Why Can’t Riding Bikes in America Just Be Normal?
Because Brooklyn and Manhattan are nothing like most of the other cities in the US?<p>Also, what the hell is this author talking about?  People are looking at your bike because they think its interesting.  It IS interesting, because it looks very different than most bikes people have seen, even people who are &quot;in&quot; to bikes (like bike messengers, that he mentions).<p>Also this:<p>&gt;“How do you steer that thing?”<p>&gt;“With the handlebars”<p>Oh man you sure showed him, author!  The guy outside of the supermarket is clearly showing interest in your unique, interesting bicycle.  You don&#x27;t have to be a jerk about it.<p>--<p>People in the US largely don&#x27;t have the time to ride bikes.  We work from 8:00am to 5:00pm, and it&#x27;s too expensive for many people to live near where their office is.  If you pad an hour on each side of that work schedule for commuting, that leaves 13 hours of non-work-related time per day, 8 of which has to be dedicated to sleeping, leaving 5 hours to &quot;live&quot; each day.  If you take 30 minutes to get ready in the morning, and 30 minutes to wind down before bed, that brings you down to 4 hours.<p>People want to reclaim as much time as they can for living.  Cars give them the ability to do that.  It would be great if we all lived a mile from where we work, and could all ride funky unique bikes to our jobs, then post self-righteous blogs on a website called &quot;bike snob&quot; about how annoyed we are that people notice our weird bike.<p>But we don&#x27;t, and blogs like this only serve to further the distance between cyclists and non-cyclists.<p>On a semi-related note: my city recently got a BUNCH of dockless bike share bikes.  They&#x27;re EVERYWHERE now.  Pretty much any bar, any grocery store, any restaurant, shopping center, etc. all have a few bike shares parked outside of them now.  It&#x27;s AWESOME.<p>And yet every bike-group I&#x27;m a part of is complaining about them.<p>So I don&#x27;t know cyclists, maybe you should turn that &quot;bike snob&quot; lens towards yourself and ask why more people aren&#x27;t ditching their cars for bikes.