is britain a cyclist nation? (as in racist)

saintadolf
saintadolf Posts: 245
edited February 2008 in MTB general
i was reading a thread on the gaurdian forum about that micheal parris c*nt (excuse my french) who seems to wish death upon cyclists and it seems that a fair proportion of the general public actually agree with him! one person proclaimed that cyclists shouldn't wear those stupid plastic things on their heads (i presume that they meant helmets) and that all cyclists seem to think that they were professional and that we should all get a life!
my helmet has saved me from being a drooling vegetable on more than one occasion when cars have seemed to think that asi'm not in a car that they can run me off the road with no conciquence. :x
parris also tried to claim that cycling was bad for the environment?!?! how does that work?

i think that some one with a colunm in a national newspaper should write a simlar rant to his but aimed at motorists as in we should all plac land mines in roads to blow car drivers to hell and back again so they can stop clogging up roads for us cyclists.
and most of dont think that we are professional (as far as i know)
i know i'm crap lol :D

n.b.
i'm not actually asking people to go out and blow up cars just using on a similar not to "lets all string piano wire across th road to decapitate all the cyclists

rant over
06 Kona Blast with RS Tora solo airs :)

Comments

  • supersonic
    supersonic Posts: 82,708
    There will always be people like this - motorist haters, and cyclist haters. And the ones of each camp who think they own the road. I can't drive, but the actions of some cyclist truly amaze me - I see far more cyclist riding badly than motorists driving badly. If we all just had a little respect for each other, obeyed the law, things would be much better!
  • true but how many more cyclist get injured because of bad drivers than drivers get injured by bad cyclists?
    06 Kona Blast with RS Tora solo airs :)
  • supersonic
    supersonic Posts: 82,708
    Of course a car is a safer environment due to its protective enclosure. But it doesnt excuse poor road manners and safety from either parties.
  • http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/mat ... e_pas.html

    this is the link to the thread by the way
    06 Kona Blast with RS Tora solo airs :)
  • xone
    xone Posts: 71
    saintadolf wrote:
    parris also tried to claim that cycling was bad for the environment?!?! how does that work?

    This is a tricky one but in a drwan out way this is in fact true. It's complicated to explain but on a very simple trem it goes something like this.

    1 person needs X amount of energy to pedal his bike, to get this energy and maintain the energy levels they have to eat more than a normal person. If this person eats meat, there will need to be more cows, sheep etc which themselves produce methane and so on, this extra meat needs to be tended to, killed, packed and delivered which also in itself takes energy to do, lorrys, plastic containers etc and then finally into the person to make his / her energy, which will also be farted out at some point, more methane, this also works for the vegetable side of things as well but it has less of a carbon impact as plants themselves use carbon to grow but more of a methane output, ho ho.

    There's more indepth info here >> http://www.terrapass.com/blog/posts/everything-good

    You have to look down the chain of events to appreciate it not just at a person on their bike.
  • supersonic
    supersonic Posts: 82,708
    The effiency and energy used has to be drawn up. A the energy used by a cyclist and his machine, vs the energy used by the combustion engine - plus the weight of the vehicle. I'll have a read when I get back from the pub!
  • Yeah, you can't win. We're all going to hell in a handcart whichever way you cut it :lol: either that or the whole 'cars and cows are causing global warming' is a bag of sh**e!

    If everyone stopped buying cheap plastic goods made in China then MAYBE we might slow the rate of warming but not the fact that it's going to happen anyway.

    Just an opinion. :wink:
    I hate it when people say David Beckham's stupid...its not like anyone ever says: 'Stephen Hawking - he's s**t at football.' Paul Calf
  • i read in focus magazine the other week that a man and his bicycle was the most energy effcieint motion on the planet!
    06 Kona Blast with RS Tora solo airs :)
  • Pippen33
    Pippen33 Posts: 235
    The column is probaby commenting on the majority of moronic 'cyclist' commuters in the city who look like f*cking freaks - its people like that who give the sport a bad name, they're as bad as car users. Just getting from A to B. Clogging up the roads, not to mention running red lights and mowing pedestrians down (t'was on TV recently).
    spammer
  • OllyUK
    OllyUK Posts: 230
    Overall I think Britain is become less and less 'cyclist', the popularity of cycling has increased dramatically over the last couple of years, many more people commute by bike and all the fact that most people are at least aware of the necessity to reduce your carbon footprint is making cycling much more liked.

    However the one thing that annoys me is trains....most operators only have 2 bike spaces per train...a step down from 20-30 years ago (as I am lead to believe). If the government wants to increase public transpot useage then they should start by making it easy to link up different sorts, so more cycle paths and more cycle spaces on trains.
  • xcracer
    xcracer Posts: 298
    xone wrote:
    saintadolf wrote:
    parris also tried to claim that cycling was bad for the environment?!?! how does that work?

    This is a tricky one but in a drwan out way this is in fact true. It's complicated to explain but on a very simple trem it goes something like this.

    1 person needs X amount of energy to pedal his bike, to get this energy and maintain the energy levels they have to eat more than a normal person. If this person eats meat, there will need to be more cows, sheep etc which themselves produce methane and so on, this extra meat needs to be tended to, killed, packed and delivered which also in itself takes energy to do, lorrys, plastic containers etc and then finally into the person to make his / her energy, which will also be farted out at some point, more methane, this also works for the vegetable side of things as well but it has less of a carbon impact as plants themselves use carbon to grow but more of a methane output, ho ho.

    There's more indepth info here >> http://www.terrapass.com/blog/posts/everything-good

    You have to look down the chain of events to appreciate it not just at a person on their bike.

    This only works if you assume that all car drivers are trim and eat less than cyclists.
  • pete236
    pete236 Posts: 204
    Hmm just a note on the cyclist environment thing - I cannot believe that the extra food a cyclist eats (I eat less now than I did before I started cycling everywhere!) will be worse than the loss of energy that comes from a car.
    The best modern Internal Combustion engine operates at 33% efficiency. Thats 67% of the energy produced wasted, mainly in heat. Some due to friction of moving parts/rolling resistance, but mostly heat.
    The biggest threat to the world is Global Warming (if it even exists as the world has been heating and cooling for millions of years!) and any extra heat we produce adds to that. Yeah CO2 adds to the greenhouse gasses but its not that which wamrs the world up - its the wasted heat from everything! Energy cannot be destroyed, so the 67% of energy that is lost from an engine, mainly in heat, stays. Unless it is converted into another form of energy before it is lost then the amount of heat we have produced will go up and up and up increasing global warming!
    Thats the engine, now think about computers - in fact all electronic devices. They all stick out heat. Air con, fridges - heat at the other end! Power stations, central heating, fires - and I reckon the biggest contributor to heat - Politicians with all that hot air coming out of their mouths!

    Rant over :twisted:

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  • stickman
    stickman Posts: 791
    If people said/did those cyclophobic things but against asians/blacks they would be jailed.
    Food: I eat less as a cyclist - it's about becoming fitter, not becoming a slob.
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  • supersonic
    supersonic Posts: 82,708
    First time I have seen this, and it is interesting, raises many points. Especially how we move on from one debate to another - all related I dont dispute - cylists, energy effiency of them, global warming and so on, but maybe moving away from the intended debate.

    Pippen quoted:

    moronic 'cyclist' commuters in the city who look like f*cking freaks - its people like that who give the sport a bad name

    Which I completely agree with. There is a proportion of cyclists who give 'cyclists' a bad name.

    I'd love to comment on co2, maybe for another night! ;-)
  • xone
    xone Posts: 71
    xcracer wrote:
    xone wrote:
    saintadolf wrote:
    parris also tried to claim that cycling was bad for the environment?!?! how does that work?

    This is a tricky one but in a drwan out way this is in fact true. It's complicated to explain but on a very simple trem it goes something like this.

    1 person needs X amount of energy to pedal his bike, to get this energy and maintain the energy levels they have to eat more than a normal person. If this person eats meat, there will need to be more cows, sheep etc which themselves produce methane and so on, this extra meat needs to be tended to, killed, packed and delivered which also in itself takes energy to do, lorrys, plastic containers etc and then finally into the person to make his / her energy, which will also be farted out at some point, more methane, this also works for the vegetable side of things as well but it has less of a carbon impact as plants themselves use carbon to grow but more of a methane output, ho ho.

    There's more indepth info here >> http://www.terrapass.com/blog/posts/everything-good

    You have to look down the chain of events to appreciate it not just at a person on their bike.

    This only works if you assume that all car drivers are trim and eat less than cyclists.

    Not at all, it's taken as the nation is, not on what it could be. Also, going by what you said, this would even things out and everything would be fine.
  • stumpyjon
    stumpyjon Posts: 4,069
    The CO2 argument is a bit flawed. Lets assume that the basic concept is correct and cyclists eat more meat (not convinced personally but for the sake of argument let's go with it). Yes cows are a major source of methane which is one of the worst greenhouse gases but they also help reduce the levels of CO2 in the air, they eat grass which takes CO2 out of the air, basically it's one great cycle, CO2, grass, cow, fart, CH4 (methane), lightening or other chemical reaction (methane is a lot less stable than CO2, otherwise you'd be cooking with it), CO2, grass and the loop is complete.

    To sum up yes carbon is released into the atmosphere but it is also being removed in the same quantities. The counter argument is that the combustion engine is powered by sources of carbon that are currently locked away, coal, oil, gas etc which they burn and release into the atmosphere. There is no short term mechanism to recycle or capture this carbon hence the greenhouse affect.

    Personnally I think the cyclists eat more argument is a crock, yes you need more energy (calories) than someone who doesn't cycle. However here's the flaw in the argument, most people who cycle alot tend to be fit and eat a healthy (not excessive) diet or we'd all be totally porkers, significantly more non cyclists are fat which means they are also consuming excess calories but they then also drive everywhere. To compare the two sorts of people, the cyclists eats more (which contributes to farting cows and delivery lorries), but then has a very environmentally efficient mode of transport. Fat people who don't cycle also incurr all the cow farts etc but then compound it by getting in their cars and causing even more environmental damage.

    If you're still with me well done, I'm not trying to have a dig at fat people here (that's for another thread maybe in the Sandbox) just using them to illustrate the point that to pick your random pet hate group out and attack their environmental credentials is pretty warped if you don't do it in the context of all other lifestyle choices.
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  • cjw
    cjw Posts: 1,889
    xone wrote:

    Interesting, so that conclusion is that the main negative impact of cycling is not food comsumption but that cyclist will be fitter, hence longer lived, hence using more CO2 due to longenvity over fatties in cars.

    Can't wait for the campaign to reduce carbon emmissions by encouraging the entire population to smoke more than 40 a day, take no excercise and drink excessively, hence reducing the avarage lifespan to 30 :shock:
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  • xone
    xone Posts: 71
    cjw wrote:
    xone wrote:

    Interesting, so that conclusion is that the main negative impact of cycling is not food comsumption but that cyclist will be fitter, hence longer lived, hence using more CO2 due to longenvity over fatties in cars.

    Can't wait for the campaign to reduce carbon emmissions by encouraging the entire population to smoke more than 40 a day, take no excercise and drink excessively, hence reducing the avarage lifespan to 30 :shock:

    It's all very backwards isn't it? I was only mentioning a point form earlier on, it's not my view and it won't stop me form using my bike. Just thought it was an interesting fact.
  • I read that he had to make a public apology for the piano string thing. One of the theries was mtbers were a cause of erosion, but after a test it was found mtbers erode the same as a hiker. We are cool.
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