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Old 03-12-14 | 11:41 AM
  #120  
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JoeyBike
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Originally Posted by Dave Cutter
...I don't ask what they think of my tights! I think that on average the "poor people of cheap-o bicycles" dislike hobby cyclists the most.
I can only speak for the somewhat European US city where I live, and a bunch of friends in the Seattle area.

As far as "hobby" cyclists go, those who wear regular street clothes blend in with the rest of the citizens. Those who wear circus trapeze outfits to ride their bikes around town are disliked in this order, both in New Orleans and Seattle:

1. Motorists who don't bike hate "hobby" cyclists the most.

2. Every other kind of cyclist (who wear street clothes to ride their bikes) has sort of a comical disdain for those costume wearing cyclists.

3. Poor people are just trying to ride their basic cheap bikes to a destination and hoping to stay alive. Because the po'folks I encounter are riding geared bikes with no brakes (I can see the linear pull calipers laying wide open) because their wheels are not true enough to make hand operated brakes work. Because they must ride at or near walking speed they must worry about the hundreds of cars that will overtake them on the street side, getting mugged from the sidewalk side, and stopping in time for whatever comes along. The vast majority of poor in my town are also uneducated. So I seriously doubt that any other kind of cyclist is even on their radar. I would put poor folks dead last at caring about another "cyclist" one way or another because poor people DON'T consider themselves CYCLISTS in the first place.

Last edited by JoeyBike; 03-12-14 at 11:45 AM.
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