[HN Gopher] Responses to unicycling
___________________________________________________________________
Responses to unicycling
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 123 points
Date : 2024-01-23 13:39 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
| grumple wrote:
| This mirrors my own experience as a unicyclist (both traditional
| and electric). Reactions are very common, and vary wildly. It's
| rare to pass someone and not get some sort of reaction, and if
| you stop near them it's always "was it hard to learn?" or "what's
| that cost?" for the electric one.
| bradrn wrote:
| OK, I'll bite... _was_ it hard to learn?
| the_gastropod wrote:
| Not the person you asked, but as a fellow unicyclist, I can
| say: not really?! I think most people could get the basics
| (staying upright, and turning a bit sloppily) in a few hours.
|
| When I first learned, I setup a couple large garbage bins
| several feet apart, and just tried to get from one to the
| other, using the bins to keep up / turn around / go back. As
| you improve, move the bins farther apart, and rinse / repeat
| until you've got it.
| grumple wrote:
| The old school unicycle took maybe a few hours and felt kind
| of safe to learn. You just step forward to get off.
|
| The electric felt a lot more dangerous to learn. I practiced
| going back and forth in a hallway (holding the wall), then
| practiced riding freely and turning in a parking lot, then
| started riding around my neighborhood.
|
| It is dangerous, though. One wheel in contact with the
| ground, people don't know how to react to you, plus high
| speeds and poorly maintained roads mean a mistake by you or
| another person can mean a hospital trip with serious
| injuries. I think the risk is easily 10x or more than what it
| is to ride a bike around.
| insickness wrote:
| To be able to actually ride, it took me about two weeks,
| practicing 30 minutes per day. But then I was still pretty
| wobbly for a month or so.
| amelius wrote:
| One question: don't you miss the gears?
| FredPret wrote:
| On the other hand: no chain that can fall off
| the_gastropod wrote:
| Unless it's an elevated unicycle!
| amelius wrote:
| Can't you somehow fold that design down into a normal-
| height unicycle with gears?
| Lio wrote:
| Tricky I think but maybe.
|
| You generally have a fixed wheel on a unicycle. That
| would make derailleur gears harder to implement as they'd
| normally work with a freehub of some kind.
|
| Hub gears like a Sturmey-Archer generally need to zero
| torque going through them to change gear. Again that's
| hard to do when you're using the forward and backward
| pedalling to balance.
| grumple wrote:
| An electric unicycle is like an automatic transmission. It
| just works and goes the speed you demand by leaning. Gears
| are a bad user experience on bikes too imo; ideally we'd have
| automated or gradual gearing (in fact, I know some ebikes
| have this).
| amelius wrote:
| Was talking about the traditional version, not the electric
| one.
| an1sotropy wrote:
| Also tracks my experience as a unicyclist. When you keep poking
| at humanity with the same but unusual prompt, you glimpse how
| similar people can be. To the quip about losing a wheel, my
| sadly habituated response is "that was the training wheel!",
| and then they chuckle, because it's new to them ...
| ydant wrote:
| Mirrors mine, too. Although I didn't get to the travel stage on
| unicycle (never got outside parking lots), so most of my
| experience with other people was on electric unicycle early in
| their arrival into our area.
|
| (in the US) The one constant was that overwhelmingly older men
| and women were interested and impressed and had genuine
| questions or compliments without making jokes.
|
| The younger you got with males, the more aggressive and
| posturing the questions and behavior. Younger females were non-
| memorable - mainly just looked or ignored. Pre-teen, kids of
| both genders are just curious.
|
| There's a definite similarity in the behaviors of people as
| they get older and the very young in how they approach new and
| interesting things like a (e)unicycle. As people get older they
| seemed to lose all need to posture and prove themselves and
| they seemed more comfortable exposing the vulnerability of
| being curious and ignorant.
|
| Men absolutely love to ask the cost.
| insickness wrote:
| I've been riding an electric unicycle for years and I don't
| think I've gotten a single negative comment, aside from riding
| somewhere (they thought) I shouldn't have. But those same
| comments would have been directed at a scooter or bike.
|
| Typically when people marvel at my wheel, I tell them if they
| give me a few bowling pins I can juggle as well.
| bradrn wrote:
| (2007), though I suspect things haven't changed much since then.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| I wonder if he ever considered a follow-up for the penny-
| farthing.
| nathancahill wrote:
| We need a similar study for aggression against (road) cyclists
| too. I've never seen a sport provoke so much aggression from men.
| soco wrote:
| Can't say much about the US, but around here I suppose if the
| cyclists would stick to the traffic regulations there would be
| somewhat less aggression against them.
| ljf wrote:
| If you've ever been around cars (in a car, as a cyclist or as
| a pedestrian) and sat and watched them for any period -
| you'll see a huge number of traffic offenses committed by
| those in cars - mainly using phones, but also speeding, red
| light jumping, aggressive under and over-taking. But for some
| reason most people are blind to this and don't get aggressive
| with drivers. Why might that be?
| marcandre wrote:
| You forgot not signaling when turning and changing lanes...
| wiredfool wrote:
| And driving/parking on sidewalks/footpaths.
|
| In the last 2 years of riding bikes and walking the dog,
| my two closest calls with cars have been on the sidewalk
| during walkies.
| trgn wrote:
| Level of responsibility between driver and cyclist is
| categorically different. A driver will kill when
| inattentive or impatient. This disconnect between magnitude
| of input (slouched like a bag of potatoes, dozing) and
| magnitude of output (casually demolishing a building) is
| unnatural, it breaks the brain. It's easier to blame the
| weak, the system, the potholes.
| yungporko wrote:
| people aren't blind to this at all, being pissed off about
| it even has it's own name (road rage)
| ljf wrote:
| I'd argue it is different in that just seeing or talking
| about cyclists will often draw anger online and in person
| - most people don't feel the same way about cars or
| drivers.
|
| Getting angry when someone cuts you off is different to
| being angry about cyclists just existing.
| yungporko wrote:
| i guess that's because it's a chore and arguably
| dangerous to share the road with cyclists no matter what
| they're doing, and not only when they're ignoring the
| rules of the road
|
| personally i just cycle on footpaths, i'm not really
| interested in what the law says. me getting hit by a car
| is a much more dangerous and likely situation than me
| riding into a pedestrian, and police aren't going to
| abandon their car on the road to chase me on foot.
| D13Fd wrote:
| > being angry about cyclists just existing.
|
| I don't like some cyclists because of their blatant and
| unsafe disregard for the rules.
|
| It's not uncommon to see:
|
| - Cyclists ignoring red lights
|
| - Cyclists ignoring stop signs
|
| - Cyclists riding on a busy sidewalk
|
| - Cyclists yelling at pedestrians to move rather than
| stopping at an intersection as required
|
| - Cyclists taking up the entire lane and not permitting
| cars to pass
|
| - Cyclists going the wrong way down a one-way street
|
| Some of the worst offenders are e-bike users, who can
| move very fast and in unexpected ways. It's no fun to
| have someone silently fly by you from behind, inches
| away, at 20mph while they are riding what's basically a
| motorcycle on the sidewalk.
|
| I frequently walk in the city, and scooters/bicycles are
| far more of a hazard than cars. They often can't decide
| whether they want to be pedestrians or cars, and they
| often don't follow the rules for either, putting everyone
| (including themselves) at risk.
| tonyg wrote:
| > Cyclists taking up the entire lane and not permitting
| cars to pass
|
| This is explicitly permitted in most places and is often
| the only safe thing to do. In a situation like that, if
| you can't overtake such a bike (or car, or tractor)
| safely, you must wait until it is safe. The bike (or car
| or tractor) has the right to the entire lane.
| ljf wrote:
| It is not uncommon to see car drivers do all these
| things, including driving on the pavement/sidewalk.
| jprete wrote:
| I cannot remember ever seeing a car deliberately drive on
| the sidewalk. If you've seen this where you are, then I
| agree that the cars are clearly more dangerous.
| thot_experiment wrote:
| > scooters/bicycles are far more of a hazard than cars
|
| No they're not, because they carry an order of magnitude
| less kinetic energy.
|
| > Cyclists taking up the entire lane and not permitting
| cars to pass
|
| as they fucking should, this is the safest thing to do,
| you're in a metal box and if I let you pass you'll do it
| too fast and too close
|
| > Cyclists ignoring red lights > Cyclists ignoring stop
| signs
|
| In civilized places bikes are explicitly allowed to treat
| red lights as stop signs and stop signs as yields.
| scythe wrote:
| >But for some reason most people are blind to this and
| don't get aggressive with drivers.
|
| I'm not sure if this is serious, but it's one of the more
| obviously false claims I've seen on Hacker News:
|
| https://everytownresearch.org/reports-of-road-rage-
| shootings...
|
| >Experiencing aggressive driving on the road is not
| uncommon--roughly eight in 10 drivers surveyed by the AAA
| Foundation for Traffic Safety reported having at least one
| incident in the month before the survey.
|
| In response to your other comment:
|
| >angry about cyclists just existing.
|
| I don't think these people are angry at cyclists per se at
| all, they're angry about a perceived anti-car
| sociopolitical shift, and cyclists are just a visible
| artifact of that.
| ljf wrote:
| I can only assume that you are not a cyclist? I've just
| ridden down the road safely and legally and had people
| shout, swear and swerve their cars at me.
|
| Believe me, people ARE angry at cyclists - it might be
| for the reasons you suggest, but their anger is directed
| at the humans on the bikes.
| avianlyric wrote:
| I wish. If drivers stuck to traffic regulations it would be
| safer for cyclists. The number of cars I see jumping red
| lights while cycling is obscene, the number of drivers who
| deliberately closed pass cyclists is also obscene. And that's
| before we get to drivers who deliberately injure cyclists,
| like the guy who deliberately ran me down and hospitalised me
| for the crime of not wanting him to overtake me while passing
| through a narrowing in the road that wasn't wide enough for
| both of us.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| Anecdatum: A week ago, I went to the supermarket across the
| road. It's a staggered crossing on a main road (Old Kent
| Road) (with a stupidly designed junction.) In two
| crossings, I counted 15-20 cars that jumped the red light -
| either "accidentally" (by entering the junction without a
| clear exit) or deliberately (speeding up, not slowing down
| when it changes to yellow, etc.)
|
| That was about 5 minutes of time out of a two hour peak
| period - I'd be amazed if you didn't get several hundred an
| hour if you sat there and counted. There are, alas, no
| cameras on this junction - probably because MetPol would be
| doing nothing but processing these violations 24/7...
| avianlyric wrote:
| Ha, I think I know the junctions you're talking about,
| near the ASDA right? I avoid going near Old Kent road in
| anything except a car. That road is an absolute death
| trap filled with drivers who seem to have no regard for
| anyone not enclosed in steel, and even then you need to
| have your wits about when driving.
|
| It strikes me as insane that road with so much pedestrian
| traffic, lined with shops, in a part of London where only
| something like 30% of the population drives, has so few
| provisions for pedestrian or cycle safely. With pavements
| barely wide enough for walking, covered in obstructions,
| and road markings that looks more like an IQ test, than
| anything helpful.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > I think I know the junctions you're talking about, near
| the ASDA right?
|
| Exactly that one, yes.
|
| > I avoid going near Old Kent road in anything except a
| car
|
| Yeah, I used to cycle it a fair bit 10-15 years ago but I
| wouldn't bother these days either (plus there are decent
| cycleway options for avoiding it.)
| vdaea wrote:
| The fact that even those who don't drive cars hate cyclists
| says something. As a pedestrian I see myself much more
| endangered by cyclists, which swerve everywhere (including
| the pavement), than by cars, which stay within their lanes.
| piva00 wrote:
| Like what?
|
| Edit since you edited yourself (only their first sentence
| was in the comment when I first replied):
|
| > The fact that even those who don't drive cars hate
| cyclists says something. As a pedestrian I see myself much
| more endangered by cyclists, which swerve everywhere
| (including the pavement), than by cars, which stay within
| their lanes.
|
| I've only seen swerving cyclists everywhere when
| infrastructure for cycling is poor or non-existent.
| Anywhere where there's a minimally decent infrastructure I
| don't see cyclists sharing space with pedestrians on
| sidewalks, nor swerving crazily around.
|
| Maybe it's an issue with not providing appropriate
| infrastructure instead? If there weren't roads you'd see
| cars not following lanes, etc.
| throwaway44773 wrote:
| This is funny for me, just coming back from Vietnam where
| most of the traffic is motorcycles/scooters. All the
| behavior that is ascribed to bicyclists here is how
| motorcyclists behave over there. They drive on the
| sidewalk (when it's possible, because most sidewalks are
| usually blocked by parked scooters, among other things).
| They do not stop at red lights, they do not stop at
| pedestrian crossings (even honking their horn at you to
| get out of the way).
|
| This is simply how cyclists behave in the absence of
| incentives to act otherwise.
|
| You don't solve this problem by having more
| infrastructure, you solve this problem by brainwashing
| the cyclists and drivers to follow the rules, and
| enforcing the rules.
| pard68 wrote:
| I don't know about where you live but often as not in the US
| (varies by state) cyclists have different laws to abide by
| then cars. Most motorists (and cyclists for that matter) are
| wholly unaware of this.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| Motorcycles get treated just as bad. Cruising in the right
| lane at normal speed? Minding your own business at a
| stoplight? Someone will take it upon themselves to make sure
| you are paying attention and the penalty for failure is that
| you die.
|
| Car people see anything 'weird' and just lose their minds to
| the point that killing another human is an acceptable outcome
| to them. It's extremely reliable. Get a bike and you will
| find out exactly how many psychopaths are out there.
| runamuck wrote:
| I found the opposite at Red Lights. People see the actual
| human (me) and act with empathy. Or perhaps they see the
| knuckle plating on my tactical gloves and think twice about
| starting a problem.
| marcandre wrote:
| If only the traffic regulations, and roads were actually
| designed for bikes. Check the amazing "Not Just Bikes"
| channel on Stop signs, intelligent traffic lights, and read
| on Idaho stop. Let's not take existing regulations like the
| "absolute truth and ultimate way of being". Jaywalking used
| to be illegal, and in my country at least, pot went from
| being a crime to being sold by state stores.
| treyd wrote:
| The difficulty is that the design of cycling infrastructure
| in many cities (but to be fair, especially in the US) is so
| poor that it's actually _more_ dangerous to follow the
| standard cycling rules than it is to take certain liberties
| away from them.
| Lio wrote:
| That's a strawman argument.
|
| EDIT: I make it a point of honour to _try to_ stick to the
| Highway Code whether on my bike or in my car. Still random
| drivers harass me when I 'm on my bike.
|
| I had someone lean out of a car and try to put a plastic bag
| over my head when I was cycling once. I would love to hear
| what I was supposed to have done to justify that.
|
| You just have to look at how the press drone on about "lycra
| clad louts". There's an obsession with identifying us by what
| we wear as a justification for violence.
|
| That's not hurt feelings but actual broken bones and blood
| violence.
|
| Off the top of my head I can think of several newspaper
| articles calling for barbed wire to be strung across
| cyclepaths in the UK _(Hahaha, joking of course!)_ and
| reports where that happened and someone was seriously
| injured. All in the same paper _(Hahaha, no connection
| obviously!)_
|
| YouTube is full of people in cars attacking cyclists and it's
| got fuck all to do with breaking traffic regulations.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| If you never break a single traffic law while driving you
| must be very difficult to drive around.
|
| Not excusing the other crazy stuff you've put up with.
| That's insane.
| Lio wrote:
| I'm not saying I never break traffic rules, I'm saying I
| don't deliberately do so. I don't run through red lights
| or use my mobile phone.
|
| Not sure why that would make me difficult to drive
| around. If I'm on a motorway I overtake and when I've
| finished my manoeuvre and I just move over again.
|
| If I see an amber light then I do what the Highway code
| suggests and stop if doing so won't cause a problem. If I
| see a red light definitely stop.
| the_snooze wrote:
| Even when there's dedicated bike infrastructure, cars seem to
| love encroaching on that space, in a completely
| unpredictable, selfish, and dangerous manner.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w4mfGa22ZY
| Kalium wrote:
| Where I am, I get a lot of aggressive behavior from drivers
| because I am sticking to the traffic regulations _and they
| don 't like it_. The laws here very explicitly give me a
| clear right to use almost all roads.
|
| Many drivers imagine that bicycles are not permitted in roads
| and some take it upon themselves to make my life dangerous in
| an effort to enforce that.
| evantbyrne wrote:
| No, not in my experiences at all. Road rage against non-car
| traffic seems to be mostly based on the fact that they mildly
| inconvenient and easy targets. Unfortunately, psychopaths and
| people with poor impulse control live amongst us and are
| allowed to drive. Let's be absolutely clear about what's
| going on here: motorists murder cyclists all the time.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I dunno, if they could take whatever makes bikes invisible and
| apply it to tanks and military aircraft they'd have to make it
| a secret.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| Bad mirrors, and inattentive drivers. I'm not sure how you
| packaged that up.
| FredPret wrote:
| Bikes are really hard to see past the A pillars of a car
| Dah00n wrote:
| It would likely show better results if it looked at non-
| sporting events instead. What happens in everyday traffic is
| likely the cause.
|
| Now I think about it, I'm in doubt if you actually categorized
| cyclists training on open roads as participating in sports?
| Swap out "cyclists" with "car enthusiasts". That's nonsense.
|
| ETA: I'm a cyclist myself.
| nathancahill wrote:
| Definition of the English word sport:
|
| - a game, competition, or activity needing physical effort
| and skill that is played or done according to rules, for
| enjoyment and/or as a job
|
| - all types of physical activity that people do to keep
| healthy or for enjoyment
|
| https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/sport
| avianlyric wrote:
| You know people also cycle for neither of those reasons?
| Unless we're gonna start calling walking to the shops a
| sport as well.
|
| I cycle purely for transportation, because it's cheaper and
| faster than the alternatives. I certainly don't compete
| while cycling to work, and don't cycle for enjoyment or to
| keep healthy. It certainly hasn't kept me healthy give a
| driver seriously injured while cycling to work,
| hospitalised me for week, fractured multiple vertebrae
| making me unable to exercise for 2 months, and resulted in
| my taking 3 months off work to deal with the injuries and
| trauma.
|
| So yeah, there's plenty of people out there that cycle in a
| manner that doesn't meet your dictionary definition of a
| sport.
| piva00 wrote:
| In my limited experience biking in different cultures it's
| quite directly correlated to how much emphasis car culture has
| in society. Limited experience because I've only cycled in a
| few countries but is my main mode of transportation.
|
| In Brazil and the USA quite often I experienced aggressive
| drivers when cycling, actively driving closer to me on a bike
| while shouting to get off the road, and twice in Sao Paulo I
| got hit by a car purposefully (waiting for traffic lights and
| got bumped from behind by a car once, cycling uphill and a car
| passed me and swerved onto my side on another).
|
| While in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands I never
| experienced a single aggressive driver when cycling. In Germany
| I had a couple of drivers shouting at me in Berlin but given
| it's Berlin I can't generalise if German drivers are more
| adversarial against cyclists, it's a very car-centric culture
| though so I guess it will correlate.
|
| Just some anecdotes, unsure how much of a pattern it is, would
| be interesting to compare with other people in car-heavy
| cultures (Australia perhaps?).
| oh_sigh wrote:
| I've only gotten respect as a road cyclist in Spain, Portugal,
| France, and Italy. I did a 2500 mile trip roughly on the path
| Paris->Porto->Barcelona->Rome, without a single bad experience.
| I got home to New Jersey, the next day I went out for a ride,
| and a dude in a truck threw multiple batteries at me as he
| drove past.
| ab71e5 wrote:
| Noticed this too, there is some rational annoyance with
| 'impeding traffic' (perceived or actual) or breaking rules but
| the impact there is so small that it doesn't explain the
| negative response. I've had people literally threaten to kill
| me for making them make a minimal adjustment to drive around
| me?
|
| My theories about this:
|
| * A cyclist forces the driver to go out of 'auto pilot' and
| actively think about driving for a few seconds, which annoys
| people disproportionately
|
| * Cyclists represent a sort of 'others' that we project all
| kinds of negative feelings on.
|
| * Cycling for transportation in North America is only recently
| taken seriously and this can be used to blame them for any kind
| of new societal changes that are perceived negatively
| (liberalism, inflation, political correctness, higher taxes).
| michaelt wrote:
| After 20 years of daily rush-hour road cycling in and around
| London, Cambridge, Coventry, Bristol, Hertfordshire and Surrey,
| I can report the following verbal responses:
|
| Early years: No reaction
|
| Inquisitive 5-12 year olds: No reaction
|
| Adolescent boys: 1x "Nice bike", 1x trying to race me while
| doing a wheelie (but no verbal response)
|
| Adult women: No reaction
|
| Adult men: 1x started exchanging nods with me after passing
| each other going in opposite directions daily for ~3 years (but
| no verbal response)
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Wow, that sounds nice.
|
| After 5 years of 3-season daily commuting in the midwestern
| US, I can report 2 instances of being struck by side mirrors,
| one instance where the driver matched speed and pushed me off
| the road and off the shoulder into the ditch before speeding
| away, 4 times getting hit by thrown beer cans or other trash,
| twice had tires chirp when someone on their phone noticed me
| only at the last second, 3 times someone in a diesel has
| stood on the brake and accelerator simultaneously to "rolled
| coal" on me, and I've received more middle fingers and curses
| of the general form "Get off the road, asshole/fucker/idiot!"
| than I can count.
|
| The other big danger is a lot of new or timid drivers are
| afraid to cross the center line even in passing zones, and
| instead of giving the legally mandated 3 feet outside town/5
| feet in city limits, will try to pass very slowly in the same
| lane. This causes a line of traffic on the 35 MPH (nominally
| ~55 km/h, actually driven at ~45mph/70kph) street, which
| provokes the drivers caught in the line.
|
| The more physical assaults went down significantly after I
| mounted a highly-visible action camera on top of my helmet,
| but verbal assaults seemed to go up.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Road cyclists infuriate me - Ask me anything.
|
| I think most of it comes from shockingly dangerous behavior,
| which I am concerned will blowback on me.
|
| I've seen cyclists in the freeway slow lane, cut across 8 lanes
| of busy traffic, and they seem to love windiest roads with
| hairpin turns and no visibility. Perhaps most brazenly, in the
| middle lane of 65 mile road, in black at night, with no
| reflectors.
| velcrovan wrote:
| I've seen none of those things, ever, living most my life in
| what passes in the US for a bike-friendly city (Minneapolis).
| For sure, if I did see those things while driving, and if I
| could do so safely, I would be rolling down my windows and
| yelling.
|
| What I _have_ seen, often, is drivers on residential or
| downtown streets bearing down on law-abiding cyclists with
| murderous aggression for no apparent reason than simply
| having to share the road. General statements like yours kind
| of support the notion that many drivers who have had a crazy
| experience with a poor cyclist feel justified in taking out
| the anger from that experience on any and all cyclists.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Terrible drivers also provoke anger from me, for what it is
| worth.
|
| While I don't take out mt anger on random bikers, I agree
| that 'sharing' is a common origin. Many roads are simply
| not practical or safe to share with bikes.
| yunwal wrote:
| Many roads aren't practical or safe to share with cars
| either
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| agreed. This is what I think is the point of conflict.
|
| If each had all the roads they could want, and didnt have
| to share, then I dont think either would care about the
| other.
|
| Reality is that they do have to share, it isn't safe or
| convenient, and therefore people get angry.
| Ajay-p wrote:
| The amount of ignorance and pure aggression against road
| cyclists in America is rising to the level of a hate crime,
| IMHO. Mostly male, it seems, drivers are not willing to accept
| that not only must they share the road with cyclists, they must
| do so in a safe manner. The number of memes and comments
| promoting violence against cyclists must seem to only come from
| the most ignorant of society.
| dgfitz wrote:
| The number of cyclists I see on a daily basis completely
| IGNORE traffic signs, lights, signals, and no-turn-on-red
| leads me to believe the cyclists must hate themselves more
| than any driver possibly could.
| LanceH wrote:
| Ah yes, just throw things at _all_ cyclists. Run them off
| the road.
|
| Every thread about cyclists being abused includes someone
| like you mentioning that some cyclists ignore stops with
| the implication that they started the whole fight or that
| the fight is justified.
| gedy wrote:
| I mean you could say "Ah yes, just throw things at all
| drivers" as well.
|
| Agreed that cars are way more dangerous than bikes, but
| here in California I do see a lot of aggressive
| recreational cyclists that act like they have a chip on
| their shoulder. While they may not be a danger by
| crashing into things like cars do, their behavior does
| cause sometimes dangerous issues for other people on the
| road.
| autoexec wrote:
| If every time you walked down the street the people
| wearing blue shirts spat in your face or sucker punched
| you a third of the time as they walked past, it wouldn't
| take long before you had a strong reaction to seeing
| someone in a blue shirt walking your way, even if they
| personally did nothing to you. That's human nature.
|
| No one should be throwing things or trying to hurt
| anyone, but it absolutely is past and repeated negative
| experiences with cyclists acting irresponsibly that make
| drivers resent them, just like careless assholes in cars
| can make cyclists resent drivers.
| isthatafact wrote:
| Your equating of interacting with a cyclist while in a
| car to being sucker punched and spat upon is a clue that
| your premise is irrational. Being delayed by a few
| seconds generally only results in aggression from car
| drivers if and only if the cause is a cyclist.
|
| My belief is that the worst offending car drivers are
| simply psychopath bullies who know they can safely abuse,
| threaten, harass, assault, etc. those pansy spandex
| wearing cyclists. They do it because they enjoy it.
|
| Some people are simply not fit to be a part of society.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Your equating of interacting with a cyclist while in a
| car to being sucker punched and spat upon is a clue that
| your premise is irrational.
|
| I never equated the two. I used them as an example of how
| people come to blame all members of a certain class for
| the consistently harmful actions of a few members of that
| class. It's not fair, but it's common.
|
| > Being delayed by a few seconds generally only results
| in aggression from car drivers if and only if the cause
| is a cyclist.
|
| "Being delayed by a few seconds" is annoying for everyone
| no matter what the cause. That's not really the problem
| drivers have with cyclists though. It's having to slam on
| their breaks because someone on a bike ran a red light or
| having to swerve to avoid a cyclist who suddenly and
| illegally darted into their lane that makes drivers
| upset.
|
| > My belief is that the worst offending car drivers are
| simply psychopath bullies
|
| Maybe a number of the most extreme offenders actually
| are? The majority of people who have problems with
| cyclists on the road however are certainly not. I'd agree
| that people abusing cyclists for "fun" really are a
| problem and that they shouldn't be on the road.
| jprete wrote:
| In NYC, 90% of the times I see cyclists - typically
| because I'm using a crosswalk - they are violating the
| rules of the road. They don't yield to pedestrians, they
| don't stay in a lane, they don't signal turns, they don't
| stop for red lights even to check for cross-traffic.
|
| Sometimes I don't have to be in the crosswalk to notice
| them, because they'll take an electric-powered cycle onto
| the sidewalk.
|
| I am not exaggerating. I pay attention when I see a
| bicyclist actually stopping so I can cross in the
| crosswalk when I have the light, or otherwise following
| the rules of the road. I wish I had the presence of mine
| to thank those cyclists. But they are rare.
| dgfitz wrote:
| > Ah yes, just throw things at all cyclists. Run them off
| the road.
|
| That doesn't seem fair, that is not what I said. You're
| misrepresenting me. I do not know if you intended to or
| not.
|
| A group is generally regarded based on the behavior of a
| very small minority of its membership, usually the very
| worst or the very best. This seems like general human
| nature. There are many examples of this if you care to
| look for them. I have a few examples in mind, but they
| are unfortunately politically-charged examples and I have
| no desire to bring politics into this more than I just
| did.
| arp242 wrote:
| Used to cycle 10km to work. I daily saw motorists ignore
| all sorts of things too. Every large group has a certain
| percentage of assholes, on account of the human race just
| having a certain percentage of them. That's not an excuse
| for anything, especially when we're talking about pretty
| dangerous behaviour.
|
| Here's the thing: people WILL literally try to run you
| off the road, even when you're the most careful law-
| abiding cyclists that exists. I've had people try to run
| me off the road even though it was a dedicated cycle
| path, only to proceed to rant at me that it was all a
| waste of money. Even standing still at a traffic light
| will have people drive up way close up to your rear wheel
| and you look back and they shout "piss off you cunt". The
| amount of aggression from some is unhinged beyond
| proportions.
|
| So when people come back with "yeah, but some cyclists
| break rules" ... Well sure, but that kind of misses the
| point. You get aggression _even when following the rules
| not doing anything_.
| autoexec wrote:
| Drivers "hate" cyclists because the lives and safety of both
| themselves and their passengers depend on everyone else on
| the road behaving in ways that are safe and predictable. It
| doesn't matter if the other person is on a bike or in a car,
| if they're not following the flow of traffic, if they're not
| following the rules of the road, and if they're acting in
| unpredictable/unsafe ways they will be seen as a threat, as
| being irresponsible, and as being rude. That's where the
| hostility comes from. Many people are going to be hostile to
| other people who threaten the lives/safety of themselves and
| their loved ones.
| ultrarunner wrote:
| When I sit in my wife's SUV and find that I can no longer
| see over the hoods of most trucks on the road, I really
| struggle to see how a single human body on a bike becomes
| such a threat. Maybe all those guys in trucks are more
| vulnerable than I realize, but it's just lost on me how
| that is.
| autoexec wrote:
| A single human body on a bike becomes a threat when they
| blow through stop signs and light controlled
| intersections, don't signal turns, don't yield or follow
| signs, or when they ride against traffic. Studies have
| shown that when accidents involving bikes and cars happen
| bikers are found to have been responsible about as often
| as drivers (https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
| shots/2011/05/20/1364622...). Other data suggests that
| cyclists are more likely to be at fault when an accident
| results in death or serious injury and drivers are more
| likely to be at fault when there's little damage
| (https://fullfact.org/news/are-cyclists-blame-road-
| accidents/).
|
| Not counted in that kind of data are all the times drives
| are forced to swerve or slam on their brakes to avoid
| accidents. The fact that cyclists are harder to see than
| trucks and SUVs make them even more of a danger to
| drivers because they can come out of nowhere from
| directions drivers would never expect traffic to come
| from and by the time they are visible it may be too late.
|
| I can't say if bikes are more of a danger than trucks but
| I can absolutely say that they are often a danger to
| drivers.
| evantbyrne wrote:
| I experience this frequently when riding my electric
| longboard down the side of a particular block of 25mph road
| downtown. It isn't just men either, I've had quite a few
| women yell obscenities or throw me off my board by cutting me
| off and brake checking me. Nothing about this particular
| block of road seems inappropriate to ride down compared to
| others, but people fucking rage when they see someone on a
| board. Not a big city either and just a block away is a
| thriving area that is designed to have cars frequently stop
| for walkers.
| goostavos wrote:
| Nothing to do with cars. I commute via bicycle and actively
| hate road cyclist, too. Once a person starts donning spandex
| they seem to lose their personhood. They become something
| else. Angrier. Impatient. Self important. Impervious to the
| rules of the road.
| mellosouls wrote:
| Tbf you only have to go online to the cycling forums, or walk
| any country shared trail to see plenty of aggression, dangerous
| control and obnoxious, blinkered behaviour and comments.
|
| Cyclists are just as bad as drivers when it comes to
| contemplating The Other.
| eropple wrote:
| I'll support this comment from a pedestrian, to whom bicycles
| present some nontrivial danger. Drivers, however, choose to
| The Other themselves via driving increasingly larger masses
| of steel, and IME at least seem to be driving ever more
| incautiously over time in ways that have consequences further
| down the weight classes. Almost got creased today, even,
| crossing a quiet suburban street because somebody blew
| through a four-way stop without _looking dead ahead of them_.
| It 's supposed to be a 25mph zone.
|
| "They're talking mess at the poor benighted car havers" isn't
| going to fly. (Signed, a car haver who walks ~five miles a
| day; you are all full of sin.)
| uses wrote:
| Cyclists can't murder motorists with their bikes though, can
| they?
| jprete wrote:
| Cyclists can kill pedestrians. It's definitely happened,
| although I don't know how common it is.
| hospadar wrote:
| according to the guardian, in the uk, it's extremely
| uncommon (but not unheard of), only 1% of ped deaths
| involved a bike [1]. Motor vehicles are WAY more
| dangerous, and it kind of seems bad faith to suggest
| anything otherwise - cars are multi-thousand-pound metal
| boxes that routinely travel at speeds unattainable by all
| but world-record holding cyclists. The difference in
| kinetic energy between a car and a bike is massive.
|
| It seems pretty logical to assume to me that you'd almost
| always have fewer ped fatalities if more people were
| biking instead of driving.
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/08
| /killer...
| mellosouls wrote:
| _Motor vehicles are WAY more dangerous, and it kind of
| seems bad faith to suggest anything otherwise_
|
| The original context was shared country trails; I guess
| your comment was due to a misreading rather than
| intentional goalpost-moving but the way those arguing for
| cyclists seem to leap immediately to deny all and any
| misdemeanours and bridle at any criticism doesn't help
| good faith discussions.
| sagarm wrote:
| The original context was road cyclists; the digression to
| country trails was to justify aggression and violence
| towards them.
| mellosouls wrote:
| No, the root of this branch of the cyclist discussion is
| the country trail; which was highlighted to point out
| cyclists are just as bad as any other group in their
| behaviour at times.
|
| Suggesting it was to justify aggression and violence
| towards anybody is bad faith at best, a lie at worst.
| Please don't use such tactics here, and certainly not
| with me.
| angst_ridden wrote:
| As a frequent pedestrian in Los Angeles, the hierarchy of
| people being absolutely furious at me for walking on the
| sidewalks or using crosswalks goes (in decreasing order of
| rage): 1. Pickup/SUV drivers 2. Luxury car drivers 3. Other
| automobile drivers 4. Cyclists with fancy bikes and cycling
| gear 5. Dog walkers who are paying attention to their phone,
| not their dog 6. Ordinary cyclists 7. Pedestrians staring at
| their phones
| sagarm wrote:
| Drivers are killing 50% more pedestrians per year than 2019.
| arp242 wrote:
| Some of my most aggressive encounters have been with women.
| It's about 50/50 I'd say. This has been in England, Ireland,
| and New Zealand.
|
| Of course n=1, my experiences may not be representative, etc.
| dang wrote:
| Please let's not go into the car vs bike flamewar topic - it's
| one of the worst and most repetitive.
|
| (Dogs vs cats is bad too)
| rob74 wrote:
| TIL that the well-known stereotypical "circus music" is actually
| a march called "Entrance of the Gladiators"
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrance_of_the_Gladiators).
| number6 wrote:
| Changed the name because of personal interest in the Roman
| Empire... It was originally titled "Grande Marche Chromatique",
| reflecting the use of chromatic scales.
| Throw84949 wrote:
| It would be nice to include some context, like was driver on road
| or pedestrian walkway, were they wearing a helmet, how fast and
| safely they were driving...
|
| Unicycling is nothing extraordinary that would deserve prize,
| pizza delivery guys do that all the time. I live in busy tourist
| city and I am very tired of inconsiderate unicycling drivers!
|
| Different reaction from men can be explained in what would follow
| in case of crash. Men get far less help when injured. And if
| driver gets injured, men are expected to step up and provide
| help!
| ydant wrote:
| I assume you mean electric unicycle?
|
| I can't imagine delivering food on a regular unicycle - it's a
| lot of work.
|
| The linked article was from 2007. He was definitely talking
| about a regular unicycle, and I doubt speed was a factor. The
| "unsafe" perception from others would be from the inherent
| wobbling associated with someone learning how to ride - it
| takes a while to get really smooth.
| Throw84949 wrote:
| Electric or non electric does not matter.
|
| And why would you put "unsafe" into quotes? Person who falls
| from unicycle is heavy, and can injure themselfs or another
| person.
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| I'm not able to tell: does the author imply the "lost your
| wheel?" type comedy questions are put-downs? I have trouble
| seeing it that way. I would call it more of a jest than an insult
| and more of a basic attempt at humor that notes the uniqueness of
| the situation. To call noting anything that is odd a put down
| stretches the limits of credibility.
| vdaea wrote:
| Same thing I thought. Really "I suppose it saves on tyres" is a
| put-down? Maybe it's the author who doesn't have a sense of
| humour.
|
| OTOH he thinks women saying "You should dress up as Santa for
| the children" is praise and not a put-down.
| pc86 wrote:
| It's a pretty safe guess that a woman saying anything to a
| man on a unicycle should be taken as a put-down unless there
| is an astounding level of evidence to the contrary.
| callalex wrote:
| That's not a safe bet at all, I'm glad I don't live
| wherever you do.
| orf wrote:
| Why?
| triceratops wrote:
| Of course it's praise. Any woman saying this to a man clearly
| wants to have his children. /s
|
| (Seriously I think it really depends on the tone and
| context.)
| kmoser wrote:
| There's a reasonable chance "You should dress up as Santa for
| the children" is intended as a positive suggestion. There's
| very little chance "I suppose it saves on tyres" is anything
| but a snide remark, since nobody in their right mind really
| thinks unicyclists are trying to save on tires by not riding
| bikes.
|
| Any question which isn't asked with the intention of
| receiving a response can be considered snark, which while it
| may not directly be intended as a put-down, is still
| insulting because it is making light of the author who is not
| obviously partaking in unicycling to make people laugh.
| bogwog wrote:
| If they sent him that comment as a text message, then maybe
| it's not a put down. Obviously, there's body language and tone
| of voice that can't be represented in the paper.
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| Unless they're flexing their 24 inch pythons and asking me
| what I'm gonna do brother when Hulkamania takes my other
| wheel it'd be hard to take it as aggression.
| themikesanto wrote:
| That's called body language, dude. It's a different kind of
| communication, brother!
|
| /hulkhogan
| HanClinto wrote:
| I rode a unicycle to class in college for several years, and in
| my experience, it was generally done in a mild but jeering
| tone. "Hey buddy, lost your wheel! hahaha" -- while it may
| occasionally have been delivered in a sympathetic tone, it
| usually felt analogous to when people would yell at passing
| joggers "run Forrest, run!"
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| It seems like this is an either-or. Either sympathetic or
| jerring. I think that cracking jokes can be neutral.
| HanClinto wrote:
| Yeah, that's a tough one. If I make a joke about your
| behavior or appearance, even if it feels neutral or
| innocuous to me, you might not see it that way. And if you
| push back, then I defend myself by saying: "Whaaat? It was
| a jooooke!"
|
| Especially when it's done frequently / regularly, the line
| between "consistent neutral-ish jokes" and "mild
| harassment" can become a bit blurred.
|
| Not saying that such things should be outlawed or policed
| or whatever -- I just shrugged it off and didn't let it bug
| me. But if I'm trying to quantify it as positive or
| negative, it usually felt like a joking comment made at my
| expense.
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| I hear what you're saying and you're right in that there
| is nuance. I normally will give a light glib comment
| about something and then wait to see if I get any back.
| If I do it's good fun and I'll do more but if I never do
| I know the person isn't ready or willing to engage on
| that level. I find that people usually use the "It's just
| a joke" line after saying straight up rude things rather
| than light remarks.
|
| Additionally: what motivations does one have to ride a
| unicycle instead of a bicycle? I can only think of
| reduced storage space being a practical benefit.
| kmoser wrote:
| > what motivations does one have to ride a unicycle
| instead of a bicycle? I can only think of reduced storage
| space being a practical benefit.
|
| You're assuming a practical benefit but maybe people do
| it for fun, the challenge, or simply because of the
| novelty.
| d0mine wrote:
| Jokes/jabs is how men make friends.
| zero-sharp wrote:
| Nope
| callumw13 wrote:
| There's a lot of the rider's bias leaking through here. "Men who
| seemed to be of higher social class", "Middle Class Men",
| complete assumptions and biases that aren't used to form any sort
| of conclusion. Frustrating in an otherwise enjoyable and
| interesting essay.
| Ographer wrote:
| I imagined it to be similar to how _some_ "blue collar"
| professions attract mostly men who openly discuss women in
| sexual ways with each other while at work and will cat-call a
| pretty woman walking by.
|
| Likewise, a group of business men in suites are less likely to
| engage in this behavior. It's impossible for the unicyclist to
| measure people's class standing but you can get a lot of
| context clues by their appearance and behavior. Maybe it
| includes some bias, but for the purpose of logging all
| interesting responses I thought it was approximate enough.
| wiredfool wrote:
| Middle kid has a couple unicycles -- he's the only one around,
| and rides often. (And he's pretty good, can jump mount, do 180
| jumps, ride up and down stairs, and generally he's a comfortable
| as on a bike. He has played the Emperor's March on a trombone
| while riding as well. He insists that he's not practicing for the
| circus).
|
| Most common comment by far: "Do a wheelie", second -- "Where's
| your other wheel/You've lost a wheel" (which is answered by the
| tshirt -- "My other wheel is on my other unicycle".
| pc86 wrote:
| I never had the athletic ability to do anything like this as a
| child but this definitely would have made your son 100x cooler
| to me as a (what I assume is) elementary/jr. high peer.
| SteveDR wrote:
| He's 33 but thank you for saying so
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Still counts.
| matthew-wegner wrote:
| I mountain unicycle[0]. My favorite replies to "you're missing
| a wheel" variants are:
|
| * It was a half off sale (to hikers)
|
| * I took off the training wheel (to bikers, if they seem
| smarmy)
|
| These days most of my responses are very positive, almost
| universally. 15 years ago this wasn't the case, especially on
| the street--lots of people yelling "FALL!" out their window to
| scare you, etc. I think a big part of the long term change has
| been "extreme sports" becoming a very broad umbrella.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koWzoCUUIbE
| drc500free wrote:
| > I took off the training wheel (to bikers, if they seem
| smarmy)
|
| This is a fantastic retort.
| edanm wrote:
| That's awesome! My friend and long-ago business partner was a
| unicyclist, and did mountain unicycling for a while as well.
|
| He recently switched to going around with free skates - I'm
| trying to learn them as well (I never did get around to
| picking up unicycling unfortunately).
| jbaber wrote:
| What's a free skate?
| taternuts wrote:
| Curious as to why people gravitate towards unis, are they
| more fun to ride? Is it just more of a challenge and
| therefore more rewarding? Better workout I'm assuming?
| matthew-wegner wrote:
| There does seem to be an unusual number of nerdy/engineer
| types that also unicycle!
|
| I've done two organized long distance unicycling trips
| before: Vietnam, with ~20 riders, and Kenya to Tanzania
| with ~10 unicyclists (and a few bikers filling in the
| slots). There were a lot of programmers, and also a few
| people that collected other "body as puzzle" skills--
| juggling, circus arts, etc.
|
| I think the commonality is more that the kind of brain that
| can push past the challenge of learning to unicycle is the
| kind of brain that can learn a lot of technical computer
| skills by applying the same tenacity.
|
| My own history with unicycling is pretty happenstance. When
| I was 14 I said I wanted one for a birthday present,
| because I liked the challenge of riding a bike around with
| no hands.
|
| And I got one! So I learned to ride it on the street, but
| skill-wise I basically got a free mount and stopped.
|
| Much later, in my 20s, a friend pasted a unicycling video
| and said he wanted to try it (think "skate video", but
| unicycling). I said I actually had one in a closet, so we
| pulled it out and just kept at it after that. After a few
| weeks we were out trying a flat trail.
|
| I'm 43 now, and my riding comes and goes as I remind myself
| it's an enjoyable way to get some exercise. I'm also a B-
| tier rider, if that.
|
| This is my favorite general unicycling video with one of
| the pioneers, Kris Holm. This really gets into the "but
| why?" part of it too:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nPc2phfMLU
| Hasu wrote:
| Somewhat off topic, but I run barefoot (when I run, which isn't
| as often these days), and the responses are very similar. Mostly
| repetitive insults from men, ("did you forget your shoes?", "be
| careful, you'll cut your feet"), some curiosity, ("doesn't that
| hurt?"), some envy ("wow I wish I could do that") and a small
| amount of praise.
|
| It's interesting how many people feel free to say the damnedest
| things when they see someone doing something they don't
| understand.
| asdfasvea wrote:
| I use mine to walk my dog and get nothing but amazement and joy
| from people of literally all ages. People over 4 years old smile,
| point and say 'that guys unicycling, awesome'. People 4 and under
| smile, point and say 'doggie, doggie doggie'.
|
| Never a bad word, but I don't ride it like I'm an A-hole
| bicyclist.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| > Never a bad word, but I don't ride it like I'm an A-hole
| bicyclist.
|
| Your experience differs markedly from the authors ... are you
| claiming they are an "A-hole bicyclist"?
| zem wrote:
| > About 1-2% of people expressed anger, distaste, or fear of
| collision, mostly elderly women and some men walking with sticks.
|
| fortysomething able-bodied man, but i suspect fear of collision
| would be my first reaction too. unicycles _look_ hard to control
| and liable to crash into things, based on instincts developed
| riding bicycles. (i would also think it was a neat thing to do,
| though)
| pc86 wrote:
| They're also somewhat bigger and faster than you expect, which
| combined with the above would certainly worry me if I was
| walking and prone to serious injury or death from a fall.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Recently saw a guy near work cycling on a Penny-farthing[1]. That
| certainly rised my eyebrows, as he navigated the pedestrians on
| the path.
|
| Interestingly few others seem to take much note.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny-farthing
| jkestner wrote:
| Amusing read. "These observations lead to the conclusion that
| humour evolves from androgen primed aggression."
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I was going to say self-deprecation is not, but then realized
| self-deprecation is away of defusing "androgen primed
| aggression" that I used a lot in high school.
| perlgeek wrote:
| My sister self-taught unicycling as a teenager, and then used it
| for short trips to the supermarket (in an area where pedestrians
| and cyclists are pretty common).
|
| She got lots of attention, but only rarely talked about getting
| negative comments. (But she's not the type who would rate "I
| suppose it saves on tyres" as a put-down).
| air7 wrote:
| My interpretation is that this action, peformed by a man, is a
| show of force which is why it gets praise from females and
| envy/aggression from males.
| notnmeyer wrote:
| > "And what were your other birthday presents?"
|
| this is a particularly hilarious comment imo
| magic_hamster wrote:
| This was an interesting read however it's clear the author is
| very far removed from conducting this "experiment" neutrally. For
| starters, it's not about "response to a sudden, unexpected
| exposure to a new phenomenon--unicycling" as the author suggest,
| but rather about exposure _to the author_ on a unicycle. Can you
| imagine the responses were the same if we replaced the rider with
| a stunning female model? Would the men and boys still have
| challenging reactions? I bet not.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Two thoughts:
|
| First is that some people, statically male, are simply
| aggressive, and looking for a target, and that target doesn't
| matter.
|
| Alternatively, I suspect some amount of aggression is the result
| of perceived attention seeking behavior. Attention seeking
| behavior is a common adversarial action when competing for mates
| and social status. I suspect that unicycling taps in to this.
| LanceH wrote:
| > First is that some people, statically male, are simply
| aggressive, and looking for a target, and that target doesn't
| matter.
|
| I have thoughts on this as well. Are women not looking for a
| target or do they need a less physically challenging target?
| Girls' bullying certainly seems to exist. A single woman can't
| feel reel confident picking a fight with a guy, even 2-3 women
| can't be confident if things escalate.
|
| Most of us can think of that woman who -- backed up by men --
| finds her aggressive voice.
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| The movie "Mean Girls" explores this: women bullying one
| another socially to attain social status.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think the evolutionary behavior component comes down to
| reproduction.
|
| Males compete with other males, not females for mating and
| offspring. Other males are competitors and threats in the way
| that females are not.
|
| Women compete with other women, but the stakes are lower.
| Males can impregnate multiple females in a short period,
| while multiple males can not share the the same female to the
| same degree.
| sdwr wrote:
| I think you hit the nail on the head with that - jealousy /
| sexual attention-seeking.
|
| At a simple biological level, women can co-exist, and men
| can't. Not to say men don't make it work, but it's swimming
| uphill.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| yep. See also conventional beauty, sports cars, fashion, and
| bombastic personalities.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| I wonder if the men's remarks aren't often born of envy? It's
| common for men to say stuff like "That must have cost a pretty
| penny" or "He must have a small penis", regarding other vehicles.
|
| And let's be honest, a unicycle is pretty amusing. My first
| impulse would be to make a joke.
|
| Lastly, I'm not at all surprised that women, seeing a man
| performing a significant act of physical agility, might have some
| positive emotional reaction.
|
| I'm most impressed by the systematic way the OP collected the
| statistics!
| iancmceachern wrote:
| I went to school at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden
| Colorado. It sits right beneath Lookout mountain and Mount Zion.
|
| There were all kinds of cool things going on on the mountain. The
| "d Salute guy", longboarders driving up in a turtle van and
| riding down, mountain bikers like me riding down, paragliders (I
| even had a prof who did it!), and yes, a guy who rode a unicycle
| down the single track trail. Amazing.
| mellosouls wrote:
| Very interesting and original.
|
| Seemed a little overly-defensive/uncharitable wrt the banter from
| men, most of them didn't seem snide or negative but perhaps you
| had to be there...
| HanClinto wrote:
| I rode a unicycle to class during college for 2-3 years. The
| author's experience matches my own very closely, and gives me a
| lot of flashbacks (positive and negative). This bit in particular
| stood out to me: > Almost 50% of those
| encountered, more often men than women, responded verbally (box).
| The sex difference in the type of response was striking. Around
| 95% of responses from women praised, encouraged, or showed
| concern, and women made few comic or snide remarks. In contrast,
| only 25% of the comments made by men indicated praise,
| appreciation, or neutrality, whereas 75% were attempts at comedy,
| often snide and proffered combatively as a put-down. Equally
| striking was their repetitive nature, even though given as if
| original--almost 66% of these "comic" responses referred to the
| number of wheels (the most common), the absence of handlebars, or
| a part having being lost or stolen (box). Less than 25% used less
| obvious snide humour, but often with stylistic repetition.
|
| Everything that the author states matches my own experience --
| almost to a T.
|
| I often felt bad -- riding a unicycle is incredibly quiet (as
| there is no chain or gearing), and it's disturbingly easy to
| sneak up on a lone pedestrian at night and give them a scare when
| you announce that you're passing them on the left. I'm a rather
| large male, and recognize I can strike an imposing figure, and
| hated scaring people like this. I took up whistling whilst riding
| near people at night just so they could know that I was there.
|
| This was also an interesting thing to read: >
| Aggressive boys > "Do you want to knock him over?" "Yes I
| bet I could do it" > While kicking a football, "Got a good
| target" > Riding at me on bicycle, "Fall off granddad"
| > Sudden loud shouts, then they threw small pebbles >
| Loud noises, then "You're gonna fall off . . . you're gonna fall
| off"
|
| This VERY closely matches my experience -- I was surprised at how
| much hostility I received from other guys. It wasn't always
| directly aggressive -- sometimes it was a bit tangential. Guys
| would often be playing pickup baseball (using a tennis ball)
| outside my dorm when I would arrive / leave -- and the ball would
| often come close to me. I only learned much later that they timed
| their games and would quickly run outside to try to play a few
| pitches only in order to try and hit me as I was riding by. On
| one level I thought this was kind of cool that they cared enough
| to do this, but it also made me sad inside in a way that I have
| never fully been able to put into words.
|
| There were the regular jeering remarks, and even the more
| aggressive actions of going so far as to steal my unicycle a
| couple of times -- thankfully I was always able to recover it (a
| friend would call me and tell me it was found lying in a parking
| lot across campus -- clearly abandoned after they gave up trying
| to ride it).
|
| It's an interesting case-study on how society reacts to outliers
| -- this was a beautiful set of data to read. Thank you!
| arp242 wrote:
| > it's disturbingly easy to sneak up on a lone pedestrian at
| night and give them a scare when you announce that you're
| passing them on the left. I'm a rather large male, and
| recognize I can strike an imposing figure, and hated scaring
| people like this. I took up whistling whilst riding near people
| at night just so they could know that I was there.
|
| This is also a thing with these electric scooters and such.
|
| It's just the speed difference that can really surprise you;
| I'm "scared" by that. I had this just yesterday where a kid
| passed me on a narrow footpath. I wouldn't have minded to step
| aside, but I do need to know they're there.
|
| Really should have a bell. I don't know how that would work on
| a unicycle though.
| kmoser wrote:
| I've seen bells for skaters made with a metal or plastic ring
| you can pass through your finger. They'd probably work just
| as well for a unicyclist.
|
| (In related news, Firefox's built-in spellcheck doesn't
| include "unicyclist" but Chrome's does.)
| dinkleberg wrote:
| I suppose this is a meta question, but why is this in pubmed?
| While it is in the format of a research paper, this seems like
| more of a blog post coerced into that format.
|
| I'm not an academic, so I'm curious, are papers like this just
| for fun or are they intended to actually contribute to our
| understanding of the world? Because I can't help but think that
| the methodology in the paper is dubious. Do we just the guy
| because he is a professor? I suppose ideally the reputation
| system is such that if it is revealed someone is just making
| things up they'll get booted out.
|
| Not trying to hate on it, it was just an odd paper so it had me
| wondering.
| macleginn wrote:
| Because it's in BMJ (a journal), which is indexed. It has
| things like letters to the editor, obituaries, and
| "observations", which are indexed as well. Cf.
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30842093/
| logifail wrote:
| > why is this in pubmed?
|
| [...]
|
| > because he is a professor
|
| Ding ding, we have a winner!
|
| (EDIT: to clarify, I'm not being snarky, if you've spent your
| adult life contributing to a certain class of publication
| [which happen to be those indexed by PubMed] perhaps it becomes
| second nature)
| avs733 wrote:
| It is an article from the bmj "Christmas issue"[0] which is
| meant to be light hearted or satirical. My personal favorite
| was about the efficacy of parachutes when jumping out of a
| plane[1] - which fails to clearly describe that the plane was
| on the ground. Their point was about replication and clear
| thorough explanation of methodology in science.
|
| The Christmas issue has been critiqued for exactly the reason
| you made this comment - indexers don't pickup on the
| differences of the Christmas edition making it functionally
| invisible if you see it in pumped unless you know about it
|
| [0] https://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-authors/article-
| type...
|
| [1]
| https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C11&q=bmj...
| sdwr wrote:
| This is a fantastic research paper, better than 90% of the
| "real" ones. It's natural science in its purest form, grounded
| in lived experience.
|
| 1. Introduce novel stimulus
|
| 2. Observe response
|
| 3. Hypothesize about cause
|
| So much of the statistical significance and p-values and
| citations is oppressive bureaucracy at best, cargo cult
| busywork at worst. This is the good stuff.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Except that the conclusion is dogshit. It's such a wild leap
| that Superman would wonder if he could follow. There's a
| reason we use formal stats, and it's because our intuition
| for these things is not reliable.
| perydell wrote:
| It would be interesting to contrast the unicycle experience with
| tandem bike experiences. When I ride my tandem bike with a
| partner I almost universally experience smiles and happy waves
| from people that see us.
|
| I can ride a unicycle and rode it more often as a teenager. Lots
| of comments about getting lost from the circus. But they were
| meant to be funny. I think.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| So... friendliness scales with wheels?
| wiredfool wrote:
| 1 wheel per person, good. 2 bad.
| jenadine wrote:
| But better than 4 wheels per person
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| In the United States, tandem bikes have a strong Norman
| Rockwell vibe.
| AriedK wrote:
| My wife and I did a couple of tandem tours throughout the
| Netherlands, Belgium and the UK. By far the most comments we
| had were in the UK, the most common being: "she's not
| pedalling!" jokingly informing me that my wife who sits at the
| back isn't doing her part. The amount of comments were nowhere
| close what the author describes, and I can't recall any
| negative comments. Just humorous ones.
|
| I guess a tandem isn't as uncommon / funny as a unicycle.
| lmm wrote:
| I ride a recumbent and get my share of comments, mostly
| positive. (Others have talked of getting "one of your wheels is
| bigger than the other" comments, but I don't remember hearing
| that one yet)
| porkbeer wrote:
| A unicycle is the least cool way of doung a wheelie.
| Lio wrote:
| Or endo depending on how you look at it.
| xyzelement wrote:
| My mind immediately went to the evolutionary undercurrent of
| these things.
|
| The unicycle can be considered something impractical and
| suboptimal almost uniformly. You can't go fast, you can't carry
| anything, there's no way to give a friend a ride. It is perhaps
| equivalent to a person not developing their body in a way that
| makes them a useful citizen/comrade/etc.
|
| The response from men seems to mainly line up with how we'd react
| to such a thing in evolutionary context. We instinctively realize
| that unicycle ridding isn't a value-add to either the rider or
| society - both are less capable than when a more "appropriate"
| vehicle is used (we have "standardized" on bikes rather than uni-
| cyclers or trikes because those are clearly superior across
| almost all non-circus applications.)
|
| Men react as they do because intrinsically we want society and
| its members to be stronger - as we shoulder the load of those who
| aren't. So there's sort of a "hope" that enough of these remarks
| will encourage the person to get their shit together.
|
| Women are more focused on comfort - so they react the way they
| would to seeing someone physically weak and less capable than the
| average person - with kindness and almost a pity. I don't think
| they are lining up to sleep with him.
|
| Obviously these are not exactly "helpful" reactions to someone
| riding a unicycle around the park but the underlying drives are
| still roughly right. A nation of unicycle riders is going to get
| conquered.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| What absolute bollocks.
| orf wrote:
| > You can't go fast, you can't carry anything. It is perhaps
| equivalent to a person not developing their body in a way that
| makes them a useful citizen/comrade/etc
|
| This comment is obviously completely braindead, but I did want
| to jump in and say that I would rather have a unicycling, gun-
| toting comrade backing me up than one riding a road bike.
| frankus wrote:
| I think your comment is a little bit off-target but adjacent to
| something interesting:
|
| Putting a lot of time and effort into learning something
| difficult, but that isn't directly useful for survival, is a
| form of status signaling. Hence the stereotype of successful
| artists and musicians and athletes having countless fawning
| admirers while considerably fewer people are thought to be
| throwing themselves at accountants and teachers and farmers.
|
| Unicycling is interesting because you could just be going about
| your day getting from point A to point B, while a hostile
| audience sees both conspicuous consumption ("I have so much
| free time that I can learn to unicycle") and conspicuous
| outrage ("I'm so secure in my status that I can do something
| nonconformist that maybe also looks kind of silly"), and feels
| like they have to take you down a notch.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Have ridden, can confirm: it's annoying. 'Nuff said.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| My main reaction to it is: if you fall off that thing, you're
| really going to hurt yourself.
|
| I wouldn't say that, though. I just smile. I've seen unicycles
| before.
| fritzo wrote:
| I thought the same, but it turns out unicycles are safer to
| fall off than a bike. When you fall off a bike, one of your
| legs is usually caught on the wrong side of the top tube. When
| you fall off a unicycle, there's no top tube to entangle your
| legs, and it's much easier to "jog off" like nothing happened.
| Also unicycles are much slower.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Makes sense.
|
| I practice balance on the Bosu. I've only ever _actually_
| fallen once. Usually I can just step off, no harm.
| none_to_remain wrote:
| The one time I tried riding a unicycle, I couldn't even get
| on it sufficiently enough to fall off.
| aftbit wrote:
| I get yelled at a lot when I ride my eBike on our trails. They
| are explicitly allowed, and I don't ride like a jackwagon. Some
| people just love to hate. A few of my friends ride OneWheels and
| various other eSkate devices. They get even more hate. There's
| one fellow we call "not allowed", who loves to shout "NOT
| ALLOWED" and try to clothesline my buddies as we pass him.
| Luckily so far they've been faster than him but one of these days
| he's going to seriously hurt someone, probably himself.
| voakbasda wrote:
| Isn't that "attempted assault"? If he makes contact, it sure as
| hell would be an assault. Might point that out to him next time
| you see him. Or not, if you want to see him get arrested.
| c22 wrote:
| I think it's just actual assault. Not sure what an attempted
| assault would look like.
| hospadar wrote:
| Yeah definitely just actual assault, contact or injury are
| not required to make it assault[1]. If you actually make
| harmful contact it's _also_ battery (hence 'assault and
| battery').
|
| [1]https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/assault
| tekla wrote:
| People hate especially since eBike riders fuck with stats on
| trails on platforms like Strava.
|
| They also contribute to path wear since they allow people who
| have no business being on the tails due to lack of fitness to
| use them.
|
| Also holy shit, the potholes from eBike riders more or less
| burning out from standing or trying to go up slopes they are
| unable to. Fuck eBike riders on trails.
| floren wrote:
| Also, the "ebikes" that are just electric motorcycles with a
| couple fig-leaf pedals attached...
| Lio wrote:
| I've never ridden an eBike as they don't really appeal to me
| but I kind of think that everyone has a right to be on the
| trails regardless of fitness.
| thot_experiment wrote:
| I've been biking a lot more recently and I uploaded a ride to
| Strava and was super disappointed that they don't have
| leaderboards anymore. What even is the point? Is there an
| alternative? (I assume not because capitalism in [current
| year] _shakes fist_ protocols not platforms etc etc)
| cbsks wrote:
| They restricted leaderboards to premium accounts. Stupid, I
| know.
| PraetorianGourd wrote:
| I am not normally one to cry "ableism!" but seriously. If
| technology allows more people to enjoy nature and trails,
| awesome. Nature of all places doesn't need your gatekeeping.
| mock-possum wrote:
| > people who have no business being on the trails due to lack
| of fitness
|
| Yikes. you wanna rephrase that?
| nemosaltat wrote:
| How does, "people who have no business SCUBA diving a
| protected reef due to lack of fitness" strike you?
|
| As with eBikes, just about anyone _could_ strap on a SCUBA
| and visit places they otherwise couldn't (IMO shouldn't).
|
| The fact is, _some_ people _are_ unfit. Whether,
| physically, or simply lack the ability to be a good steward
| of public resources. This applies to SCUBA, eBikes, Driving
| and a bunch of other things. I don't think that's
| objectionable.
| cruffle_duffle wrote:
| The best way to get people on board with more bike
| infrastructure is encouraging ebikes and escooters. In my city,
| 50% of the bike lane traffic downtown is Lime Scooters--people
| who would never own or commute with their own bicycle. Suddenly
| these people have opinions on bike infrastructure and will be
| more likely to vote and support improvements.
|
| In short, if you want your cities bike infrastructure to get
| better... encourage the city to embrace point-to-point
| scooter/bike rentals.
| jameslk wrote:
| In my US based upbringing, men making jokes at the expense of
| other men are either aggression or ways of building rapport, and
| context matters to decipher which it is. I have male friends who
| take as much opportunity as possible to turn something I've said
| or done into a joke, sarcastically or sometimes trollishly, and
| I'll do the same. This mocking isn't malicious however.
| mplewis wrote:
| The recipient of the message, not the sender, determines
| whether it's malicious.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| No, the recipient determines if it is harmful. Malice is
| characterized by intent.
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| malicious
|
| adjective Having the nature of or resulting from malice;
| deliberately harmful; spiteful.
|
| malice noun 1. A desire to harm others or to see others
| suffer; extreme ill will or spite. 2. The intent to commit an
| unlawful act without justification or excuse. 3. An improper
| motive for an action, such as desire to cause injury to
| another.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| Hard disagree. Even if it is hurtful for the recipient, it
| might have been in good taste and honest, playful banter.
|
| If you let your behaviour be defined by the most sensitive
| and high s recipients, you cease to be able to conduct any
| form of communication apart from talking about the weather.
| And that might even offend some people then.
| tanseydavid wrote:
| IMHO this type of rapport traces back to playing "The Dozens"
| although many who participate do not consciously know this.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dozens_(game)
| candybar wrote:
| Aggression and building rapport aren't mutually exclusive - a
| lot of this is subtle negotiation for relative status. Just
| because all parties are okay with these as a way to get to a
| reasonable common ground (and if done right, can lead to strong
| rapport and relatively equal status) doesn't mean aggression
| isn't there. I don't think most of this is conscious, but you
| will also see conspicuously high-status people use self-
| deprecating humor to lower their perceived threat level, or
| conversely, people targeting other conspicuously high-status or
| threatening people to take them down a notch (to some extent,
| this is what we're seeing here). Or in a more hierarchical
| situation, high-status people might target lower-status people
| to reinforce their higher status.
| recursive wrote:
| Maybe it's a cultural thing, but the alleged put-downs and
| aggression mostly sound mis-categorized to me. There are only a
| few of the given lines that sound aggressive or insulting.
| nickcw wrote:
| I think the best heckle I had while riding my unicycle was from a
| policeman who shouted: "Are your brakes working?".
|
| This is funny because (just in case you didn't know) unicycles
| don't (generally) have brakes - you slow down by putting the
| pressure on backwards on the pedals.
| kraftman wrote:
| I feel like if the policeman had shouted that to the author he
| would have added it to 'indirect put downs'.
| natemcintosh wrote:
| As someone who once rode a unicycle (also in the North East of
| England), I can say that I received almost exactly the same
| responses listed here.
| mrcartmeneses wrote:
| The responses of men are also cultural. Having lived in east
| Asia, the aggression he observed feels like a very western thing.
| akavel wrote:
| An encounter I had personally that I found the most fun and
| memorable:
|
| _A father, to his ~4yo son: "Look, the man rides on one wheel!"_
|
| _Son: "Daad, this is a U-NI-CYCLE!"_
| adtac wrote:
| >Competing interests: None, apart from owning a bicycle as well
| as a unicycle.
| seagullriffic wrote:
| I highly recommend some of the best content on Youtube, Ed
| Pratt's series [0] where he unicycles around the world. [0]
| https://www.youtube.com/@EdPratt
| turzmo wrote:
| Why does HN keep editing the titles of these things?
| emptybits wrote:
| Every, and I mean _every_ , kid's reaction when first seeing a
| unicycle: awe and big smiles. Naturally, right? It's a bit
| ridiculous and amazing, isn't it?
|
| So IMO if any adult doesn't respond with a smile (at least on the
| inside ... be honest with yourself) then they've lost their inner
| child ... and isn't that a bit sad?
|
| Disclaimer: I have a unicycle and am a terrible terrible rider.
| Don't care. Gotta hit the sidewalk once in a while to refresh and
| damn if I don't end up giggling every time I fall.
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