> What about going to a restaurant or business meeting or a museum or an appointment with a professional?
I also like to find my bicycle where I left it. Which is not an option in many cities.
> I honestly don’t know but there are so many cities where people bike everywhere so there must be a solution
People have less and less money to spend on a car and fuel/electricity. Many are using bicycles not by choice but because they're broke. And it shows when you see the kind of bicycle they ride.
My car is an extension of my house and although I'll take public transports once in a while (public transports are free in my country), there's no way I'll bicycle everywhere.
Add to that that I do actually bicycle with a MTB, from point A to point A, with a 5-digit $$$ bicycle and there's no way I could possibly enjoy riding a shittier bike. And due to the insecurity (thieving scums), there's no way I can leave my bicycle anywhere in the city (gone in 60 seconds would be an understatement).
Same for my neighbor: he'll do 50 kilometers+ a day on his bicycle, but from point A to point A, with a roadbike.
Don't get me started as to when I was living in a rural area, with the closest highway being a 45 minutes (car) drive: I'd rant about how practical bicycles are there.
I just don't get it and I don't think I can get along with people who wants to put us all on bicycles and I don't think people who want to get us all on bicycles could get along with me. And I'm fine with that.
> Many are using bicycles not by choice but because they're broke. And it shows when you see the kind of bicycle they ride.
I'd be careful to assume people's social/financial status based on the bicycle they ride. Where I'm from, you get the cheapest bike possible not because you cannot afford something else, but because eventually it'll get vandalized or stolen, so if you only spent 20 EUR on the bike, it won't hurt as much to replace it with another 20 EUR bike.
I do have a quite nice (and growing) amount of personal assets, yet I bike everywhere on my now 17 year old bike. My grandpa still has his bike of 60 years (and grandmas of 55). Of course will a $10k bike more likely be stolen over a $100 bike. Though proper bike infrastructure also lessens that risk quite a bit. Or where you personally live is an international crime hotspot.
> I just don't get it and I don't think I can get along with people who wants to put us all on bicycles and I don't think people who want to get us all on bicycles could get along with me. And I'm fine with that.
You are creating a strawman though, people like me want urbanites/city dwellers to become cyclists because it's better for everyone living in a city.
If you live in a rural area where you need to go 10-20km to find a grocery store, yeah, it's not that practical to only rely on a bike. If you live in a dense-ish city where you can bike some 15 minutes to get to almost all of your daily needs, and with a 30 min ride you can get to 80% of your needs in a year then yeah, I will try to convince you that a bike is more practical for your day-to-day than driving the odd 3-4 km to get somewhere (and paying for parking, fuel, polluting the city, etc.), it's just stupid to drive this short if you don't really need it (e.g.: carrying big/heavy loads, being disabled, etc.).
It's odd to see this kind of overreaction to something that simply is better for your health, for the other residents of the city. It's odd to see how defensive car-centric people get by the suggestion that maybe more people cycling, and governments taking action to create infrastructure for it, will be overall better for a city. Even if you prefer to drive it'll be better for you.
Just don't create a strawman to distill your reactionary take, it always sounds like a whining child feeling their toy will be taken away... That's not the point.
> > I just don't get it and I don't think I can get along with people who wants to put us all on bicycles and I don't think people who want to get us all on bicycles could get along with me. And I'm fine with that.
> You are creating a strawman though, people like me want urbanites/city dwellers to become cyclists because it's better for everyone living in a city.
In my experience what people like the OP really mean by "I don't like that cyclist want to put us all on bikes", is that they want infrastructure to be catered for their car use (paid by the everyone), e.g. they say they can't use a bike because they (want to) live rural (rural infrastructure is heavily subsidised by city dwellers btw), but want to be able to drive into the city (despite city dwellers wanting less cars and more bikes). Thus they complain about "cyclist forcing everyone to bike".
> Many are using bicycles not by choice but because they're broke. And it shows when you see the kind of bicycle they ride.
Maybe in your place.
In my place (a big city in Belgium) people just use whatever bike they have that works and fix it up from time to time, but as long as it rides few people care how it looks. Especially since less shiny bikes don't attract thieves as much (although this isn't a big problem here).
I use my bike because driving in traffic is longer and the trip to school with the kids and back home would take 20-30 minutes depending on traffic, while it takes almost exactly 15 minutes by bike (with the kids in a trailer).
I use one of two bikes depending on where I parked my car (which I use once or twice a week to go to places with bad public transit. Otherwise it's parked somewhere within a 10 minutes walk radius, wherever I found space) and one of them looks like I fished it out of the river, the paint is gone in many places, but it's lighter. The other looks nice but it's quite old and heavy steel so I tend to use it less.
I also use my bike (the heavy one, I figure if I want to do exercise, the whole point is to do some actual efforts) for 50 to 100 kilometre round-trips, although less so these days, it was nicer when I lived closer to the countryside between France and Belgium.
But the most important thing is I hate the noise of cars in the city. I want to be able to walk with someone and talk in the street without having to shout or stop while a loud vehicle passes. I don't care about cars themselves, after all they're on their streets doing their things, if they take twice as long as I do to get somewhere it's not my problem. I just want their noise to be gone.
I also like to find my bicycle where I left it. Which is not an option in many cities.
> I honestly don’t know but there are so many cities where people bike everywhere so there must be a solution
People have less and less money to spend on a car and fuel/electricity. Many are using bicycles not by choice but because they're broke. And it shows when you see the kind of bicycle they ride.
My car is an extension of my house and although I'll take public transports once in a while (public transports are free in my country), there's no way I'll bicycle everywhere.
Add to that that I do actually bicycle with a MTB, from point A to point A, with a 5-digit $$$ bicycle and there's no way I could possibly enjoy riding a shittier bike. And due to the insecurity (thieving scums), there's no way I can leave my bicycle anywhere in the city (gone in 60 seconds would be an understatement).
Same for my neighbor: he'll do 50 kilometers+ a day on his bicycle, but from point A to point A, with a roadbike.
Don't get me started as to when I was living in a rural area, with the closest highway being a 45 minutes (car) drive: I'd rant about how practical bicycles are there.
I just don't get it and I don't think I can get along with people who wants to put us all on bicycles and I don't think people who want to get us all on bicycles could get along with me. And I'm fine with that.