It is cool and all, but I don't wanna haul a crap load of tools on a bike
this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2026
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How many tools are we talking about here? Have you tried?
Cargo bikes are a thing!
Can only be safely used in good weather.
Collisions will, in fact, fuck you up bad.
Limited cargo space.
Single occupancy.
Can only be safely used in good weather.
Just like cars?
Collisions will, in fact, fuck you up bad.
As bad as cars?
Limited cargo space.
Not as limited as you think.
Single occupancy.
Not necessarily.
Scandinavia and the Netherlands disagree on all but one of those points
- Try a rain poncho
- Two bikes colliding may fuck one up, but death is VERY unlikely
- Electric cargo bike
- Electric cargo bike
Most arguments against bikes are from people who never even tried to address the issues. It's like "I've seen a BMX and that's ALL there is!"
Riding a bike in the rain sucks floppy donkey dong. Poncho or not. I've done both. A lot. Car any day over it.
While I get there are plenty of reasons to ride a bike and many arguments against it are overblown, pretending that a bike always has a solution or that that solution is always preferred is as bad as the inverse argument.
I'm not entirely sure that's what you are actually suggesting(rather I think you're just positing potential solutions), it just leans that way.
Riding bike in the rain turned out to be one of my favorite things when I figured out how to not suck at it. Ponchos are no good. Waterproof coats and pants make all the difference.
If anything is a challenge, it's high winds and places with harsh winters. What we really need is more economical enclosed vehicles that bridge the gap between bikes and cars.
There's weeks where rain a couple of days, but them months were there's no rain at all. O would take my bike everytime because I prefer to use the rain clothes 4 hours of a year that spend an entire week of the year stuck in traffic.
Not disability friendly.
Limited Range.
Makes you all sweaty before arriving at your destination.
Hills.
Infrastructure not set up to store them anywhere.
Easily and frequently stolen.
Not in fact super cheap, for a decent one.
Requires new infrastructure because everything is built around cars and is literally not safe to use around cars.
Roads would be great infrastructure for bikes if we just banned cars from them. :)
They're exceptionally disability friendly and many age specifically adapted for people with disabilities. E-tricycles are used a lot for this purpose. You see them a lot in some countries.
E-bikes address the sweatiness and hills issue. But even without electric assistance, people in Germany and Austria have managed.
It doesn't always require new infrastructure to be built. Ideally infrastructure for cars is repurposed for walking and cycling. This is something that needs to be done anyway because lots of people don't drive, causing transport poverty.
My bike was $270 second hand and is awesome.
The range issue is fair. Consequence of designing exclusively for cars. Then again, no need to cycle every journey. Just the short journeys already helps a lot. Where I live most car journeys are under 5 miles.
Bikes are awesome. Bike infrastructure helps wheelchair users and pullcart users as well.
Anon missed the biggest sin of all:
Monetizable, but only at two or three orders of magnitude less than automobiles.
TL;DR: "He's cheating because he's not spending as much as I am."
They're cheaper in every conceivable way than cars, and that's why the worst people out there hate them. Once you see the systems in place to equate personal validity and social values with what wealth may be extracted, it's impossible to look back. Bikes are effectively a form of protest by way of scaling back one's economic interaction, because of this.
yeah, but once you hang out with other bike people they will just you on the cost of your bike and your 'gear' instead of the cost of your car.
and if your bike is fancier than theirs, you're a rich douche, and if your bike is less money than theirs, you're a poor piece of shit. and if your bike is just like theirs, you are a practical and sensible person just like them.
I have never seen people do this. All I've ever seen is that those who spend extravagantly on bikes and gear do so because they are literally professional athletes. For everyone else, the closest to what you're talking about is just basic advise to spend only a little bit more on an entry-level bike because the so-called "department store" bikes tend to be notorious for being cheaply made and poorly assembled, requiring repairs in a very short amount of time. But even those bikes are perfectly fine if you're okay with having to spend additional money in the near future to replace problematic components, and either hire someone to fix it or learn how to do your own repairs.
If I rode a bike near my home I would be injured or killed within a few weeks if not day one.
then your issue is with your city's shit infrastructure, not with bikes as a mode of transportation.
Totally. I've lived lots of other places including the Netherlands. But bikes are not an option for me.
Have definitely seen bike traffic jams in London before, you get a lot more people through though!
I don't have a photo of a big one though ☹️
Because cars make a shit load of money for the ~~economy~~ the rich people.
the only bikes that make any money to sell are the ones that are for rich people.
the profit on a $500 bike is like 200 bucks, the profit on a $15,000 bike, is like $10,000
I bet it's closer to like 13k profit, depends on how you do the math on the supply chain
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Cars can easily long distances in a short period of time in most weather conditions comfortably, allowing the freedom of movement even if it isn't done daily. It is a symbol of long distance freedom on weekends and holidays, not daily commuting.
Bikes have that "start riding wherever, feel the wind in your air, hop off wherever and lock wherever" freedom.
I prefer to call it "freedom". Nowadays your vehicle spies on you and you're tracked everywhere you go and anaylized.
Not mine, lol, the benefits of driving an 18-year-old car I guess.
goes as far and as fast as you can
And cars go much further and faster than I can
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Mostly true but I find the price is pretty high nowadays.
You don't need a carbon road bike to cycle to the supermarket, you're not racing in the tour de france.
Yeah well even basic bitch bikes go from 300-1000 euros. Even second hand is 175 cheapest. And then you have a shitty one.
You can absolutely find 2nd hand bikes for less 175. One search of marktplaats for an omafiets and there are plenty for less than 90 euros. Sure it’ll be a real nugget but with 30 euros of parts, youtube and some elbow grease it will last for years. They probably even will without fixing it up first
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I live in a city where this a lot of bike commuting.
All the same shitty stuff that you deal with while driving, you now deal with while riding your bike. People going way too slow, people riding up your ass, people going way too fast, people who speed up when you pass them, folks that violate every law/signal/sign and don't give a fuck. idiots blasting shitty music, idiots with sound isolating headphones, idiots who come straight at you head on going the wrong way in the bike lane, etc, etc.
So I basically stopped riding my bike to work. I don't want to deal with bike traffic, bike aggression, and bike accidents.
It was awesome when nobody else did it, but now you have to wait for specially little bike traffic lights, and there are like 30 people in front of you, who are either slow as shit, or blazing around on e-bikes, and it's generally just a total shitshow. The 'freedom' of cycling isn't really free when you are forced to deal with all the same stupid bullshit you would in a car. On top of the hostility you get from drivers, pedestrians, and other cyclists. there is also a ton of richdouchebag mom/dad's on giant e-cargo bikes riding around like they would in their giant BMW SUVs, and acting like entitled selfish pricks and flipping out at you for 'endangering' their children if you get to close or something. It sucks.
I take the subway now because at least on the subway people leave me the fuck alone and play weird passive aggressive racing games with me and aren't trying to head-on collision me everyday.
I cycle to work and have none of these problems because the bike route is pretty wide. Old railway converted into a bus route, no cars allowed but bikes can use it. The bus is every 15 mins so at most I have 1 bus overtake me along it.
It's dead straight and nothing crosses it all the way along. It's great. Overtaking is easy because there is loads of space.
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