[thangalin]

> that's about it.

Avid cyclist here.

* Extreme Weather: Severe heat, heavy snow, or torrential rain can make biking unsafe or impractical without specialized gear and high physical endurance.

* Accessibility & Mobility Issues: Individuals with certain physical disabilities or chronic health conditions may find traditional cycling impossible. (This also affects an aging population.)

* Time Constraints: For those with "trip-chaining" needs (e.g., daycare drop-off → work → grocery store → gym), the extra time required for cycling can be prohibitive.

* Infrastructure: Older adults are more sensitive to "heavy traffic" and "lack of safe places." Seniors don't stop cycling because they can't do it, but because they don't feel safe in traffic. (Good argument for upgrading roadways.)

* Care-giving: When parents become dependent on their children, often the children need to shuttle their parents around. A parent with dementia who escaped into the neighbourhood can be rapidly collected and ushered home in a car, not so much a bike.

* Theft & Vandalism: I've never had a car stolen. Two locked bikes, on the other hand...

[DauntingPear7]

There is definitely something to be said about bike theft. People see cars as a private space with serious social repercussions for violating. Bikes on the other hand are treated like normal belongings. This may have something to do with car-centric bike hatred and possibly the reflexive/reactionary tendency to completely dismiss the utility of bikes for transit. We have laws dedicated to the theft of cars, largely due to the fact the theft removes people’s mode of transport. Why not have the same for theft of other modes of transportation?

Additionally, I personally would have less issue with people driving due to a lack of physical fitness if they didn’t tend to 1. Drive recklessly and fast (35 on a 25 is not okay) and 2. Drive tank-like SUVs and Trucks

[stonogo]

Severe heat, heavy snow, or torrential rain can make driving a car unsafe as well. Individuals with certain disabilities, chronic health conditions, or a plethora of age may also find driving impossible. For those with "trip-chaining" needs, extra time required for parking cars can be prohibitive. Old people don't like traffic and can escape and run away so fast you have to drive them back? And you're seriously including the idea that car theft is not a concern? These are some tortured arguments.

The correct argument here is "if bicycles become the dominant transportation mode, then the government will absolutely mandate kill switches for them too." "Bicycles don't have software" hasn't been true for years. E-bikes and wireless deraillers have been around a long time.

[lapetitejort]

Bikes without software will be around for the foreseeable future. They're the cheapest and most plentiful version of bike. In the unlikely scenario that all bikes somehow become electric, old bikes are much easier to maintain than old cars.

My argument to my own post is that cameras that track cars and license plates could easily be reconfigured to track bikes and pedestrians. In that case there's no transportation mode that will save you from surveillance. The cameras have to go.

[ErroneousBosh]

You do get the idea though, that just because bikes work for what you need to do, they won't necessarily work for what any other given person needs to do, right?

Also, why the hell have you got wireless derailleurs? What is the point? What possible advantage can they have over perfectly normal mechanical ones?