You’re applying a North American mentality to a European situation where it doesn’t fit.

In North America, utility cycling is something of an outsider activity. Most people don’t do it and they think utility cyclists must be drunks or living in poverty, or they lecture us that it’s too dangerous or find it annoying that we are trying to share the road with them. They try to talk us out of cycling, or rant about the shortcomings of cyclists, or offer us rides when it’s cold. As a result North American utility cyclists are typically people who are a bit independent and non-conformist, or love cycling, or are out there trying in part to get a fit. So we’re a bit defiant or defensive. It’s like every time we are on the bike we have to demonstrate to the haters and nay-sayers that yes, cycling is safe, and feasible, and to prove it we have to do it in full. We turn down their rides and scoff at their fussing. We would be loathe to take the bike on the subway, or use something like the Trondheim lift, because it would prove the others right, that cycling is too difficult, and also we would feel we are somehow cheating on our exercise plan.

But in Scandinavia, its not like that at all. A much larger and broader section of the public utility cycle, and it’s considered perfectly normal. Nobody is talking them down or assuming they must want help. A lot of the cyclists are not doing it for love of cycling, or for fitness, and have nothing to prove, they are just doing it because it happens to be part of their culture, and easier than other options. So to them, it’s not a sign of moral or physical weakness it they hop on the Trondheim lift. They think it’s great to have that facility to make their bike ride a little more convenient, because that’s why they're cycling – for the convenience.

So to them, using the lift is no different than you using the moving sidewalk in the airport, which I bet you do, at least sometimes. You have no emotional investment in walking through the airport, nobody to impress or silence, by trudging along next to the conveyor belt. You (probably) use it because it’s there for your convenience, it speeds you along a bit, and makes the tiresome airport experience a little less stressful and fatiguing.

You lazy slacker.