I think plenty of women espouse vehicular cycling principles (I do, for a matter of fact), but if you are asking why aren't there more women espousing the John Forester party line, I think that is a different question.

That pretty much sums it up for me. I'm just not a religious person in any way at all.

Attention women BF members who are reading this thread:

Do you have access to the Women's Forum? If you don't and you'd like access, please send me a PM.

Who do I PM if I want access to BF Women? Ha, ha just kidding, I'm a good boy.

Just when I have a totally perverted reply to your previous 'religious' post, you have to go and start selling something. You really make it hard for a guy to be a smart-arsed letch, ya know?

I brought this up because I really do think that the VC forum needs more women input. My wife and I both ride, but she does not commute like I do. I know she has a different perspective about things too from me, so I would really appreciate it if there were more input from the women in this forum. Us males sometimes let our egos get in the way of hammering out strategies that we can all agree on. My observation is that just about all of us use the Vehicular Cycling techniques, but perhaps with a different emphasis.

I, for instance, seem more willing to slow down and enjoy a ride on the bike paths than some others, who to me seem obsessed with getting from Point A to Point B as fast and efficiently as possible, without really appreciating the journey. This last week, I was able to stop and watch a flock of ducks and a family of geese (mother, father and five goslings) feedingf near my bike path, which goes along a creek. As I looked at these new, cute little goslings, with their protective parents hoovering nearby, I thought about all those people, both drivers and bikers, who had missed this little gem of a moment. They really don't know what they are missing.

Sometimes, I think that in our rush to get places, we forget about the gift of the journey itself. I have been to China in the 1980s, and watched the cyclists there (both male and female), and they were not riding extremely hard. They were stroking along, simply going to their destination in a deliberate way. Last year, I started seeing this with some bike commuters who rode in their regular clothes to a forum on bicycle commuting. Like the Chinese riders I had seen, they simply rode in and parked their bikes at Portland State University, and went inside to hold their seminars and give their talks. No shower, no sweating, just transportation.

This is where maybe more of the women's voice may be helpful. It could tone down the shrillness that I am seeing here, and perhaps, just perhaps, win over some others who read here, but are turned off by the "decibels" of the discussion.

John

You make a good point here. I do think though that the main reason we are so often in such a rush to get from point A to point B is that given the society we live in, we have to be this way to a certain extent or we're at a major disadvantage. The way everything is set up we often don't have time to take it easy, because those around us have certain expectations that we need to meet if we want to be able to compete, for lack of a better term. It would be good if our society moved toward a better balance in that respect--we would probably be happier, less stressed and healthier if we weren't forced to rush around all the time.

I provided a link to Lauren Cooper's site. Here it is again.

https://www.cyclemedia.org/

Check it out.

Chances are if you are riding a bike you aren't in that big of a rush to get somewhere.

Thanks Helmet Head,

I'm looking...

John

only if they are official representatives of ****s on bykes.

Find anything of interest? Or timely?

check out this nugget of questionable veracity from that website:

"We know that most car/bike collisions can be avoided by riding as serious adult drivers, who cooperate with other drivers by using all advanced vehicle-traffic rules; including ALL the exceptions to the ride-right rule."

who's We? got a frog in your pocket? and how does she/they "know" this?

oh, yeah, "studies have shown"

Well, yes I did. I like the idea of "Cooperative Cycling," or "Advanced Traffic-Bicycling," rather than "Vehicular Cycling." I'll explain later.

John

The terms "Cooperative Cycling," and "Advanced Traffic-Bicycling," better fit into my thoughts of what we should be doing than does the term "Vehicular Cycling." Vehicular Cycling goes by the acronym of "VC," and to me, being a Vietnam Veteran, the term "VC" is an automatic turn-off. It conjures up too many very nasty images in my brain, and this is something I cannot get rid of. I can say that this is another generation, unemcumbered by these images from the Vietnam War, but that still doesn't help me and that term. I simply do not like it, and I never will. So if you are willing to write off the Baby Boom Generation from the VC (Vehicular Cyciling) movement, keep using the term.

Cooperative cycling is much more what I do, and how I go about my cycling. I cooperate with the traffic, signal my intentions, use the bike lane when it's available and when it's going where I want to go, slow down to find traffic gaps to get into when I need to take the lane, etc. I cannot, at my age, maintain a 20-25 mph pace on level ground. So I find the gaps to get into a lane, signal my intent, then positon myself in the lane where I will be noticed, but not necessarily take up the whole lane. This is not "The Gap Effect," that Robert Hurst discusses, but rather looking at traffic waves, or surges, that are produced by the stop lights. I will wait until a surge of traffic is past before taking the lane at times. I'm not "type AAA," in that I don't push time limits. If I'm slightly later to work, or somewhere else, it really doesn't matter that much. At times, I will signal my intent, and I will stop people who are trying to either pass unsafely. For instance, if I'm going downhill at 40 mph, and there's a bridge coming up which narrows the lane, and there is opposing traffic, I'll stick my hand out and down and motion for a car not to pass. This type of communication between the bicyclist and a vehicle is the type of cooperation that is necessary for us to share the road as equals. I will not hog the lane simple to make a statement, but will take the lane if passing is hazardous for a vehicle.

I think this is part of "Advanced Traffic-Bicycling," or "Cooperative Bicycling" which is not the ego approach that the VC advacotes seem to promote.

John

Sounds much better than what the "Cycletologists" are pushing John.

John, some of us who were brought up by Vietnam veterans find that acronym off-putting as well.

Viet Cong?

Heck, I was only about 10 years old when that was on the news. I'm almost 50 now.

(and this is important, how?)

ALERT: "VC" should now be referenced as, "EC." It's "PC" to do so.

(ok, my dad served in WWII, so I won't buy a Japanese car?)

Can we Please get on track?

Look, this has naught to do with anything. My dad was pumpin' gas at 19 when he heard of the attack on Pearl Harbor and soon enlisted. ...and?...

...and he bought Toyotas faithfully for 20 years after his Plymouth proved worthless...he's 83 and will probably die with a Corolla as his final car...do I get points for that?

k, i've had too much to drink..

Whatever. Speak for yourself and not as a spokesman for me or anybody else of our generation. Renaming Forester Brand Vehicular Cycling Dogma (which the web site in question is really all about) to a more PC name is not going to help. A turd smells like turd even if renamed as a rose.

John Ratliff, what you describe I just think of as simply lawful cycling, or just transportational cycling. How else can transport yourself by bicycle day after day, year after year, without being lawful and a part of the whole that is "traffic."

I don't have issues with Veit Cong and VC. When I hear VC I think of all the negative macho BS of the lane position "we-don't-need-no-stinkin'-bike-lanes" zealots, the phony studies, sour grapes and made up mental disorders of John Forester, and the rabid anti-bike lane "sky-is-falling-we're-losing-all-our-rights" fear-mongering of certain hyperventillating members of this forum.

What doesn't change is transportational cycling and what is required to get it done. You may find that best described by Robert Hurst. But it's possible that no MAN has quite described what it takes to be a woman transportational cyclist, which when combined with the rabid sexism of the Forester Brand Vehicular Cyclist, might explain whey there aren't more women advocating their brand.

I disagree; many cyclists bike to save time, i.e. because car parking is inconvenient, or because the time it would take them to earn the money to pay for car ownership is much greater than the time car ownership would save them. Health oriented cyclists may overlap their commuting time with their exercise time, but often find that their bike commute is substantially longer than they need for their exercise goals. Schedules shift, and people end up running late. When the utility cyclist is on the bicycle, she may value her time as much as anyone else on the road.

I don't care for acronyms, and since I think the purpose of the term is to describe the paradigm in contrast to pedestrian-oriented rules, I prefer to use the full term "vehicular cycling."

My cycling is highly cooperative, courteous, and adaptive, but it is all done in accordance with the basic vehicular rules of the road. Since it is possible to be cooperative, courteous, and adaptive when attempting to operate a bicycle on pedestrian facilities according to pedestrian rules, and sometimes possible to act uncooperatively, discourteously and non-adaptively while still following the letter of the traffic laws for drivers, these terms do not provide the desired specificity of paradigm.

Forester's book, Effective Cycling, describes a great deal more than vehicular cycling; for instance, issues of nutrition, pedaling efficiency, and comfort. These all can make cycling more enjoyable and "effective" depending on the cyclists' goals, but these are irrelevant to vehicular cycling. One can operate according to the rules for a driver of a vehicle while dehydrated, pushing an inefficient gear, and sitting on a too-low seat.

I have experimented with other terms, such as "bicycle driving." The point is to identify the cyclist as acting as the driver of a vehicle, according to ordinary vehicular rules, so that the corresponding set of traffic negotiation actions (roadway use, destination positioning, speed positioning, yielding when entering, crossing, and moving laterally, etc.) can be implied succinctly.

All very true. I guess it depends on how you look at it. For myself, I could say:

Big picture: saving time (if I didn't cycle for utility, I'd be spending more time exercising and more time maintaining a car and making money for both)
At the moment: usually not saving time (most trips I take could be done faster by car)

I don't understand the distinction you seem to be trying to make (besides the VC/Viet Cong, and unfortunate coincidence).

Please inform us of the peculiar features of being female that make transportational cycling different than for a male.

By the way, your misogynistic comments about my brand of cycling do nothing but draw horselaughs from the female cyclists whom I know.