583
Murica
(lemmy.ml)
Because there's no Microcenter in my city.
Cool let me just bike 30 miles to my job and back everyday sounds good
Rain, ice and severe cold are a removed. I like bicycles, but driving to work in a heated car looking at that poor cyclist riding somewhere at 6 in the morning at -6°C, sorry, no, I'm gonna go with a car.
I disagree cycling in winter is nice. Just get some warm clothes and good tyres. A car is also really expensive to own in the city. Why pay for a car and parking when the alternative is almost free and arguably more fun.
It was minus seventeen degrees celsius when I got up yesterday. In the time it would take me to bicycle to work on clear paths/roads - assuming no accidents - I would have frostbite on all of my face unless I was also wearing a full-face helmet.
If a full-face helmet works why not use one? You can also just skip the extremely cold days and use public transport instead. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing decision.
You should check out Oulu in Finland where kids bike to school in cold weather. Not a problem apparently. If that is too far fetched, you should visit Bozeman MT where people bike commute in the winter quite often.
I'm less likely to sweat profusely in winter
are a removed.
Bro, it might be time to leave .ml lol
If the weather is bad enough, I will take transit instead, but cycling down to -10 C is doable without any problems.
I will be far less inclined to bike if it's raining, that I do hate with a passion. Of course, I could just work from home in that scenario as well, if I don't feel like taking transit
Was the removed word bitch (female dog) by any chance I wonder?
Because lemmy.ml is run by a bunch of pearl-clutchers that think profanity is a tool of the capitalist oppressors.
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But what if i need to commute 600 miles to work and back every day and on top of that once a year I drive a million miles to my vacation home? Checkmate!
I would get another job. :D
Bikes were and still are a revolutionary technology. There's a reason suffragettes were often associated with bicycles.
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A bicycle gives you freedom of lightweight activities within a few miles of your home. You want to play baritone sax in the band 25 miles away? It's not happening with a bike.
The 25 miles is a bit much, but if your instrument/sporting gear can fit in a bag, you can carry it on a bike. There's backpacks for guitars, cellos and tubas and I regularly see kids cycling to their lessons with those. This is a fairly dense town though, so 5km max (20 minutes at child-speeds). Kids also can't drive cars, so if it's not happening by bike, it's not happening at all.
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Because it's harder to kill someone by hitting them with it.
But in all seriousness, you can go a lot farther, a lot faster, across much worse terrain and weather in a car than a bike.
How often does the average person really need to do that? Multimodal is where it's at! Drive when you need to, don't when there are alternatives. But alternatives need to exist for that to work, so vote for them.
Don’t forget that maintenance is super cheap AND most people, with only the most basic tools, can do the work in their living room or even just on a sidewalk. And if I don’t get it right and the brakes don’t work perfectly I probably won’t fuckin’ die.
Hi, car owner here. I do all the work myself and it requires a fair bit of knowledge, expensive tools, space, and a childhood where I was never told I couldn’t do that work if I was thoughtful about it. That’s a high fuckin’ bar and requires a whole lot of privilege-oh there it is, too many people with privilege like to shit on those without and most of North America has dogshit for public transit or bike infrastructure and the “freedom of movement” with a car is all there but heavily artificial. Thanks auto industry and their lobbyists.
I do my own bicycle and auto repair, and the bicycle is way easier. Maintenance is:
- clean chain every so often (500 miles or start of the season) - get a chain cleaner tool thing ($10-20) and 50/50 Simple Green ($10 will last many years) and water, and then rinse, dry, and lube ($10 lasts years) - total process, 10 min?
- replace chain - $20 or so, plus a tool for $10 or so; do every 2k miles or so
- replace brake pads - $10-20
- tires ($50 for a fancy fire) and tubes ($10) - replace tires when bald, tubes when flat (or patch them), and get some tire levers ($5-10) to make it easier
For tools, you need a wrench set, and probably only like 2-3 sizes.
My yearly maintenance costs for all of our bikes (1 adult, two kids) combined is about $50. If that. You could also go to your local bike shop instead for about double that.
A quick tip on bike chains; if you are using lubricant you should never use heavy degreaser on the chain. The factory oil is the best lubricant and normal lubes don't penetrate between links enough.
However, if you are going to degrease you chains, you should use paraffin wax instead of lube. I have an 11 speed chain with 3000+ miles and it's only showing around 1% stretch. I don't even use fancy bike specific wax, just food grade gulf wax. Another plus is the whole drive train is dry; doesn't get your hands dirty if you need to remove a wheel, cassette, or derailleur.
Admittedly waxing the chain is a pain in the ass, but some of my chains are like $70 a pop so getting as much life from them is more important.
Wax can flake off leaving that space unprotected. You have to check it more regularly than a lubed chain and dry it off after rain. It's not uncommon for a waxed chain to rust. But a big pro is cleanness of the chain and you won't get greasy hands.
Personally I keep using (eco-friendly) lube. Yes the chain gets dirty fast but I don't care. :D
I have an 11 speed chain with 3000+ miles and it’s only showing around 1% stretch.
Wow, that's a solid chain. I usually need to replace mine around 2000-3000, but my chains are like $20-30, and I don't treat them very well (I stay on high gears on short climbs a bit too long).
I haven't bothered with wax, maybe I should. I just do a decent job lubing everything a few times per year. I degrease (chain only, I'm careful around the derailleur and hub), rinse thoroughly, dry thoroughly, and then lube and wipe 2x. I don't get any squeaks and it rides smoother after a cleaning, so I think I'm doing a decent job.
But I've heard wax is more of a one and done thing. Maybe I'll try it the next time I replace my chain.
Also this is a healthy maintence regime. In my experience most cyclists do nothing on that list except swapping flat tubes and their bikes still ride just fine, if not merely sub-optimally.
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this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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