The Tragic Proliferation of ‘Drive-Cycling’

[Cugel]

Please feel free to reject my logic here, along with the charge that you seem to be amoral ........

Cugel

Suitably rejected .....

I have cast about for the rejection note but found nothing other than an uncaring leer! What am I to do? I now feel responsible for encouraging you in your naughtiness, as you fail to absorb my impeccable logic and perhaps do more naughtiness just to show you can!

I suppose we must leave you to your wonts and desires, whilst keeping well clear in case you squash us in your A->B hurry; or envelop us in clouds of noxious smoke as you truck-on up the highway and back again.

Cugel

[recumbentpanda]

I have added to this post on a number of occasions but still find it strange that the OP, a cyclist i assume, wishes to campaign for the ending of all competitive cycling, touring and long distance cycling events.

Sorry but I cannot let this stand. I wish to campaign for nothing of the sort, and have never said or implied that I did. In fact I have not proposed to ‘campaign’ for anything.

My original post was simply an expression of my sadness at seeing so many cars with cycle racks parked around entrances to local off road cycling facilities.

When these rail to trail conversions were created, a big part of the idea was that they would offer an alternative to motor transport. Now they seem to be increasingly used as yet another reason to burn gas. I cannot help thinking this is sad and a terrible indictment of the state of our roads. End of my observations on the subject. Anything else anyone is extrapolating from that about my supposed intentions or opinions is fiction.

I hope this clarifies things.

[landsurfer]

Thank you for the clarification.

The reason many use the drive /ride option, i think, is they live in urban and sub urban areas and the desire to ride in the clean air and sunshine overrides their need to save the planet ..
I'm lucky, surrounded by fields, forests and farmland ( the Agri-desert ) i can just ride off in any direction and be in the Countryside (tm) in minutes ... not everyone is so lucky.
However you have given us a new category of cyclist the TDC ( Tragic Drive Cyclist ) to sneer at as we cycle off into the distance without using any fossil fuel / carbon footprint ... well apart from the bikes, the lycra and other cycling kit ...

[Cyril Haearn]

Please feel free to reject my logic here, along with the charge that you seem to be amoral ........

Cugel

Suitably rejected .....

Cugel drives his roof, not sure how to adjust the TDC-factor for thar

[landsurfer]

Cugel drives his roof, not sure how to adjust the TDC-factor for thar

lol ......

[Cugel]

Please feel free to reject my logic here, along with the charge that you seem to be amoral ........

Cugel

Suitably rejected .....

Cugel drives his roof, not sure how to adjust the TDC-factor for thar

It means I yam a little saint - an example to all in my judicious use of lecky juice. I may have the odd environmental sin still (to add to the many historical ones) but they are ever so tiny. Oh yes they are!

The Surfer will perhaps come to audit me, measuring the tyre rubber I leave on the road and hoping to discover a hedgehog I have accidentally squashed with the huge Phev, because it didn't hear me coming (quiet, they are).. Ha! there are no such squashed hogs about my routes, although I did notice a splat or two on the windscreen, which means summer is at last here.

*****
I did hear that it's possible to be eco-minded with the cycling by doing it all indoors, on a virtual ride via the tele screen and a turbo. Many do this, despite it being hamster-in-a-wheel. Do they use lecky juice or do they generate it with their turbo? Perhaps I will invent (and sell millions of) a virtual racing turbo tele screen interweb app that generates at least enough lecky to power the screen, interweb connection and the huge fan that stops the participants drowning in their own sweat? Mind, I feel it likely that some Yank has already done so.

***
Today I are been mostly mowing lawns with an electric lawnmower. And making a new table from reclaimed white poplar. And collie-walking (always). Saving the bike ride for tomorrow. Twenty whole degrees forecast!

Cugel

[Cyril Haearn]

Mowing lawns, electric, what are lawns good for? How much time do you spend mowing them? Why not get a few sheep? I used to use a hand mower, no motor at all, that was fun

Is 'Mo Mowlem' anything to do with lawns?

Four questions, hoping for four answers

[PH]

I have added to this post on a number of occasions but still find it strange that the OP, a cyclist i assume, wishes to campaign for the ending of all competitive cycling, touring and long distance cycling events.

That's just nonsense. While I don't particularly care who puts their bike in their car, mainly because if it wasn't cycling it'd probably be some other car based activity, it's not something I do and although not competitive I've done a fair bit of touring and other long distance cycling events.

[landsurfer]

Why don't you read the post further up the page before rattling on ....

[PH]

Why don't you read the post further up the page before rattling on ....

Aimed at me? Which post? You'll need to be a little less cryptic.
Oh, maybe this one?

The reason many use the drive /ride option, i think, is they live in urban and sub urban areas and the desire to ride in the clean air and sunshine overrides their need to save the planet ..

I live in an urban area, one of the advantages is the access to public transport. I'm shortly on my way to the train station to take me to York, where the Rally will as always have huge car park despite the city having excellent rail links.
People make their own choices, and I'm not critical. What I am critical of is the idea that it's the only choice available to them, it rarely is.

[Cyril Haearn]

York, a train station?
I picked up a brochure about the city once, it described how to get there by motor, train services were not mentioned
I mailed the tourist info asking whether one might get there by train
The next issue of the brochure had a big train advert on the back

BP, doing good by stealth

[Cyril Haearn]

.. I'm shortly on my way to the train station to take me to York, where the Rally will as always have huge car park despite the city having excellent rail links.
..

Oh no, what is the TDC factor for the rally?

[PH]

Oh no, what is the TDC factor for the rally?

Zero - before it became a factor, you’d need to demonstrate that it increased car use. If people didn’t have that option it would be the end of the rally and they’d likely drive somewhere else instead.
I support the idea of reducing car use, this isn’t the way to do it.

[Cugel]

Mowing lawns, electric, what are lawns good for? How much time do you spend mowing them? Why not get a few sheep? I used to use a hand mower, no motor at all, that was fun

Is 'Mo Mowlem' anything to do with lawns?

Four questions, hoping for four answers

This is the first lawn (three, in fact) I ever had responsibility for. Normally the gardens have been enshruberated, to make maintenance teeny and lots of bird nesting spots. This new hoose came with lawns, as well as loadsa shrubbery already full of the bird life (and rabbits).

The lawns are above the landscape, as is the hoose. The collies now use them for lying on so they can gaze about imperiously at their new domains. They require that I keep the grass low so they can see-out as they lie gazing and dozing in the sun. Also, the rabbits enjoy the many herbiferous contents of those lawns, which are not the pristine green stripey things one sees at the bungalows of ex-soldiers needing to keep up the neat-stuff-in-the-barracks thing and so employing gallons of carcinogenic chemical.

I try to spend no time mowing the lawns but finding other important things to do until the ladywife does it. This week she has a small back twangle and so I must operate the electric grass chopper. The rote is about once every three weeks in the growing times. (Six weeks if it's me).

There are sheep to all sides! They crop the fields voraciously and do eye-up the lawns, as they push at the hedges looking for a way through to the grass that is greener "over there". Alas, the collies would 'round them up from the lawn, perhaps taking a small nibble at a sheep ankle or two. I believe the sheep to be hobby-sheep, with owners who are fanatical about their darlings so such collie-sheep shenanigans would not go down well.

Hand mowers are for masochists. Also, they cut off your toes as soon as look at you. And your fingers, as you try to sharpen them. (They were still sharp but get you to put your hand in the blades by pretending they aren't).

A mo-molem is a golem but with one of those stuttery 2-stroke engines to help with their application of evil operations.

Cugel

[landsurfer]

Delightful slabs of sandstone have replaced the grass of doom ... no more the lawnmower shredding hidden dog poo across the children's play area .. They play ball in all its forms without treading the dog poo across the carpets ... The decking, 5m x 4 m, with its layer of artificial grass is the soft play area for dolls and and imagined adventures .... which is nice.