Mostly true but I find the price is pretty high nowadays.
You don’t need a carbon road bike to cycle to the supermarket, you’re not racing in the tour de france.
Yeah well even basic bitch bikes go from 300-1000 euros. Even second hand is 175 cheapest. And then you have a shitty one.
Almost as if cost of living has increased, but wages have not…
Yeah that’s my point. We don’t exactly live in a “oh it’s stolen, oh well” time.
Paint it with extra rust and stick some exposed wires on it for +15 to theft resistance.
but wages have not…
This makes me appreciate the UK minimum wage rising faster than inflation over the past several years.
A weeks work at minimum wage will get you a pretty decent bike. Not a carbon race bike, but a good bike for general riding.
What the hell? That’s crazy. My current bike was 20€, needed a bit of fixing. Bought it when my 30€ one was stolen. Both have served fine for my 2km daily commute, and occasional ~10km trip to the city centre.
I think we have different definitions of shitty bike. I could go to Kmart and buy a $120 AUD (€73) brand new bike. It has 2 wheels, pedals, a handlebar. Sometimes they have bells. You can even make it go forwards if you try hard enough.
If I go to Gumtree (our classifieds app), there’s literally free bikes or ones for* as low as $20:
Mountain Bike. In working condition, has back brakes and rides straight. The gear shifter doesn’t work, but just leave it the desired gear.
If I go to an actual “bike shop”, their cheapest bike is $400 AUD (€243), which is close to your listing.
Yeah well I live in the Netherlands
You can absolutely find 2nd hand bikes for less 175. One search of marktplaats for an omafiets and there are plenty for less than 90 euros. Sure it’ll be a real nugget but with 30 euros of parts, youtube and some elbow grease it will last for years. They probably even will without fixing it up first
I bought my last two bikes for $20 and $50 at the goodwill respectively
Cars can easily long distances in a short period of time in most weather conditions comfortably, allowing the freedom of movement even if it isn’t done daily. It is a symbol of long distance freedom on weekends and holidays, not daily commuting.
I prefer to call it “freedom”. Nowadays your vehicle spies on you and you’re tracked everywhere you go and anaylized.
goes as far and as fast as you can
And cars go much further and faster than I can
With the big trade-off that it eats up space and money when it’s not a weekend or a holiday … I sometimes think it’d be nice to own a car to go out on the weekends, but then I remember that I’d have to pay insurance and taxes independent on how much I use it (which would amout to “any other weekend”, maybe), and couldn’t use my garage as a workshop anymore because it’d be occupied by a car. Plus, short-term rentals and car sharing are a thing … so, yeah … in the end it always feels more like a liability than “freedom”
Bikes have that “start riding wherever, feel the wind in your air, hop off wherever and lock wherever” freedom.
These are great points and suddenly I feel like the all weather point is showing a nonexistant / totally under served market.
A quick google search shows even quadricycles tend to be un covered. Man, this feels like a real business opportunity.
Ofc, cause #Murica, I’ll bet I’m the one in a million people who’d want a covered bicycle / quadicycle (vs trying to get a golf cart) for local mobility.
Probably because the cover is extra weight and cumbersome rigging for all of the time you don’t need it. Rain gear works well enough in a pinch.
Do they not have coats where you live?
Yeah, but I grew up in a part of the world too hot year round to wear them, so as an adult, most jackets are just really uncomfortable for me. Doubly so for water proof materials that don’t breathe.
The material doesn’t need to breathe. Use a poncho type of thing instead.
I bike everyday to work and back. Ponchos suuuuuck to ride in. Theyre constantly getting into your chain or wheel. It’s hard to do a shoulder check because you’ll get poncho in the eyes. And the wind getting in will make it come off your arms and head. Plus they’re uncomfortable with helmets and biking gloves.
Personally, I just use a rain jacket plus accept the fact that I’ll get wet sometimes. I already carry a towel in my rear rack for sweat so it’s not that big a deal as long as I get to my destination.
Because people were told so in an ad.
Anon missed the biggest sin of all:
Monetizable, but only at two or three orders of magnitude less than automobiles.
TL;DR: “He’s cheating because he’s not spending as much as I am.”
They’re cheaper in every conceivable way than cars, and that’s why the worst people out there hate them. Once you see the systems in place to equate personal validity and social values with what wealth may be extracted, it’s impossible to look back. Bikes are effectively a form of protest by way of scaling back one’s economic interaction, because of this.
yeah, but once you hang out with other bike people they will just you on the cost of your bike and your ‘gear’ instead of the cost of your car.
and if your bike is fancier than theirs, you’re a rich douche, and if your bike is less money than theirs, you’re a poor piece of shit. and if your bike is just like theirs, you are a practical and sensible person just like them.
I have never seen people do this. All I’ve ever seen is that those who spend extravagantly on bikes and gear do so because they are literally professional athletes. For everyone else, the closest to what you’re talking about is just basic advise to spend only a little bit more on an entry-level bike because the so-called “department store” bikes tend to be notorious for being cheaply made and poorly assembled, requiring repairs in a very short amount of time. But even those bikes are perfectly fine if you’re okay with having to spend additional money in the near future to replace problematic components, and either hire someone to fix it or learn how to do your own repairs.
wow cool. i was on a bike ride last night with 5 middle ages dudes who are average chubby bozos and they all had 10-20K bikes, and kept asking me if I was ‘doing ok’ because my bike is only worth 1K. because how could anyone possible ride a bike that isn’t uci level?
i have met way more people with very expensive pro level stuff than I do people without, but I live in a very rich city where people buy Rivians R1s and never drive them as a leftist eco crunchy flex. maybe you live in a poor place, where I live folks are buying 10K bikes every other year because they don’t want to be caught on an ‘old bike’ w/o all the latest and greatest upgrades and my bikes are ‘retro’ because they are more than 5 years old and people are ‘concerned’ for me because they are so old and I must be financially struggling.
Yeah that probably does explain it, I don’t hang out with rich assholes. People like that may as well be living on another planet as far as I’m concerned.
It’s almost like gentrification makes everything more insufferable for everyone.
you have that backwards. I am the asshole in that situation because I’m not as rich as them.
Sounds like you’ve encountered MAMILs in the wild.
Middle Aged Men In Lycra.
I like to point out that a 10k bike is really just a cheaper mid-life crisis than a sports car, tends to shut down the conversation one way or another pretty quick.
If only we had good bicycle infrastructure everywhere 😔
Fuel lobbies.
Because cars make a shit load of money for the
economythe rich people.I used to live in a town in the US where I could bike across a college campus to get to work. That was heaven.
Distance. Carrying capacity Speed
Bikes are awesome. Bike infrastructure helps wheelchair users and pullcart users as well.
Propaganda.
Yes
I live in a city where this a lot of bike commuting.
All the same shitty stuff that you deal with while driving, you now deal with while riding your bike. People going way too slow, people riding up your ass, people going way too fast, people who speed up when you pass them, folks that violate every law/signal/sign and don’t give a fuck. idiots blasting shitty music, idiots with sound isolating headphones, idiots who come straight at you head on going the wrong way in the bike lane, etc, etc.
So I basically stopped riding my bike to work. I don’t want to deal with bike traffic, bike aggression, and bike accidents.
It was awesome when nobody else did it, but now you have to wait for specially little bike traffic lights, and there are like 30 people in front of you, who are either slow as shit, or blazing around on e-bikes, and it’s generally just a total shitshow. The ‘freedom’ of cycling isn’t really free when you are forced to deal with all the same stupid bullshit you would in a car. On top of the hostility you get from drivers, pedestrians, and other cyclists. there is also a ton of richdouchebag mom/dad’s on giant e-cargo bikes riding around like they would in their giant BMW SUVs, and acting like entitled selfish pricks and flipping out at you for ‘endangering’ their children if you get to close or something. It sucks.
I take the subway now because at least on the subway people leave me the fuck alone and play weird passive aggressive racing games with me and aren’t trying to head-on collision me everyday.
I cycle to work and have none of these problems because the bike route is pretty wide. Old railway converted into a bus route, no cars allowed but bikes can use it. The bus is every 15 mins so at most I have 1 bus overtake me along it.
It’s dead straight and nothing crosses it all the way along. It’s great. Overtaking is easy because there is loads of space.
Old railway converted into a bus route, no cars allowed but bikes can use it.
This can’t be anywhere in the US, can it?
It is not
Yikes, I never knew any of these problems existed. I live in the opposite kind of area. Hardly any bikers and I wish it was more bike focused.
Other than dealing with weather I still think I’d rather commute by bike because it has a lot of positives. The ebike thing though is a bit crazy, I feel like those should be more considered like mopeds or motorcycles and not use bike lanes. They can be quite dangerous.
I used to bike to work in Louisiana. No bike lanes anywhere but my route was relatively free of car traffic. The problem was the unchained dogs that would come after me from time to time.
Hills. If you live near hills bikes don’t work too well at least not as transportation, they work more as exercise equipment then.
I’ve actually got an electric bike and it does solve the hills problem but then it has the it weighs as much as a baby elephant problem. So it’s still a pain if you have to lug it on and off the train.
You are seriously underestimating baby elephants :D
One downside I haven’t seen mentioned yet is the hassle of having to laboriously lock up your bike front and back, saddle bag, too, so some freaking degenerate won’t steal anything that isn’t secured. I’ve had my rear wheel stolen before (who even DOES that?) and am not looking for a repeat.
I love riding my bike and do most trips with it in the summer (shopping, appointments, gym, etc.)
But I envy motorists sometimes who just get out of their car, push the button on their key and everything’s neatly locked up.
This is the upside of living in a very bike heavy cultured city, I feel like there’s so damn many bikes everywhere that no one gives a fuck about my bike. I also have never left it outside overnight.
As a full time car-free person, this is absolutely a valid argument. I’m lucky to live less than 10 minutes away from my job. I could bike there in even less time, but walk anyway specifically because I don’t want to deal with these logistics.
I use locking axles for the wheels and have the saddle attached with a chain. That reduces the effort quite a bit :) Admittedly I don’t use a saddle bag on the city bike.
Weren’t you paying attention? Bikes are so cheap you can just buy another when it gets stolen.
It is cool and all, but I don’t wanna haul a crap load of tools on a bike
How many tools are we talking about here? Have you tried?
Cargo bikes are a thing!
No cargo bike can support 500lbs dude. A single pro toolbox worth of tools is well like 200lbs. Most people have 3-5 of those boxes.
Yeah, you can move a house via cargo bike, but normal people hire movers. Poor bike weirdos in their 20s do it via bike as a political statement. every bike weirdo I know now hires movers because they got older and have money now. They also own cars and drive them most of the time…
it’s almost as if once they got money to afford a car being a zealout about bike-only lifestyle disappeared from their mind…
