lilHinault

PPPPPPPPPP!!!!! I'm glad I wasn't taking a drink here or my computer keyboard would be all wet!

CommuterRun

Even better, Raiyn.

Blackberry

We're all pretty fortunate to have escaped the cultural stereotype that equates physical exertion with some form of terrible suffering. I have co-workers who can't believe I actually ENJOY riding my bike or even working out at the gym.

Trek Al

That comment seems to have hit the nail on the head to me. I think that is the great thing about a free country, you can do and be what you please. Want to be fat as a hippo and drive a SUV, knock yourself out. Want to eat bean sprouts and tofu and be a bicyclist, go ahead.
And the dear lady had genuine concern for you, however misplaced it might have been.

Al

I-Like-To-Bike

Notice how many of our PC posters have jumped to the conclusion that the woman in question in message #1 was "fat" and didn't meet the PC-cyclist approved profile for body appearance.

Streotyping and prejudice based on appearance are just two sides of the same coin, even when the offenders assume that they hold the high ground of morality.

The offenders seem to be oblivious of the irony of their complaints of being stereotyped, while demonstrating the same mindset.

recursive

I don't think it was a presumption. More like an educated guess. After all, she did waddle.

I-Like-To-Bike

OK. I suppose "educated guess" is more PC than prejudice; does that also explain the smugness about an alleged moral superiority of stereotyped skinny cyclists over stereotyped fat suburban motorists?

Feldman

Maybe some store managers or owners realize the per-unit cost of parking spaces; I read in the early 1990
's that the cost per car parking space in Los Angeles was @$25k. It can't be much less in Seattle at the present time.

Crazy Cyclist

Forget about all of that PC crap, if she is fat than she is fat, what is wrong with saying it? The reason she didn't meet the cyclist profile for body apperance is that she is fat. There I said it.

Metro

Your resonse of "You poor thing. I'm glad I did not pay to gas up that big thing just to haul a few groceries home" would be impactful.

scarry

National Estimated Cost of Obesity
According to a study of national costs attributed to both overweight (BMI 25–29.9) and obesity (BMI greater than 30), medical expenses accounted for 9.1 percent of total U.S. medical expenditures in 1998 and may have reached as high as $78.5 billion ($92.6 billion in 2002 dollars) (Finkelstein, Fiebelkorn, and Wang, 2003). Approximately half of these costs were paid by Medicaid and Medicare. The primary data sets used to develop the spending estimates for this study included the 1998 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) and the 1996 and 1997 National Health Interview Surveys (NHIS). The data also included information about each person’s health insurance status and sociodemographic characteristics.

scarry

And then there is this:
https://peakoil.blogspot.com/

In the last year, we've witnessed a frenzy of new energy deals and energy-related activity linking countries and regions not recently so connected. Chinese and Indian oil officials scour Latin America or strike deals with Iran. The U.S. prowls oil-rich African coastal areas looking for military basing possibilities. Venezuela seeks to forge a new oil-based economic bloc in Latin America. Russia builds oil pipelines to China and the Pacific. And at just this moment we've reached another kind of milestone: According to Jane's Defense Industry, within the next twelve months, U.S. defense spending will achieve new heights, equaling that of the rest of the world combined. Energy and arms, it's a lethal combination adding up to future resource conflicts, as Mike Klare, author of the invaluable Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Oil, indicates in a major reassessment of the state of our energy-stretched planet. Tom

scarry

And then there is this:

Drivers in about one-third of the cities spent more than 40 hours stuck in traffic over the course of a year-nearly three times the amount of time experienced in 1982. And drivers in small to medium-sized cities have seen delays increase far more rapidly than drivers in the nation's largest urban centers. The financial cost of traffic congestion now exceeds $72 billion annually.

Congestion costs per driver ranged from $50 in Brownsville, Texas to $1,370 in Los Angeles. The study calculates the amount of fuel wasted in 1997 at 6.6 billion gallons.

scarry

O, and don't forget this. So yes, we transportational cyclists do have a moral superiority indeed.
Plus we look better, having a neck instead of a fat round head rolling on fat round shoulders.

Global Warming To Cost Billions 5/25/2000-In a report from the Environmental Resources Management of the UK Government has estimated that global warming effects will cost at least 1.2 Billion pounds(1.7 Billion Dollars) over the next 30-50 years to the United Kingdom. The costs involved are to improve and strengthen sea and river defenses, as well as improving houses and buildings to that will withstand and adapt to the environmental changes. Michael Meacher, the Environment Minister, said the country could not save itself from all the effects of rising temperatures. Coastal areas, especially in Eastern England, will be increasingly abandoned to the sea because they will have become economically unfeasible to defend due to rising sea levels.

The cost to the rest of the world is hard to calculate but it is safe to say it could be in the hundreds of billion dollars.



The world will suffer dramatic climate changes unless the gases which cause global warming are cut by 60 per cent according to Sir Tom Blundell, chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and a professor of biochemistry at Cambridge University. He will deliver a report next month that will call for big increases in fuel prices to help conserve energy and a fresh drive to boost green energy sources such as wind and wave power.



Many countries will not have the money and resources to combat global warming. Small, low-lying island states and countries with big coastal populations such as the Marshall Islands and Bangladesh could see catastrophic damage from the rise.The poor nations of the world will suffer the most.

I-Like-To-Bike

I believe the use of the term educated guess is not always applicable when discussing the ranting and justifications for prejudice of cyclists who believe their self-righteous moralizing and pompous self image justifies any line of BS.

scarry

Well it's my line of BS and I'm sticking to it.

lilHinault

Heck man, WE'RE the freaks! And as far as that goes, where I grew up being fat was not considered all that bad. Most of us were skinny as sticks. A well-liked friend in HS was enormous, and was admired for it, she was too big to mess with. I remember a bunch of us trying to throw her in the pool, to no avail, then she tossed us in like it was nothing. I chose to go into electronics because a fellow my older sister knew, who was an EE, was fat. I decided it was a good field to go into if one could get fat doing it.

All this health news about the bad effects of being fat is new, when I was a kid there were some people who thought fat was ugly, but it was not considered to have any health repercussions.

Now we know better, and yeah, some pressure, some humor, to get people out exercising sounds like fair game to me.

FotoTomas

I will now add "waddler" to my vocabulary next to "cager".

I am fat and a good 50+ lbs over what I should be. This daily bike habit is making me stronger but untill I learn to stop eating so much I will simply continue to be a rolling stomach with a pair of strong legs.

I have yet to have anyone comment to me when I run the occasional errand on my bike. My wife on the otherhand continues to complain when I want to take the bike to pick up the milk or commute to work.

alanbikehouston

In my ongoing effort to maintain a "fit" but Santa Claus-like body, I ride my bikes everyday, but often I am riding to an "all you can eat buffet" to maintain my "pleasantly plump" physique.

Last Friday, I bought a beach cruiser as a gift for a friend of mine at Oshman's. Oshman's has a department with a large stock of mostly lower priced bikes, and departments for golf, tennis, running, etc.

As I was standing in the checkout line, the guy behind me said "Well, there are probably LOTS of folks who can't afford gas these days". He seemed to think the "beach cruiser" was gonna be my solution to paying $2 a gallon for gas. It never crossed his mind that an "elderly gent" like me would be riding bikes just for fun.

And, then there was the comment from a Houston politician last week complaining about the new train system. He said the train was taking money away from bus service and "hurting those who are forced to be DEPENDENT on public transportation". Bus riders as the new "dependent" class. It never occured to him that some people prefer NOT to drive an oil consuming, air polluting machine to work, if they have the option to relax and read the sports page instead.

Roody

I am 50 years old, weigh 230 and ride > 90 minutes every day. I challenge any of you bigoted little skinny-a$$ hoodlums to an uphill sprint anytime.

I-Like-To-Bike

"WE"? Speak for yourself.

Woodstock Nation came and went 35 years ago, man.

SpiderMike

Roody, you are the type I look up to. Honest. I remember hearing someone saying "you see that geezer pass us?" just after an rather older gentleman passed us like we were standing still. All I could think was, "Man, I hope I am like that in 20 years".

The one thing I am tired of... My best friend has a tattoo shop. When I ride my bike there, people get look at my buddy weird. He takes the look as if they are asking "what no car?". After he states that I love riding my bike... that is when customers will ask me " So do you race?" If I had a penny for evertime I heard that.

jfmckenna

Or the alleged moral superiority of the self proclaimed moral superior over the anonymous forum poster. Know what I mean?


It's true too. The more fit you are the more your body tells you to buy bannanas rather than Moon Pies and vice versa.

FotoTomas

Ah yes...Bannana Moon pies and a RC Cola...Life is good!

Kokoro

Hehe, you can always tell the ones raised as southerners.