Electric motorcycles do not belong on bicycle and pedestrian paths. My biggest issue with ‘ebike’ users is they do not understand or care about trail etiquette.
In the US they keep getting bigger and bigger to. I was less scared of cars while riding my bike decades ago than I am now and we had less bike infrastructure then.
Well yeah. If it was separate paths from traffic then the size of the vehicles wouldn’t really be as big of a problem. It’s just how we have to “share” with people who have no ability so share.
I wish i could also move more people with me on the bicycle
Depending on the size of those people: bike child seat, bike trailer, or they can ride their own bicycle. Cargo bikes can easily carry two kids or one adult without even using a trailer.
It would also be great if there was some sort of heater/AC in it as well
That is called “dress for the weather”. Even snowflake pinko commies like me can do it.
I ride from -20 to +35C in basically any weather and since jackets and shorts exist that’s all that’s needed. My friends have their own bikes they can ride…
People be growing up knowing nothing but absolute car dependency and the infrastructure that comes with it. They cannot fathom any other way of existing.
I should have been more verbose. We as a society (in North America especially but also elsewhere) have suffered through decades of redlining that has resulted in racial and economic divides.
The wealthiest suburbs are being subsidized by the poorest neighbourhoods with all the money being funneled into infrastructure that directly supports car dependency.
In order to participate in society, you are now required to own, maintain and insure your own vehicle(s).
I am suggesting that we’ve been robbed of a way of life where cars are not necessary to survive. Where your kids can hop on their own bikes and safely take themselves to where they need to go without worrying about if they’ll be struck by a car.
I’m talking about active transport not as a hobby for the privileged, but as a normality for all.
Where I am there are hills everywhere. You know that old joke about walking five miles uphill to school in the snow, and ten miles uphill to get home? That’s here. Plus, it’s the UK, so when it snows, the roads and pavements are lethal.
Plus, some people have kids under 5 😉
More seriously though, because of the amount of hills, and the fact that most people work all day, bikes are not the best option here. The nearest supermarket is several miles away with a lot of hills in between. If you’ve got plenty of free time, riding to the shops with the kids could be fun, but for most people public transport is the answer. It’s just a shame that it’s terrible here .
I’d love to get an ebike, but at the moment the price is too high, from what I’ve seen. The cheapest ones seem to be over £1,000, unless you get the little fold up bikes, but they don’t look like they’d be comfortable for a long ride where you’re pedaling lots.
A gravel bike style would be better here too, simply because we’re in the valleys, and lots of the trails are a bit rough.
Back to the point though, getting to the shops and carrying a week’s worth of shopping on a bike with young kids is impractical here. It would be great if it was practical, but other than the hills, we don’t have the infrastructure for the most part. The roads have to be shared, even if it’s just for now, and there are lots of stretches here where there’s not the room for bikes with motor vehicles, and especially not on the pavements. This time of year is even worse - it’s dark in the morning and night, and the weather is usually crap. All of it increases the risk of accidents, and that’s the last thing any of us want.
Well I live in Sweden and we have snow here too buddy. Lousy public transport sucks though, but that’s what you get in a carcentric society, no options…
Exactly, you live in a country that doesn’t shut down because of half a millimetre of snow. We genuinely get public transport shutting down if there’s snow, and we’ve infamously had trains stop running because of the wrong type of leaves on the line. For a country that mostly has adverse weather conditions, we’re absolutely useless if the weather’s anything but dry and sunny.
I honestly don’t know what we can do here to get better public transport and encourage people away from cars. Once you’re further down the valley, there’s enough room to build other transport methods alongside the roads to allow a transition, but further up, there’s barely enough room for cars to pass each other in some places, which means that buses would struggle too, and there’s no room to make a one way loop to free up space either.
Jacket doesn’t do shit for rain. Believe me, I’m an Aspie and I have too much sensory issues for getting out of home in bad weather. The day it rains is the day i WFH. All the problems stem from the fact that the jacket is too close to the body, generating sweat (and I already sweat too much without it), not to mention it’s not watertight. An enclosed velomobile would probably solve the problem, but I don’t think this sort of vehicle is legal in Poland and can guarantee getting to the office as fast as I’d on a motorcycle or even a moped.
Same. And that includes snow and ice, for those at the back that think that riding a bike in winter is only possible in LA. If people can walk in that weather, people can ride a bike even more easily as the exercise keeps you warmer.
And a small distance to my destination. When my previous job was 8 km from home, I could do the journey in half an hour on a Xiaomi M365 e-scooter, very popular in Poland. But unfortunately our company was absorbed by another one, with office 16 km away, which means prohibitively long (for my sleep-deprived ass) 55 minute commute. And no, public transit doesn’t make it shorter. So a motorcycle driving license it is.
In one of those situations only someone in a long term relationship can understand my wife was upset as I was not worried that she may be dead when I wake up. Please don't ask me to explain these kinds of things. The main point is I was saying I was worried about her when she is off driving someplace as that is the most dangerous period of time.
The number of PSAs about not getting mowed down during Halloween was absurd. ‘Wear reflective vests’, ‘only cross the street in groups’ - and not a single ‘hey, it’s Halloween and there’s going to be excited kids everywhere - please avoid driving and if you have to, be super extra careful’.
My partner’s idea, which I thought was brilliant, was that the speed limit on all residential streets should be dropped to 20km/h for the day.
The speed limit on all residential streets should be at the very most 30km/h year round. Since I started active commuting every day, I’ve noticed how alarmingly scary it is going 50 when I do have to drive. Reaction times at that speed do not allow for the amount of braking distance required.
I haven't had to take a driving test in over 20 years. Only once I had to take a multiple choice test on the meaning of various signs and you get three chances to pass it. It's absolutely absurd that they allow people to get their license at 16 and rarely have to retake a driving test.
1 Varies by brand and model, but usual a cellular connectivity module, aka telematics. Some cars you can simply pull a fuse, some make it hard
2 Killing the telematics by pulling a fuse can cut off inbuilt navigation functions or the entire display and control system depending on how integrated it is. Work arounds can include pulling the GSM module or faraday caging the antenna.
“Connected” e-scooters and e-bikes that use apps to control their functions also have the ability to collect data (including location) for use in ways that could be abused/sold/stolen.
It’s even more comprehensive than that. They don’t even want you to have it, even though it’s data about your use of your vehicle. If you want to use a third party telematics system or just hook up a laptop with software to pull the data, the manufacturers ironically cite data privacy risks as the reason they want to lock down the data so nobody but them can provide access.
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