Why American don't ride bike?

ZeeExSixAre

Red Cloud wrote:
> 1. Addicted to automobile
> 2 Hate slow speed
> 3. Too fat to ride (60% Americans are fat-ass)
> 4. Driving gas engine is their obsession.
> 5. Too lazy to pump two wheels


As an American, I feel you are largely correct.

--
Phil, Squid-in-Training

ZeeExSixAre

Red Cloud wrote:
> 1. Addicted to automobile
> 2 Hate slow speed
> 3. Too fat to ride (60% Americans are fat-ass)
> 4. Driving gas engine is their obsession.
> 5. Too lazy to pump two wheels


As an American, I feel you are largely correct.

--
Phil, Squid-in-Training

G.T.

Alex Rodriguez wrote:
> In article <1c9e1197.0404182343.25d86e04@posting.google.com>,
> mmdir2002@yahoo.co.uk says...
>
>>
>>1. Addicted to automobile
>>2 Hate slow speed
>>3. Too fat to ride (60% Americans are fat-ass)
>>4. Driving gas engine is their obsession.
>>5. Too lazy to pump two wheels
>
>
> Many folks commute such long distances that a bike is impractical.
>

Why? Too afraid to live close to work? Too selfish?

Why?

Greg

buffedupboy

I'm not american but I would guess that it has something to do with
the way your cities and towns are planned. City centres are
connected to housing developments via highways. City centres are
where everyone works and housing developments are where everyone
lives. Highways are for cars.

Long story about why it is like that in your country and don't really
have the time to write it down. But saying American's don't ride
bicycles is a little harsh.

Regards, Sean



--

Bruni

My very fat momma rides a tricycle @ the tender age of 75. Never learned to
drive.Go girl.
Tom

--
Bruni Bicycles
"Where art meets science"
brunibicycles.com
410.426.3420
ZeeExSixAre <phil_lee@hotmail.computer> wrote in message
news:Gp%gc.31638$Lg.5496@fe07.usenetserver.com...
> Red Cloud wrote:
> > 1. Addicted to automobile
> > 2 Hate slow speed
> > 3. Too fat to ride (60% Americans are fat-ass)
> > 4. Driving gas engine is their obsession.
> > 5. Too lazy to pump two wheels
>
>
> As an American, I feel you are largely correct.
>
> --
> Phil, Squid-in-Training
>
>
>

Matt Cahill

buffedupboy <usenet-forum@cyclingforums.com> wrote in message news:<kg6hc.60916$It1.21684@fe20.usenetserver.com>...
> I'm not american but I would guess that it has something to do with
> the way your cities and towns are planned. City centres are
> connected to housing developments via highways. City centres are
> where everyone works and housing developments are where everyone
> lives. Highways are for cars.
>
> Long story about why it is like that in your country and don't really
> have the time to write it down. But saying American's don't ride
> bicycles is a little harsh.
>
> Regards, Sean
>
I think you have hit it right on the nose. I used to commute about
ten miles when I was in Washington, DC and near a bike trail that
connected my home to downtown.

Now I'm in Cincinnati, OH about the same distance between my home and
work BUT with no safe bike route between. I can't ride on the highway
and the alternatives are extremely busy, somewhat narrow roads. Even
hard core bike commuters in the area advise that there is no good
route between my home and work.

Matt O'Toole

buffedupboy wrote:

> I'm not american but I would guess that it has something to do with
> the way your cities and towns are planned.

Yup. The problem is they're not planned at all. They just happen. Planners
come afterward to try to clean up the mess.

> City centres are
> connected to housing developments via highways. City centres are
> where everyone works and housing developments are where everyone
> lives. Highways are for cars.

Increasingly, there are no city centers. That's part of the problem. Except in
the largest cities, the centers have been left to rot, while new development
takes place on the outskirts. Old downtowns are finding new life as residential
districts, but it's not the same as true mixed-use, integrated neighborhoods
like Europe has.

> Long story about why it is like that in your country and don't really
> have the time to write it down. But saying American's don't ride
> bicycles is a little harsh.

Perhaps, but accepting 50 mile commutes as normal is perverse.

Matt O.

Werehatrack

On Tue, 20 Apr 2004 01:49:01 GMT, cnhyf-1082347200@usenet.etext.org
(Paul Southworth) may have said:

>As we move toward an obese majority in the US we will probably
>worsen our urban planning decisions rather than improving them,
>designing the roads for our population of people disabled
>due to obesity. I use "disabled" as a literal rather than
>a legal term in this context.

According to a contact in the local government, while the number one
category of disability parking permit issuance in this area is
geriatric-related, the second most prevalent is due to obesity and its
consequences. Obesity apparently is a legal disability as well as a
real one now, for some people.

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Werehatrack

On Mon, 19 Apr 2004 12:39:31 -0700, Benjamin Lewis <bclewis@cs.sfu.ca>
may have said:

>Alex Rodriguez wrote:
>
>> In article <1c9e1197.0404182343.25d86e04@posting.google.com>,
>> mmdir2002@yahoo.co.uk says...
>>>
>>>
>>> 1. Addicted to automobile
>>> 2 Hate slow speed
>>> 3. Too fat to ride (60% Americans are fat-ass)
>>> 4. Driving gas engine is their obsession.
>>> 5. Too lazy to pump two wheels
>>
>> Many folks commute such long distances that a bike is impractical.
>
>Do they rely on cars because the commute long distances, or do they commute
>long distances because they rely on cars? Or is it a combination of both?

For the benefit of those without direct exposure to the reality of the
US today...

In a probable majority of instances, it's a case of taking the job
that's available, and driving to wherever the job may be because
there's no public transport that's even remotely feasible. I live in
an area that is considered to be near the center of my city. I had a
job several years ago whose initial location was just 16 miles away,
but using the bus system to get there would have been significantly
slower than taking a bike, at nearly two hours each way via the
speediest combination of routes. We had no rail transport of any
kind then, and still have none in most areas. After a little under a
year, the employer transferred me to a different location six miles
farther away and in a completely different direction, to which a bus
ride would have taken over two hours and thirty minutes. In neither
case was a bike useful for transport due to the combination of
distance, hours of travel (in darkness a lot of the time), traffic
hazards along the available routes, and the vagaries of the local
weather.

This situation is fairly typical. Much of the "urban sprawl" in the
US is unserved or poorly served by public transport, and that sprawl's
existence is entirely due to the fact that the near-universal
ownership and use of cheaply-operable automobiles has made otherwise
ludicrous distances of daily travel commonplace. No one even blinks
at driving 15 miles each way to work; that's a *short* commute, with
25 to 30 miles each way quite common. Furthermore, the removal of the
shopping districts from the city cores to the suburban malls and
shopping centers has encouraged the sprawl to ooze ever farther out
away from the little mass transport infrastructure that typically
exists. The problem is even worse in medium-sized cities, where the
transit system may have bankers' hours...stranding you with no way
home if you have to work late.

The cheap fuel that Americans have burned with wild abandon for over
80 years has effectively killed public transportation in most parts of
this country, and has promoted a pattern of city growth which will
make it next to impossible to build a new transit system when one
becomes necessary. Essentially, today, the automobile *is* the public
transportation system in most of the US...and will remain so until the
fuel runs out...which may be sooner than many expected.

Royal Dutch Shell recently reduced the size of its booked reserves by
a significant fraction. The end of the oil supply is apparently
closer than was forecast a few years ago. This has made some people
very nervous, because the US is not even close to being ready for
another oil shortage, and most particularly is not ready for one that
is permanent.

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Werehatrack

On Tue, 20 Apr 2004 05:18:43 GMT, "G.T." <getnews1@dslextreme.com> may
have said:

>Alex Rodriguez wrote:
>> Many folks commute such long distances that a bike is impractical.
>>
>
>Why? Too afraid to live close to work? Too selfish?

If you own your home, you can't just move without taking a potentially
severe financial hit, and home ownership (as opposed to renting) is
one of the central goals of American society. In part this is driven
by the general wretchedness of landlords here, but there are other
factors as well; too many to go into, really. In the main, the
average American is never presented with the choice of being able to
find a *decent* job near his place of residence, and cannot simply
move to follow his job even if he rents; breaking a lease is not a
cheap process, and people tend to change workplace locations more
often than residence addresses already.

The reality is that the cities are too decentralized, and have grown
around the idea that long distances between needed facilities (work,
shopping, cultural, etc) are not a problem. Centers of employment,
such as they are, tend to be scattered, diffuse and inconstant. To
make matters worse, the odd notion that work and housing *should not*
be in proximity to one another pervades the American society, embodied
in the legal concept of "zoning" which has the effect of ensuring that
not many people even have the option of living within walking distance
of their jobs. It is the rare municipality in which a merchant lives
in a flat over the store now, or a tradesman over or near his
workshop, even though that was the prevalent custom a century ago.

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Werehatrack

On Mon, 19 Apr 2004 16:44:36 GMT, MisterXTR <misterxtr@netscape.net>
may have said:

>Werehatrack wrote:
> > On Mon, 19 Apr 2004 15:03:36 GMT,
> > And Starbucks, at the bottom of the hill, has no bike rack, and their
> > drive-through lane won't serve a cyclist.
>
>
>If someone wants to steal my Huffy 10 speed from outside Starbucks then
>they need it more than me!

Geez, when did you upgrade from the old coaster-brake 3 speed Murray?

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Werehatrack

On Tue, 20 Apr 2004 03:39:06 GMT, Ted Bennett
<tedbennett@earthlink.net> may have said:

>Zog The Undeniable <hrothgar19@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Red Cloud wrote:
>>
>> > 1. Addicted to automobile
>> > 2 Hate slow speed
>> > 3. Too fat to ride (60% Americans are fat-ass)
>> > 4. Driving gas engine is their obsession.
>> > 5. Too lazy to pump two wheels
>>
>> Lance Armstrong ride bike. He American. You ignoramus.
>
>No, he drives a Subaru.

When he's not being paid to ride, that is.

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(Pete Cresswell)

RE/
>12. Most employers and stores have little or no provision for safe
>cycle parking; some actively discourage bikes.
>13. Public transport is bike-unfriendly.

14. Deeply afraid of Buffy coming around the corner in her Ford Expedition
talking to Biff on a cell phone.
--
PeteCresswell

Werehatrack

On Tue, 20 Apr 2004 23:16:34 GMT, "(Pete Cresswell)" <x@y.z> may have
said:

>RE/
>>12. Most employers and stores have little or no provision for safe
>>cycle parking; some actively discourage bikes.
>>13. Public transport is bike-unfriendly.
>
>14. Deeply afraid of Buffy coming around the corner in her Ford Expedition
>talking to Biff on a cell phone.

Covered under 6., "murderous habits"

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