Anons argue in comments
My only issue is the grocery store is a half an hour drive away by car because we live rural. We shop once a month for staples and stock a lot of things in bulk to avoid making multiple trips. Not everyone does or should live in a city. If there was a service like a train or a bus even we would use it but it isn’t an option.
Not probably, a human riding a bicycle is the most efficient way to convert energy into movement. No other vehicle or animal can be as efficient.
A bicycle gives you freedom of lightweight activities within a few miles of your home. You want to play baritone sax in the band 25 miles away? It’s not happening with a bike.
40 km is more “take public transit” range than going on a bike.
Similarly, if you had to go 300 km for a meeting, you wouldn’t want to have to drive it, you’d want to take a TGV, Shinkansen or other high-speed train.
The 25 miles is a bit much, but if your instrument/sporting gear can fit in a bag, you can carry it on a bike. There’s backpacks for guitars, cellos and tubas and I regularly see kids cycling to their lessons with those. This is a fairly dense town though, so 5km max (20 minutes at child-speeds). Kids also can’t drive cars, so if it’s not happening by bike, it’s not happening at all.
For me? Yeah 25 miles is a bit much depending on how regular that commute is. Once a week, maybe. Once a day, like a job? 5 miles tops is my limit. But I’ve heard of people doing 20-25 mile work commutes before.
If you do it a few times and get used to it, 20 can be fine, if there is a shower at work it certainly is better.
If you are really active and can shower at work it can be fine. Bit if not it will suck.
I’ve got a cargo e-bike that could handle a 50-mile round trip with a baritone sax just fine.
Team cargo bike!
I also have a cargo bike, the cannondale cargowagen which is a long tail format. This morning I used it to drop my 2x kids at day care and head in to the Library where I am now. Yesterday we went to the beach which was a round trip of 44km or so. It’s just magnificent honestly.
The furthest I’ve gone in a day with the kids is 54km. I estimate one battery would get us 70km, somewhat shy of the 50mi / ~80km round trip you mentioned. Mine does have a slot for a second battery though, which I don’t have.
I get that it’s not for everyone, but for my uses a cargo bike is perfect. The pinnacle of human transport in 2025.
A cargo e-bike is basically just an electric moped.
> hills
Climbing good, builds muscle
shifters
That makes it more fun
weeee!!
I am speed
mechanical advantage
Yeah but uphill tho :/
huh? i mean ig but why not just walk your bike? its not any different than walking besides having your hands on the bars instead of ur pockets or whatever lol, and it gives you an opportunity to change positions and stretch your legs
Yeah that’s what I end up doing sometimes on the long hills haha, it kinda sucks living in a really hilly city
Free cardio, what’s not to love? E-bikes are an option for those that don’t love it
A related question: why is the “big tough guy” image a guy in a truck?
Like, you push a pedal with your foot to make your vehicle go vroom vroom. A granny could do that.
Surely a tough guy is a guy who is straining huge muscles to make a bike hit 50 km/h. A skilled guy is one who can maneuver his bike down a narrow mountain-bike track.
Imagine looking back in history and seeing a dude being carried around in a sedan chair and thinking that was the ideal image of masculinity, rather than the surely jacked dudes carrying him.
Bikes are only cheap if you rarely use them, or are just starting out. Spend enough time on them and you will start looking at all the gear, components, and upgrades that can improve your quality of life. There is definitely a point where insurance becomes necessary, but luckily even bike insurance is much less expensive than auto insurance.
Commuters ride cheap bikes. The most expensive stuff is usually your clothes, they are like Star Trek tech today.
I live in rural Norway up in the mountain side. We have wind, snow, ice and rain like hell, and I have ~150 elevation to get to the main road to get anywhere.
… I’m still considering getting a bike for all the mentioned benefits.
Welcome to the Netherlands. If there’s anything that fills me with pride it’s our cycling culture. Most people have a car too, but I don’t, and I do everything by bike and public transport.
Rain, ice and severe cold are a removed. I like bicycles, but driving to work in a heated car looking at that poor cyclist riding somewhere at 6 in the morning at -6°C, sorry, no, I’m gonna go with a car.
Rain is no problem, just get a proper jacket and rain pants. They’ll last you years.
Ice can be a problem, but you can get studded tires if you’re really regularly riding on ice.
Severe cold? I’ve biked in -20 weather, and with proper gear it’s not bad. You’re working hard and you heat up pretty quickly. The tricky things are your fingers and toes. Your fingers need enough freedom to operate the brakes and so on, so you can’t just use huge and bulky gloves. If you’re using clip-in pedals, your choice of footwear is a bit limited.
The real issue with winter biking isn’t the cold or the ice, it’s the lack of proper cycling infrastructure. Biking on a road next to a bus is hard enough in summer. In winter where there’s uncleared snow, slush and ice, it sucks. In places with proper winter cycling infrastructure it’s no problem.
Imagine how hard it would be to drive a car in winter if cities didn’t send out snowplows to clear the roads. That’s what it’s like for cyclists now in most (but not all) places.
If the weather is bad enough, I will take transit instead, but cycling down to -10 C is doable without any problems.
I will be far less inclined to bike if it’s raining, that I do hate with a passion. Of course, I could just work from home in that scenario as well, if I don’t feel like taking transit
I disagree cycling in winter is nice. Just get some warm clothes and good tyres. A car is also really expensive to own in the city. Why pay for a car and parking when the alternative is almost free and arguably more fun.
I’m less likely to sweat profusely in winter
Bike in sub zero weather with snow and ice everywhere, that’s far from nice for me.
It was minus seventeen degrees celsius when I got up yesterday. In the time it would take me to bicycle to work on clear paths/roads - assuming no accidents - I would have frostbite on all of my face unless I was also wearing a full-face helmet.
If a full-face helmet works why not use one? You can also just skip the extremely cold days and use public transport instead. It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing decision.
Because instead of risking bodily injury I can be there in 10 minutes? Public transport in my town is a joke. I have to walk 5 minutes to the nearest bus stop, take it to the central station which is an hour, then another hour bus to work.
Just wrap a scarf around your face and you will not be cold. Proper clothes is all you need to not even be uncomfortable.
Riding in snow is also not an issue if you regularly bike. A good tire and practice and you will not fall.
Could probably rock a balaclava in those temperatures. I bought one in anticipation of winter riding, but the coldest I’ve ridden this year is -11 C and it wasn’t quite necessary yet at that point, but I was debating trying it out.
Climate change is basically killing most of the cold days we have where I live so this is a problem I’m long-term apparently not going to have to deal with. Instead I will have to deal with the way worse type of weather - wet weather.
Dude where I live climate change is making it snow less but get extremely cold (-40c/-40F) multiple times a season thanks to the destabilizing polar vortex. It’s really interesting seeing how different places are impacted by climate change
I suppose in the context of biking that makes it more viable though since you can always dress more appropriately for the weather but you can’t out dress 12" of snow in front of your tires
This ignores the fact that some people can’t be out as long as others due to being less physically able or having a health condition that makes them more vulnerable to the cold
This is why there still needs to be access to cars
You should check out Oulu in Finland where kids bike to school in cold weather. Not a problem apparently. If that is too far fetched, you should visit Bozeman MT where people bike commute in the winter quite often.
I’m sorry but your going to need to backup the claim with actual evidence of the average tempreture in Ousa, Finland as well as the average time it takes for kids to get to school there because your claim means nothing because Ousa, Finland could be less cold on average then the person you’re replying too
Humans can be fine in cold weather for a certain amount of time and tempreture but it gets worser the colder it gets
And your comment also ignores people who are less physically able and people who are more vulnerable to the cold due to health conditions
Is this s troll message? It has to be, right?
Not a troll message, don’t know why you interpreted it that way
Ice and snow are difficult. But I don’t give a shit about the rest. It’s still way more fun than sitting in traffic.
Was the removed word bitch (female dog) by any chance I wonder?
Because lemmy.ml is run by a bunch of pearl-clutchers that think profanity is a tool of the capitalist oppressors.
Why did you ask if the removed word is removed?
Looks like they shadow-remove the word
Me logged in (via Sync): —
Me not logged in: —
It was a little joke.
For some reason your comment appears uncensored to me, but the top commenter’s is censored.
Probably because the uncensored comment isn’t being posted from lemmy.ml, unlike the first post. Posting and viewing from the instance in question will probably censor every occurrence.
all of this is wild and i have no idea what’s real anymore
I see:
“Was the removed word hunter2 (female dog) by any chance I wonder?”
Like my mom used to say: are you made of sugar?
If it’s me on the bike, know that I’m pitying you. -6°C is nothing. I drove a lot of miles as a delivery driver, and saw a lot of faces behind windshields in that time. Very few happy faces. Driving makes people miserable.
If the cities are built for it, cycling doesn’t become something where you’re doing it for extended periods or distances. Neighborhoods that are setup for bikes means everything is local area, or mostly.
are a removed.
Bro, it might be time to leave .ml lol
We are all a removed on this blessed day
Enables people with mobility issues
Allows people to move about farther than just a few miles or so
Allows people to transport a lot of goods (and/or heavy goods) easily
Doesn’t make you exhausted if you have to go up hills
AIR CONDITIONING/HEATER
Fuck your walkable/bike nightmare “utopia”.
Arrive to work soaked in sweat because it’s been 100+ degrees every day for the past 8 weeks.
Because they made a lot of mmmmoneyyyy for their producers.
Bikes dont contribute to climate change
Unregulated? I got ticket for an unregistered bicycle in 2011.
The one downside is that a lot of people I know have had some nasty accidents and broke a bone or something. Sure, in cars you are also at the risk of kissing a tree at highway speed, but bike accidents feel a lot more common and have a lot less protective metal involved
