Leave the vegan comrades be. Let us move bravely into the future.
First: This is not an anti-train post. Trains are good. Bikes are better, that's all. A true proletarian state ready to actually address climate change will be designed with thorough bike and train infrastructure.
Bikes are rad. All leftists in my town ride bikes, but there is basically no bike-posting on Chapo. This leads me to believe many of my comrades have not yet heard the good word on bikes.
Comrades: if you are able-bodied and are able to afford a one-time $200 purchase (that will last you years) but don't own a bike what are you doing with your life?
Bikes are fun as hell. The cheapest, coolest way to get around. If you live in a city it's probably the fastest way to get around, and rather than just sitting in a carbon emitter you get to use your dope-ass body to propel yourself. You get to ride down hills that have not got less fun since you were 8. You get to arrive at the party with a healthy glow that makes you look more attractive to your crush, plus your mind is more activated than if you sat on a bus for half an hour staring at your phone.
The benefits are endless. Want to hang out with friends safely during a pandemic? Bike ride. Hate looking for and paying for parking? Ride your bike and park right in front of your destination. Hot day and you know the bus/train is going to be gross and disgusting? Ride your bike and let the air blow across your beautiful bodies.
You want to fight MMA fascists but get winded walking up a hill? Get your bike on comrade, improve your general conditioning so when the day comes that it matters you have a solid fitness base to work on. So go out and build beautiful quadriceps my friends. Get yourself some diamond-shaped calves.
Do it for the revolution, but mostly do it for yourself. Biking is fun. The more you do it the easier it is, so the more fun it becomes and the closer everything in the city starts to become.
I'm an experienced rider. I know what's safe and what is not, I'm not just perceiving risks that aren't there. There are many scenarios where claiming my space is impossible or not helpful. I don't know what that advice is supposed to do for me in poorly designed lanes with zero protection from parked vehicles, pedestrians or right turning vehicles. I don't know how claiming my space on pot hole ridden multilane roads so cars can illegally pass me at 90km/h without giving me a meter of distance is helpful when I could just pick an alternate and safer route. I don't think showing the next cyclist that I can put my life in danger is going to instill confidence in them. My point was that I understand why people feel unsafe on bikes when cars don't respect their safety and many are openly hostile to them even if they do everything they're supposed to do. People die all the time doing everything they were * supposed * to do, like the woman last month who claimed her space to make a left turn at a light. Unfortunately the speeding car behind her didn't care.
Yes, my city has cyclist advocacy groups. The cyclists here are awesome. But we also have conservative premiers that constantly fuck with our districting and suburban voters have an absurd amount of power. And suburban counselors run on "war on cars" platforms, and our counselors don't listen to us. There's only so much I can do and pretending that our roads are safe and putting my life at risk is probably just going to get me killed. I don't mean to sound so defeatist, but the reality is that I can't trust my city or my province to protect my life as a cyclist so I have to take matters into my own hands if I don't want to be a ghost bike chained to a sign post.
Honestly it doesn't sound like we disagree on anything. I just said that shitty infrastructure/bike culture isn't an excuse not to ride your bike and it sounds like you're not using it as an excuse, you ride enough to be an experienced rider.
I also understand why cyclists feel unsafe when some drivers are openly hostile to cyclists, and I still feel unsafe when I'm turning left without a turning lane on a decently busy street even though I'm very experienced riding on busy roads.
All I'm saying is that this is all subject to change, but it won't change if people throw their hands up, give up and say these things will never change. And the more cyclists out there, the more discussions get had about them, the more the idea of road rights gets called into question, the safer a future cyclist will feel compared to you.
Yeah, I'm not saying we should give up, just saying that I can understand why a lot of inexperienced cyclists shy away from it. To me the answer is better cycling infrastructure, it's an uphill battle right now - but it doesn't always have to be. I guess I'm just frustrated and tired of how politicized the bikes vs cars thing is here and I'm venting my frustrations a bit.
There are way more cyclists out here with covid though, so maybe there'll be more pressure for better cycling infrastructure.