How has cycling culture changed in your area? About 10 years ago it used to be mostly younger people on older bikes who used them as their only form of transportation, fixie hipsters, and old hippies. Some roadies too ofc. Riding was much more unpretentious, it was just a fact of life.Now we've been gentrified and the number of cyclists has gone down a lot. Partially because everyone who moved here drives, whereas everyone who used to move here was a poor and who biked. The majority of people who I see out these days are on fancy new trend bikes (gravel, etc) and are older. Still some cycle commuters, but not nearly as many. Everyone seems to be a bit more of a pansy when it comes to riding in the street too. Another trend which I see is that there are a ton of people on ebikes who ride really dangerously. I feel like we lost our grit. Riding a bike seems to have become more of an exercise of consumerism than of rebellion.
Delivery guys used to be on questionably-sourced name brand hybrids and rigid MTBs. They were almost all hispanic, from parts of latin america south of mexico. Stout, grizzled, hard working guys. The bikes were usually owned by the restaurant/deli and were high quality, low-spec, but reasonably well maintained. A lot of old specialized, cannondale, gary fisher, stuff like that.Now none of the shops seem to have a delivery bike fleet. It's all emaciated african guys, kids basically, like the wind could blow them over, riding on alarming-looking ebike bomb things, that look like something ISIS would throw together in a safe house. But they're not nearly as worried looking as you might think. They've all got that empty look in their eyes like they saw their whole family killed. Like if they were set on fire by their own bike they would just stand there curiously watching the flames consume their body, not making a sound. I used to see that stare in people from the balkans.Used to see a lot more folding bikes. About 60% dahon, the rest tern and brompton. The only folders you really see anymore are "lifestyle" guys on their bromptons like, "I spent a lot of money on this thing, and by god I'm gonna ride it gab dangit"Roadies used to be like the united colors of benneton. All kinds of people on a road bike. Black males, white males, latinx males, asian males. Like I said, all kinds of people. The whites seem to have all gone gravel and gravel also has a lot of fatties and women, which you never used to see on drop bars. They're always in these annoying ass packs of people, like 10 or more and it's only on weekends and they're always loaded up with like a week's worth of bikepacking gear for a 2 hour ride. You still see a few older white guys, lanklets, on a real road bike, riding alone. But other than that, now "real roadies" are almost always some flavor of melanin enriched. Myself included.
>>1987356NYC? Those dead eyed African guys are all over
>>1987356>>1987432just dropping in to say as a career courier (unplanned and unproud, was supposed to be an inbetween job but got hooked) of almost a decade, we have the thousand yard stare because it's statistically one of the most dangerous jobs in the US. Not just that but (with the exception of ebikers) it's one of the most physically demanding jobs, which means it's also one of the most mentally and spiritually demanding jobs because mind, body, and spirit is one. Now let me say this as a retired Marine, this job is like 10x more physically demanding than my PoG-life status was in the USMC.>>198733720 years ago, cycling in my area was an actual way of life. We rode because riding was life. 10 years ago, cycling was a lifestyle, whether it was being a roadie, fixter, or MTBer, it was about showing off on social media first and that was alright for the era but we didn't do it because riding was life, it was about showing off on the grams. Now, riding has become part "social cycling" and part mental health relief. Half of the kids these days go out to ride because of "social cycling" which is a combination of protesting and cycling with goals of progressing urbanist goals, the majority of these individual followers are highly institutionalized with indoctrinated world views who become YesMen for the loudest YIMBYs. The other half are lost kids looking for ways to escape their mind so they go on group rides "wid da skwad" that focus on party pace because it looks good on the socials. On the bright side, riding is coming back to riding because it's a way of life more than it's way to consume. There was a point in the 10s where bikes became consoomerist af whether it be roadie or MTB, it was blatant consoom
>>1987435Well they’re 100% e-bikes here. And nyc didn’t even have Africans until like last year. I think they have the stare due to …other reasons. They seem to have zero sense of danger at all. There’s also the literal army of 5 foot tall Latino guys who can’t even reach the pedals
>>1987432Yeah NYC>>1987668>And nyc didn’t even have Africans until like last year. I lol'd because it's not even close to being true. But they definitely took over delivery since app delivery became the default. The latam guys were really fundamentally food service generalists. They'd work behind the counter at the deli, take out the trash, work the register, answer the phones. Dishes or kitchen work if it's that kind of joint. The african guys are just delivery, nothing else. So I think the latam guys just stay at the home base now doing the rest of the foodservice work and the africans just stay on their bikes all day getting their souls eaten by their ebikes.The other thing is the newer ebikes (all african operated) are all leased, I think, from some fleet of ebikes for delivery guys. They aren't personalized. The old school latino ones would have glitter flags of their home country, crazy multicolored LEDs, sometimes something lulzy like "S-works" painted on the downtube or "type R" on the mud flaps. The new ones have no sovl. Just the factory paint jobs, and that's it.
>>1987337my town went form teenagers riding to school and middle age guys wanting to be the next lance Armstrong to junkies on e-bikes
>>1988018it was the same people the whole time, right?
Cycling has always been considered a normal means of transportation in my town, as far as I can remember. Cycling infrastructure is pretty good.t. Ruotsalainen
>>1987337>I feel like we lost our grit. Riding a bike seems to have become more of an exercise of consumerism than of rebellionGay and retarded
They keep half assing bike infrastructure with zero regard to practicality or cost effectiveness, so it’s become a useless money pit.They built a whole bridge, this nice asphalt path, bollards, lines and signage, the whole deal.And then it goes from an intersection with 1 sidewalk to nowhere, it ends after the bridge on the north end.While doing this squiggly thing through the park.A lot of the larger projects are like this too, where they’ve put down all this stuff for a cycling path but the path is laid out extremely inefficient and it doesn’t go anywhere.
>>1988740Here’s another one, fucker just make a straight line, damnThere was already a straight line cut outThere’s a whole extra path to a quiet, wide road below it, meaning this could’ve been 1/3 of the distance required for new pavement
>>1988742The real annoying part with that one is the satellite imagery is from when they were building it, it shows some of its still dirt. And they clearly had a better path lined up, they cut this mostly straight line all the way through. Instead they made this squiggly shit and a giant switchback thing.I appreciate that they want to do bike infrastructure, but the weird artsy way of going about it defeats the practicality by making the transit time needlessly longer, and drives up the cost, and the time it takes to make anything.My commute to work involves this example, but it’s 1/4 of it. The other 3/4ths are a road with no shoulder, an abandoned road, and following train tracks.
My $30 bike from 65 years ago is more reliable than any modern bike I've ever known. All I did was regrease the bearings and tighten everything down. Easy to work on. Doesn't need any special tools aside from a cone wrench. It's a pleasure to ride. The exact opposite experience of owning a modern bike.
>>1987337rural englandused to be alot of bmxers around but now the kids are riding dirt jumpers or mtbstheres still alo of old mtbs on the road but now besides that its mostly gravel and touringy commutery bikes and the odd ebikertheres roadies around too ofcebikers never wave or say hi back why is that?even motorcyclists do on the backroads herethats the only change i think desu just the gravel bikes and ebikesold mtbs and touring bikes have been the default here for a long time i thinkin town theres alot of deliveroo ebikers but they mostly just ride in traffic like motorcycles
>>1987337I do think cycling is appealing less and less to younger generations, for starters because they're so risk averse and too scared of sharing the road with cars (admittedly this is also a growing issue with drivers becoming more aggressive and in bigger cars), also the mechanical knowledge needed to maintain a bike is eroding rapidly among them, and are also just so unfit or at least unwilling to put effort in for transporting themselves (this is probably less relevant for flat cities)Cycling will never take off in my city because it's too hilly and full of arterial roads, although there has been a lot of progress made on bike paths
>>1988740Keeps happening around here too. Built an entire 6km road trough what is essentially slums just to have dead end 500m short of next suburb. And it's not like they plan to continue after this winter or next year. It's been left like that since 2017 while similar dead ends are being built elsewhere.
>>1989264>also just so unfitAnd with the extreme acceptance culture there's not incentive to change either. People used to take pride in beneficial activities, now it's seen as attempt to put down those who dont.
>>1989264i rly wouldnt agree desui see where youre coming from but i actally think these things are helping kickstart alot of young people into bikingi still mostly see older people on bikes but i think im seeing more young people gradually and online and amongst friends it sounds like lots of them are actually trying to get into cycling because nobody has cars and public transport is fucked plus its an excuse to go outsidejust give em time to build their skills up riding offroad and learning i think in a few more years there will be more young people on the roadsas for the maintenance side although the old knowledge may not be getting passed down through generations the conventional way theres an infinite amount of resources about bike maintenance and riding skills on the internet
