What's the stupidest thing you've heard about bikes - by someone who should really know better?

[recumbentpanda]

The small wheels = have to pedal faster thing is amazingly prevalent. I once tried to explain: ‘Big cog go round once, little cog go round many times.’ They looked at me as if I was talking about witchcraft.

 

[recumbentpanda]

In the recumbent world there is great variety in wheel size, mostly for reasons connected with getting various bits of the bike out of the way of other bits While still being able to reach the ground with your feet in a stop. Consequently however, there is much discussion of the relative efficiency and speed of small vs large, so if you want to go down that particular rabbit hole head on over to bentrideronline forum -you may be gone for a while though . . .

 

[Tom B]

Not a bike one but earlier today I was walking down the street chatting to a colleague about electric cars. The following was uttered...

"I don't see why they need charging, why can't they use an alternator like a normal car does to generate electricity"

Just had to share it with someone

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Now, I'm sure I've read something along those lines. Something about speed records being taken on Moultons. One of those things that makes me go "that doesn't sound right ... but what do I know? Maybe it is true"

Chris Boardmans hour record of 56km or so was done on a smaller front wheel upright bike to give superior aerodynamics over a 700C wheel bike.

 

[DRM]

I've long maintained that VED should be scrapped in it's present form of being collected and put onto the price of fuel. That way, the drivers pay in proportion to the number of miles they drive; the heavier the vehicle, the greater the fuel consumption and the greater the road and environmental damage. Also, the 'tax' is undodgable, so it also catches drivers from abroad.

Sadly it won’t catch the most polluting vehicles from abroad, the hoards of Eastern European Artics that roam our fair land with huge long range fuel tanks down both sides of the tractor unit, driven by people under strict instructions not to buy diesel in the UK, it’s too expensive and you’ll be fired if you do, go back on the ferry and buy it in Europe where it’s cheaper. These things, I think can carry about 1000 litres of diesel on one side and 500 on the other, but it’s illegal to fill the 1000 litre to the maximum, so that would give around 2,600 miles range at 8 mpg

 

[simongt]

The small wheels = have to pedal faster thing is amazingly prevalent.

Having a Brommy, I'm fully aware of the fact that I can accelerate faster and brake more effectively than a full size wheeled bike, at least over short distances. But once you begin to try and explain what is basic physics to most folk, their eyes just glaze over with incomprehension - !

 

[Hover Fly]

“They stopped making tan sidewall tyres because the ultraviolet light was making them crack”

 

[Justified_Sinner]

Why do us motorist's have to pay car tax through the nose for the upkeep of the road's ...

Sadly accurate. I feel you speak from bitter experience.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

was you talking to @SkipdiverJohn

No comment

Well, seeing as I manage to do all my cycling virtually for nothing on a cost-per-mile basis, I'll leave it up to others to make their own judgement about where the stupidity lies......

 

[roadrash]

Different does not mean stupid

 

[roubaixtuesday]

"The way I do cycling is the only/best way to do cycling."

(re: frame material, MTB vs road, utility vs leisure vs racing etc etc)

Such tribalism alas often manifested on threads hereabouts.

Actually, the *best* thing about cycling is the huge variety of adherents it attracts from shoppers to TTers and all the other magnificent manifestations of velocipedians.

[Edit: @Dogtrousers beat me to it. Which is two posts of theirs I've credited in the last two minutes. I'm logging off lest lightning strikes thrice]

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Was that in the UK? That leaves what, three to five days a year? Must be a majestic sight, all the cyclists taking to the streets at once like a monarch butterfly flock.

Yep UK?

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Walking into the office, clearly wearing cycle gear. Did you ride in today?

 

[Ming the Merciless]

This thread just reminded me - where is @ragingroadkill ? (aka "user/guest").

Busy putting the world to rights riding through give way signs without giving way and submitting the evidence to the police.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Some years ago before the current bike trend popularity, a cyclist was waiting for his friend at a corner who then showed up (a pedestrian) who then said "hey you're on a bike! who do you think you are, laaaance armstrooong?" with a haughty laughter.

Did you reply “Who do you think you are, Pablo Escobar, and what drugs you got?”