Riding a bike is very patriotic because it lessens the need for foreign oil.
(Try using that line on a republican driving a Lincoln Navigator.)

Nice try of bashing all republicans, I would say tell that to the hollywood democrate riding in a limo.

I am a republican and I don't even own a car, and I walk or bike every where.

I'm a moral paradox. On the one hand, I ride my bicycle; on the other hand, when I do drive, I drive like a freakin' maniac.

The comment about hollywood democrats in limos made me think of "The Obvious Song" by Joe Jackson:


There was a man in the jungle, trying to make ends meet
Found himself one day with an axe in his hand
When a voice said, "Buddy can you spare that tree
We gotta save this world starting with your land"

It was a rock 'n roll millionaire from the USA
Doing three to the gallon in a big white car
And he sang and sang 'till he polluted the air
And he blew a lot of smoke from a Cuban cigar

I'm a moral paradox. On the one hand, I ride my bicycle; on the other hand, when I do drive, I drive like a freakin' maniac.

The comment about hollywood democrats in limos made me think of "The Obvious Song" by Joe Jackson:

Ninjas are the ultimate paradox. On the one hand they don't give a crap, but on the other hand, ninjas are very careful and precise.