Unfortunately the words that get co-opted (or perhaps "corrupted" would be more apropos) by politicians come to mean everything and nothing, depending on the expediency of the moment.
Riding a bike is liberal in the terms that Deacon Patrick used- it is liberating and indeed played a major role in expanding the rights of women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Riding a bike is conservative compared to driving a motor vehicle, taking far less resources to manufacture and to operate. Patrick Moore's comment of cycling's conservativeness in "rejecting unneeded and ultimately harmful innovation" is sadly not one I can agree with. The history of the development of the bicycle is littered with such "innovations." Carbon fiber reinforced plastics are only the latest expression of "innovation" that has caused much harm from injuries when steerer tubes, fork blades and frames have snapped under normal and/or readily foreseeable less-than-normal situations. Drillium is another harmful innovation that comes into and falls out of fashion periodically. CNC milled parts such as stems and cranks which had an unacceptably high failure rate would be yet another; some of those are still with us today because the people manufacturing those products too often fail to understand metallurgy and metal fabrication adequately. Rivendell and people like Jobst Brandt might be considered conservative by Patrick's description, but mainstream cycling is not- instead they chase new marketable pseudo-advancements in order to keep selling new bikes to a small subset of the population. Locally (Twin Cities) I see a lot of people riding nice quality steel bikes from the 70s and 80s, dressed like unracers and looking like they are going to/from work and running errands. I am cheered up by this every time. Most of these are younger folks in their 20s or maybe early 30s, although I also see an increase in teenaged and pre-teenaged cyclers as well. This cheers me up even more. I see groups of nice young people meeting up to go out for the evening by bike. I see bikes locked up all over the downtown areas and other business areas in town. While us older folks are grumbling and and forming committees and pushing for bike lanes and trails as if this was a prerequisite for people to feel safe to ride, younger folks seem to be just skipping all that and getting on their bikes to get where they are going. Instead of waiting for us to fix the world to make it cycleable, they've gotten ahead of us by just doing it. Something else I have noticed… I get a lot less hassle from drivers than I got just five years ago. They are used to seeing bikes on the roads, it seems. Tim On Jul 27, 2013, at 1:39 PM, Patrick Moore <bertin...@gmail.com> wrote: > And inherently conservative -- rejecting unneeded and ultimately harmful > innovation. > > On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 12:32 PM, Deacon Patrick <lamontg...@mac.com> wrote: > I'd say cycling is inherently liberal. Not the backwards modern meaning > politicians use today. The correct, original meaning of liberal, as in > liberating, seeking freedom for every person. > > With abandon, > Patrick > > > On Saturday, July 27, 2013 12:12:51 PM UTC-6, Patrick Moore wrote: > http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/ > > And not only conservative, but snarling, Cobbett-like, High Church Anglican, > old-crusted-port, dyed-in-wool Tory (but bitterly anti-Cameron!) > village-sage-type conservative. > > Damn'd Whigs! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
