Don't remember where I heard it first, but I always love to hear it.
"Whenever someone brings up bikes, suddenly everyone needs to move their refrigerator 100 miles in the rain"
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Don't remember where I heard it first, but I always love to hear it.
"Whenever someone brings up bikes, suddenly everyone needs to move their refrigerator 100 miles in the rain"
The solution? Rental vans...
It's like people think they need mega trucks for the time once a year or less that they have to move a couch.
"But what about when I have to haul wood for my yearly porch renovation?"
"Rent a fucking truck!"
In this vein, I saw a comment on Lemmy that speaks to this. I'm paraphrasing but it really woke me up. The person said that Americans choose on edge cases and not standard use case. I realized I felt that way about ICE cars vs EV and I am a cyclist. It is amazing how we can have blinders on.
It's weird because all, and i mean ALL, furniture and electronic shop in my country will do delivery for you, most even do it for FREE.
Then there's 3rd party delivery service via an app.
How often does one need to transport a sofa, table, or desk? That's what delivery trucks are for, which is a legitimate use of that type of transportation.
The drugstore cowboys driving Dodge Rams clogging up the streets aren't transporting anything more robust than a 12-pack of Mtn Dew and complaining about the price of gas
Oddly enough, the discussion is never on the other side.
"WHY DO YOU NEED BIKE LANES?! NO ONE IS EVER GOING TO RIDE A BIKE! JUST DRIVE!"
I'd gladly remove every car from the roads that is not carrying a sofa, table or desk.
I'm even willing to add "large amounts of water & a big ladder, or sick/injured people" to that list.
They already move an entire sofa, audiovisual center and HVAC.
Yea, car congestion isn’t about industrial transport, it’s about personal transport. All of the people commuting to/from work etc in single person occupied tanks.
TIL driving to and from work is "recreational" unless you have a TV or something in the back of your car.
Anyways...
Holy leg day
That's awesome
The bike in front literally has shopping bags hanging from the handles. Fucking clown take
Skill issue.
The Dutch absolutely use bikes to carry goods.
I've seen people with TVs on their bike. I've seen them with multiple crates of beer on the handlebars (kingsnight).
I saw three people on one (regular) bike.
Also these:
Yup and if we really NEED to transport big things, sure, we might need a van. But that's probably a once every once every year thing max.
When I used to be on twitter and in response to idiotic comments like that, I would post the video of the guy cycling with a fridge on his back, one of someone moving a piano, several tradesmen that quit their vans to use cargo bikes, the pedal cab company in London (proper cargo bikes not the shitty tourist things) and the mother of 6 from Portland that had a cargo bike to take them all to school.
It used to shut them up
"Well I don't want to bike with a fridge on my back!"
"Oh I was never suggesting you could."
That person clearly hasn't witnessed Dutch students carrying a whole bedroom on the back of their bike.
These morons are insufferable because they don't believe anything exists outside the frame of the photo. they have worse object permanence to babies
Having lived in Utrecht, yes all those stores in the picture, completely empty, also all the people on bikes are happy to finally have the chance to sit after spending their day in a house without furniture.
Clearly they're not bringing the goods, they're bringing the services. That clown even said it himself. Refers to goods and services then only talks about the goods.
Also many pedestrianized streets allow for deliveries with larger vehicles! These just have to drive more carefully and slower for the last couple hundred meters. Usually just a city block or two.
A perk of belonging to my city's bike advocacy group is that you can rent this for no additional charge:
64″ aluminum truss-frame trailer; easily carry a 4×8 sheet of plywood, eight bags of groceries, or whatever else you can fit on it up to 300 lbs; holds 4 plastic tote boxes before stacking
Nosireebob, can't haul stuff around with that... /s
Looks at literally the front bike in the picture...
You can't just dictate what you believe roads should be for and think everyone should agree with it as fact. Roads are for a lot of things, and even in this guy's narrow definition, people are goods, in fact they are the most important and valuable goods on the roads.
That's one of the busiest intersections in Utrecht, especially in the weekend with buses, cyclists, pedestrians and some cars. It's pretty easy to navigate too
Here in São Paulo, services and goods can only be hauled at night, so I guess the argument doesn't stand in its legs if you think about it a bit.
But I mean, it doesn't matter if you can't carry a single 2x4x24ft lumber from home Depot to your house or from the lumber hard to home Depot. We got the main roads for that so big trucks can do that. Just commuting yourself from your house to work and back is enough.
In Amsterdam I got to see lots of little human powered delivery vans though. Mostly DHL. It was awesome to see. So it is doable in flat locations for sure.
We’ve got to move these microwave ovens. We’ve got to move these colour TVs.
Idunno, maybe they don't get all' their shit delivered in front? Maybe there are trucks in back instead of clogging up the front door that customers use to get in and buy things? Maybe there's a damn train underneath all' this! How 'bout that! Nyeehh!!! 😝
Ok so before your anti car brain downvotes this... Read me out.
It's a legitimate question for cities that do remove most car access, some essential items (fridges for example) do break and they do need to be replaced. A Bike won't do to transport these types of things (mattress is another example) what's the solution to this logistics issue?
I'm all for car fucking don't get me wrong but the image does raise an reasonable question, and i feel it deserves reasonable answers not just 'fuck you you stupid car brained fuck head' which is the majority of these comments.
I don't think car access should ever be completely removed. The way it's done in most pedestrian/bike areas around here is that trucks (delivery and trash pick up) are all done within a small window of time. Outside of that, no cars are allowed besides the one or two security vehicles that move at walking speed if they even move at all.
See, the way you're phrasing it is a legitimate question. I notice you didn't give a smug description of what a road is for and you didn't continue to point out that bicycles don't fit all use cases.
To answer the question, there's a few ways. Some furniture stores rent out cargo bicycles (like IKEA) and inner cities do allow traffic specifically for delivery of goods in a lot of places.
Well, this ups the ante. We need to start build really BIG bikes that can carry an entire shipping container.
Think of the fitness opportunities!
The author could be the first to use a bike to haul furniture if he wanted to
Furniture gets moved by bike here all the time in the Netherlands ? We got this amazing invention called a bakfiets (tub bike) or we just balance it on the back.
When I lived in Switzerland I literally used a bike to haul furniture (flat packed). Honestly it's easier than you might imagine.
I brought a big tv home on my bike too. It's quite achievable, if awkward.
But a cargo bike would have been a better choice than my conventional bike.
Definitely the wrong argument against bikes.
A lot of the best ones just come down to time - 30 mins commuting in traffic vs 70+ cycling. 1-2 grocery trips per week vs 4-6.
Good public transport can balance that out (though less so for shopping).
@HexesofVexes @nehal3m Most people should live where walking to a grocery store is easy. Most advocates want to fix a lot of things, not just 1.