“It’s funny how a little rain scares so many cyclists off, because a one or two hour ride in the rain is generally a very pleasant experience as long as you keep moving and stay warm.” –SurlyDave
Is buying a bike as a supermarket special a dumb idea? Well, it depends on what you want to use it for.
Give up the entire day’s riding just because I need to run an errand in the morning? Noooooo! The solution: drop a folding bike into the the boot of the car. Let’s hear it for multi-mode transit!
“What’s most enjoyable is sailing past queues of traffic in the rush hour!” — Bernard Sudlow
“Don’t be a snob; if it can be done on a bike, it’s good.” –unnamed correspondent to RBR Newsletter.
“After years of federal and local spending on bike routes and other amenities, most cities are ready to handle more cyclists. But many motorists simply don’t see their two-wheeled brethren or, when they do, find them aggravating. Managing more cyclists is going to take more than new bike paths or fresh stripes on the roads. It looks as though there is a need, on both sides, for a revolution in manners.” –The Economist
“Road-bike aficionados are much like trout: simultaneously enthralled and mortified by anything shiny and new that enters their environment.” –Wired.com
“Within societies of mass automobility, bicycles are often regarded as a children’s toy, a middle-class sports fad, or a form of transport for those who are too poor to drive. Within less that three generations, cultures of everyday or utility cycling disappeared. Those who continued to cycle are often regarded with suspicion.”–Adrian, Yellow Brick Road.
“I hate that the bicycle is made out to be something political. I have stated here before, if automobiles ran on pixie dust and had zero carbon emissions, I would still ride a bicycle. I am a cyclist, and riding a bicycle is a love and a passion.” –Dave Moulton
“It’s time to take cycling back and place it firmly in the category ‘normal way to get to work, to the shops, to the cinema’.” –The Slow Bicycle Movement
“Cycling provides economic benefit in terms of improved public health, reduced levels of traffic congestion and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as reductions in expenditure on transport fuel. These benefits accrue most readily when the bicycle is used as a substitute for car journeys.” –Cycling Promotion Fund
Will humans ever finish designing and redesigning the bike? I doubt it…
“One of the greatest things about cycling is you can do it with 10,000 people or you can do it alone. And you don’t need to engage in the `secret handshake’ of name-dropping, proper equipment usage, and wardrobe in order to do it. Choose a group, choose a fashion, or don’t, it doesn’t matter.” — Bike Snob NYC