This is absolutely correct.

For the record, not every dude that chooses to ride an old lugged frame fixed gear/freewheel is a shallow hipster douche. I'm standing up for a friend. :cool:

I could fall into that category ;) but I just love biking.

biker terrorism on the rise


https://nypost.com/2019/08/31/nyc-bi...-wont-stop-it/

Today I rode my fairly-expensive (roughly $1,500) 2 year-old mountain bike in the city on my way out of town to a mountain bike trail. It's a little slower than my commuter bike, but the thing is incredible in the city. The 2.8" tubeless tires mean you can run over absolutely anything (glass, etc.), the wide tires don't even notice sewers or streetcar tracks, and the disc brakes stop on a dime. The shifting is quick and perfect, every time. Unfortunately the thing is too valuable to ride in the city regularly, and so I normally pedal about on my 15 year-old commuter bike that would be lucky to fetch $100 on Craigslist.

I couldn't help but chuckle at the profound practicality of a mountain bike in the city (bike racks on college campuses in the 1990s were nothing but mountain bikes) as opposed to the repurposed hipster 1970s Schwinn. The sewers. The gravel. The glass. The streetcar tracks. The imprecise shifting on the down tube. The brakes that barely work in the rain. The hunched-over posture that doesn't keep you upright and alert. The floppy handling.

All of those downsides...but back in 2010 those idiots lorded over America's city streets with their pretentious pieces of junk.

If one type of pristine $1500 bike is "a little slower" a 15 year old example of another type that's worth no more than $100, imagine the speed/efficiency difference of examples that are of the same age and quality. To me, gnarly mountain bikes vs commuter bikes vs road bikes is akin to Land Rover vs Accord vs Porsche.

OK. The headline number in that article is city records that people on bikes have caused a total of 2,250 pedestrian injuries in NYC since 2011. That's a scary number for sure, and I don't want to defend cyclists who are at fault, but don't forget that the issue truly pales in comparison to the number of cyclists and pedestrians injured by drivers.

Looking at city records from just the last few years (source), motor vehicles have injured just above 10,000 pedestrians per year and over 4000 cyclists per year. If we're really concerned about street safety, crashes caused by cars are obviously the higher priority.

Not to mention that the headline is an totally inappropriate use of the term terrorism which denotes an intentional act meant to cause mass fear and intimidation in the public toward the aim of making a political statement or achieving some political goal. People driving recklessly is not terrorism. :rolleyes:

He's not honestly concerned about the actual carnage in the streets of New York, though, which is almost entirely the fault of motor-terrorists. He's merely using a right-wing rag to advance his grumpy, negative attack on "the others" who ride bicycles. He does not approve. Call them names! Imply that they cause anywhere near the carnage of our beloved motorists! Attack the other! Attack!

Cyclists who feel the need to judge other cyclists for their choice of steed are some of the most obnoxious cyclists out there.

Just ride!

The rest is BS.

:haha: :haha: :haha:

Cars kill like 50,000 Americans every year, but bicycles are the real menace.

The New York post is so terrible that it isn't even suitable to keep around as emergency toilet paper

A couple of points:

1. More people biking means that there will be more issues.
2. I think a huge issue is our culture. Biking culture here vs in Europe or Japan could not be more different. People here feel like they have to zoom everywhere quickly, this isn't the case in Japan(where bikes are usually found on sidewalks) or in most of Europe.
3. I would rather be hit by a bike than a car ANY day.

All that being said, police need a crackdown on idiots who are clearly being dangerous. This won't hurt the "cause" of wanting more people to ride bikes. Hell, it will only help.

Those people aren't riding anymore. That they became bikers was as much as a fad as the bikes themselves.

There is some baseline of biking that needs to happen before you can call yourself an "experienced" bicyclist or a "cyclist" or whatever. I'm not sure exactly what that baseline is. But there is definitely a difference between a "bicyclist" and a "dude on a bike".


Is a homeless guy walking around his circa-1992 Murray mountain bike a "bicyclist"?

and you know this how? you've done the necessary polls/studies?

far more likely, you're just making shit up to fit your little manufactured outrage narrative.

"goddamn THOSE people, why don't they ride the kind of bikes that I want them to ride?"



FWIW, i still see PLENTY of people riding fixies and vintage 10 speeds here in chicago (along with every other style of bike under the sun).




by definition, anyone riding a bicycle is a bicyclist.

doesn't matter if it's a $5,000 Cervelo or a $50 '90s walmart BSO.

similar to how anyone driving a car is a car driver. doesn't matter if it's a Kia or a Bugatti.


to differentiate between regular bicyclists and those who take a particularly strong interest in the endeavor, the word "cyclist" is most often used.

likewise with cars, to differentiate between regular car drivers and those who take a particularly strong interest in the endeavor, the words "car enthusiast" or "gearhead" are most often used.



just ride!

the rest is BS.

Typical predicted response from the pro bike crowd. Cars do it so its okay.

Leaving out the fact that common sense would tell you more deaths would be associated with cars anyways given the modal share of cars vs. bikes. Simply put there is more people in cars so more chances of wrecks happening.

Though I don't agree with the term "bike terrorism," this is a good article publicizing that bikes aren't the cure all to pedestrians deaths many publications like citylab and curbed make them out to be.

Assuming we are using 2011-2018, the final number of 2,250 comes out to 281 injuries a year from bikers.

80,000 people would have been injured by cars in that same timeframe. 112,000 if you include bikers being injured by cars.

If bikers make up 1% of the commuters and they had the same pedestrian-injury rate as cars, they would injure 1,120 people a year vs what the number really is, 281.

So bikers are like 4-5 times safer for pedestrians vs cars. This isn't even accounting for deaths, which I assume would make cars look even worse.

NOTE: I suck at math(I know I didn't do the math correctly), but if I am ANY near close to the real numbers, there is no debate.

In no way did I imply or say that reckless cycling is "okay". The point is that NY Post took one number out of context to push their view that cyclists are somehow more of a danger to pedestrians than motor vehicles.

I'll second Jtown, man's comment above.

112,000 is over 8 years, or 14,000/year. The equivalent at a 1% share would be 140 injuries per year.

See, I knew my math was wrong and the actual answer was probably even less damning regarding bikes than what I figured up.

Right, and I am not disputing any of that. Again, this is common sense. You get hit by a bike vs. a car and it doesn't take much thought as to who will be injured worse regardless of speed(in most cases). My point is articles like these dispose of the notion set fourth but not explicitly stated in the tone of many pro-urban publications like Strongtowns in cycling being angelic while cars are the devil. It paints a different picture. Now I'm sure we can agree that the term "bike terrorism" is stupid and doesn't apply here.