As a local, I can say that what Serbs have been doing to Albanians since 1990 has been really bad - apartheid.

But that doesn't justify doing the same thing to Serbian civilians. NATO bombing was aimed to terrorize civilians, targeting civilian infrastructure, 500+ km from the "front lines". I blame Serbian politicians the most for all the crap that happened in Yugoslavia, but they weren't the ones dropping bombs on my city - it was the US army. Not EU, not even the Germans - it was the US.


I went on many protests against the politics. Beaten by the regime's police. Cities that were the most heavily bombed (Novi Sad and Nis) were the ones where the regime didn't get much support - always lost in ellections there (but never in total - though counting was often rigged).

It's a 20% gradient for 130 m. That's like pushing your bike up a steep ramp to the top of a 5 storey parking garage.

Indeed. The politics, injustices and corruption are inexcusable and to acknowledge that both sides are not innocent is really important in moving forward. Blind nationalism is an enemy of peace. I was protesting here in the U.S. during the bombing campaign as well. What Serbs and Albanians did to each other during the war(s) is atrocious. What the U.S. did in Serbia was an atrocity, and that must be acknowledged as well.

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.

It turned anti-war. As an American, I didn't take it to be anti-American.

An interesting... although less than correct view of history. No border ever remains static... they ALL must be defended. OBL was living in the Sudan during the 1993 attack on the Trade Center (and had no part of that).

Oh yes... sure.... AMERICA is the problem!?!?! Yeah.... well thanks for the diatribe! I am sure no one has ever heard anyone blame America for every problem in the world yet. You forgot to mention how American solders kill and eat small baby's. And how we melt fine handmade bicycles and make them into bullets. And how the American war machine only serve one particular religious group... and do their killing for them..........

American war fighters have won a few "unwinnable wars". I am not concerned about this conflict.

Closing this due to it getting derailed to a political debate.