Behooving crapping.
OK, so we are already one year after this entertaining exchange with this guy and I still haven’t gotten around to properly answering his -let’s be kind- bikelaneist non-sequiturs (too many bikelaneist idiocies to deal with far closer to home) and I have here this other guy who purports to be, you know, a researcher or academic or whatnot of some kind, crisscrossing the world to understand cycling. And his conclusion is, surprise surprise, that Copenhagen is where it is at. Boy, am I impressed.
Of course, researches are humans (even bikelaneist «researches») and so they are not exempt from showing some silliness now and then, for instance:
https://twitter.com/#!/BehoovingMoving/status/62860745209167872
Which I promptly replied to:
https://twitter.com/#!/bicilibre/status/63013297548574721
Besides these harmless dubiously-humorous bikelaneist banter, these guy seems set to pontificate with some hard-line poisonous sheer idiocy; here, for instance, he massages the interesting idea that «walkable cities belong in the past». And without loosing his straight face. Wow:
So now we know: pedestrians are to dissapear. So says a «researcher». What for? to make room for cyclestrians, of course. It all salt-peppered with some scien-bullshit about «the infinite diversity of cycling»:
https://twitter.com/#!/BehoovingMoving/status/90016661591162880
https://twitter.com/#!/BehoovingMoving/status/90340411180191744
I couldn’t resist pointing out some details that among non bikelane-idiotizied people are rather taken for granted, and thus the stage for another interesting exchange was set.
https://twitter.com/#!/bicilibre/status/90477744458182656
https://twitter.com/#!/BehoovingMoving/status/90642422043901953
Of course, the line «everyone can ride a bike» is sheer hogwash to start with. One has to wonder how these guys have come to feel that they can say that kind of gibberish and get away with it. But apart from that, what can lead someone to the idea that 100% modal share for cycling is at all desirable -let alone possible-, other than a total disconnect from reality and the mere fact that they like cycling?
So basically what this guy is saying is akin to: «I like rhubarb cake. Everyone should have rhubarb cake for dessert, everyday.» This is the depth of the «research» this idiot does.
https://twitter.com/#!/bicilibre/status/90478290481061889
Please note how this guy takes the trouble to appear genuinely interested in real information…
https://twitter.com/#!/BehoovingMoving/status/90709617977466880
https://twitter.com/#!/bicilibre/status/91095807276752896
https://twitter.com/#!/BehoovingMoving/status/91109686937534464
https://twitter.com/#!/bicilibre/status/91117383665721344
https://twitter.com/#!/BehoovingMoving/status/91334898463420416
… and now please note in the ensuing email exchange how he is determined to ignore the information he is given. Can yo say «deadbrain bikelane junkie»? I know you could.
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This is the point when this guy posted this, which you may want to check out (again, you might not, who knows, but it is kind of interesting if you can read between the lines).
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This post is way too long already (such is the nature of dealing with the bikelaneist tribe), so I will just comment on one point: among other hilariously pompous bits (cue «The failures of Modernism/Structuralist thinking.»), it is worth noting (because it has been seen in other members of the bikelaneist elite) the reference to having «a healthy measure of self doubt». This guy has it, so he says, which is a very elegant way of implying that I don’t. Oh my.
Of course, this guy has not an ounce of «self doubt», to matter what he says, and it shows. He is a true lane-believer who is only using that self-doubt bullshit as a throwing stone against someone who has the cheek to just say things straight and call his crap out. And that is a tactic that we are going to see more and more in the near future: this bunch of lane-idiots have been for decades saying just about any kind of gibberish without any qualms and without anybody calling their bluff, but now that a growing number of cyclists are starting to see through the charade, they are compelled to resort to the «sectarian» and «fanatic» labels to try and shut down the dissent and to oppose the long trip back to reality that modern urban cycling so badly needs.
They are not going to get away with it any longer, of course. They have only winning this stupid game through absence of any players on the other side, but now that we are back on the field (and not even in full force yet), the score is already fixed.
As I told this guy, the bikelanist bullshit is over and the future is ours. Too bad that, to get to the future, we’ll have to clear the way of this kind of lobotomized infrastructure-junkies.
Txarli
CiudadCiclista | Lista de correo | Wiki CC
More posts in english here. |
How to tell a pompous full-of-it asshole.
Easy.
A pompous full-of-it asshole would write things like this:
We’ll talk about the actual video at some other moment. «These people that don’t really matter» are us. And him. And him. And him. And them. And them. And them. And them. And them. «These people that don’t really matter» include people like myself, described as «trolls who think bike lanes are the work of the Devil«, or people like Carlton Reid, who dared to state that they wouldn’t indiscriminately demand segregation and was inmediately labeled as «despicable» for it. «These people that don’t really matter» are the cyclists who are watching in horror the raping of our cities in the name of «bicycle promotion», or «sustainibility», or «the right to cycle» or «vulnerable users», or just plain idiotic «Cycle Chic (TM)».
The bikelaneist bullshit has got way too far. It is high time we make sanity, and reality, matter again in pro-cycling policies.
Txarli
CiudadCiclista | Lista de correo | Wiki CC
There are in this blog a few other posts in English. |
Un momento de zapping a Twitter.
Work keeps piling up. A guy in twitter, who started out the discussion trying some faux-zen unintelligible lines, went on to repeating the usual bikelaneist platitudes (complete with the obligatory go at cheap sentimentality with the «kids and grannies» argument) and then did some lovely effort to be sarcastic, managed for just a moment (before quickly moving on with some good old-fashioned straw man fallacies) to ask an apparently genuine question:
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Oh. So this guy wants to know «my argument and backing». And apparently he wants it in 140 characters. Oh là là. Not unusual, though: the world is full of people who are willing to give you a 140-character (or ten-minute) «opportunity» to explain yourself. That is, of course, because they think they know what they are talking about and because they think what they «know» is all there is to the question at hand. Such sweet souls.
Well, my friend: I have five years’ worth of «argument and backing» right here in my blog, although most of it happens to be, unfortunately, in a language you probably are not familiar with. So I will make a short statement about my position, in English. The «arguments and backings» are all over the place, in Internet and in the real world, in plain view for anybody who cares to read the writing on the wall: you can find them and join the dots just as I have, and one excellent way to begin would be just to actually start looking at what happens in the streets: you would be amazed by the things you can learn.
So here it is. Beware: as I am writing this in a bit of a hurry, this statement is likely to be retouched and refined as I find the opportunity or the need. This post will stay frozen, but the evolved version will be here:
Cycling in the Netherlands – a quick and dirty summary v.0.1. |
My position is that the high level of bicycle use in the Netherlands and Denmark is due to historical, social, political, economic and cultural reasons that have no relation whatsoever (repeat after me: no relation whatsoever) with the segregation paradigm or with the abundance of cycle lanes.
My position, furthermore, is that the segregation paradigm is in fact a car-centric policy launched in a historical moment when the motorized vehicle was deemed to be «the future of modern cities» (ha ha ha!!!) with the explicit goal (repeat after me: explicit goal) to accommodate the existing huge levels of bicycle traffic in the least bothersome possible manner to give way to the new city star (the motorized car) with the assumption that bicycle traffic would eventually die out as the demographic replacement occurred (which is in fact exactly what was happening in Denmark and the Netherlands until the 1973 oil crisis).
My position, therefore, is that the high levels of safety enjoyed by the Dutch and Danish cyclists have no relation whatsoever with the segregated structures, and are instead due to the driving culture in the country (which is, also and itself, due to historical, social, political, economic and cultural reasons that run parallel to the ones that underpin the high level of cycling). Putting it in other words: it is not, despite what you and your bikelaneist friends have chosen to believe and propagate, that the bike lanes «protect» you-cyclists from you-drivers. Much to the contrary, it is the you-drivers (and the care you exercise) what is silently protecting you-cyclists from the traps and dangers awaiting you in the bike lanes.
My position, also, is that the segregationist policies have pushed the Dutch cyclists into a very specific social and urban niche: the niche that in other societies (such as Spain) is occupied by the pedestrians. The data show that applying segregationist policies in those other countries will probably get more pedestrians to cycle, but is extremely unlikely (repeat after me: extremely unlikely) to take any number of car drivers out of their cars and on their bikes (in fact that is exactly what is already happening in cities such as Sevilla, although it is a fact that bikelaneists are not very happy to see talked about). Since we already have a very healthy pedestrian culture (much healthier than yours, in fact), I don’t see any reason why we should jeopardize that pedestrian culture following the segregationist model to get people (i.e. pedestrians, but not car drivers) on bikes, and see, instead, every reason to resist and fight the mindless creation of segregated bike lanes that is plaguing our cities.
In conclusion, my position is that the factors that make cycle lanes relatively harmless (?) in the Netherlands are absent and cannot be reproduced anywhere else, and that the brainless effort to copycat segregationist policies elsewhere is not only born dead, but is doomed to result in a huge increase in artificial conflicts (both with pedestrians and with car drivers), accidents, injuries and deaths. Which is, in act, what is already happening in the cities that have taken the «avant-garde» position in the bike-lane-building madness (although, again, this is not a very politically correct subject to talk about). And all that, as I wrote above, to get somewhere we don’t want to be in the first place, which is putting pedestrians on wheels (what we pejoratively call here «cyclestrians»).
Because, face it, that is what you have in Denmark and the Netherlands: not a «cycling culture» as you like to boast, but a cyclestrian culture: a culture of wheeled pedestrians. The fact (this will shock you, I know) is that the segregationist policies have crippled the ability of Dutch cyclists to a point in which you need to re-learn to use your bikes in natural streets of any difficulty just to get out of the bike-lane-theme-park in which you have transformed your countries.
And my position is, to round it up, that the often repeated line that Copenhagen or Amsterdam are «the cycling capitals of the world» is a stinking heap of western-centric, navel-gazing, hyper-opulent, smugly decadent, worthless political propagandistic horsecrap. There are a number of societies (including the Danish and Dutch societies of just a few decades ago) that have much better ratios of cyclists/pedestrians and bikes/cars, in much more natural conditions and without so much fuss about «dedicated cycle infrastructures», than Copenhagen or Amsterdam have now and can hope to have in the foreseeable future. Of course, as we all know, if we are to believe the rampant bikelaneist idiocy oozing from your side of the wide World, those societies apparently don’t count because «if they could, they would use cars».
So, in short, you can keep your bike lanes to yourselves, thank you very much: we’ll have to put a sanitary belt around your countries (which some of us jokingly label «Vikingland») to make sure the bike lane madness doesn’t spread too much, and in a few years (certainly by the next generation) your cycling-in-bike-lanes culture will be just like (or rather more strange than) the British’ driving-on-the-left traffic: a cute and quaint feature of Dutch and Danish national culture, part of the charm of visiting those countries. Because everywhere else in the world cyclists will ride naturally in the streets, happily mingling with whatever urban motor traffic is left.
Cheers.
Txarli
CiudadCiclista | Lista de correo | Wiki CC
More texts in English here, here, here, here, or here. |
La santidad de los carriles-bici / the sanctity of cycle lanes.
Have I talked yet about the religious elements in the bikelaneist ideology? I think I have… Well: here we have another instance, with these idiots («Velorution», am I impressed!) talking about a social site where you can denounce «violators of the sanctity of cycle lanes.«. And they say that and manage to keep a straight face.
Even the picture they show is a riot: |
Bueno, ¿he hablado ya de los elementos religiosos que tiene el carrilbicismo? Creo que si… Pues bueno, aquí tenemos otro ejemplo: estos idiotas («Velorution», ¡guau!) anuncian una web donde puedes chivarte de «las violaciones contra la santidad de los carriles-bici«. Y se quedan tan anchos.
Incluso la foto que muestran es genial: |
So we have here a police van signaling a turn to the left as soon as the traffic light goes green and, in these guys’ demented minds they should stay out of «the sacred bike lane» to allow cyclistas to speed up front through their blind spot? And then these people are surprised by the scandalous number of cyclists dead or injured in exactly this kind of maneuver?
I guess they expect he Holy Lady of the Bike Lane to protect them for being little good bikelaneists. |
Así que lo que aquí tenemos es una furgoneta de la policía que está señalizando el giro a la izquierda tan pronto el semáforo se ponga verde, ¿y en las mentes demenciadas de estos pibes la furgo debería quedarse fuera del «sagrado carril-bici» para permitir a los ciclistas rodar hasta el frente por todo el ángulo muerto? ¿Y luego estos imbéciles se sorprenden de la cantidad de ciclistas muertos o heridos en exactamente este tipo de maniobra?
Supongo que es que esperan que les proteja la Virgencita del Carril-bici, por ser unos obedientes pequeños carrilbicistas… |
Txarli
CiudadCiclista | Lista de correo | Wiki CC
El escapulario con San Carril-Krusty aquí. |
Cycling the Dutch way.
A friend of our new friend, Mr Amsterdamize, was in Amsterdam a while ago and drew a comic (apparently that is what he does) about his experience: | Un amigo de nuestro nuevo amigo, Mr Amsterdamize, estuvo en Amsterdam hace algún tiempo y dibujó un cómic sobre su experiencia (hay gente que hace esas cosas): |
Ha ha ha ha! How funny! my ribs are bursting with laughter! aren’t these guys witty?
So now we know: the celebrated «dutch way of cycling» is fucking pedestrians in their own space, taking advantage of the sheer number of bikes, while the cars move happily undisturbed on the roadway. And if you are new to Amsterdam and are pissed off by the flock of idiots on bikes swarming around you from all sides, you know what you have to do: get a bike yourself and join the assholes! start having fun abusing your ex-fellow pedestrians! Don’t touch the roadway with your bike if there is a bike lane, though! in the Netherlands that is illegal! It gives a completely new meaning to the verb «amsterdamize«, uh? As in «Tom went to the Netherlands and got amsterdamized by a cyclist. He spent the first day in hospital». Yes, that must be what some idiots call «the healthy Dutch cycling culture«. That same «culture» that our bikelanists want to emulate. So, let’s do something funny: let’s improve the comic! I’ve added a question for that idiot… what do you think would be his answer? It is not only them who are allowed to have fun, is it? |
Ja ja ja ja! Ay, que risa! me duelen las costillas de tanto reirme. Hay que ver que ocurrentes son estos chicos, eh?
Así que ahora lo sabemos: el tan celebrado «uso de la bicicleta holandés» consiste en dar por culo a los peatones en su propio espacio, aprovechándose del puro número de bicis, mientras los coches circulan felizmente y sin ser molestados por la calzada. Y si usted es nuevo en Amsterdam y está encabronado con los rebaños de idiotas en bici que le pasan rozando por todos lados, ya sabe lo que tiene que hacer: ¡consiga una bici y únase a los jilipollas! ¡empiece a divertirse abusando de sus ex-compañeros peatones! Pero tenga cuidado de no tocar la calzada con la bici si hay un carril-bici cerca: ¡en Holanda eso es ilegal! Le da un significado completamente nuevo al verbo amsterdamizar«, ¿eh? Como en «Pepe fue a Holanda y un ciclista le amsterdamizó. Pasó su primer dia en el hospital». Pues sí, eso debe ser lo que algunos idiotas consideran «la envidiable cultura ciclista holandesa«. Esa misma «cultura» que nuestro carrilbicistass celtibéricos piensan que deberíamos emular. Bueno, vamos a hacer nosotros también algo divertido: ¡vamos a mejorar el comic! He añadido una pregunta para ese idiota… ¿Cual crees que podría ser su respuesta? No vamos a dejar que sean ellos los únicos que se diviertan, ¿no? |
WRITE AN ANWER FOR THE LAST (BLANK) BUBBLE IN THE COMMENTS SECTION! | ¡ESCRIBE EN LOS COMENTARIOS UNA RESPUESTA PARA LA ÚLTIMA VIÑETA! |
Txarli
CiudadCiclista | Lista de correo | Wiki CC
Más comics sobre carrilbicistas aquí y aquí. |
Dribble versus facts.
El menda en el blog Amsterdamize me menciona indirectamente en un post en el que los niveles de pomposo cretinismo pasan de lejos la línea roja. Un chaval británico incluye un comentario conciliador en el que dice algunas cosas interesantes. Reproduzco aquí mi respuesta, por si él quiere continuar la discusión aquí, porque no creo que me apetezca continuarla allí, suponiendo que Mr Amsterdamize no me bloquee de los comentarios, como ha hecho con Demimismo: | The guy at the Amsterdamize blog mentions me in passing in a post in which the levels of self-important idiocy go well into the red levels. A british chap posted a conciliatory comment with some interesting points. I reproduce here my answer, just in case he wants to follow up the discussion here, as I am not very likely to go on with it there, even if the Amsterdamize guy doesn’t ban me from his blog, as he did with Demimismo: |
You mean, well after the oil has finally ran out, you’ll have your share of segregated structures? come on.
Sorry: no. Not on the same side by a long stretch. I once thought that, but I am older and wiser now.
Ah, ok. so the CTC is wrong, then? 😀 I was hoping so much from them…
You are an engineer?!!! Then you should bloody be well aware that it is plainly impossible to create any significant amount of segregated structures «dutch style» of any quality and real use value without massive expenditures, enormous damage to the cities and dubious results. Putting it in short: it is impossible, period. If you are not aware of that you are not applying properly your engineering training to the issue.
Do we have to take your word for it or can we have links to pics of them, please, with tags to google maps? I am sure I’d find interesting things in them to comment in my blog: https://bicilibre.wordpress.com
Oh, yeah? and what, in your qualified engineer’s opinion, is the reason for that? Are all british engineers, your colleagues, a bunch of incompetent and clueless morons? do they design awful «cycle paths» because they hate cyclists? are they just malevolent in general? What do you think is the reason for this systematic bad design and construction? I mean: there _must_ be a reason, right?
And what are precisely, in your view, the criteria that define that «pressing need», I beg you? I presume that you, being an engineer, have a clear definition of where and where not a segregated structure is needed?
Oh. Something we can agree on… But tell me: do you think the segregated «facilities» would be needed at all if the root problem (as you name it) were really tackled? Doesn’t it occur to you that the construction of these segregated «facilities» (both the «good» and the bad ones) is in fact a stratagem to make it look like we are progressing without actually progressing at all?
I, for one, would be happy if the Dutch just stopped being patronizing with the rest of us about the «Dutch cycling» and «Dutch structures», telling everybody about «amsterdamizing» our cities and such bullshit. The «Dutch model» is polluting the policies in the rest of Europe as you yourself have shown so eloquently and as we are seeing in the bike lane horrors springing up all over Spain. It is high time we put a cycling sanitary belt arond the Netherlands, tell them to get their segregated cycling structures in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites as a vestige of a dissapearing civilization, and start looking for somewhere else for ideas to promote cycling in _this_ century. The «Dutch model» is a dead end. It is time to go back to reality. P.S. I will post this comment in my own blog. If you want to discuss further, please do it here. I may choose not to answer (or be banned from doing it) here. |
Txarli
CiudadCiclista | Lista de correo | Wiki CC
A photo of a well protected cyclist in my old blog here. |