@notjustbikes Alright, just saw the video. Let me quickly unlist my reply, so I can afford to take off my amateur linguist hat and put on my commuting cyclist hat.

What surprised me the most about Forester is that an article I'd written 5+ years ago (I'd be glad to translate it for you if you want) is way, wayyyy more objective than his books, both in the selection of topics and even in the treatment of each selected topic.

For instance, my own article begins with a treatise of the purpose for which one might cycle: recreation, sport, transportation. Each has different needs! With that in mind: Does Forester even make any mention what-so-ever of things like helmets? Mud-guards? Locks? Lights? Those are all crucial for commuting, but they're Not Aero™. Therefore, a commuter would need them, but an athlete would abhor them. Is this given any thought at all?

A little further down, I make a comparison between The Comfortable Bike™ and The Fast Bike™. I argue that this is in my experience the wrong way to think about this: the reason I made my own bicycle sportier was comfort, not speed. The correct dilemma (because there is a dilemma) is whether one wants a bicycle that's comfortable to sit on or one that's comfortable to pedal with, and this is a fully personal choice that each cyclist must make, and in my case making my bicycle easier to pedal with made it much more comfortable on the whole. Forester instead goes “Just get a racing bike bro!” as if that's the best for everyone.

And I say these things, well… as an avid cyclist.

@notjustbikes I remember reading about him I when researching bike advocacy. Like, he has some points, but more people cycle in the Netherlands with lower injury rates but lower helmet use, so logic leads one to conclude that maybe his formula for bike advocacy is missing something.

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For a while, I used to commute through a tunnel that went under the water to reach my employer that was on a small island in the Bay Area. The width of that path, which was really just the escape path for the tunnel was only I would say around 2 feet (.6 meters). Yeah I think your rent reached about 48 km/h going down that.

@notjustbikes

I as a third of the way through. I have to admit I enjoy the voiceover cameos from Delaney.

If the guy had never been able to find bicycle Puritanism, as a faith, he would’ve become a fire and brimstone pastor.

Any issue between car and cyclist is due to spice original sin. We must all work off our original sin through the penance of riding in spandex and dodging cars lunging at us. Physical injury can be remedied by a good tongue lashing of the car driver.

@notjustbikes
The guy is just a total dick!

@notjustbikes Thank you for all your work. That was a really instructive video to watch!

@notjustbikes

I grew up in Palo Alto. That’s not Palo Alto. *insert fake out rage*

@notjustbikes So according to John Forester, cycling to work or the shops is "childish" but cycling "BRRRR ME GO FAST" is grown-up behaviour

@notjustbikes

Wow. My only knowledge of vehicular cycling was John Franklin's Cyclecraft, which mixes reasonable but obvious advice with patronising and ableist tedium (1 full page dedicated to getting on and off a bike, a further 2 pages on how to put your hands on the handlebars, "Good hearing for a cyclist is vital"), and the un-evidenced canards about bike paths.

I should have an American had gone absolutely insane with the subject. They usually do things bigger.

@notjustbikes oh hey! Another dead white guy I can blame my problems on. At this point I have a pretty solid collection.

@notjustbikes Forester's position appears to be a fusion of PTSD and Stockholm Syndrome.

@notjustbikes
The numbers I find comparing road safety in Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark point to Denmark being the safest of the three, with Germany and the Netherlands being close together, lagging behind. I wonder how Denmark achieves this. Or is there an issue with the data collected by the EU?

@notjustbikes Man, this was painful to watch. I'll never thank you enough for putting up with all that nonsense.

@notjustbikes I had to stop watching a third of the way through to watch something about nice infrastructure in Seattle. But, I will finish it.

@notjustbikes 15 minutes in and I'm really angry at that guy.

@notjustbikes Many years ago I replied to an email about a T-shirt that had an anti-car aggressive slogan on it and when I said I owuldn't be comfortable wearing it, & my friend shared it, he was informed that I must not be an assertive cyclist. That told me all I needed to know about them.
THis meant that I was *more reluctant* to take my lane since those idiots advocated it.

@notjustbikes I'm sharing this among my german activists, IIRC many german groups also fall for "verhicular cycling" and some are still against bicyclelanes and that Hamburg actually painted these weird lanes where the cars have to cross the bicycle lanes to turn right is just weird.

@notjustbikes all cyclists should watch this video, and everyone who drives a car, in fact just everyone. As someone in the US who rides a bike to do things like go shopping NJB hits all the points.

@notjustbikes First thing people get to see there: an auto ad ... Sometimes the algorithm is so stupid it borders on evil.

@notjustbikes Dedication to a joke huge enough to warrant buying a domain name is always appreciated.