helmut_hofmeister
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User ID: 846
helmut_hofmeister
4d ago
Good question. Frame of reference: I did the Lycra thing on weekends and early morning training, but I also commuted about 18mi each day in street clothes. Rode daily, weather permitting.
(adjusts jaunty cycling chapeau and assumes casually deliberate pose)
Before bike lanes, bikes rode with cars, between them, filtering up to the light at each stop. At lights, you’d safely be out in front of the cars, visible to all, front wheel just behind the crosswalk. Head start at the light so you’re seen, cars catch up, repeat. It was a thrill and required some guts but that kept tourists and entryists at bay. I can’t say whether fewer cyclists got hit by cars back then, but in any case all this stayed in the traveled lanes of the streets where wheeled vehicles belong.
(Aside: Food Delivery bikes were old mtn bikes back then and they just rode on the sidewalk (illegal but selectively enforced)).
Gradually the city added more and more bike infrastructure along with the (anti-car) street redesign / project zero in the 00s and teens. Cars got squeezed, and these new bike paths provided lots of space that might have been intended for bikes, but in reality just became multi-use space. Or more accurately no man’s land.
Litany of issues with trying to use a NYC bike lane: it’s the Wild West now. They’re laid out such that you have to cross 3-4-5 lanes of vehicles at opposite-way intersections; many but not all are between the sidewalk and the row of parked cars; all cyclist rightly fear getting “doored” by a parked vehicle; bike path use is not preserved for cyclists so inevitably there is a black SUV, a police car, a vending cart, an UBER, a yellow cab or three, and/or a hundred pedestrians using it as an extension of the sidewalk, driving you into the street unexpectedly; the aforementioned e-bikes are everywhere as are oblivious tourists on citibikes.
The worst part was that once these lanes showed up, expectations changed. It felt like a theft of the commons or eternal September or something like that. Bikes, formerly road users like cars, were in a weird place where the core users were squeezed out by all the above, but were no longer welcome or expected on the roads.
I would inevitably just take my chances in the streets. And if you’re quick enough you don’t really piss off the cars much.
helmut_hofmeister
4d ago
I was a long term road cyclist in NYC from 2000 to 2017. I also kept a car in Manhattan the entire time, so I have the experience of all the major interest groups being discussed. I lived through the progression from bike messengers weaving in traffic to the design and implementation of stupid and dangerous bike lanes to this e-bike situation.
Nowadays I have a hard time defending “cyclists” without lots of “no true Scotsman” style gatekeeping and I have kind of given up on making the cyclist case. I am a road rider, I know how to ride with cars and around people, but my breed are the minority.
The difference I think is the e-bikes. People riding e-bikes are not cyclists. They haven’t learned the skills that usually go along with being able to maintain those 20+ MPH speeds. They’re dangerous electric mopeds. Now when I visit, it’s terrifying.
helmut_hofmeister
4d ago
I had a similar relationship with my background and just how WASPy it all is, including a family camp on a lake in the northeast US. Ultimately, “For the kids” is what made me realize it’s less about the snobbery and more the sense of timelessness and continuity of having such a touchstone.
I am reassured to know that I can go to a place that I’ve connected to in different ways and at different times, and it makes me grateful for my ancestors having preserved this for my benefit. Planting a tree for your descendants to sit beneath and all that. Makes me well up.
The place is now in my mom’s cousin’s name, and I have become very concerned about preserving it after they pass.
helmut_hofmeister
4d ago
I’m among those fortunate to have such a family property on a beautiful lake in the northeast US. It’s been in my mom’s family for 4 -5 generations, we have pictures of my great grandfather sitting by the dock. It’s a modest place and while it’s worth a lot of money now, it hasn’t really ever been much more than a camp. Our neighbor’s beach house is much fancier, but they just bought it 26 years ago.
As I get older and my own family grows, the thing that I realize is that this is truly priceless. It’s one of the few things in my life that someone infinitely richer than me can’t just buy, and it’s something I am actively working to preserve for future generations.
helmut_hofmeister
29d ago
Not sure how well known this is - but if I ever get to Sydney I want to check out the HMAS Sydney / SMS Emden memorial. I think it’s just an old (but intact) WWI war trophy in Hyde Park somewhere, but it’s great tale, especially for military history aficionados.
Depends on the car’s stability and handling characteristics. 100 mph does not feel that fast in something like a BMW or a Lexus, generally I’d be worried more about getting pulled over than road safety in the conditions you describe
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