New Shoes
Sometimes my non-bikey friends don’t quite understand my bike obsession.
So I have to find ways to make it relatable to those not as familiar with the lifestyle.
I find it makes more sense to compare bikes to shoes than cars or household appliances like vacuum cleaners. Shoe obsessions are very relatable.
And both bikes and shoes are very useful for getting around. Cars and vacuum cleaners, not so much.
👍 I have my roadbike, commuter social, commuter cargo beater, hardtail mountain bike and full suspension mountain bike… Will be adding a disc Road bike after its built for my group rides…add a B.O.B. yak trailer for my dog to ride in when we go around town…
😊
Love the analogy. Just yesterday I rode my folder & s/o remarked: “New bike?”…so I had to explain how it fits neatly into the car for after meeting up with my husband for dinner. And there’s the trailer bike which is an absolute necessity for Costco runs, the cyclocross/bad weather commuter bike,…you get the picture.
Ok, I will now defend Mikail Colville-Anderson from the shot you took at him. Bekka, you are self-described as having a “bike obsession.” The vast majority of people do not. Mass cycling occurs in every Dutch city and many other places in the world because the infrastructure makes cycling the fastest, easiest and most convenient way of safely getting from A to B.
When the cycling mode share is over 50%, then most cyclists do not have a “bike obsession.” Nor do they consider themselves “cyclists.” They are just people going from A to B. For them, a bicycle is a transportation appliance. It gets the job done, just like a vacuum cleaner.
Which is Mikail’s point: We should not design cities for “bike obsession” people, but for ordinary citizen cyclists who don’t really like cycling and have about as much emotional attachment to their bicycle as to their vacuum cleaner.
Here are two of Mikail’s articles that appear to be the source of Bekka’s “vacuum cleaner” reference. See:
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2013/05/i-vacuum-copenhagen.html
and,
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2010/06/vacuum-cleaner-culture.html
So true!