B. Carfree

I recently read about an experiment involving honeybees that concluded that these insects are more likely to remember the location of and return to nectar that contained caffeine than nectar that didn't have any caffeine. Perhaps these Pleasure Seekers are more widespread than humanity. Of course these little girls are notorious sugar-high freaks and who knows what they get out of my neighbor's little garden p(l)ot.

Artkansas 

I don't know. I recently gave up seltzer. I'm down to filtered water.

BluesDawg

TWL is right. Let's have a beer and talk about it.

JanMM

Stout, anyone?

digibud

Most of our American diet is also deadly, causing coronary artery disease. We could refrain from allowing any alcohol or non-vegan food for sponsorship...and then limit sponsorship to green companies....but we won't. People looking for sponsorships of events like this can either get sponsors or get on a high horse but once you start moralizing you find that a LOT of potential sponsors money is tainted in some manner.

Trsnrtr

I agree wholeheartedly. One can't make their whole life an issue or a cause. Besides, just because we all have cycling in common doesn't mean that we all have the same political or moral makeup. For example, just because cycling is 'green' doesn't mean all cyclists have ecological concerns. Some people just like cycling for its own merits.

digibud

Point well taken. It just snowed here yesterday and I am redoubling my efforts on Global Warming. I am now committed to driving at least twice as many miles as I ride my bike and increase the heating in our home to help burn as many needless gallons of fossil fuel as I can. I'm hoping we can raise the temperature of the earth by a few degrees if we all get behind the effort.

StanSeven

I'm with you bro. I'm tired of cold weather. A few degrees might make cycling year round for me.

chasm54

This is quite an interesting topic. Here in the UK we have pretty much banned tobacco advertising, even though consuming tobacco is legal. When I was younger, tobacco companies pretty much dominated the sponsorship of major sports events, especially formula 1, because they knew that association with health and glamour and money and success boosted their sales. These days they aren't even allowed to make their packaging pretty. An unconscionable intrusion on personal liberty? I don't think so.

Our position on advertising booze is more nuanced. One can advertise, but one is not allowed to do so in a way that implies that drinking will make one glamorous or successful. Again, I think this is OK. There is plenty of evidence that kids are easily influenced by "cool" images, and on balance I'd rather they thought that drinking to excess was uncool.

Sponsorship of cycling events? You pays your money (or takes their money) and makes your choice. I run a cycling club with a focus on youth racing. We have sponsors. On balance, I'd reject offers of sponsorship from brewers and distillers. No great moral crusade, I drink more than is good for me, probably. But saying that responsible drinking is OK is different from promoting it to the young. Fine judgments.

Daspydyr 

We are cyclists and know that individuals are responsible for their actions. In the past 5 years I've had closer calls with people and their phones and elderly drivers.

Dudelsack 

His "observation of hypocrisy" is opinion and not necessarily an accurate assessment of fact. Perhaps he was upset that someone simply disagreed with him. We see a lot of that these days. In this era of "diversity of opinion", deviations from the consensus are not often well received.

Biker395 

+1000. And I say the same about cellphone abuse. The technology exists ... why the HELL don't we use it?


I've read a bit about the theory of punishment, and the surprising thing is this ... increasing penalties for bad behavior doesn't do as much as you think to reduce criminal activity. We're all intelligent people here, right? Well, you would think that someone pondering whether to commit a crime (or to drink and drive) would make that decision based upon the probability of getting caught and the punishment if they are caught ... essentially, the "expected value" of the event. That sort of calculation forms the basis for a lot of statistical theory.

So if you "up" the punishment, you increase the expected value of the cost of the activity, and fewer people will engage in it, right? Well, you'd think so, but studies show that that is not the case ... perhaps they just don't think they'll get caught. Conversely, the probability of getting caught figures very highly in the calculus. So many criminologists have concluded that it's better to spend money on increasing enforcement than increasing punishment. Odd, eh?

There are caveats of course. We're talking about general deterrence here (the notion that increasing one person's punishments serves as an example to deter another person's criminal activity), not specific deterrence (when someone is in jail, they can no longer commit crimes against the general public). And of course, there is alcohol's legendary (and dangerous) ability to attack the brain's judgement center first ...

cafzali

@Biker 395 See, this is where I depart from most people in discussions on this topic. The average person may be intelligent enough to "get the job done," so to speak, but I don't believe most people act intelligently. If this were the case, the U.S. wouldn't be in the shape it's in right now where you have people who benefit from the government far more than they think they do protesting that very government. Rationality has gone out the window and intelligence is now known as "elitism."

I've lived in a state or two in the U.S. that had harsh penalties for drunk driving going back 20 years ago and at least there, it worked. If we wanted this problem to stop, we'd seize and sell people's cars once they got stopped a second time. In a sense, when someone drives impaired, they're using a motor vehicle to commit a crime, so the legality of that isn't as questionable as it may sound.

It's always bothered me that especially in the U.S., rather than deal with idiots, we lower the bar for everybody, attempting to ban things, blame anything but the person responsible, etc.

Dudelsack 

I'm guessing you don't like Fox News

OldsCOOL

I'm doing Tour de Dork Disk this summer......

chasm54

No, not odd at all. People smoke because they think the emphysema, lung cancer etc. probably won't happen to them. People commit crime because they think they won't get caught. What deters people is not the severity of the possible punishment, it is the probability that the punishment will actually take place. There's nothing terribly irrational about that, in my opinion.

You'd be far better off spending more on law enforcement than on increasing the harshness of the penalties. But of course, in the US and the UK the media would scream that any reduction in penalties was "soft on crime", ignoring the fact that many societies who have less extreme penalties, and are less likely to lock people up, have vastly lower crime rates.

Dudelsack 

CbadRider

Please keep things civil. Throwing little barbs and jabs really doesn't do anything but disrupt the thread. Thanks for your cooperation with this.

CbadRider
Forum Admin

BluesDawg

As part of a bike ride and event organizing team, we would not "allow" breweries to sponsor rides, we would practically beg them to do it. I'm working on planning an upcoming dirt/gravel road ride and we have high hopes of getting sponsorship from a craft brewery. Nothing draws riders to an event like free beer.