this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2026
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Fuck Cars
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Bicycle: a vehicle with two wheels tandem, handlebars for steering, a saddle seat, and pedals by which it is propelled
Just two wheels and pedal propulsion are all that is required, I can show you bicycles without handlebar steering or saddle-style seats that you would agree are still definitely bikes.
Regardless, the thing above is certainly not a bike.
I ride a bicycle with a laid back seat, tiller steering, and two wheels, and pedals
It also takes three standard chains to connect the pedals to the back wheel
Bicycle can also be 3 wheeler, either 2 in front or back like adaptive bicycles
or even 3 in line like this
There's also 4wheel adaptive bicycles like this one
Noteworthy also that only 2 from the above had a handlebar!
Now I'm not defending loopholecyle, which is basically a light truck, but just pointing out that your definition is very wrong
The words are tricycle and quadcycle
Bi means two
A trike is not a bike
Behold! A child riding a quadcycle!
Yeah that's the origin of the word
Just like one would think of the dice game when talking about 'hazard'
Sometimes words change their meanings
I'm not usually a linguistic purist but we can't let two mean three.
I would call the first image a tricycle (The shoulder-driven steering linkage on that thing is cool as hell btw), the second one is a concept that the builder does admittedly call a bike, and the third one a quadcycle with a pedal assist motor.
Trikes and quads might share characteristics with bicycles, but they're not bicycles because they don't have two wheels.
"a vehicle with two wheels tandem"
"a two-wheeled vehicle that you sit on"
"a vehicle with two wheels in tandem"
"Bicycle is a two-wheeled vehicle powered by the rider"
"bicycle, two-wheeled steerable machine that is pedaled by the rider’s feet"
"a bicycle, a bike: a two-wheeled vehicle moved by pressing down on pedals with your feet"
Sometimes you could argue that there's a grey area between a moped and a bicycle, or an e-bike and a bicycle. But, the two wheels is a key part of the definition. As soon as it's more (or less) than two permanently attached wheels, it's no longer a bicycle. That's why we have words like unicycle, tricycle, etc.
The description of the vehicle is:
"Image: A four-wheeled vehicle that appears to be a cross between a bicycle, a go-cart, and a mini-truck"
There's really nothing about that vehicle that's bicycle-like. First of all, it has more than 2 wheels, so it's not a bicycle. In addition, you don't move it by pedalling. You also sit inside it, not on it.
It's really more of a cross between a golf cart and a delivery truck. It might legally get through loopholes meant for bicycles, but there's nothing about it that looks bicycle-like.
To be clear, that was just a description I quickly made up for the post. I've been trying to make more of an effort to caption my image posts with text, in order to make them more disability-friendly and accessible.
“Pedal cycle” for any number of wheels.
Fine, it's not a bicycle, it's a quadracicle if it makes you happy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadracycle