If I were reckless enough to ride through broken glass would you fix my flat tires?

If I were reckless enough to buy too much house would you give me more equity?

This pisses me off.

Brown paper packages tied up with strings.

Maybe the time is right to shop for "Too much bike".

I have'nt read the program yet but I wonder if this is another one of those deals set up to increase the tax return for the suckers who take advantage of it? Many of these bail out type of programs are considered as income on the following years tax return and too many folks are totally unaware of what they're getting themselves into.

There still ain't no 'Free Rides'.

Let's keep this thread on topic (bicycle related topics) or its off to P&R.

I like fixing flats, I'm getting good at it. Bring em by.

i am missing something here

Nothing too miss

Is the answer different if you rode thru glass because it was unavoidable, e.g. it was a choice between the glass and swerving in front of a car.

Is the answer different if you could afford the house when you brought it and are now upside down & can't make the payments thru no fault of your own,e.g. you lost your job and real estate values went down because of the bad economy.

I think the fallacy of your questions is the unspoken assumption that these things can only happen due to recklessness of the unfortunate party. They can and do happen to anyone despite acting with all due care.

this needs to be decided in a location where the urinals go clear to the floor(only old guys remember these), that way you can get an accurate measurement to see who wins....
Bud

It's situational.

If you were a hot looking babe - in a heartbeat. If you were the kind of person whose always moaning about other people - you're on your own.

Oh man, that brings back memories of kindergarten/1st grade and the boys bathroom in the basement of Alice Birney Elementary School. Could you stand clear at the back of the room and make the target?

This is a super tough situation for our whole society. Tough to put in bicycling terms, but it's something like:

- I saw hundreds and hundreds of people riding through the glass
- Many well paid professional advisors told me to ride through the glass
- Riding through the glass was the smart decision for many years in a row
- A big pot of gold was waiting on the other side of the glass.
- I thought I knew better, but I rode through the glass anyway....

...now 1 out of 5 of us has a flat tire, and we're not going to get home unless we stop and help the folks who left home unprepared to fix a flat.



Hmmm...not sure if the analogy works, but I think it's a little more complicated than just a simple bad decision....


(BTW, as for my own situation, I did not ride through the glass, but I know folks who did...I am not sure how I feel about the bail out, just trying to understand in cycling terms...)

But you knew it wasn't right.

But you knew it wasn't right.

No, it just took a while for the tires to loose their air but it was obvious that the pressure wouldn't hold forever.

But if you flatted on the way there you would not get it.

Finally the truth. You knew better (and so did they).

We'll get home if we leave them. We might get home if we help them. Problem is, we'll use our last tube and all our patches before we get home and we may find ourselves walking because we helped those who were greedy.

Think of it as a team race. Even if you finish, if too many others don't, the whole team will lose.

We are inundated with advice....tire reviews, tips on smart riding, offers of puncture proof tires....not to mention whatever native common sense we're born with and experiential knowledge we've gained. Ultimately, if we steer our bike through a patch of glass, even if we are distracted and don't see it, the flat remains our flat. If people choose to come out and save us-- then how sweet they are. But should people be required to save us from our own bad choice? And knowing that we'll inevitably be saved, won't that encourage us to ride through glass again, and yet again. And besides, shouldn't we be also protected from broken chains, not bringing a frame pump, forgetting our helmet? What about pads to protect us from road rash? Or cycling speed limits? Perhaps we should be banned from any road deemed "risky".

And so on.

What may seem compassionate help may really be even greater folly than, what was it (?), riding through glass.

Or if a government dedicated to non-regulation encouraged corporations to strew glass along the roads because it was more profitable than recycling it or disposing of it safely, so millions of people had flats and their troubles threatened to overwhelm the economy...

+1

who asked you to ride the darn bike in the first place. no one. good luck and god bless.

I spewed my venom and felt better for it. I realized there was a chance for nuclear holocaust and probably would be if the thread had been placed anywhere else. I am totally amused and delighted with the witty responses couched in bike analogies - on both sides of the issue.

So here is my attempt do put more details into the analogy.

We all start out on our bike journey, some of us worked hard to prepare and train for it. We saved for our bikes and bought them years ago when they cost much less than what bikes cost now and we didn't replace them with new models every year. We went through times when the price of bikes went up and went down, some even lost our bikes - in the days of 18% interest rates our bikes were worth less than what we paid for them, we rode through it. We also stuffed away supplies for the journey as we went, we could have bought better bikes with all those supplies we saved, we could have bought fancy equipment or cloths but we choose to put aside resources incase the journey got tough. Others were less prepared.

Unfortunately about 5 miles back most of the group hit a big pot hole and lots of our our supplies were tossed out the back, and now we only have about half of what we had put away for the long journey. Some folks - the guys who made the pot hole got rewarded with a big contract for road repair and picked up all our supplies that got tossed out the back, the rest of us schleps just road on.

Riding with us are folks in the latest kit, newest carbon bikes with the lightest fastest tires. They have little if any supplies, some did have a little before we went over the big pot hole but have none now. Some have only been on the journey a short while and never really had an opportunity to accumulate much or haven't even bothered. Some just never bothered to accumulate (the ones with the latest kit and best CF bikes).

Now we come to the broken glass, We all have to ride through it, some of us who bought hardy tires will make it through just fine, we're slow but we keep moving. We may loose a little life in our tires. We may even get a flat but we have a spare in our supplies. We will make it. Others who have those new expensive, light and flimsy racing tires will flat out.

If we go back and fix all the flats those who were unprepared have learned a new lesson - they don't have to worry about flats, there a bunch of old guys out there with new tires that will be right there to make their situation just fine again. In addition the guys who loaned them the money for all that stuff are in good shape because they had no loss on the credit they extended those riders, their bonuses are secure. Besides, they have all the stuff that got tossed out the back that they picked up from the pack. Lastly, the price of fast flimsy tires and expensive bikes stabilizes because they get fixed for "free". But alas - that only lasts until the next spot of glass.

If however, we let the situation sort itself out, some of the riders tires will get fixed by friends or family who can spare some extra supplies, some will get helped by strangers they don't know, some may have to sell their new cloths and bike swag to get a new tire, others will sit on the side of the road and cry and some will walk.

Those that barely have enough supplies left (after the big pot hole) may choose to help despite the danger or may see that they have their own journey to worry about and go on - it's their choice. Lastly, the price of tires & bikes will settle where the market bears and eventually climb again because all bikes & tires eventually wear out and every cyclist needs them.

Charity feels good when it is your choice.

cyclinfool you're making sense. stop that!!!!

let me tell you a little story. back in 1974 (i was 18) i decided that i needed a bicycle. you see, my girlfriend had one and i knew if i bought one, i could go riding with her. so i walked 3 miles to the nearest bicycle shop, (didn't have a car or license. didn't have one, didn't want one. My Feet Worked Just Fine.) and I bought a bicycle for $160.00. back then, that was sorta like a 5 or 600 $$ one today. then a couple years later i bought a car, and promptly forgot how to ride. in 2008 i started riding again. gas was going up, and i've gotten cheap.... er, frugal, in my older age. so for my birthday last year i started shopping for a New Shiney Bike. went to the old bicycle shop where i bought my first bike. yes it's still there, in spite of the economy, or maybe because of it. anyway the least expensive bike was about $600.00. they had some that were $6000.00 and more. i could actually afford the $600.00 or the $1000.00 or so bikes. i didn't get one. i looked at other stores. found some for $150.00 to 300. ended up buying one for $169.00 plus tax. want to know something amazing? it gets me around just as good as the $6000.00 bike would have. the other day i'm riding it home from work, waiting at the intersection (red light). some guy walks in the crosswalk (it's his turn), looks at my bike and says "nice ride". so what. my point is, i bought what would work. not a status symbol that some &(&^(*^ would steal from me the moment my back was turned. i've never had a flat on that bike. i've got almost 1300 miles on it in 10 months. as soon as i got it home, i put on the puncture resistant inner tube, used about 1/4 bottle of slime in each tire and then inflated the tires. i also used almost no tread at all 26 X 1.5 street tires. took off the knobbies that were on the bike. never need them, and they pedal too hard. if i actually get a flat, well, i've still got My Feet, and they Work Just Fine. my point is this. by planning ahead, spending wisely, and depending on ME, i have adequate transportation that gets me from A to B. i expect no one to help me. if i have a flat i'll just walk. :-)

p.s. i still have the knobbies. if anyone wants them i'll ship them to ya if you pay postage.

I love how people want the banks to share in their "loss" of value and equity in their property. Are these same peope going to be willing to share their "gain" in value and equity in their property when values eventually begin to rise? I seriously doubt it.

Fixed it for ya....

Getting kind of convoluted, but I'll give it another shot. I guess the question is whether we as a society want to abandon those who got caught up in the glass through no fault of their own and have no way of continuing the journey without some help, again through no fault of their own. It must also be considered that the group stuck by the side of the road is so large that those who can continue will in the long fun suffer economically themselves if the first group is simply abandoned.

I reject the assumption implicit in many of the posts (and explicit in some cases) that those who get caught in the glass are always at fault for their plight. Some no doubt are, but many are not. One example: my secretary's husband recently lost his job. He has a BA in biology and had worked in a local engineering firm in their environmental division for 20 years. He did well there and in fact, was made a partner about 10 years ago. He lost his job not because he performed poorly but because the firm's business was way down due to the economy. The whole division may be shut down. They had recently built a new house. I think he'll land on his feet and they"ll be ok, but it's hard to say. Property values around here have been pretty stable, but if we lived in an area like some where property values have taken a big dive in the last few years and they had built at the peak of the market, they could easily be upside down on the mortgage. These are not irresponsible, reckless people. There are many like them out there. They are part of the market base for other businesses. Allowing victims of the recession to simply fail could easily have a domino effect and make the recession worse. I think those who simply want the economy to "self correct" give short shrift to the human cost of doing so.

Some of have kids bicycles that unexpectedly had major breakdowns and spent a lot of very expensive time in bicycle hospitals and at bicycle doctors. Some of us aren't sure just how we made it through - or, in some cases, how we are going to make it through in the future. Our bicycle road was not covered with glass, it was coverd with land mines, and some are yet to explode.

I've got a whole listserv of about 150 mom and pop bicycles with broken kids bicycles that have those exact minefield problems today, and they find that the bicycle government is laying more minefields, instead of clearing them out.

Very complex stuff, this flat tire business. I'm not sure what the right answers are, but I'm pretty sure the most likely way to get it wrong would be to decide before observing and thinking.