question about hipsters?
 

why do they bother people so much ?

it usually bothers people the most who are or were guilty to some degree of hipsterness themselves and who like to complain about stuff.

all part of a vicious snob cycle....

like most other subcultures, the highly visible elements tend to get hated on by people who don't understand or are rubbed the wrong way by a few idiots making an entire group look bad

what do i do with my pink wheels and yellow tires now?

i prefer big ruffled grandma panties

same deal with lycra, which in my opinion is the single most important advance in cycling since I started riding.

The only hipsters that bug me, are the ones nagging about lycra, roadies or who brag about all the laws they ignored during a CM.

The rest of the hipsters are just cyclist as far as I am concerned.

cool i was just wondering if they are mean or are a meance or if there was really any logical reason to have something agaisnt them, or it it was just a "diffrent is bad" kinda thing

Most of them are much younger than me.

Hipster... the commuting forum's answer to the road cycling's "poseur"? :D

I wouldn't go so far as to say hipsters bother me. I will say that I tend to laugh at them instead of with them, if you follow me.

Bothersome? Nah. Worth thinking about? Nope.
Just a bunch of kids who think they are all that and spend way too much time concerned with their appearance related to their clique... as all kids do.

Because people are morons.

they are just another group claiming to be unique yet to belong to their group you need to conform to a number of unwritten rules and if you don't match them perfectly you'll be ridiculed by those who you were trying to gain acceptance from.

for the most part they are all good kids/adults just trying to find acceptance some where.

I don't really fit into either group, but I will say that I wear jeans and t-shirts when I ride...not jerseys. But that is because I don't have the spare cash to buy a jersey or tights/riding shorts. I have heard a lot of people, especially roadies, complain about jeans...but the way I look at it, is that it doesn't matter what you look like on or off the bike...it just matters that you are riding.

The other reason that I wear jeans is that they block the wind pretty nicely, throw a pair of tights or thermals on underneath and your good to go ;)

I don't really have much problem with them. I do take issue when they strip down a beautiful old classic steel framed bike and they turn it into a ss/fg. But even then, so long as they are not throwing out the old components, and not making any permanent changes.... so what? If it can be restored to period correct then in the end I don't care.

They also, in my experience are ninjas. I never see hipsters with good lighting on their bikes. But again, there are plenty of people who don't have good lighting. I can't pin that solely on hipsters.

They are just silly nitwits who are caught up in today's fad. Tomorrow it'll be some other group.

they're just kids trying new stuff, trying to keep their friends and stand out, ironically. nothing to get too bent about. as long as an individual respects other people i don't care what they wear/ride.

The hipsters I can stand.
Don't get me started on the hipster doofuses, though.

I'll admit, I was ignorant, and didn't really know what a hipster was. So I did a bit of googling. The first definition here was pretty entertaining:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hipster
However, the third definition says, "You, for reading ironic, pseudo-intellectual dictionary entries on the word "hipster"." So how bout that, I'm a hipster. I do wear jeans while I ride sometimes, and do ride a single-speed, though it's not fixed gear. But really, I'm still not sure what a hipster is.

I am reminded, though, of an experience I had in a Hot Topic store a while back. I saw a kid ("kid" = someone under 30) that had a T-shirt that said, "You laugh at me because I'm different. I laugh at you because you're all the same." And I looked around that store, and everyone in there was about 20, wearing black clothes, tattooed, pierced, etc. And there I was, 45 years old, in blue jean shorts, no tattoos, no piercings, and I thought "Who is different here and who is all the same?"

hip is cool, but when it carries into the bike world, a lot of unsafe riding technique and equipment gets tossed into the pool. Kids acting out, being independent follow-sheep, no big deal. but man, what suck bikes they ride!

there's a (very young) bike mechanic at my workplace that rides a welded singlespeed tallbike with nothing but a front brake, in a very hilly town. He thinks he's hip, it's patently unsafe and a idiotic attempt to be 'hip' or 'hipper' than the rest of the young people on bikes.

kids come into the shop, want to make a 'fixie' because it's 'cool'. And then i see a lot of patently unsafe bikes being ridden by people without the skills to ride them safely in traffic. Some kids have mad skills on fixed gear bikes, most do not. A clique that encourages redlight running because of a proliferation of subpar equipment that handicaps riders is a poor addition to the cycling world.

This is part of MY disdain for the bicycle 'hipster'. you've got the skills, cheers. most don't.

Perhaps the phenomenon is no different than the scorchers of the 19th century. Did you all know the origins of the undercover policeman came about with the 19th century bike boom- police developed the entire concept of undercover police officers (undercover bike patrols in the late 1800's) - as a direct result of needing a means to catch and ticket lawbreaking cyclists - "scorchers."

Don't forget the lavender chain!

So... no LEO ever went incognito before 1870?

The hipster is the new hippie. He's someone who does something because it's 'hip.' and who thinks less of those who are not 'hip' because they are not 'hip' or, in the parlance of another generation, 'square.'

Ever since I got into cycling, in the late 70's, I've known guys who rode fixed gear bikes because they preferred that. I don't share that preference, but I respect it. Now to ride a fixed gear bike because it's 'hip,' well, that's neither here nor there; but if you add the elements of incompetence and safety, it's clearly a case of misplaced priorities. Bekologist, I'm with you!

This drives me nuts too. The other night on the way home I fell into a group of riders: all twenty-something males, all light- and helmet-less, all on tarck bikes. And not one of them could track stand at a light so they'd zig-zag through crossing traffic. Dude, if you're going to play in traffic, at least learn some bike handling skills.

This is locked outside my office building in NYC most days.

Because they are way ahead of their time and some people are way out of touch to see that.

I should have been more accurate. Undercover officers on bikes predate the unmarked police car. Of course many police -dectectives versus beat cops - wore 'plainsclothes' versus a uniform and police went 'undercover' even back then, but posting beat cops in plainsclothes to enforce laws on the street- like the modern, unmarked police car- are a result of lawbreaking cyclists.

"The practice of cyclist "scorching" also is responsible for two modern safety innovations. The aldermen of New York City noting the danger of police cyclists trying to catch "scorchers," recommended that police bicycles be fitted with a continuously sounding bell.(98) This is the forerunner of the modern police siren. In addition, because "scorchers" would slow down when they saw a bicyclist in a police uniform, cycle cops began wearing civilian clothes--the predecessor of the unmarked police car.(99)"

from 'The impact of the sport of bicycle riding on safety law'
By Petty, Ross D.
Publication: American Business Law Journal
Date: Thursday, January 1 1998