I know the demographics around here, so I know everyone’s just going to put “nothing lol”, but please understand what I’m asking first.
I’m physically incapable of driving a car. I stand to gain immeasurably from a world that didn’t assume everyone owned one. Having loved-ones with respiratory issues aggravated by car exhaust has made me very aware of the health issues surrounding the burning of fossil fuels, and having to navigate sidewalkless suburban stroads on a regular basis and juggle poorly funded public transit has made it very clear to me that pedestrians are second class citizens. I could go on and on about the mess cars have made of urban planning, and the number of jobs I couldn’t take because they required driving, but I digress.
In short, I hate cars just as much as the rest of you. But I’m also conscious that a lot of other people feel differently. What does widespread car ownership enable that would be difficult or impossible otherwise?
As an American I’m familiar with the cultural aura that surrounds the automobile. One of the early episodes of Mythbusters explained this pretty well while digging into the folklore surrounding a particular car-related urban legend. Cars represent freedom and self determination, two qualities highly prized in American society. You can go where you want when you want, without relying on schedules and routes mandated by public transit[1].
Looking at more tangible things, I suppose hauling a bunch of stuff from point A to point B would be hard without a car.
But what else am I missing?
Ignoring the fact you can only go where there are roads, and someone has to build and maintain those roads. ↩︎
I’m saying no it’s not an option. Not everyone (sigh, dare I say the average adult) has this dormant physical athleticism.
And if you finish reading, he talks about ebikes and trikes helping to fill that gap
That’s not what he was referring to with the part I quoted.
He was replying to a comment about e bikes, and concluded his comment talking about them. The whole comment was building up to that fact. Just because every sentence didn’t explicitly mention e-bikes doesn’t mean that they weren’t the point of the entire comment.
He spent a couple paragraphs talking about his own struggles building up to riding a regular bike and then concluded by basically saying “or you can skip all of that hard work and get an e bike”
Maybe for you I highlighted the wrong part.
For the average adult (because that’s what he said) I’m saying no, regular biking is not an option. For the average adult. The average adult does not have this dormant physical athleticism. He said the average adult can, and I disagree and say the average adult does not have this dormant physical athleticism.
Bruh you seem really stuck on this idea of “dormant physical athleticism” whatever that means.
Let me break this down for you, the human body has muscles, these are like motors for moving bits of flesh and bone around. Like motors, the amount of physical energy they output changes based on the energy that gets input. Since humans don’t really have control of the chemical energy flow to these muscles, the way you can change that is by pushing these muscles to their limits, and as you keep doing that these limits start increasing.
Its really quite awesome, because unlike most things in life, your muscle gain directly correlates to the amount of work you put in. Its one of the few things you can directly control!
“Whatever that means”, and then you discuss exactly what that means, so you know exactly what that means. You’re playing games. This is the point that I shoud peace out, but I’m a sucker for explaining things. One last time.
Ok let’s start with your 2 miles round trip. Meaing 1 mile one way. That’s nothing. My high schol was 3.5 miles, one way. My college was 11.6 miles, one way. My work was 9 miles, one way. And you have to do this twice a day. Five times a week, maybe more. After work stuff 2-3 times a week was another 3 miles. Means the distance back home was 12 miles. And that’s not even what I would call long, that’s normal suburb to downtown.
And you were freaking out about 1 mile? And you’re now bragging about 2.5 miles after years of training? (5 miles sounds total, so that’s 2.5 miles one way).
Do you see the issue?
I’m saying the average adult can not do that on a normal bike. On a regular basis. Come hell or high water. When you’re kinda sick but not ready to call in sick. All those day to day conditions.
And that’s just distance. Now consider time. You don’t have the ability to go through a leisurely slow pace. This is life, you gottta get to work and get back home in a timely matter. Such is life. You gotta maintain a fairly high speed.
So no the average adult is not capable of that. Limits are not infinite. People max out allllllllllll the time. Doesn’t matter how much I train I will never be able to do an Ironman (can’t wait for you to misinterpret that one), because there are limits to what
the bodythe average adult can do.Ok I’m out.
Alright. If that’s what you want to nitpick here
The average adult (in the US) can ride a bike, whether or not they ever actually do is a different matter, but the majority of us learned how to at some point, and there’s a reason “it’s like riding a bike” is a saying.
From being able to ride a bike to being able to ride it a reasonably long distance just takes time and work to build up to it, which is what he said.
Now a lot of people won’t put in that kind of work, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t.
I’m fat, I won’t sugar-coat that. In a couple weeks when it warms up a bit I’ll hop on my bike, and I’ll probably manage around 5 miles, and by the end of the summer I’ll probably work my way up to around 15 miles, and I’ll still be fat. I do this pretty much every year (and worth noting, I didn’t even learn to ride a bike until I was in my 30s)
There are parts of the world where damn-near everyone gets around on bikes, they don’t have some sort of unattainable genetic advantage because they grew up in Amsterdam or whatever that gives them some “dormant athleticism” that Americans don’t have, they just ride bikes.
The average adult can ride a bike. They just don’t or won’t.
Lmao not even with responding to. The extent that you go through to misread and then try to salvage something is unreal. Ciao.
Feeling’s mutual.
If you need someone to teach you how to ride a bike, hit me up.