That's me, i commute 40/50 miles daily ot work. Short trips to the store and stuff i drive my car :)

The bike shops in my town, except for 1, sell the 'latest and greatest' and for a pretty penny. They don't cater to the consumer that wants to spend $300 for a bike and trailer combo to grab groceries or run errands.
There isn't money in that.

Exactly.

And when I am feeling lazy, I take the light rail part way.

Have you found many suitable crew mates for your ideological exercise or are your expectations realized as you paddle against the tide?

Not to commute. I never saw anyone wear that kind of garb in any NL city on a workday. On the weekends, sometimes a gaggle of them can be seen occasionally riding on a road here and there.

@TransitBiker, I know what you mean about the need for cars being artificial, but we've woven the web, and it would take a lot of restructuring to dismantle it. As such, cars are necessary for a great many people. I lived in NJ for 26 years, and I commuted by car, because I had to. I didn't like it, but I didn't see a way around it. I got a new job every few years, and it was always in another town, often in another direction. Moving isn't cheap or easy. And sometimes, the irony was so frustrating, seeing myself climb over people to get from Town A, where I lived, to town B, where I worked, and seeing half the people on the road climbing over me to do the reverse. And sometimes, work is in a high-rent area so moving close is not affordable.

@I-Like-To-Bike, if you want to discuss this, it helps to be ready to imagine the unimaginable. Then we can work out ways to get there. Some of us think a more bike-intensive society would be a good thing. There are obstacles to get there, and maybe we won't ever get there, but I see signs of hope which I have described already. If, however, you just want to ridicule people, well, I think your work here is done. And thank you.

A couple of pictures from the city discussed in the article. These are real houses in Shoreview, MN. Anything stand out?

http://images2.estately.net/46_45035...27_636x435.jpg

http://shoreview.certapro.com/upload...ssociation.JPG


It is a car centric place. A city born in the late 50's and that grew right along with the increasing importance of the automobile to American life. It is not designed for pedestrians or bikes, though it is trying to change.

Garages don't so grotesquely dominate the curb side features of all houses in Shoreview, but pretty much all that were built in the years before I left had 3 car garages (at least).

It helps me to realize that the next generations do not necessarily have the same values as mine. What people in my age group would consider impractical, the next generations may not.

I'm trying to figure out where spandex even enters this discussion. We had a winter bike to work event here last Friday, and exactly zero people wore spandex. If you were to sit on the street corner here and counted cyclists wearing spandex -- even in season -- you wouldn't see very many at all in comparison to the people wearing street clothes. So I assert that's not a consideration in most people's mind. I do think there are a lot of people that would like to ride to work, and just can't get organized to do it. It's hard enough to get out the door to work without adding the complication of riding a bike -- I know this is true for me

In two ways. Apparently some people are discouraged from commuting by the thought that they'd have to buy and wear spandex. The other is that spandex is part of the realm of the long distance commuter.

My personal opinion is that spandex has benefits that increase with the difficulty and distance of the trip. It doesn't have to be expensive or for that matter even visible. A lot of people can get by fine without it. ;)

The premise of the thread is that getting a substantial number of people to ride much more than a few miles to work may not be a goal worth pursuing. Instead there should be more focus on getting people to ride to those locations that are just a short distance away.

It's something worth thinking about. To me if people felt safe riding a bike then you've eliminated a big obstacle. Distance, effort, and time can be obstacles too. This is where I part company a little bit with the author of the linked article. I don't believe we should focus on bike designs that are nearly 100 years old when thinking about realistic commuting distances. I also believe that people now and in the future may have different ideas about what is acceptable to wear while getting to work and whether or not they might be willing to exert themselves a little.

And I think this is the big issue here. I lived in the burbs for a lot of years and it is near impossible to simple tasks without getting in a car. The buses only come during work hours M-F, most drivers are not even noticing cyclists, I've had more close calls with cars in the suburbs then I have ever had living in the city. I bike commute during the peak of rush hour most days in the city to, and no one has come close to hitting me. Now that I do live in the city and have lived downtown for about 5 years, everything in walkable/bikeable. It is actually much easier to walk or bike somewhere due to cost of parking or if there is even parking. Once every other week I get big groceries via car, but then maintain it with cycling trips.

It's a cultural thing to. Non of my real close friends who I've grown up with bike like I do. They all drive to work from the suburbs to the city on their 60+ minute commutes by themselves in a car every single day. Their wives look at me like I'm a moron. I have shown up to their houses on my bike and they give me this look like I'm stupid sometimes. And after the night is over every one of them asks if I want a ride home, and the answer is always "No." Initially I tried to get some of them to bike, but they feel the cost of a bike is a waste and could be put towards gas in their car or a house payment, so I just have stopped with it all.

I do have one close friend who bikes but he, as mentioned in this thread before is strictly in the thought camp that cycling requires lycra/spandex and is for exercise on weekends only. He drives to the location of where everyone is meeting to ride a road bike or to the trailhead that is less than a mile from his house.

Just to point out I live in Minneapolis one of the best bike cities in the United States. However once you leave Minneapolis its all pretty much crap around the rest of the state. Sure we have MUPs in a lot of towns but some just randomly end or do not go anywhere that makes sense for commuting. I was lucky when I worked out of the city as I could take ONE MUP all the way from my house to the front door of my job 13 miles away.

I will say in their defense, that people in wintery snow packed states up north kinda need a garage or lose their truck or automobile in a blizzard save hours of shoveling. Makes clearing the driveway easier if vehicles etc are pulled in, and less vulnerable to hail, wind & theft. Basically having garages makes life a lot easier, even if you don't own a motor vehicle. You could just as easily have a spiffy workshop & bike storage vs automobile or truck. Even here in PA where we get less snow there are many, many, many houses with no garage or carport or provision for carport or if they do have a garage it doesn't fit the larger automobiles, which makes no sense to me. If you live in a place with snowy winters, carports & garages do indeed make sense.... but.... the massive size & how dominant the garage is vs the rest of the house makes no sense.

I had a concept a few years ago involving automated fully electronic vehicles that used radio, smart roads & mobile device software to basically delete the personal automobile and be used to make most types of deliveries (including groceries) which would take most trucks off local roads... the roads would then last longer due to the lighter driverless delivery vehicles.... you could even interlink them with transload facilities and have rail do all the interstate & moderate distance transport. This would be paired with a new economic model where say if you wanted a new faucet & were not sure which fit best in your bathroom instead of making several trips.. you'd have several faucets delivered to you via automated vehicle.. and you'd simply return the ones you weren't going to use, and the trip wouldn't just be to your residence, it would make other deliveries and pickups along a designated route determined by logistics software that actually al ready exists. You could also return it from another location to increase convenience.

The same would applied to passenger transport... you have a schedule set up and they do all the work so you're there on time with minimal time in transit.

All of this is totally doable with existing technologies. You could have a few different sizes & capacities of both delivery and passenger vehicles or even hybrid types that do both. It's the 21st century now, time to dump the Victorian era one horse & buggy for one rider system.

- Andy

>>>>Second, that riding a bicycle, period, is seen as weird, and is actually getting more and more weird as time goes by. <<<<<<

This thread has started to reach that point where people are attacking each other, so I just want to pop in again and comment that I'm aware I'm bringing some of my own baggage to the discussion...the way many people do. I am guilty of using the term "spandex" a little too liberally to generalize everything I see as a hindrance to the advancement of cycling's popularity. For this, I apologize to the manufacturers of Spandex and to the people who wear it and who find that it makes riding more pleasant. And for what it's worth, I suppose the padded underwear I wear beneath my cargo shorts is probably Spandex, too, huh?

Anyway, to address the comment above, I am strongly convinced that the main reason my co-workers think I am "weird" for biking three miles to work is that they still aren't convinced that I don't stop somewhere just outside the office to change into some kind of Super Spandexman suit, complete with goggles, toe-clips, and a Go-Pro camera on my helmet. They simply cannot buy that not all cyclists wear nipple-tight Tour DeFrance jerseys and shave their legs. So grolby, I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I think the "weirdness" people perceive about bicycling has a lot more to do with "spandex" than people who wear spandex care to admit.

Bike commuting is a great goal to have and I really wish more people were doing it...However, making bike commuting into some extreme ideology, where you start preaching to people and forcefully trying to make converts out of them is not good...many years ago before I started bike commuting I was very car-centric, and now I am a car-free bike commuter. Nobody influenced me, nobody told me to bike commute, it was my own decision.

Time will tell, but so far ive met a lot of lovely ladies, sadly things didn't work out for other reasons with most of them.

- Andy

lie back and think of england.

Many of the women I know wear spandex/elastene when they bike these days. Like it or not spandex/elastene is about as common in the USA as "normal clothing" is in Copenhagen.

State College has a fairly large population of people that have a dead-flat ride to campus. Unfortunately, the main drag in from Cletusville dominates the roads in from that part of town. So I can imagine people not wanting to ride on those roads. It's really too bad we let the people from out of down dominate our cityscapes like that.

If you can, try finding books on the subject written when the automobile was just starting to become common. Before the affordable automobile, most people rarely traveled more than 20 miles from their home, and a large portion of the working class lived in abject poverty because their employment opportunities were limited to whatever was available within walking distance. The automobile more than anything else improved the standard of living for the working class by allowing them to travel between where they could find affordable quality housing and employment that matched their skills with decent pay.

We need to look forward not back, the good-ol-days weren't so good for most people, and its over population not their tools that are the issue. The harsh truth is we need to curtail our lifestyles to compensate for irresponsible breeding habits.

Sure it does, back then children were expected to share a 10x10 room instead of giving each child 15x15, and then having a separate&2nd living room for the upstairs(childs) bedrooms. Guest bedrooms and home offices weren't seen as essential, only 2(or even 1) bathrooms. No mancave(that's what the garage was for). So houses were smaller. rage function hasn't changed, the balance of garage/house has. As for garage, you can have it fit 1-2 vehicles+storage or a workshop. Keep your project car/boat inside, whatever.

I'm so ****ed when I go to buy a house. I want to be near good cycling infrastructure, but want enough space to garden, no HOA and a big enough garage for two cars+bikes+a workshop. Where am I going to find something that meets all those expectations? Or room to build a detached outbuilding for vehicles+tools. Either way.

And when the whistle blows....switch places.

Ya, totally agree. I suck right into the idea of almost proprietary equipment for every hobby I've ever been in. It's even difficult reisisting the urge get special platform pedals and special flat shoes for my mtb.

Riding a bike for any practical purpose just takes so much longer for me than driving. My commute stretch-goal this summer will take 4+hours out of my day. Riding is for exercise and bragging rights when I look in the mirror. (gee, I look better than I did last year...)

I work at a large university and many women who aren't biking wear spandex.

I have no problem with this.

Actually, none of the people whom I see biking to school wear spandex. I rarely bike to work - I'd have to get up too early - but when I do, I' m the only rider in spandex. The women in spandex all come in from the parking lot.

Comments I receive from co-workers all involve a perception that it's too unsafe. Clothing is never at issue.

...give up the cycling infrastructure, and you're golden! ;)

Possibly people might come across a few too many discussions with cycling ideologues with wackadoodle suggestions that just might prompt a perception that at least some bicycle commuting "advocates" are not only weird but totally out of touch with reality and the discussion has been changed to living in an imaginary dreamworld.

[MENTION=90453]tjspiel[/MENTION], any photos of you standing in front of one of those garages in white pants, pastel shirt, and neon tie? Gotta love the 80's.