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Post by Humph on May 1, 2017 10:26:38 GMT
Of at a tangent ( who me? ) I have this "discussion" with my wife regularly. I still don't get why people who only have a short urban journey to make, insist on taking their car. For example, where we live, due to one way systems and a couple of traffic bottlenecks, it can take 20 minutes to drive into our local town despite the crow flying distance only being just slightly over a mile. You can walk it, across a pleasant park in an easy 15 minutes or cycle it in 5 minutes. Neither of the latter methods involves having to then find a car parking space, and if you do, then having to pay for it.
I never take my car on local trips, even the journey to the neighbouring town some 5 or 6 miles can be achieved much more quickly on a bike than by car by using the comprehensively provided traffic free cycle routes at busy times. It's also very flat round here so no real fitness excuses either.
My wife though, an experienced and competent mountain biker, who will happily spend a Sunday pedalling up and down mountain tracks, defaults to her car for trips into town. There are no safety issues, we are well provided with shared and dedicated walking and cycle routes, but she still goes by car despite the obvious downsides.
Don't get me wrong, I get it if the weather is crap, or if the purpose of the journey is to fetch or deliver something too big to carry, like a supermarket run or something.
Maybe, it's just that I spend so much time driving that I relish the opportunity to not sit in traffic more than she does.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on May 1, 2017 11:40:48 GMT
Something to do with the car as status symbol, perhaps? I think my inlaws went this way: after a relatively impecunious early life, walking, cycling and bussing everywhere, they got to affording a car and seldom went any other way, even when other modes made more sense. They duly suffered the consequences in terms of fitness and cardiac health.
Or it could be the obsession with being busy - or appearing to be busy. Walking anywhere takes far too long for these people. They're the ones who drive their children 800m to school - even though they then get caught up in the inevitable motorized mêlée at the school gate - because there 'simply isn't time' for anything else.
I do drive (not 'drift', thank you, iOS) the 1500m to town on a Saturday morning, but only because I usually need (just) enough shopping to make the return up the hill a bit of a slog on foot. Anything else, though, and it's two feet or two wheels for me too.
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Post by Humph on May 1, 2017 11:51:57 GMT
My wife, drives 3 miles to the gym to sit on a fake bike for half an hour and then drives back.
My brain, quite often, hurts if I stop to think about things...
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WDB
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Post by WDB on May 1, 2017 12:07:13 GMT
Yes, I often wonder at the car park outside my gym. Lots of gym-bunny cars - Mini convertibles, Fiat 500s and, yes, Evoques - in among the geezers' and geezerettes' Suzukis and Merivas. I walk there; it's 600m from home, so what else would I do?
Before we relocated, I used a gym at the golf club just out of town. It was 5km from home, so the ride there and back satisfied most of my cardiac needs. The bike park was never full, although the car park often was.
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Post by Humph on May 1, 2017 12:22:04 GMT
If skips are a status symbol, then my wife's car more than qualifies most of the time. Perhaps that's it then.
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Post by tyrednexited on May 1, 2017 12:52:03 GMT
If skips are a status symbol, then my wife's car more than qualifies most of the time. Aye, right. Just don't fit one of these to it, or all sorts of problems might ensue.......
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Post by Humph on May 1, 2017 14:02:01 GMT
Heh heh too true! I've been razzing about in the Aygo today. "He" needed to be a couple of places so he drives there and I take myself home again in his car. Can't tell you how much fun it is chucking a little car down the country lanes when no one is looking...
😜
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Post by Deleted on May 1, 2017 18:06:40 GMT
When you cycle into town in the UK where do you leave it if you need to be somewhere for anything longer than popping in and out of a shop without someone trying to liberate it ?
It drives me mad taking a motorbike anywhere in the UK and having to carry half an ironmongers shop to have any chance of it still being there when I return, my insurance even insists on it.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on May 1, 2017 18:48:14 GMT
For me, there are properly concreted bike hoops at Waitrose, the station and in the market square. Never a problem; actually takes longer to get it out and put it away at home than to secure it in town.
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Post by Humph on May 1, 2017 19:40:37 GMT
It is a problem. My bikes have quick release everything, wheels, saddles etc. Have to judiciously chain it all. Even had lights stolen.
What is it with British scrotes?
I go to Denmark quite often, never seen bikes locked up. People don't seem to touch them and yet they must also have low life there too.
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Post by tyrednexited on May 1, 2017 21:51:46 GMT
I go to Denmark quite often, never seen bikes locked up. People don't seem to touch them.......... ...I had a conversation with one of the custom bike builders in Christiania which touched on this subject (amongst others). Denmark (and particularly Copenhagen) has a huge bike-theft problem, with people apparentyl just lifting them off the street to get home when they are "marooned". Simply Googling "Bike Theft Denmark" gives the background. e.g. road.cc/content/news/133530-one-six-danes-admit-theyve-stolen-bicycle-says-survey
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Post by Humph on May 2, 2017 6:56:42 GMT
That's interesting, and quite disappointing at the same time.
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