Just more gate-keeping, exclusionary BS.
Anyone on a bike is a friend of mine….road bike, MYB, cruiser, eBike, tricycle.
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Yup. And I love to chat with anyone that identifies as a cyclist. When I notice someone has a nice bike or wears cycling shoes, I make sure to greet them at the least. Some roadies were quite confused when a guy on a mountain bike with a trailer in tow greets them. Hint: look at my pedals and shoes. 
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The only rule I ever cared about is rule #5, and I think it should stay. The rest of Phill’s rules all sounds good, but I wish his rule #5 was rule #5. To me it defines what training is. Progressive overload, harden up. Harsh language aside the message to me is just the goal is to work on bettering yourself. I get that super casual cyclitis’s might not identify, but I think the majority do.
I find that personally offensive. I love my EScooter for a Friday night catch up with the boys.
To be fair, Brisbane has thousands of them and there’s plenty of paths to ride them on. I can do 17kms to the other side of the city to visit friends with hardly any roads.
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The biggest problem with e-scooters is the lack of proper bike lanes in most places. I’d be totally cool with them on e. g. Dutch-style bike paths.
I reckon many of the problems with e-scooters are the same as with bikes and especially e-bikes: we are all competing for the veeeery limited space and unlike (non-electric) bikes, you can be 70 years old and just zip along at break neck speeds.
I heard that in many places people have a similar problem with e-bikes: there is very little space and the electric assist propels even septuagenarians along at speeds that they usually wouldn’t be traveling at and no longer possess the reflexes to weave through pedestrians.
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Dozens of Brisbane parks to host off-road cycling facilities as mountain biking popularity soars
One of many recent articles about developing new biking amenities.
I’m lucky enough to live in a city that is promoting bikes and EScooters. EBikes are super common on the bike paths as well.
Hopefully the 2032 Olympics will be a good chance for international travellers to enjoy a progressive personal transport system.
If the weather is good most of the time, why not.
I’ve already noticed that most people are adopting better practices on the EBikes and ESooters. It’s no different to non E variants that annoy pedestrians.
Exactly this. I’m in a pretty densely populated bit of south east UK. Pavements are busy, bike lanes are busy, roads are busy, and any space which is shared use (bikes and cars sharing road, bikes and pedestrians on shared use pavement/bike lanes, etc) is where things get stressful due to the different speeds, accelerations, handling and sizes. E-scooters just add another different set of parameters.
Probably doesn’t help that in UK e-scooters are illegal in public other than a handful of places which are running trial hire schemes (and then only legal if they’re hired, not privately owned). As I don’t live in one of those places I assume every e-scooter I see is being ridden illegally, which probably isn’t the best starting point for them to be ridden responsibly or for other road/pavement users to welcome them!
Actually haven’t seen an issue with e-bikes on the road - assuming they haven’t been illegally modified (that’s a whole other conversation!) they top out at a reasonable speed, so other than being a bit quicker to get up to speed from a standstill are similar enough to regular bikes to not add to the problem. Different matter offroad where normal bike speeds are lower and so e-bikes are often cruising quite a bit faster on flats and climbs than anybody is used to.
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This is a bit off topic, But I have been thinking about this for a long time. The perspective of “how easily everyone get offended”, and I think this is not the case.
I think the difference now and before is that we are more aware of who is offended because everyone has a platform thanks to social media. In the past you would be offended and only a reduce number of people would hear it.
The same goes with “acceptable” words used to describe ethnicities and people with mental problems, for example, in the past. People love to call it PC. More than likely there were offended by them, but now people are more aware thanks, again, to social media, how their words are actually insults to others…
in any case. Always go back to Rule #1. Dont be a dick.
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Funny thing about MTB…
I recently moved over to XC from road and actually found people (Fat tyre dudes) being relatively unfriendly, more so then roadies imo.
I’m gonna assume its cause of my shaved legs and roady kit (not by choice, I just haven’t invested in baggies yet, also I cycle 30-50km to get to the trail so road kit just works better) - No one says hello, even though at times I try to talk to folks about getting advice or letting them go down the trail first as I am likely slower then them. Also, not making space for me to overtake them on the climb… Also at least once or twice per session I’d have young mtb dudes shout at me ‘XC XC’.
People will always find ways to divide each other… nothing to do with road vs mtb vs emtb vs plebs on the street… a lot of people are just dicks.
Takes nothing away from my enjoyment of cycling tho!
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This. A general rule in life.
I am not really concerned what other people are riding, although if it is a nice bike I may comment. But, whether or not they have fatter tires than I or if the bike is electronically assisted really does not effect my ride in any appreciable way. Everyone is on there own journey, ride what makes you happy.
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Indeed to all the positive stuff above.
- It’s no accident that Nate made rule number 1 when he opened the forum:
There are just a few rules.
- Be excellent to each other
I like it considering it is a more direct, positive sentiment vs the double negative (Don’t / dick). Same stuff in the end, but they still come off a bit different. One is more aspirational from the start, the other is more of a correction for bad actions. That or I am totally backwards as I often am 
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Its not scooters that are the problem, but the people who use them. Hate the people, not the things - that’s my motto
Whenever I see that, I think “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure”. Did they say that in the film or have I lost it 
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Now how do the rules apply to tourists riding on the Golden Gate Bridge trying to take a selfie, and weaving all over the place? Can we agree its okay to yell at them to hold their line? 
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’ve never ridden the most dangerous ~2 mile stretch in the Bay Area
I have read in the news that at least in Germany there was a peak of especially older people being injured because their e-bikes accelerate and move much more quickly than they were otherwise used to. Plus, they apparently have a tendency to be on the sidewalk with pedestrians. Of course, I reckon that the absolute magnitude of this problem is quite small compared to other accidents that involve motor vehicles. And ultimately, it is also a consequence of the rather lackluster bike infrastructure.
One of my riding buddies ended up in the hospital after colliding head on with someone out of control on an e-scooter (he was one his new Enve bike and is literally broke the downtube in half!). Fortunately he’s mending now but it was a bad wreck. Most people just don’t have experience riding them and so they become dangerous.
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After skimming through the movie the other night, it’s what they say in a scene shortly after calling each other fags in a previous scene🤷♂️.
Ouch! That didn’t age well.
“Be excellent to each other” is still a great line.
I assume you live in the US? AFAIK e-scooters in the US are unrestricted. In Europe they cannot go faster than 25 km/h (about 15 mph), although I think many e-bike manufacturers use a loophole (measurement accuracy) to keep the motor running until 27 km/h. This applies also to e-scooters and IMHO is a good idea.
You are right that lack of experience adds to that.