Tangled Metal wrote:From the earliest days people just went out for fun on a bike.
Does that also not apply equally to cars?
No difference really, just a mode of transport.
That comment was in response to the quote about reverting to when cycling was just a means to get around. It's never just been a means to get around but also entertainment/leisure and probably not long afterwards sport. If that OPs quote was Lois Price's main argument then I think it's a bit revisionist about early cycling.
mark a. wrote:A lovely BBC Radio 4 program by Lois Price about cycling (and motorcycling), and how it should be a normal thing. I'm not sure if she's a CyclingUK member, but her message is very familiar. We should be able to call ourselves "people who get around on bikes", and not just identified (often disparagingly) as "cyclists".
Lois Pryce argues that bicycles need to be reclaimed as simply a mundane means of transport - and cycling needs to be uncool again.
As a passionate advocate of two-wheeled transport, whether it's powered by an engine or her own legs, Lois is tired of disapproving looks. And she thinks that in the case of bicycles, it's partly because cycling has turned into an identity. She wants to revert to the time it was just a way of getting around.
Well worth a listen, I thought.
Lois and her husband are passionate about adventure travel - they run an Adventure Travel Film Festival that's well worth investigating.
A novice learning... “the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”
I thought that it was a good programme and described the perceptions well, but it didn't get into whether attitudes in the UK are genuinely different, and if so why. The host tried to do this at the end...
... so what sources would anyone suggest that do try to analyse this?
Just listened to this, very entertaining. Still available for the next year on BBC website. Lois is great, met her briefly a few years ago when she gave a talk at my mountaineering (!) club dinner.
I had to laugh out loud at her description of the Danish Cycling Ambassador's quote "Why would they? [i.e. European cyclists buy designer clothing] They already own trousers!" . I have a lot of sympathy with this view. It has always puzzled me why so many of my fellow cyclists, at great expense, choose to attire themselves like Spiderman.