Trakhak

Definitely. Cyclists constitute the last remaining group whose lives can be threatened in social media, followed by swarms of posters trying to outdo each other with colorful descriptions of how they'd like to go about killing all the cyclists they see on the road.

jon c. 

Glad I don't get exposure to that sort of social media. This forum is as social as I get.

Trakhak

Again, how you see them or how they see themselves doesn't matter. If someone's on the road on a bike, they'll inconvenience someone at some point, or at least they'll be thought to be in the way, at which point they're lumped in with all the other cyclists as a pest that doesn't belong on the road.

By the way, I can never figure out the point of threads like this, where people attempt to drive a wedge between different groups of bike users. Sooner or later, "Lycra-clad Lance wannabes" is going to come up and people will start telling each other off. To what purpose?

daihard 

That may be the status quo in most North American cities. I would like to change that. That's part of the reason i volunteer for a ped/bike safety advocacy group, such as Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, to advocate for safer streets for all.

rc5781

Why do people have a negative connotation toward "cyclists"? The term "cyclist" typically refers to a road biker in full garb who thinks they're competing in the Tour De France every ride, who are unwillingly to unclip from their pedals at all costs, even if it means stopping cars with a green light at a crosswalk, who screech by at full speed between me and a pedestrian as I'm passing a pedestrian on a trail from the left side, inches away from both of us, who for whatever reason just can't get bring themselves to downshift.

Wildwood 

I ride a road bike regularly = cyclist
I ride a mountain bike infrequently = mountain biker?

Call me a cycler, or a bicyclist, or use my pronoun 'hey you!', just don't call me a biker (now that's a slur!)

What others think of me or call me is beneath concerning. It's their problem, not mine.

rsbob 

Trakhak

And there it is, marginalizing of the Lycra-clad rider in favor of the virtuous everyday rider, exactly as I predicted in post 28.

rc5781

I'll give in a bit here because the the very negative cyclists do stand out more and the many cool "cyclists" I pass on a daily basis go unnoticed...

veganbikes

Yes if you use it as an attack against others and only see through a narrow mind from seemingly maybe one really bad experience with an arse then of course. However the definition is: a person who rides a bicycle.

Simple as that if you don't like bicycles and those who ride them, this is not a forum for you as that is the entire crux of the forum. Yes there are people who ride bicycles who also happen to be arses in fact there are people who do any number of things that are also arses. There are doctors and nurses who are arses as well as teachers and firefighters and so on and so forth. Any number of human beings can be arses but it doesn't change the definition of words like cyclist which means a person who rides a bicycle and conflating the two is not healthy.

rc5781

I posted like 7 mins ago, you probably didn't see it:
I'll give in a bit here because the the very negative cyclists do stand out more and the many cool "cyclists" I pass on a daily basis go unnoticed...

veganbikes

What I said still does stand. You put "cyclists" in quotes in the second part as if somehow the people you pass daily aren't cyclists but the "very negative" cyclists are the real ones when again that definition is: a person who rides a bicycle.

If you ride a bicycle you are a cyclist end of discussion on that one. If you want to have a separate discussion on some people who ride bicycles suck it is a simple fact of humanity that many fellow humans just suck, it might be the way they are raised, it might have been something that happened to them or it might just be how they were born or maybe it is just how we perceive them. So many factors that could be involved. We also may just see one little bit of bad behavior and say well they are bad cyclists when they might have been doing something for a reason not intending to be negative but maybe to keep themselves or others safe or because they had to for some other reason.

I know recently when doing our store to store transfer on a fully loaded slightly unstable cargo bike with trailer I ran quite a few lights and did some stuff I would not normally do only because if I stopped I would have a difficult time restarting and it would be rather unsafe for me. Yeah maybe I would have seemed an arse but the bike was clearly loaded so at least people could see why I did what I did but in some cases you might not know.

indyfabz

Didn’t we go through this recently?

rc5781

Text can be very misleading online due to lack of intonation. You interpreted that incorrectly from me. The fact that I said "cool cyclists" should have indicated that I was not being negative. The majority of cyclists I run into, are in fact cool human beings. I was just pointing out that the A-holes really stand out disproportionately.

GhostRider62

All golfers are golfers, most are hackers and a few are players. Cyclists are players.

bbbean 

Why not? They're using a bicycle.

FWIW, I often use my feet as a means of transport. Other people walk for recreation. Some people compete with their feet. We are all pedestrians.

livedarklions

I'm not some wimpy cyclist, I'm a goddam cyclone.

jon c. 

It was probably 50 years ago that I read a column in one of the major golf publications on the difference between "golfers" and people who play golf. The semantics change but there has always been a distinction made between those who are aficionados of a sport or activity and those who participate on a more casual basis.

Was such an opinion divisive to the golfing population? I can't see that it made much difference.

I'm an avid golfer and cyclist. But I'm a high handicapper and a slow roadie. In golf, I play with folks at my own level. And I ride alone. So I still have a lot of good days at both.

daihard 

That's my personal observation. And that's why I've mentioned above that the term "cyclist" has a connotation that's not present in the typical dictionary definition.

You may know that the Dutch language has two words for the "cyclists." People who ride bikes for transport, utility and other daily activities are "fietsers.," and those who ride bikes for sport/recreation/fitness are "wielrenners." My experience is that the term "cyclists" describes the "wielrenners" much more than it does "fietsers." YMMV

Eric F 

But are you a “walker”? As you’re waking from place to place, and you need to hurry across a street (for example) to the point where you run for a few steps, does that make you a “runner”? The common connotation for those kinds of terms is that those folks are more than just casual participants. Yes, someone who runs a few steps is technically a runner for that brief period of time, but would be unlikely to consider themselves a “runner” in terms of it being part of their identity.

Eric F 

Thank you for announcing that you have no idea what you’re talking about.

seypat

Does our housing situation factor in at all? What about if we have a pull behind trailer, or push our bikes on occasion?

indyfabz

https://www.bikeforums.net/general-c...oeconomic.html

mstateglfr 

I don't think I have ever felt dehumanized due to being called a cyclist.

Someone who golf's isn't dehumanized when they are called a golfer.
Someone who swims isn't dehumanized when they are called a swimmer

daihard 

Out of curiosity, did you watch the video in the OP?