this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2024
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Yeah, micro mobility is great on paper when you’re young and live in an accessible city with flat topography. Years ago I became (and still am) a bicycle commuter and I am ENTIRELY SICK OF IT. I want a fucking car. I am tired of biking in the rain and the snow and the cold. It fucking sucks.
Also If I didnt have the ability to purchase an e-bike recently I’d be fucked with the terrain of the place I am currently stuck living (and even that doesn’t quite cover the situation).
Also I am tired of minor injuries compounding year over year due to the simple fact that I am using my body as both the engine and support structure to move myself, vehicle and cargo around just to live.
It was fun 10 years ago but now I’m just like give me a fucking cargo van.
I've been telling everyone how most people don't need a car in a big enough city (I'm in Europe), and how much more efficient (PROPER) public transport is.
...And then I get the work commute metro trains where stupid/inconsiderate/disgusting people still get on the packed train despite being sick, keep standing in my kidney and sneeze/cough at others (without a mask, of course) and sniff their nose all the way. Every single time when that happens I dream about having my own car where I don't have to deal with this (or an idiot blasting TikTok from their speakers, being drunk+loud, smelly, etc.).
I still won't have a car, but man, sometimes the right decision isn't the easiest.
I live in a city with very good public transport which I use constantly. I also have an E-bike.
However, one needs to note that if I buy something big (extra lot of groceries, a new computer, a painting, anything that doesn't fit in a backpack), using PT is pretty inconvenient. Especially when I'd be faster just carrying the thing home from Ikea, since I only live some 2km away, but the bus routes don't go across the boroughs (but radially from the center outwards, with a few "lateral" buses), so I'd take two buses and it'd be some 10km. And if it's raining and I have an item that shouldn't get wet...
Also, taking a cat to the vet for instance.
I'm just waiting on when public transport will be supplemented with small city EV-s you can rent for a few hours cheaply. Like those e-scooters, but small cars, and with more regulations.
I know an apartment building which gives the tenants (mostly young students) the option to reserve and rent an EV for just a few euros an hour. And you don't need to fill the tank, so it's pretty nice.
Urban planning issue
No amount of urban planning can solve a 300 year old city built in a 10,000 year old hilly mess of a glacial valley.
ebikes with regenerative braking could do very well in that environment. Try taking a look at what's within 15 minutes by bike
I know what’s 15 minutes away by bike because I bike everywhere I go. Doesn’t change the fact that I am sick of it.
Walk a bit. Take a bus. Buy an electric scooter. Move. All decent options
Busses barely provide any service where I live. Walking is useless because nothing is close enough for that to be a viable option. I have an electric scooter, it is useless because of the local terrain (and is just as shitty as biking as a means of transport anyway). And sure, yeah, just “move” because that is so simple to do.
Had a neighbour in his 80, had multiple leg operations and he still used to take a daily bike ride to keep fit. Not to mention that even if bike commutes suck, they improve your mental health considerably, even if you go in the rain/cold.
And most importantly of all, those who can take the bike cover those who can't. So please enjoy your car ride, but take the bike when you can.
Do you personally commute by bike 100% of the time for literally every outing to get to work or run errands? Because I do, and have for a decade. I’m over it.
I'm sorry you're getting pushback and criticism for this. As someone who physically can't bicycle and struggles with mobility, I strongly support well designed and well maintained walkable communities, bicycle infrastructure, and effective public transit. And I recognize that, for some people, the basic right to travel and work and generally function in society requires personal car ownership.
That doesn't mean I sympathize much with people who live in subdivisions off major highways with no grocery stories within twenty miles - there shouldn't be any community anywhere designed to require car ownership.
But I also don't sympathize much with people who want to ban all personal vehicle ownership from their little 15 minute utopias. Disabled people exist.
I agree with this. Cities shouldn't be car exclusive, but eliminating cars completely would also alienate villagers and people living in rural areas, in addition to disabled people.(written by an european who has family in those regions)
Sounds like it should keep you fit.
What kind of injuries?
I completely understand the weather thing. In the Netherlands it doesn’t get that cold, but the rain is really annoying (it rained basically non-stop from october till late february). In the city where I live however, there is also a pretty good bus service, so you can avoid cycling longer distances in the rain. For me I find cycling in good weather so good for my mental and physical health that I wouldn't want to go without it.
You say an e-bike doesn’t quite do it for you, and I'm curious what you mean. Is it that it doesn't have the range, that the engine isn't strong enough for hills, or something else? I would love to learn about more disadvantages of micromobility, so I can create more nuanced opinions.
I used to live in Boston, which in recent years has become very bike friendly and is actually setup to make sense using a bike for primary transport (fairly robust public transit for the US, physically pretty small), but now I live in a city in Massachusetts where the area has very little bike infrastructure, and the landscape is hills and valleys of hundreds of feet of varied elevation every half mile or so. Using a non-electric bike for daily errands / transport would be equivalent to running a marathon every time I need to pop over to the grocery store. The e-bike battery and range runs out so fast that i’m basically limited to a single specific errand every time I go out—no option for doing more than one thing. Also add to the fact that everything is designed around cars so amenities are not blocks away, but rather towns away.
The northeastern United States sees basically every type of weather so there are days where it’s wonderful to be out on a bike and days were it is a complete nightmare—when you have to get on your bike to get to work when its raining sheets or 10 degrees (Fahrenheit) outside and there is no other option it becomes a wretched ordeal.
My point is, beyond a very specific set of circumstances where weather, health, topography, public transit infrastructure and also the immense luxury of even being able to live in a city all line up, using a bike as a primary mode of transportation is completely useless solution.
Preach it.
I am old enough where these sorts of points have much heavier weight. I can bike, but my body is not happy after any non-trivial distance.
I now have my eye on an electric recumbant trike. It solves all of my ergonomic (back) issues, and the electric would help with some of the terrain struggles and help me more accurately predict travel time. Plus, there's a bit more storage for, e.g., a change of clothes for the destination. They're damned expensive, though, even the cheapest.
Doesn't solve the weather issue, but I'm sure someone makes a version that has a shell; at which point you're essentially just driving around a small, slow, electric car with a lot of limitations.
I'm still going to replace my bike with a recumbent, though. My body just can't handle that position for prolonged periods anymore.