Re: Disc brake maintenance tips

On Mon, 24 Jun 2024 20:59:18 -0400, Frank Krygowski
<frkrygow@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

On 6/24/2024 3:57 PM, Roger Merriman wrote:

Frank Krygowski <frkrygow@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

 
ISTM anti-VC folks are two main camps. The larger one is "I gotta never
ever inconvenience a motorist, so I gotta ride inches from the edge, and
ride on the sidewalk, and maybe stop if a car come. Oh, and traffic laws
don't apply to bikes."
>
The second camp says "Riding a bike on any normal road is just too
dangerous. We need to spend fortunes on 'innovative' bike chutes so
anyone 8 to 80 can ride wherever they go. Then bike use will soar and
our cities will finally be saved!" (The second group is nuttier than the
first.)
>
Meanwhile, people who are competent at VC techniques are riding where
they like with almost zero problems. They find it just works.
>

That’s kinda the issue with it isn’t it, it reduces the cyclists to
essentially brave confident male roadies, which for example the Embankment
in London was historically.

>
Um... brave confident male roadies like the ladies in this video?
https://cyclingsavvy.org/
>

Let alone larger faster roads which just don’t get used, as well it’s
frankly not a pleasant experience.
 
Strava Heatmap/metro shows the shocking amount of cycling in Youngstown or
rather lack of it, with only the parks and main strip having any apparent
numbers ie a pale blue. Rather than the white surrounding areas.
 
Numbers must be barely recordable, indeed numbers recorded are in the low
hundreds which is for a city of what half a million people is lamentable
low.

>
I'm not a Stravite, so I don't pay a lot of attention to heatmaps. But
AFAIK Strava is most popular with the brave confident male roadies you
seem to disparage. I doubt any of the women in the video I linked above
would bother with Strava. They're not "striving" to get faster and
faster, which is what that program's about. They're just riding.
>
I'm sure Youngstown's bike mode share is minuscule, just like almost all
U.S. cities. Remember, the national average is far below one percent.
And despite all the "innovative" segregated infrastructure, it's falling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_most_bicycle_commuters

It appears that bicycling to work is common in many cities. I suspect
the number of bicycle commuters in any location has an inverse
correlation to the average commuting distance. Urban living doesn't
have much appeal these days and when people move to the suburbs or to
rural sites, their commuting distance increases.

Why is it falling? I suspect one factor is the constant propaganda
claiming everyone NEEDS a barrier-segregated facility to be safe on a
bike.

Assumes "facts" not in evidence.

That tells almost everybody "You can't ride a bike until that
stuff gets built." IOW, never.

Apparently, the constant propaganda from the save the planet loons is
what isn't working. I'm pretty sure that bicycling in the USA is going
to remain a predominantly recreational activity.