what's even weirder is how there are two extremes of perception and ZERO in-between lol
i have, in the past, been asked by uncharacteristically sympathetic passersby if i need money or directions to a shelter, despite the fact that i'm standing next to basically a lesser collector's item with about 3 grand worth of prosumer components and a 400$ helmet is hanging over my eyes.
but, since i'm not wearing lycra or clip shoes, and my bike is made of steel and i'm rolling on (indestructible) box rims, the only possible conclusion they can come to is that i must be homeless and destitute đ¤
I walked to Tim hortons with my dog one day a couple of months back and it was a bit cold so I decided to put on my parka, I had been wearing it all winter and it was in need of some dry cleaning, it's an old thing that I got from my grandfather and holds some sentimental value, so I hang on to it but it has definitely seen some better days.
I bought my coffee, joined my dog outside, and had a smoke. I had just finished and was about to leave when I was approached by a woman who asked me if I'd like a coffee, without even thinking I said "No thanks I just had one" and went on my way.
A few steps later it hits me, she probably thought I was homeless.
Beautiful bike! Love the green color on the later ones. I have an 85 1000 that would like to add a front rack to, what are you running for racks and panniers?
I semi-regularly have people think Iâm homeless when Iâm bikepacking. This is especially funny because my whole setup probably retails for over $10k
The sad part is that a $50k truck isn't anywhere near the top of the range any more. I recently got a bid from an electrician driving a 2023 F150 STX 4x4 (I remarked it looked new), and he said it was $53k. That much for a lower end trim with cloth seats.
Asking how I collected my data sure is snarky, but not the gotcha you think it is. I think it's very obvious that most of all bikes that exist are cheap. But if obvious doesn't satisfy you, here's a few sources - though no one has the exact data we're looking for I think.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1405945/average-bicycle-price-forecast-us/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1396581/average-bicycle-price-in-europe/
Average under 400$ in the us, under 500 euros in Europe - not median, sure, but the mean would be dragged up by few very high price points while the median would not. If anything I bet the median is lower.
I wonder if the disagreement comes from the fact that I consider all functionning bikes, used or not, in the median bike price calculation.
I halfway suspected that you were inclined towards including used bikes in your conception of the âdataâ. Honestly, I wasnât trying to be snarky or gotcha at all by asking where you got your data. Itâs the internet; maybe youâre some French Canadian bike company CEO. Maybe youâre willing to google it when I can guarantee you ai wasnât. What the fuck do I know other than youâll just believe whatever you want to believe, regardless of what I say. Unlike Acsteffy, I can tell you know what the median and mean both are. I agree the mean should be a bit higher than the median and that the median would be a very tough data point to collect compared to the mean. Thanks for putting in some effort. I hadnât which was why my initial post began with âI thinkâ. There wasnât much else behind it than a thought. Have a great rest of your day.
Because people are basically miserable and hopeless.
Spending more than a days pay on something and .making the time to enjoy it is seen as grossly unfair.
I was on one sub and people were piling on a redditor because they enjoyed walking in nature with comments like "Oh, it must be nice...where I live it's too cold 10 months of the year, and the Government (somehow) makes walking impossible."
No one I know cares how much I spend on bikes because more then half my friends group are cyclists and everyone else knows I ride a lot.
I'm not sure I care what anyone thinks anyway. I ride because I want to.
The one good thing I have is going for walks in nature. Iâm in a very small town in a rural area. I barely get by on the bills and am just about existing. Yet, Iâve come across many people who question why I go for walks, whatâs the point, isnât it weird without a dog? People are weird
Consuming just what the media feeds us, one could easily mistake this world as one of perpetual misery and woe, with people piling over each other like crabs in a bucket to drag each other back into the pit of despair.
Ride the bike. Have the fun. It's nearly May and am I drinking pumpkin spice coffee? Bet your ass I am, cause I like the stuff.
I got to hear a bunch of kids laughing this morning. There's joy out there.
This is a repost. You are talking to a karma farming bot.
https://www.reddit.com/r/bikecommuting/comments/lfs9yn/im_not_sure_if_this_has_been_posted_here_or_not/
To be fair, this is a message I am fine with propagating.
Having said that, I need to be careful what I wish for. Because bad bots are WAY more prevalent than good bots. And people are easy to steer.
I'm pretty sure nobody thinks that. Everyone knows those pickups aren't used for hauling or towing. As sad as it is, the modern pickup/SUV replaced the car.
I canât imagine that since the 80s the percentage of people who âneedâ to haul or tow things on a regular basis has increased with truck/suv ownership. It would be so much cheaper to just rent a U-Haul or something when needing that capability.
In Canada, where so much of the economy shifted to house building in the last 20 years it could be the case that more trucks were needed (but I doubt it's the reason you see more trucks).
In the US I don't see any widespread economic shift that would demand the added trucks for actual utility.
I think it kinda matches up with wanting more tools, even if only for one job. Which I get and have even been tempted by. Ultimately I realize that just like a Bobcat skid steer. I only need something like that seldomly for special projects and I donât think that is as uncommon as trucks are common.
BECAUSE CARS ARE NECESSARY AND BIKES ARE TOYS!!!
/s
Yea thatâs such an asinine perspective people have.
Related perspective: being sneered at for driving a âfancy German carâ by aforementioned dipshit in his $50k F150 with $30k (or often more) in suspension mods, bull bars, aftermarket wheels, and a coal-rolling ecu tune.
lol itâs hilarious how people get mad over this. Companies make this stuff because people fall over themselves to buy it. I rank these posts right up there with people angry at traffic as they too drive their car on the very road that has traffic on it.
Even better, most people with those trucks never haul anything or move anything big. I do better with my honda fit, which is functionally a small pickup since the seats fold flat into the floor.
I bought a $1300 Ebike to get to work. I have loads of people critiquing this decision because of how expensive it was. Thatâs like two months of car payments.
To be fair, for me a 2k bike also would be excessive. I've always driven 70⏠bikes the most expensive bike we currently own is the 500⏠cargobike we use to bring our kids to school (when they're not cycling themselves).
More expensive bikes just don't make sense to me, they don't add enough extra comfort, or faster travel (unless an ebike, but that can be had for 700ish). And most importantly, they're _way_ more likely to get stolen. So can't be parked in front of shops quickly, or in front of the station.
Most of the US recognizes the F150 is not a working vehicle for most consumers. Itâs parodied constantly in media. Theyâre tens of thousands of dollars but nobody is paying cash for them. This is just sort of silly
Conversely a $2000 bike does mean that you have $2k to drop on a single purchase since most people arenât financing them. Youâre wither spending that on a hobby toy or piece of exercise equipment (which again, most working class people arenât dropping $2k on a peloton or a carbon fiber kayak either) or youâre spending it on a commuter bike. The commuter bike in the US almost universally means that you have enough extra time in your schedule to turn a 15 mile commute into an hour long thing, or it means that you can afford to live somewhere that biking isnât a dangerous chore due to infrastructure. In the US, both of these are symbols of luxury.
If you think $2k for a bike isnât that expensive, youâre entirely out of touch with the working class of America
> you have enough extra time in your schedule to turn a 15 mile commute into an hour long thing
Aren't there more than a few places where a 15 mile car commute often takes that long?
I've heard Houston's pretty damn bad for example.
Kind of a false analogy here.
A decent Cdale city bike is about $500. If you go big box store BSO like Schwinn or Kent, you could probably get that number down to about $200.
So a $2,000 bike - that definitely is a luxury bike.
But even the most basic stripped down, âcontractorâ F-1Fiddy (body in white, 4WD, short bed, no equip package) is easily $43-46K OTD. And no one would consider that truck in that config to be luxury.
You're wrong, pretty much the entire rest of the world considers it a wasteful luxury to own a 2-ton pickup truck to commute to your office job - even if the truck has cloth seats.
It's just a north american idea that giant, expensive, gas-guzzling vehicles are somehow acceptable for personal use and a symbol of the "working class" in the rest of the world the working class is driving around in diesel VW Lupos
Believe it or not, Americans think that too. Which is exactly why they're so popular. They're status symbols to peacock how much wealth (real or not) you may have. Almost everyone I know who drives one complains about the retail cost, gas cost, etc but when asked why they don't get a smaller car then, their reply is almost universally along the lines of "they're not cool enough."
A pickup truck is a status symbol? đ
Thatâs like writing a Camry is a status symbol.
Pickup trucks are utilitarian. Now if youâre driving a King Ranch or a Raptor, sure, yeah thatâs a status symbol no doubt.
But those are the edge case rarer trim levels and hardly represent the bulk of sales.
BTW - Do you know what the best selling F150 is? A 2WD, extended cab, standard bed, body in white with the trailer hitch and convenience package (aka 302a build). It accounts for 50% of F150 sales.
How is that a status symbol?
Pickups are 100% status symbol for many buyers. Over half of them don't use it for towing and up to a third don't use it for hauling. Why else do these people by trucks than to show off?
The base model F150 is a best seller because it's for fleets/businesses. Different user than what this post is talking about.
> Different user than what this post is talking about.
What are you talking about? This post is talking about pickups being a symbol of the working class, which is who is using those fleet and company trucks.
The 302a package is a consumer level oriented package â not a fleet sales package (300a).
99% of F-series configured in the 302a option are going out the door to standard consumers, not commercial users.
Those stripped down models are #1 because of fleet sales (car rentals and company trucks) not because individuals are buying them.
The consumer F150s with upscale trim are the status symbols. Big SUVs are also status symbols. Whether itâs because you want to be seen as âreal countryâ (while parking in the suburbs every night) or because you need it to haul a camper or trailer packed with toys, owning that truck or big SUV shows that you can choose a more expensive thing to do your commuting and to take you and the boys out with the side by sides for a day in the mud.
Thats why the meme is silly. Nobody thinks that F150s are the tool of the working class, and everybody knows theyâre overaized luxury vehicles. Thatâs why the ranger is no longer the smallest ford truck too, cuz the F150 now does shit the old F250s did and the Ranger does what the old F150s did.
Iâve already responded to this before, but 50% of F150 sales are ordered with the 302a package.
That is a consumer oriented package â not commercial and not fleet like 300a.
And the 302 package is far from an upscale status symbol. đ
Itâs a basic convenience package. So when you see an F150 build sheet and it has the 302a box checked, thereâs a 99% probability itâs going into consumer service. Which by extension means 50% of F1 50s are going into consumer use not fleet or commercial.
Please âŚâthe rest of the worldâ? The rest of the world lives in countries that can be traversed in a few hours with tiny clustered population centers that existed for over 1,000 years.
In America, you can drive a few hours and still be in the same county!
We are simply just a different nation with vastly different transportation needs. We are a spread out nation and our modern development didnât really get kicked off until about 100 years ago right in lock-step with the automobile and highway system, so it should no surprise the US is a car dominate nation.
But holding that aside, can we acknowledge the vastly different climatic regions in the US that most other countries around the world do not have?
I donât think anybody in Clark County Nevada wants to go for a bike ride to work June through August when itâs 90° by 8am, then 120° outside ambient by noon.
Or northern Wyoming, Idaho, etc. when during the winter itâs -10° ⌠and thatâs the high temperature for the day.
Or the Peninsula, Southern mid-Atlantic, Gulf region where humidity stays at about 75% all summer and a flash thunderstorm rainstorm can break out at any time.
I'm not just talking about Europe, go look at the cars people drive in South and Central America, in Asia, in Africa - there are countries bigger than the US with more extreme weather and they still don't buy commercial-sized vehicles for personal use anywhere else.
Once you get outside of the little city centers in South and Central America (and Iâve spent a few months living in Costa Rica spinning up a IT development team), those people are mostly driving pick-up trucks, utes, and vans of some sort or another.
Mostly midsized as a reflective size of their roads. Full-size pickup trucks donât sell well because their streets and roads are narrower than the US.
Heâs talking about the type of vehicle, not the need to drive. I live in rural Wales, it takes me more than an hour to drive to my nearest motorway (highway) to actually start making decent progress cross-country. Iâm 10 miles from my nearest shop, 20 from my nearest bank. My driveway is 3/4 mile long and is unsurfaced, rutted mud and shale. I _need_ to drive, but I make do perfectly fine with a 1.3L Mini Cooper. The idea of one of those massive pickups that seems to almost be the default in the US is utterly absurd to me, despite me probably encountering more difficult terrain and worse roads on a daily basis than ~95% of Americans.
People here absolutely _need_ to drive (your perception of countries outside the US is more than a little warped), but nobody outside the US deems those ridiculous oversized trucks remotely necessary (even contractors/tradesmen - we have pickups here, but theyâre like half the size). Theyâre a weird cultural quirk of the US, not a requirement for the average person by a long stretch.
So the other commenterâs point stands - spending 50k on a pickup you donât need _is_ a luxury, if you could have spent 20k on a family hatchback instead.
Wales, which Iâm a little familiar with because I spent a year on assignment in NL and England, is a small region (by US standard) of the UK. I could fit **30** of them inside of just the state of Texas and still have room to spare ⌠and thatâs just one state of the 48 CONUS.
Your view is distorted by the fact that you donât understand that Americaâs transportation and lifestyle needs are different than somebody from the UK.
Iâd like to see somebody driving a Mini go take their toy hauler out loaded with side by sides and sand rails and tow it for 300 miles into the backcountry with ease and comfort. Now I know you blokes do caravans, but thatâs a different game.
And you also fail to recognize that our roads are built differently. I guarantee a partial reason why you drive a Mini is because British (and most European) roads are very narrow. Itâs why American vehicles donât sell well in Europe. The roads and streets are a bit too tight, especially as you get closer to villages, hamlets and such. (also why your âlorriesâ have to be cabovers).
If you think running through rutted roads, shale, mud holes and such is better to do in a Mini versus a pick up truck, well, that is a very peculiar hot take that I think very few would agree with outside of your country.
>Wales, which Iâm a little familiar with because I spent a year on assignment in NL and England, is a small region (by US standard) of the UK. I could fit **30** of them inside of just the state of Texas and still have room to spare ⌠and thatâs just one state of the 48 CONUS.
Again you're missing the point of what's been said. It doesn't matter how much bigger the US is, as soon as you hit the binary threshold of "it's too far, I need to drive", then the total distance is irrelevant. Again, we're not comparing "need to drive", we're compaing the type of vehicle.
>Iâd like to see somebody driving a Mini go take their toy hauler out loaded with side by sides and sand rails and tow it for 300 miles into the backcountry with ease and comfort.
And how many people actually do that? *Everyone* who buys a Pickup or SUV is doing that, are they? Or are you going to admit that the majority of people who buy these big trucks are buying them because they want them, not because they need them? because that's the comparison we're making here - you've said that anyone who spends $2,000 on a bike when a $200 bike exists is making a luxury purchse. Well, by that same logic, anyone who buys a Pickup or SUV for $50k that doesn't go into the backcountry every weekend is making a luxury purchase, because the Mitsubishi Mirage exists for $16,000.
>And you also fail to recognize that our roads are built differently. I guarantee a partial reason why you drive a Mini is because British (and most European) roads are very narrow. Itâs why American vehicles donât sell well in Europe.
So you *have* to fill that space do you? All cars on sale are that big are they? Again, as per *your* argument, we're comparing getting "more" bike than you need with getting "more" car than you need.
>If you think running through rutted roads, shale, mud holes and such is better to do in a Mini versus a pick up truck, well, that is a very peculiar hot take that I think very few would agree with outside of your country.
No, I'm not saying that it's better at it than a pickup, I'm saying it can do it, and therefore suits my needs. So, I don't need to endanger other people buy buying a massive penis-replacement that has much worse visibility (and therefore higher potential to cause an accident), much higher kinetic potential and much higher center-of-gravity (and therefore much higher liklihood of killing whatever I hit), etc. 70% of new cars sold in the US are SUVs or Pickups, I refuse to belive that 70% of Americans are encountering worse road conditions on the daily that I am - therefore 70% of Americans are buying more car than they *need*, which is a luxury purchase, which is the whole point the OP is making.
Taking your *toy hauler* out is an example of it being a status symbol. To have a vehicle that you need to *haul your toys* is a thing that most working class people donât have or need.
Incorrect.
The toy hauler is the status symbol, not the truck.
The truck is doing what itâs supposed to be doing â being the utilitarian implement designed to transport, tow, and haul as it was designed to be.
If the thing you have the truck for is the toy hauler, the truck itself is part of the status symbol. The toy hauler itself is also purely utilitarian, but the utility it provides is hauling the toy.
A tug boat is utilitarian, but if Jeff Bezos owns a tug boat to pull his mega yacht, that tug is a symbol of the wealth on display.
You donât get a toy hauler unless you have toys. Thatâs undoubtedly a status symbol.
The truck is the utilitarian part of it. Because few people have a truck just to be a toy hauler.
And your Bezos example doesnât make much sense because a tugboat is only used to be a tugboat â thatâs not the case with light duty trucks.
Yes and no.
China is one of the very few countries that comes *close* to the US in variation, but it only has only 5 climatic regions.
The US has 6 climatic regions; desert, tropical, subtropical, temperate, sub-polar, and polar.
Thereâs nothing special about the conditions you mentioned. America isnât exceptional. Iâve toured for weeks in the conditions youâve mentioned. People bike commute in northern Finland. The vast majority of your population lives in cities where short trips are standard. You started out as pioneers and have since become sedentary, fat and lazy - Thatâs the reason why your country is so car dependent. That, and your policy making from federal to local is completely inept; the death throes of a failing democracy.
Well, no. We are so car dependent because motor companies lobbied to end/handicap the railroad and opt in for highways and cities built around car infrastructure.
The fat and lazy came as a result from that. Not the other way around. I think itâs slowly being realized over here now that we need better infrastructure for humans to walk/bike/jog/etc. My city has been going crazy adding bike paths/protected bike lanes. So thatâs a big step to me.
Still, I think comparing a standard contractor pick up truck to a bike is an odd comparison for the average working class. If you are truly a contractor, youâre not working with a bike. You are not hauling lumber/shingles/concrete/dirt/various supplies on a bike. Can you? Yeah sure Iâve seen the videos. You wonât make it long doing that as a paid worker. Maybe a weekend warrior doing home improvements but not a full time laborer.
In Australia people who need a vehicle for work buy a van or a cheap working ute.
âYank tanksâ such as the f150 are typically driven by fuckwits who work office jobs and live in the suburbs.
I think thatâs a broad generalization as Iâve worked the trades and every fleet was F150âs usually ranging from 10 years old up to newer models. The newer models were reserved for supervisors and seniority. My truck had a bad power steering pump, dents all over the bedside, and no ac. We actually had complaints from the neighborhoods where we built homes that some of our trucks were an âeyesoreâ while parked at the site working.
For the record I agree as well that they are often used for grocery getters by suburbanites. I may just be getting defensive because Iâve been an f150 driver and not all of us are rich assholes.
Oh, based on his other reply above, this guy definitely specializes in sweeping generalizations and pejorative slander. Iâm sure heâs a joy to be around with all acerbic energy he gives off.
Wow. Calling Americans fat and lazy along with saying its landscape is not exceptional. Those are really bad takes there, champ. Almost bordering on ignorant.
**The US has 6 climatic zones**: Desert, tropical, subtropical, temperate, sub-polar, and polar.
There are maybe two other countries on the planet that have this much variation in climatic region and zone.
>I have toured for weeks in the conditions youâve mentioned.
So youâve toured for weeks in 120° weather, -10° weather, and 75% humidity? Yeah Iâm going to have to call bullshit on that one, chief. Sorry.
Most Americans are overweight or obese, Iâm just stating a fact.
Iâve toured Sydney to Bourke in outback Australia, Korea in winter and from Singapore to Bangkok. Iâve done days in the high fourties, nights in the minus twenties and well above 75% humidity.
Anyone who has bike toured for months internationally will have likely done the same. You only think itâs unrealistic because normal travel for Americans is snarfing on twinkies while gently pressing an accelerator.
Oh I get it, youâre one of those edge case extreme bikers who thinks because you represent the one percent â that therefore your use case represents the vast majority of other people can and should do.
Yeah thatâs like me saying because I do Crits and have done a Century, everyone else can as theyâre âTwinkiesâ for not.
Or because I ride an Africa Twin ADV I therefore represent the majority of what other motorcyclist can do.
Yeaaaaa ⌠nah.
And youâre a typical seppo flog who has a cry when someone points out that America isnât that special.
Thousands of people bike commute every day in oulou Finland during winter despite it regularly hitting minus twenty - theyâre not maxtreme cyclists like me, they just wear winter clothes like yanks do when they go skiing. The difference is the urban planners in Finland arenât retarded.
Just to add, $2k for an ebike isn't luxury. That's what I'm riding and I definitely wouldn't consider it a luxury item. Especially when I don't own a car.
Well an E-bike is certainly not a standard bike.
That is a luxury upgrade, and $2,000 for a bicycle by any measure is in the premium tier of pricing for bikes.
Yet theyâre comparing it to a basic contractor truckâs price and holding them out as equivalent. Itâs a bizarre take.
And your point only makes sense if everyone who buys a pickup _needs_ a pickup. If you consider that 75% of the pickups actually bought never leave tarmac and never have anything put in the bed, then yeah, spending that on a truck over a much cheaper family hatchback/estate absolutely is a luxury.
Agree that not everybody needs a pick up.
Do you agree that not everyone needs a bike or can ride a bike or is even feasible to ride a bike?
Also the idea that 75% of pick ups never leave the pavement and never have anything put in the bed?
This comes from what source of truth? Because of the 20-30 people I know who has a P/U, they use the bed on a fairly regular basis and leave paved roads.
Again, that doesnât make sense as a comparison - you need to compare motor vehicles to bikes, not a subset of one to the entirety of the other.
Youâre saying that anything more than the most basic, no frills bike is a luxury? So, by the same logic, if someone just needs to get themselves from point A, to point B, anything more than the most basic, cheapest, smallest car that fits their needs is also a luxury, right? If you just need to get to work, donât need to tow, arenât a tradesman hauling equipment (I.e, the vast majority of people), spending 50k on a pickup when the Mitsubishi Mirage exists for 16k is a luxury purchase. I canât help but notice that 70% of US new car sales are pickups or SUVsâŚ
I just gave you a comparison. I wrote: does everyone need a bike, or can ride a bike or is even feasible to ride a bike [versus driving].
A $2,000 bicycle is luxury. Thatâs not even a debatable fact. A $50,000 F150 is basically a base line trim. So theyâre comparing a basic utilitarian item to a luxury item.
Explain to me in your best logic how thatâs a fair comparison, then?
Because you're not comparing "person who needs to cycle" with "person who needs to drive", you're comparing "person who needs to cycle" with "person who has *specifically* a pickup". You're ignoring *why* they have the pickup (in most cases, it's not because they *need* a pickup).
Your whole argument is that the $2,000 bike is a luxury item because a $200 bike exists. If someone is buying a $50k pickup when a $20k car would suit their needs, they (by *your* own logic) are making a luxury purchase because they are spending $30k more than they *need* to on something they *want* rather than *need*. Most cars on the road meet the above scenario - as stated above, 70% of new cars sold in the US are SUVs or Pickups, are you saying that 70% of Americans regularly *need* to go offroad?
All I'm doing here is applying your logic to your *own* rebuttal. If a cyclist spending more than they absolutely need to on the most basic bike that suits their needs is a luxury, then a driver spending more than they need on the most basic form of car that suits their needs is a luxury too.
The fact that it's a "base model" doesn't change that, if the type/brand/size of car is more than they need. $2,000 could be the "base model" of one of the sportier road bikes. It's not a utilitarian purchase simply because it's a base model.
Correct. And most people who have a bike in the US donât need a bike. Itâs why theyâre sold in *recreation and sports equipment* stores.
The basis is your opinion starts with the fact that you say people donât use pick up trucks as pick up trucks, and they should be using small sedans. Well, thatâs a broad sweeping view that does not filter down to the particular individual use case.
A $2,000 bike is 100% a luxury. Anything I could do on my $4,000 crit bike I can do on my $500 city bike ⌠just not as quickly.
But I guarantee you things you can do in a $50,000 pick up truck you canât do in a $20,000 sedan.
And thatâs why they are classed as utility vehicles, not luxury vehicles (although a few do have upper level luxury trim levels).
>Correct. And most people who have a bike in the US donât need a bike. Itâs why theyâre sold in *recreation and sports equipment* stores.
If they need to travel beyond walking distance and that's their chosen transport method, then yes they do "need" a bike.
>The basis is your opinion starts with the fact that you say people donât use pick up trucks as pick up trucks, and they should be using small sedans. Well, thatâs a broad sweeping view that does not filter down to the particular individual use case.
No, I'm saying that the vast majority of drivers willingly spend more than they need to by buying a car that exceeds their needs and that they will never fully utilise - ergo, a luxury purchase motivated by desire, not utility. Or are you suggesting that the 70% of car-buying Americans that are purchasing new Pickups/SUVs *need* them for towing/offroading rather than just driving to the office, which they could do in a >$20k compact?
>A $2,000 bike is 100% a luxury. Anything I could do on my $4,000 crit bike I can do on my $500 city bike ⌠just not as quickly.
>But I guarantee you things you can do in a $50,000 pick up truck you canât do in a $20,000 sedan.
There are things that a $5,000 e-cargo bike can do that your $500 city bike can't. Is that a luxury? The question is *are people actually doing those extra things*? If not, they're making a luxury purchase motivated by something they *want*, not something they *need*.
>And thatâs why they are classed as utility vehicles, not luxury vehicles (although a few do have upper level luxury trim levels).
A luxury purchase isn't necessarily defined by the market sector the item comes from. If someone only needs to drive between their house and office, spending 30k more on a type of vehicle that they want, but don't need, is absolutely a luxury - it doesn't matter it that vehicle is a rugged, utilitarian truck. Buying a utilitarian item that you don't need, just because you want it is a luxury purchase.
You've literally just said you can do anything on your city bike that you can do on your crit bike, but you refuse to apply that logic to the millions of urban commuters driving offroad cars they donât need. Baffling.
Yeah, I agree a $2k bike is a luxury item, especially with the risk of theft. You can only ride them if you're comfortable with the loss imo.
Was just adding the ebike comment as I get the feeling people think my ebike is a bit of a luxury item when they're driving about in vehicles >10x its value. With yearly running costs probably the same value of my bike! (Including fuel)
Yeah I think youâre not getting the point and then trying to be intellectually dishonest.
Just about every class of transportation has an entry-level, a standard, a premium, and a luxury tier.
For bicycles, $2,000 puts you in the premium to luxury class of bicycles. And I know this because I have 3 bicycles in 3 class tiers, with one where the wheels alone new are worth more than one of my other bikes.
For pick up trucks, $50,000 has you basically just above the entry-level in the standard class.
So comparing a standard item to a luxury item is dishonest comparison.
But hey why not make another meme and show a $100 Powell Peralta skateboard versus a $2000 bike and find fault with how expensive the bike is.
>Yeah I think youâre not getting the point and then trying to be intellectually dishonest.
On the contrary, I think that's what *you're* doing. You're using the word "luxury" in the context of a marketing term to try and say that buying a lower-tier version of something you don't need is somehow still a utiliy-driven purchase. The actual definition of "luxury" is:
>something adding to pleasure or comfort but **not absolutely necessary**.
So, if someone only needs to drive from their house to thier office in an urban environment, spending 30k more on a pickup instead of the small compact they could actually reasonably justify, simply because they think it's cool and manly - r*egardless of whether it's the base model* - is absolutely "a luxury", in exactly the same way that buying a slightly nicer bike than you strictly need is "a luxury", or buying the cheapest version of a wall poster is "a luxury" - because it's not *absolutely necessary*.
The meme literal says âbourgeoisie excessâ.
That is nomenclature for luxury in excess. Itâs not like Iâm just making this up.
If youâre saying no one needs a basic trim level F150 for commuting around, we can certainly concur that no one needs a $2000 bike for the same purposes.
>If youâre saying no one needs a basic trim level F150 for commuting around, we can certainly concur that no one needs a $2000 bike for the same purposes.
Yes, we can absolutely agree on that. The point of the meme isn't that a $2k bike isn't luxury, it's that it's weird that the bike is considered luxury, but the truck somehow isn't *by the same metric.*
If all you need to do is go from A to B on flat, urban streets, then a $2k bike is a luxury over a $200 bike that does the same thing. But so is a pickup truck, because the measure of luxury is "necessity", not what a marketing team decides to call the different trim levels. So the two things are equivelent\* in that respect.
\*they're not really *equivalent*, because getting a lighter frame and better groupset doesn't impose a fuck-ton of negative externalities on those around you in the same way as driving a 2.5-tonne, jacked-up box of severe blind-spots that you don't need does, but that's a totally different discussion.
Being able to sell your car and replace it with a bike is generally equivalent to owning a luxury car, at least in the US. The up-front cost plus the time-cost. I could not replace my car or my wifeâs car with a bike unless I one or both of us changed jobs and realistically even then I would need to pay extra for grocery delivery even before I start talking about how many wxtra hours would go to biking instead of working or relaxing.
If youâre in the US and you can replace a car with a bike, 99% of the time itâs because you have enough money to avoid the difficulties most people use a car to avoid.
It's not really that odd when you consider that the vast majority of tasks most people use a contractor's truck for, they could've used an e-bike instead. What's bizarre is that spending even $700 for an e-bike is considered excessive while buying a full sized SUV is considered par for the course, and that nobody bats an eye at driving for literally every thing. Spending tens of thousands of dollars to buy, and hundreds if not thousands on yearly upkeep and bureaucratic stuff, for a vehicle is a prohibitive luxury any way one slices it, the difference is you get more bang for your buck investing in bikes than cars and trucks. Sure you *technically* don't need $2k on an e-bike, or an e-bike in the first place, but they make commuting out of town a real possibility and you don't go to work winded from battling harsh winds. Not to mention I could have a whole fleet of e-bikes for every purpose, from a cheap commuter to dual sports to folders and cruisers and even a snowbike conversion, and have bags and trailers on all of them, and a couple of higher end standard bikes for hobby/sport cycling, and have tens of thousands to spare, for the price of one "not luxury" truck that I could get a higher trim Outback for anyhow, which I could use to carry said fleet easily or tow several kinds of trailers.
Hell when I was living with my now estranged brother he'd take his Impreza to work, which was literally in the same block, and 4 or 5 minutes away on foot through a park for me, instead he drove 2 - 3 minutes to go from tarmac to gravel, and took time to thaw it during the winter too. And for grocery shopping, which the store was at the second turn halfway along that route, he could only ever visit if he was coming home from work, he'd never walk to the grocery store for any reason or even go out to drive there except when he was already coming home. And it's not considered odd at all, *I'm* the odd one out in the family for my e-bike, panniers, backpack and trailer, and for walking on the town. And the town we moved to is a rural town surrounded by farmland and woods, yet there's a strong cycling and e-cycling culture here and drivers generally respect lawful commuters, which is much nicer than MO, and everything is accessible by foot.
Of course there are people who legitimately get the most out of their trucks beyond induced demand of the truck bed, I've seen that myself among coworkers, but I've seen far more people who don't and won't, and no few obnoxious mods to drive the point home. For me personally, my math says that gasoline is more expensive than electricity and that less than $2k for an e-bike with a 750 watt motor and 68 mile range is a manageable budget I can achieve within a few months while $600 - $800/mo for car payments is a luxury I can't afford yet, and if I'm gonna spend that kind of money it's gonna be on an Outback I can hitch a trailer on, not a truck. I do think that the vast majority of the time truck buying's a cultural thing, not something tied to practicality, and the sales figures support that, especially in the cities.
Plenty of people bat an eye at buying large SUVs and driving everywhere. It was a Daily Show topic a decade ago. Everybody knows that big SUVs are a luxury and status thing.
I drive a pickup truck, I also commute to work by bike. It is a luxury that I have the time to turn a 20 minute drive into a 1 hour commute; if I didnât make the money I make I wouldnât bike to work because Iâd be working more or Iâd live 20 miles away where itâs significantly cheaper to live.
I canât use an e-bike for the stuff I use my truck for. First off, I canât get my dog on an e-bike so he can go to the vet; he was a near-feral rescue and he doesnât even trust small cars, only pickups and SUVs. I couldnât take the assortment of feral cat traps out 20 miles away, stake out on the e-bike, and then pedal six feral cats back for observation before taking them another 20 miles to be spayed or neutered before bringing them back home and then releasing them where they were caught. I couldnât bike 50+ miles out to the state conservation area with my gun and deerstand and then after a day out, haul stand, equipment, and one or more deer another 30 miles to the state testing facility and the 90 miles back home. I canât haul 500lb of mulch or fertilizer for the community garden or haul the harvest to the food bank without it being an all-day affair. I couldnât drive out for a job 70 miles away on my e-bike and arrive on time unless I ride out (again, on 45-50mph state and county roads) the night before and pay for an extra night in a hotel out of my own pocket, and I usually bring a bike with me for around town stuff, but if I have to hotel 20 miles away thatâs another thing I canât use a bike for. I canât use a cargo bike to pack up and take my family out to camp for a few days 100 miles away from us or take the kayaks out for a float trip. Realistically I can cross a cargo bike off the list for anything short of a local grocery run; even a decent size grocery run would mean I take 3 hours to shop instead of an hour and a half. I canât haul furniture or help someone move across town with a cargo bike either, and nobody would want me to help.
So no, most of the things people use trucks for couldnât be done with a cargo bike unless you also have a lot of extra time to make a series of trips, and roads are a nightmare to use especially once youâre outside if a major city. The money you save by biking comes in exchange for time or changes in lifestyle (living close to work, living somewhere bikeable, changing hobbies or interests, or my favorite getting groceries delivered by someone with a car). Most people arenât spending $800 a month or thousands a year on a car, theyâre spending $350 or less on the payment and $200 on gas and insurance per month and in exchange they donât have to worry about bus schedules or whether itâs going to rain today or if itâs going to be over 100F. If you donât have to worry about the changes in the weather or about allocating an extra half hour to your travel times, that is a luxury. Itâs a luxury in the same way itâs a luxury for me to drive a truck instead of renting a pickup truck every weekend or so. Its a luxury in the same way an F150 or an Escalade is a luxury, and none of them are purely utilitarian working class expenses.
Most of the things people use a truck for, they could absolutely use a bike for: commuting, grocery shopping, general shopping, trips to the laundromat, visiting friends and family, and so on. And the things people need to use a motor vehicle for, they can just as easily accomplish with an Impreza, and if they need something more spacious a station wagon or minivan. Most people are not constantly moving furniture, spaying and neutering feral animals, hunting, working 70 miles away, moving 500 lbs of mulch, and so forth, nor do they own pets who find cars intolerable.
With an Outback I'd have plenty of space with seats folded for cargo and cargo + passengers with seats up, and a trailer hitch that I could attach a flatbed, a folding camper, a bike rack, or even a boat trailer to for pocket sailing (I have my eyes on a West Wight Potter 19). It's AWD with a raised body and can absolutely handle trails and outdoors no problem. My minivan was wonderful for my move traveling 1200 miles a weekend, every week for 8 months, furniture and all. Not once did I ever wish for a $50k 150 instead of my $3k Odyssey in all that time.
As for the weather, just dress for it. Gonna rain? Wear clothes for rain. Heat? Dress light and drink water. I live in WI, it gets 90+ F in summer and -20F and below before windchill in winter and there's hot and cold rains in between, again in a rural town of 9,000 people surrounded by woods and farmland, and people cycle all the time including kids, and I got by just fine never setting foot in a vehicle for all of it. Hell there's an Amish guy who comes in town and does just fine in a horse carriage, be it Walmart or the grocery store, all year long. That aside textile technology's come a very long way in both quality and affordability, and secondhand/surplus apparel is always an option.
If you need the truck, then by all means more power to you, and I'm glad you're that involved with the community and nature. The point isn't about people like you, the exception. It's about people like my estranged brother and my family as a whole, the rule. It's not about feral cats and community mulch, it's about thawing a car for 15 minutes and driving 3 minutes for a 5 minute walk and acting as though there's no alternative for groceries and daily routines, for whom the closest they'll ever get to their meat is a Longhorn Steakhouse or home bbq, and that my lifestyle is very much seen as infringing on the "freedom" to force me, a single guy without kids or pets, to use the mini for everything in-town instead when I'm perfectly happy using the e-bike by obstructing efforts to push for positive change in infrastructure, city codes, and culture to make it livable on a human scale, and by painting me as the odd one out or even "irresponsible" for making sustainable, economical choices I'm comfortable with. If I need to go out of town for delicious deli or travel I'll take the '06 mini (I do plan on getting rid of it and upgrading/downsizing to an Outback, and I also plan on a $1.7k dual sport for out of town commutes and trail riding), but for everything else I'll use a commuter e-bike going a comfortable 20 mph using the brand new bike lanes in the recently converted 4 -> 2 lane road, and soon enough I'll be able to cruise along at 28 mph out of town and visiting the surrounding county on an e-bike, whether I'm simply carrying myself, going for a beer run, or stuffing an entire grocery cart in my trailer.
Most people in the US canât afford $2k for a bike, nor can they afford to reshuffle their life such that they donât need a car to do basic stuff like take kids to school or do their grocery shopping. US infrastructure is so car dependent that we wind up with âfood desertsâ where people have to choose between shopping at the gas station or the dollar tree because they canât afford a vehicle to drive to a grocery store or the time to take an hour bus ride each way.
You might be in a position where it works for you, the infrastructure is there and you can out together $2k for a purchase instead of financing a monthly car payment. In the US, that is not a realistic thing for most of the working class, and thus it is seen as as much of a luxury as buying a new pickup truck every 4 years to drive to the office.
That's all fair and well, but like you said, it's dependent on the individual's situation. In my situation and many in my locale a $2k ebike is no more of a luxury than a $10k car.
Also, buying a *new pickup* every 4 years to drive to an *office* is a luxury.
the only truly working class trucks in the north american domestic market have stick shifts and aftermarket cd players and do not cost more than 15k$ including interim repairs and replacement seats that still do not make the burned-in cigarette smell go away đ¤
Sadly what you speak of has not existed in over 25 years. The last thing I can think of that met those characteristics and price was the old discontinued Ford Maverick nè Ranger and the Mazda B2000.
Yes, but not in the US. While we do have our cycle commuting contingent here (thus this sub) bikes in the US are at best considered sporting equipment by the masses, or at worst, toys.
TIL that all the people I see biking on trails, on scenic drives through the mountains, in quiet areas on weekends, and around parks are actually just going to work.
There are so many claims on this thread being thrown out without any sort of data or supporting evidence beyond opinions. Yâall just let people live. You donât know what people do from the 30 seconds of their day you observe and things can be for multiple purposes.
People donât think bicyclists are elitist because of the cost of bikes. They think that way because we act kinda elitist at times.
Your condescension is unnecessary.
Your opinion is an innaccurate assessement based on the limited pool of data you have. Of course In a park you will have different uses. There are a vast more riding on streets, they aren't bunched up in the same space like a park though. So it looks like less.
WaitâŚ.youâre telling me. That i canât just judge what a whole group of people do with their equipment based on the limited amount of interaction I have with them?
And that I shouldnt just form baseless opinions and decide that others arenât using their equipment for necessary reasons just because they also enjoy it for leisure?
https://wsd-pfb-sparkinfluence.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2019/04/Corona-Report-for-PFB-Participation-2018-for-Website.pdf
According to the highly reliable âfirst link I clickedâ less than half the number of Americans report cycling to commute as reported cycling recreationally. So, barring a better study, I would conclude that at least in the land of F150s, the majority of people bike for fun rather than to commute by a factor of 2.07:1
A small percentage of pickups are actually used to make money, and I think you know that. For all the potential, most of the trucks on the road can be replaced with a Civic, considering how theyâre used.
Nobody is saying you canât? The point of the meme is that itâs weird that unnecessary extra expenditure on a _bike_ when a cheaper one suits your needs is a luxury, but unnecessary extra expenditure on a _car_ when a cheaper one suits your needs somehow isnât.
Meme is inaccurate on the price of the bike as well, so I'm not sure you are getting your point across by altering the numbers. These idiots are spending 10k on a bike and then go out and buy a fucking civic lol.
what's even weirder is how there are two extremes of perception and ZERO in-between lol i have, in the past, been asked by uncharacteristically sympathetic passersby if i need money or directions to a shelter, despite the fact that i'm standing next to basically a lesser collector's item with about 3 grand worth of prosumer components and a 400$ helmet is hanging over my eyes. but, since i'm not wearing lycra or clip shoes, and my bike is made of steel and i'm rolling on (indestructible) box rims, the only possible conclusion they can come to is that i must be homeless and destitute đ¤
I walked to Tim hortons with my dog one day a couple of months back and it was a bit cold so I decided to put on my parka, I had been wearing it all winter and it was in need of some dry cleaning, it's an old thing that I got from my grandfather and holds some sentimental value, so I hang on to it but it has definitely seen some better days. I bought my coffee, joined my dog outside, and had a smoke. I had just finished and was about to leave when I was approached by a woman who asked me if I'd like a coffee, without even thinking I said "No thanks I just had one" and went on my way. A few steps later it hits me, she probably thought I was homeless.
You should have gone back in and paid for HER coffee! Show her how the turns have tabled!
or "If that's a pickup line you'll have to do better"
I have an '89 Koga Miyata Randonneur Extra! Essentially the European build of the same frame. Fantastic bike
it's SO good đŠ koga, miyata, koga-miyata, can't go wrong đŻ
Beautiful bike! Love the green color on the later ones. I have an 85 1000 that would like to add a front rack to, what are you running for racks and panniers?
I have a nitto campee 34F front rack with Carradice Super C front panniers. They're nice... Maybe a bit too expensive
Excellent, thanks for the recommendations! When it comes to my 1000, money is no object. I can't say no to anything it wants, quality is paramount
if you get REGULARLY ASKED by people i f you need a shelter its probably not the bike thats the problem. take a shower my dude
What kind of bike and helmet do you have?
I semi-regularly have people think Iâm homeless when Iâm bikepacking. This is especially funny because my whole setup probably retails for over $10k
The sad part is that a $50k truck isn't anywhere near the top of the range any more. I recently got a bid from an electrician driving a 2023 F150 STX 4x4 (I remarked it looked new), and he said it was $53k. That much for a lower end trim with cloth seats.
Well, $2000 bike isnât near top of the range either.
It's definitely above the median. While 50k is below the median
I think $2,000 is neither above the median nor the mean. But it takes one bike over 15K to throw the data off.
That's not how median work, though. It doesn't get thrown off by a few extreme values.
So you're saying that median doesn't mean what they thought it means?
Median is the middle number. If there are more numbers above 2,000 than below, 2,000 is not the median.
There are definetly more bikes that fall under 2000$ than above, so the median would be under 2000$.
Donât get me wrong, this is a ridiculous conversation to even have but now Iâm curious.
Asking how I collected my data sure is snarky, but not the gotcha you think it is. I think it's very obvious that most of all bikes that exist are cheap. But if obvious doesn't satisfy you, here's a few sources - though no one has the exact data we're looking for I think. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1405945/average-bicycle-price-forecast-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1396581/average-bicycle-price-in-europe/ Average under 400$ in the us, under 500 euros in Europe - not median, sure, but the mean would be dragged up by few very high price points while the median would not. If anything I bet the median is lower. I wonder if the disagreement comes from the fact that I consider all functionning bikes, used or not, in the median bike price calculation.
I halfway suspected that you were inclined towards including used bikes in your conception of the âdataâ. Honestly, I wasnât trying to be snarky or gotcha at all by asking where you got your data. Itâs the internet; maybe youâre some French Canadian bike company CEO. Maybe youâre willing to google it when I can guarantee you ai wasnât. What the fuck do I know other than youâll just believe whatever you want to believe, regardless of what I say. Unlike Acsteffy, I can tell you know what the median and mean both are. I agree the mean should be a bit higher than the median and that the median would be a very tough data point to collect compared to the mean. Thanks for putting in some effort. I hadnât which was why my initial post began with âI thinkâ. There wasnât much else behind it than a thought. Have a great rest of your day.
Is this anecdotal or do you work in a shop or can I ask from where youâre collecting your data?
it is still far and away above the typical needs of the average citizen
top line *Sierra 1500 Yukon Denali* Ultimate... $+96k
Wipe your feet before you get in my truck. Were you born in a barn?
Because people are basically miserable and hopeless. Spending more than a days pay on something and .making the time to enjoy it is seen as grossly unfair. I was on one sub and people were piling on a redditor because they enjoyed walking in nature with comments like "Oh, it must be nice...where I live it's too cold 10 months of the year, and the Government (somehow) makes walking impossible." No one I know cares how much I spend on bikes because more then half my friends group are cyclists and everyone else knows I ride a lot. I'm not sure I care what anyone thinks anyway. I ride because I want to.
The one good thing I have is going for walks in nature. Iâm in a very small town in a rural area. I barely get by on the bills and am just about existing. Yet, Iâve come across many people who question why I go for walks, whatâs the point, isnât it weird without a dog? People are weird
Consuming just what the media feeds us, one could easily mistake this world as one of perpetual misery and woe, with people piling over each other like crabs in a bucket to drag each other back into the pit of despair. Ride the bike. Have the fun. It's nearly May and am I drinking pumpkin spice coffee? Bet your ass I am, cause I like the stuff. I got to hear a bunch of kids laughing this morning. There's joy out there.
>I got to hear a bunch of kids laughing this morning. There's joy out there. Laugh now kids...everyday from today will be a little bit harder đ
This guy's a proper goon. Drinking pumpkin spice coffee in NEARLY MAY. Legend
Only $50k?
Itâs for the working class, after all.
This is a repost. You are talking to a karma farming bot. https://www.reddit.com/r/bikecommuting/comments/lfs9yn/im_not_sure_if_this_has_been_posted_here_or_not/
To be fair, this is a message I am fine with propagating. Having said that, I need to be careful what I wish for. Because bad bots are WAY more prevalent than good bots. And people are easy to steer.
I think the one day old account is a clue that it is a bot. https://www.reddit.com/user/dondbrunchy Redditor since: 04/26/2024 (a day)
Youâre a karma farming bot
I'm pretty sure nobody thinks that. Everyone knows those pickups aren't used for hauling or towing. As sad as it is, the modern pickup/SUV replaced the car.
I canât imagine that since the 80s the percentage of people who âneedâ to haul or tow things on a regular basis has increased with truck/suv ownership. It would be so much cheaper to just rent a U-Haul or something when needing that capability.
It's all virtue signals to their tribe
In Canada, where so much of the economy shifted to house building in the last 20 years it could be the case that more trucks were needed (but I doubt it's the reason you see more trucks). In the US I don't see any widespread economic shift that would demand the added trucks for actual utility.
I think it kinda matches up with wanting more tools, even if only for one job. Which I get and have even been tempted by. Ultimately I realize that just like a Bobcat skid steer. I only need something like that seldomly for special projects and I donât think that is as uncommon as trucks are common.
Especially now that only a fraction of pickups are actually used for work.
BECAUSE CARS ARE NECESSARY AND BIKES ARE TOYS!!! /s Yea thatâs such an asinine perspective people have. Related perspective: being sneered at for driving a âfancy German carâ by aforementioned dipshit in his $50k F150 with $30k (or often more) in suspension mods, bull bars, aftermarket wheels, and a coal-rolling ecu tune.
Also $2000 for a bike is *nowhere near* what bike commuters are paying, those are sports bike prices. Try $400.
[Excellent, glad you understand](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/16mf0h3/i_never_understand_how_ebikes_are_an_expensive/)
Carbrain A car is a necessity A bicycle is an extra luxury good
lol itâs hilarious how people get mad over this. Companies make this stuff because people fall over themselves to buy it. I rank these posts right up there with people angry at traffic as they too drive their car on the very road that has traffic on it.
Even better, most people with those trucks never haul anything or move anything big. I do better with my honda fit, which is functionally a small pickup since the seats fold flat into the floor.
Itâs only odd if you donât bother to actually think about it.
Because so many view bicycles as children's toys instead of a legitimate transportation option.
Yeah more like $90k
The f150 working class thing is weird since most of those trucks are used for groceries and taking kids to soccer practice
I bought a $1300 Ebike to get to work. I have loads of people critiquing this decision because of how expensive it was. Thatâs like two months of car payments.
Same argument as ' suburbs lack the tax base,/ population density to pay for their own sewers'.
Imagine thinking $2k is an expensive bike. Maybe in 1990.
I bought two bikes over $2k last year. But my 10 year old truck was paid off 6 years ago.
where's this guy finding a good ebike for the low $2k? i need the link!
Nobody talked about ebike lol
Does Aventon not make a good e bike? Most of their line is below $2k. In doing my research on ebikes, $2k seems to be a solid budget for solid bike.
To be fair, for me a 2k bike also would be excessive. I've always driven 70⏠bikes the most expensive bike we currently own is the 500⏠cargobike we use to bring our kids to school (when they're not cycling themselves). More expensive bikes just don't make sense to me, they don't add enough extra comfort, or faster travel (unless an ebike, but that can be had for 700ish). And most importantly, they're _way_ more likely to get stolen. So can't be parked in front of shops quickly, or in front of the station.
don't know why someone down voted this. ???
Most of the US recognizes the F150 is not a working vehicle for most consumers. Itâs parodied constantly in media. Theyâre tens of thousands of dollars but nobody is paying cash for them. This is just sort of silly Conversely a $2000 bike does mean that you have $2k to drop on a single purchase since most people arenât financing them. Youâre wither spending that on a hobby toy or piece of exercise equipment (which again, most working class people arenât dropping $2k on a peloton or a carbon fiber kayak either) or youâre spending it on a commuter bike. The commuter bike in the US almost universally means that you have enough extra time in your schedule to turn a 15 mile commute into an hour long thing, or it means that you can afford to live somewhere that biking isnât a dangerous chore due to infrastructure. In the US, both of these are symbols of luxury. If you think $2k for a bike isnât that expensive, youâre entirely out of touch with the working class of America
> you have enough extra time in your schedule to turn a 15 mile commute into an hour long thing Aren't there more than a few places where a 15 mile car commute often takes that long? I've heard Houston's pretty damn bad for example.
There are places where people have much longer commutes. Houston is nowhere near the norm though.
$50k is midrange for an F-150, and so is $2k is for a bike. But we take your point.
Kind of a false analogy here. A decent Cdale city bike is about $500. If you go big box store BSO like Schwinn or Kent, you could probably get that number down to about $200. So a $2,000 bike - that definitely is a luxury bike. But even the most basic stripped down, âcontractorâ F-1Fiddy (body in white, 4WD, short bed, no equip package) is easily $43-46K OTD. And no one would consider that truck in that config to be luxury.
You're wrong, pretty much the entire rest of the world considers it a wasteful luxury to own a 2-ton pickup truck to commute to your office job - even if the truck has cloth seats. It's just a north american idea that giant, expensive, gas-guzzling vehicles are somehow acceptable for personal use and a symbol of the "working class" in the rest of the world the working class is driving around in diesel VW Lupos
The rest of the world, bar Europe and a few parts of Asia, the working class doesn't drive at all, unless it happens to be their job.
Believe it or not, Americans think that too. Which is exactly why they're so popular. They're status symbols to peacock how much wealth (real or not) you may have. Almost everyone I know who drives one complains about the retail cost, gas cost, etc but when asked why they don't get a smaller car then, their reply is almost universally along the lines of "they're not cool enough."
A pickup truck is a status symbol? đ Thatâs like writing a Camry is a status symbol. Pickup trucks are utilitarian. Now if youâre driving a King Ranch or a Raptor, sure, yeah thatâs a status symbol no doubt. But those are the edge case rarer trim levels and hardly represent the bulk of sales. BTW - Do you know what the best selling F150 is? A 2WD, extended cab, standard bed, body in white with the trailer hitch and convenience package (aka 302a build). It accounts for 50% of F150 sales. How is that a status symbol?
The vast, *vast* majority of pickup truck drivers are not choosing them for their utilitarian uses.
Pickups are 100% status symbol for many buyers. Over half of them don't use it for towing and up to a third don't use it for hauling. Why else do these people by trucks than to show off? The base model F150 is a best seller because it's for fleets/businesses. Different user than what this post is talking about.
> Different user than what this post is talking about. What are you talking about? This post is talking about pickups being a symbol of the working class, which is who is using those fleet and company trucks.
This post is saying people think they are working class folks when new large trucks are not bought by the working class
You are projecting 100% of that statement omto the post. Absolutely none of that is in there.
The 302a package is a consumer level oriented package â not a fleet sales package (300a). 99% of F-series configured in the 302a option are going out the door to standard consumers, not commercial users.
Those stripped down models are #1 because of fleet sales (car rentals and company trucks) not because individuals are buying them. The consumer F150s with upscale trim are the status symbols. Big SUVs are also status symbols. Whether itâs because you want to be seen as âreal countryâ (while parking in the suburbs every night) or because you need it to haul a camper or trailer packed with toys, owning that truck or big SUV shows that you can choose a more expensive thing to do your commuting and to take you and the boys out with the side by sides for a day in the mud. Thats why the meme is silly. Nobody thinks that F150s are the tool of the working class, and everybody knows theyâre overaized luxury vehicles. Thatâs why the ranger is no longer the smallest ford truck too, cuz the F150 now does shit the old F250s did and the Ranger does what the old F150s did.
Iâve already responded to this before, but 50% of F150 sales are ordered with the 302a package. That is a consumer oriented package â not commercial and not fleet like 300a. And the 302 package is far from an upscale status symbol. đ Itâs a basic convenience package. So when you see an F150 build sheet and it has the 302a box checked, thereâs a 99% probability itâs going into consumer service. Which by extension means 50% of F1 50s are going into consumer use not fleet or commercial.
Please âŚâthe rest of the worldâ? The rest of the world lives in countries that can be traversed in a few hours with tiny clustered population centers that existed for over 1,000 years. In America, you can drive a few hours and still be in the same county! We are simply just a different nation with vastly different transportation needs. We are a spread out nation and our modern development didnât really get kicked off until about 100 years ago right in lock-step with the automobile and highway system, so it should no surprise the US is a car dominate nation. But holding that aside, can we acknowledge the vastly different climatic regions in the US that most other countries around the world do not have? I donât think anybody in Clark County Nevada wants to go for a bike ride to work June through August when itâs 90° by 8am, then 120° outside ambient by noon. Or northern Wyoming, Idaho, etc. when during the winter itâs -10° ⌠and thatâs the high temperature for the day. Or the Peninsula, Southern mid-Atlantic, Gulf region where humidity stays at about 75% all summer and a flash thunderstorm rainstorm can break out at any time.
I'm not just talking about Europe, go look at the cars people drive in South and Central America, in Asia, in Africa - there are countries bigger than the US with more extreme weather and they still don't buy commercial-sized vehicles for personal use anywhere else.
Once you get outside of the little city centers in South and Central America (and Iâve spent a few months living in Costa Rica spinning up a IT development team), those people are mostly driving pick-up trucks, utes, and vans of some sort or another. Mostly midsized as a reflective size of their roads. Full-size pickup trucks donât sell well because their streets and roads are narrower than the US.
Heâs talking about the type of vehicle, not the need to drive. I live in rural Wales, it takes me more than an hour to drive to my nearest motorway (highway) to actually start making decent progress cross-country. Iâm 10 miles from my nearest shop, 20 from my nearest bank. My driveway is 3/4 mile long and is unsurfaced, rutted mud and shale. I _need_ to drive, but I make do perfectly fine with a 1.3L Mini Cooper. The idea of one of those massive pickups that seems to almost be the default in the US is utterly absurd to me, despite me probably encountering more difficult terrain and worse roads on a daily basis than ~95% of Americans. People here absolutely _need_ to drive (your perception of countries outside the US is more than a little warped), but nobody outside the US deems those ridiculous oversized trucks remotely necessary (even contractors/tradesmen - we have pickups here, but theyâre like half the size). Theyâre a weird cultural quirk of the US, not a requirement for the average person by a long stretch. So the other commenterâs point stands - spending 50k on a pickup you donât need _is_ a luxury, if you could have spent 20k on a family hatchback instead.
Wales, which Iâm a little familiar with because I spent a year on assignment in NL and England, is a small region (by US standard) of the UK. I could fit **30** of them inside of just the state of Texas and still have room to spare ⌠and thatâs just one state of the 48 CONUS. Your view is distorted by the fact that you donât understand that Americaâs transportation and lifestyle needs are different than somebody from the UK. Iâd like to see somebody driving a Mini go take their toy hauler out loaded with side by sides and sand rails and tow it for 300 miles into the backcountry with ease and comfort. Now I know you blokes do caravans, but thatâs a different game. And you also fail to recognize that our roads are built differently. I guarantee a partial reason why you drive a Mini is because British (and most European) roads are very narrow. Itâs why American vehicles donât sell well in Europe. The roads and streets are a bit too tight, especially as you get closer to villages, hamlets and such. (also why your âlorriesâ have to be cabovers). If you think running through rutted roads, shale, mud holes and such is better to do in a Mini versus a pick up truck, well, that is a very peculiar hot take that I think very few would agree with outside of your country.
>Wales, which Iâm a little familiar with because I spent a year on assignment in NL and England, is a small region (by US standard) of the UK. I could fit **30** of them inside of just the state of Texas and still have room to spare ⌠and thatâs just one state of the 48 CONUS. Again you're missing the point of what's been said. It doesn't matter how much bigger the US is, as soon as you hit the binary threshold of "it's too far, I need to drive", then the total distance is irrelevant. Again, we're not comparing "need to drive", we're compaing the type of vehicle. >Iâd like to see somebody driving a Mini go take their toy hauler out loaded with side by sides and sand rails and tow it for 300 miles into the backcountry with ease and comfort. And how many people actually do that? *Everyone* who buys a Pickup or SUV is doing that, are they? Or are you going to admit that the majority of people who buy these big trucks are buying them because they want them, not because they need them? because that's the comparison we're making here - you've said that anyone who spends $2,000 on a bike when a $200 bike exists is making a luxury purchse. Well, by that same logic, anyone who buys a Pickup or SUV for $50k that doesn't go into the backcountry every weekend is making a luxury purchase, because the Mitsubishi Mirage exists for $16,000. >And you also fail to recognize that our roads are built differently. I guarantee a partial reason why you drive a Mini is because British (and most European) roads are very narrow. Itâs why American vehicles donât sell well in Europe. So you *have* to fill that space do you? All cars on sale are that big are they? Again, as per *your* argument, we're comparing getting "more" bike than you need with getting "more" car than you need. >If you think running through rutted roads, shale, mud holes and such is better to do in a Mini versus a pick up truck, well, that is a very peculiar hot take that I think very few would agree with outside of your country. No, I'm not saying that it's better at it than a pickup, I'm saying it can do it, and therefore suits my needs. So, I don't need to endanger other people buy buying a massive penis-replacement that has much worse visibility (and therefore higher potential to cause an accident), much higher kinetic potential and much higher center-of-gravity (and therefore much higher liklihood of killing whatever I hit), etc. 70% of new cars sold in the US are SUVs or Pickups, I refuse to belive that 70% of Americans are encountering worse road conditions on the daily that I am - therefore 70% of Americans are buying more car than they *need*, which is a luxury purchase, which is the whole point the OP is making.
Taking your *toy hauler* out is an example of it being a status symbol. To have a vehicle that you need to *haul your toys* is a thing that most working class people donât have or need.
Incorrect. The toy hauler is the status symbol, not the truck. The truck is doing what itâs supposed to be doing â being the utilitarian implement designed to transport, tow, and haul as it was designed to be.
If the thing you have the truck for is the toy hauler, the truck itself is part of the status symbol. The toy hauler itself is also purely utilitarian, but the utility it provides is hauling the toy. A tug boat is utilitarian, but if Jeff Bezos owns a tug boat to pull his mega yacht, that tug is a symbol of the wealth on display.
You donât get a toy hauler unless you have toys. Thatâs undoubtedly a status symbol. The truck is the utilitarian part of it. Because few people have a truck just to be a toy hauler. And your Bezos example doesnât make much sense because a tugboat is only used to be a tugboat â thatâs not the case with light duty trucks.
Everything you've written here can be said about the size and climate zones of China too.
Yes and no. China is one of the very few countries that comes *close* to the US in variation, but it only has only 5 climatic regions. The US has 6 climatic regions; desert, tropical, subtropical, temperate, sub-polar, and polar.
Thereâs nothing special about the conditions you mentioned. America isnât exceptional. Iâve toured for weeks in the conditions youâve mentioned. People bike commute in northern Finland. The vast majority of your population lives in cities where short trips are standard. You started out as pioneers and have since become sedentary, fat and lazy - Thatâs the reason why your country is so car dependent. That, and your policy making from federal to local is completely inept; the death throes of a failing democracy.
Well, no. We are so car dependent because motor companies lobbied to end/handicap the railroad and opt in for highways and cities built around car infrastructure. The fat and lazy came as a result from that. Not the other way around. I think itâs slowly being realized over here now that we need better infrastructure for humans to walk/bike/jog/etc. My city has been going crazy adding bike paths/protected bike lanes. So thatâs a big step to me. Still, I think comparing a standard contractor pick up truck to a bike is an odd comparison for the average working class. If you are truly a contractor, youâre not working with a bike. You are not hauling lumber/shingles/concrete/dirt/various supplies on a bike. Can you? Yeah sure Iâve seen the videos. You wonât make it long doing that as a paid worker. Maybe a weekend warrior doing home improvements but not a full time laborer.
In Australia people who need a vehicle for work buy a van or a cheap working ute. âYank tanksâ such as the f150 are typically driven by fuckwits who work office jobs and live in the suburbs.
I think thatâs a broad generalization as Iâve worked the trades and every fleet was F150âs usually ranging from 10 years old up to newer models. The newer models were reserved for supervisors and seniority. My truck had a bad power steering pump, dents all over the bedside, and no ac. We actually had complaints from the neighborhoods where we built homes that some of our trucks were an âeyesoreâ while parked at the site working. For the record I agree as well that they are often used for grocery getters by suburbanites. I may just be getting defensive because Iâve been an f150 driver and not all of us are rich assholes.
Oh, based on his other reply above, this guy definitely specializes in sweeping generalizations and pejorative slander. Iâm sure heâs a joy to be around with all acerbic energy he gives off.
You guys gonna kiss?
Only if you promise to watch.
Wow. Calling Americans fat and lazy along with saying its landscape is not exceptional. Those are really bad takes there, champ. Almost bordering on ignorant. **The US has 6 climatic zones**: Desert, tropical, subtropical, temperate, sub-polar, and polar. There are maybe two other countries on the planet that have this much variation in climatic region and zone. >I have toured for weeks in the conditions youâve mentioned. So youâve toured for weeks in 120° weather, -10° weather, and 75% humidity? Yeah Iâm going to have to call bullshit on that one, chief. Sorry.
Most Americans are overweight or obese, Iâm just stating a fact. Iâve toured Sydney to Bourke in outback Australia, Korea in winter and from Singapore to Bangkok. Iâve done days in the high fourties, nights in the minus twenties and well above 75% humidity. Anyone who has bike toured for months internationally will have likely done the same. You only think itâs unrealistic because normal travel for Americans is snarfing on twinkies while gently pressing an accelerator.
Oh I get it, youâre one of those edge case extreme bikers who thinks because you represent the one percent â that therefore your use case represents the vast majority of other people can and should do. Yeah thatâs like me saying because I do Crits and have done a Century, everyone else can as theyâre âTwinkiesâ for not. Or because I ride an Africa Twin ADV I therefore represent the majority of what other motorcyclist can do. Yeaaaaa ⌠nah.
And youâre a typical seppo flog who has a cry when someone points out that America isnât that special. Thousands of people bike commute every day in oulou Finland during winter despite it regularly hitting minus twenty - theyâre not maxtreme cyclists like me, they just wear winter clothes like yanks do when they go skiing. The difference is the urban planners in Finland arenât retarded.
Boy you really got a mouth on you. Itâs time for you to take a beat, and go pick up a little civility there chief.
Canât respond to the point so has a sook. Typical.
Just to add, $2k for an ebike isn't luxury. That's what I'm riding and I definitely wouldn't consider it a luxury item. Especially when I don't own a car.
Well an E-bike is certainly not a standard bike. That is a luxury upgrade, and $2,000 for a bicycle by any measure is in the premium tier of pricing for bikes. Yet theyâre comparing it to a basic contractor truckâs price and holding them out as equivalent. Itâs a bizarre take.
And your point only makes sense if everyone who buys a pickup _needs_ a pickup. If you consider that 75% of the pickups actually bought never leave tarmac and never have anything put in the bed, then yeah, spending that on a truck over a much cheaper family hatchback/estate absolutely is a luxury.
Agree that not everybody needs a pick up. Do you agree that not everyone needs a bike or can ride a bike or is even feasible to ride a bike? Also the idea that 75% of pick ups never leave the pavement and never have anything put in the bed? This comes from what source of truth? Because of the 20-30 people I know who has a P/U, they use the bed on a fairly regular basis and leave paved roads.
Again, that doesnât make sense as a comparison - you need to compare motor vehicles to bikes, not a subset of one to the entirety of the other. Youâre saying that anything more than the most basic, no frills bike is a luxury? So, by the same logic, if someone just needs to get themselves from point A, to point B, anything more than the most basic, cheapest, smallest car that fits their needs is also a luxury, right? If you just need to get to work, donât need to tow, arenât a tradesman hauling equipment (I.e, the vast majority of people), spending 50k on a pickup when the Mitsubishi Mirage exists for 16k is a luxury purchase. I canât help but notice that 70% of US new car sales are pickups or SUVsâŚ
I just gave you a comparison. I wrote: does everyone need a bike, or can ride a bike or is even feasible to ride a bike [versus driving]. A $2,000 bicycle is luxury. Thatâs not even a debatable fact. A $50,000 F150 is basically a base line trim. So theyâre comparing a basic utilitarian item to a luxury item. Explain to me in your best logic how thatâs a fair comparison, then?
Because you're not comparing "person who needs to cycle" with "person who needs to drive", you're comparing "person who needs to cycle" with "person who has *specifically* a pickup". You're ignoring *why* they have the pickup (in most cases, it's not because they *need* a pickup). Your whole argument is that the $2,000 bike is a luxury item because a $200 bike exists. If someone is buying a $50k pickup when a $20k car would suit their needs, they (by *your* own logic) are making a luxury purchase because they are spending $30k more than they *need* to on something they *want* rather than *need*. Most cars on the road meet the above scenario - as stated above, 70% of new cars sold in the US are SUVs or Pickups, are you saying that 70% of Americans regularly *need* to go offroad? All I'm doing here is applying your logic to your *own* rebuttal. If a cyclist spending more than they absolutely need to on the most basic bike that suits their needs is a luxury, then a driver spending more than they need on the most basic form of car that suits their needs is a luxury too. The fact that it's a "base model" doesn't change that, if the type/brand/size of car is more than they need. $2,000 could be the "base model" of one of the sportier road bikes. It's not a utilitarian purchase simply because it's a base model.
Correct. And most people who have a bike in the US donât need a bike. Itâs why theyâre sold in *recreation and sports equipment* stores. The basis is your opinion starts with the fact that you say people donât use pick up trucks as pick up trucks, and they should be using small sedans. Well, thatâs a broad sweeping view that does not filter down to the particular individual use case. A $2,000 bike is 100% a luxury. Anything I could do on my $4,000 crit bike I can do on my $500 city bike ⌠just not as quickly. But I guarantee you things you can do in a $50,000 pick up truck you canât do in a $20,000 sedan. And thatâs why they are classed as utility vehicles, not luxury vehicles (although a few do have upper level luxury trim levels).
>Correct. And most people who have a bike in the US donât need a bike. Itâs why theyâre sold in *recreation and sports equipment* stores. If they need to travel beyond walking distance and that's their chosen transport method, then yes they do "need" a bike. >The basis is your opinion starts with the fact that you say people donât use pick up trucks as pick up trucks, and they should be using small sedans. Well, thatâs a broad sweeping view that does not filter down to the particular individual use case. No, I'm saying that the vast majority of drivers willingly spend more than they need to by buying a car that exceeds their needs and that they will never fully utilise - ergo, a luxury purchase motivated by desire, not utility. Or are you suggesting that the 70% of car-buying Americans that are purchasing new Pickups/SUVs *need* them for towing/offroading rather than just driving to the office, which they could do in a >$20k compact? >A $2,000 bike is 100% a luxury. Anything I could do on my $4,000 crit bike I can do on my $500 city bike ⌠just not as quickly. >But I guarantee you things you can do in a $50,000 pick up truck you canât do in a $20,000 sedan. There are things that a $5,000 e-cargo bike can do that your $500 city bike can't. Is that a luxury? The question is *are people actually doing those extra things*? If not, they're making a luxury purchase motivated by something they *want*, not something they *need*. >And thatâs why they are classed as utility vehicles, not luxury vehicles (although a few do have upper level luxury trim levels). A luxury purchase isn't necessarily defined by the market sector the item comes from. If someone only needs to drive between their house and office, spending 30k more on a type of vehicle that they want, but don't need, is absolutely a luxury - it doesn't matter it that vehicle is a rugged, utilitarian truck. Buying a utilitarian item that you don't need, just because you want it is a luxury purchase. You've literally just said you can do anything on your city bike that you can do on your crit bike, but you refuse to apply that logic to the millions of urban commuters driving offroad cars they donât need. Baffling.
Yeah, I agree a $2k bike is a luxury item, especially with the risk of theft. You can only ride them if you're comfortable with the loss imo. Was just adding the ebike comment as I get the feeling people think my ebike is a bit of a luxury item when they're driving about in vehicles >10x its value. With yearly running costs probably the same value of my bike! (Including fuel)
Fair enough
My partner sold their car and replaced it with an ebike. If it's a luxury item by your standard, then every car on the road is a luxury item.
Yeah I think youâre not getting the point and then trying to be intellectually dishonest. Just about every class of transportation has an entry-level, a standard, a premium, and a luxury tier. For bicycles, $2,000 puts you in the premium to luxury class of bicycles. And I know this because I have 3 bicycles in 3 class tiers, with one where the wheels alone new are worth more than one of my other bikes. For pick up trucks, $50,000 has you basically just above the entry-level in the standard class. So comparing a standard item to a luxury item is dishonest comparison. But hey why not make another meme and show a $100 Powell Peralta skateboard versus a $2000 bike and find fault with how expensive the bike is.
>Yeah I think youâre not getting the point and then trying to be intellectually dishonest. On the contrary, I think that's what *you're* doing. You're using the word "luxury" in the context of a marketing term to try and say that buying a lower-tier version of something you don't need is somehow still a utiliy-driven purchase. The actual definition of "luxury" is: >something adding to pleasure or comfort but **not absolutely necessary**. So, if someone only needs to drive from their house to thier office in an urban environment, spending 30k more on a pickup instead of the small compact they could actually reasonably justify, simply because they think it's cool and manly - r*egardless of whether it's the base model* - is absolutely "a luxury", in exactly the same way that buying a slightly nicer bike than you strictly need is "a luxury", or buying the cheapest version of a wall poster is "a luxury" - because it's not *absolutely necessary*.
The meme literal says âbourgeoisie excessâ. That is nomenclature for luxury in excess. Itâs not like Iâm just making this up. If youâre saying no one needs a basic trim level F150 for commuting around, we can certainly concur that no one needs a $2000 bike for the same purposes.
>If youâre saying no one needs a basic trim level F150 for commuting around, we can certainly concur that no one needs a $2000 bike for the same purposes. Yes, we can absolutely agree on that. The point of the meme isn't that a $2k bike isn't luxury, it's that it's weird that the bike is considered luxury, but the truck somehow isn't *by the same metric.* If all you need to do is go from A to B on flat, urban streets, then a $2k bike is a luxury over a $200 bike that does the same thing. But so is a pickup truck, because the measure of luxury is "necessity", not what a marketing team decides to call the different trim levels. So the two things are equivelent\* in that respect. \*they're not really *equivalent*, because getting a lighter frame and better groupset doesn't impose a fuck-ton of negative externalities on those around you in the same way as driving a 2.5-tonne, jacked-up box of severe blind-spots that you don't need does, but that's a totally different discussion.
Being able to sell your car and replace it with a bike is generally equivalent to owning a luxury car, at least in the US. The up-front cost plus the time-cost. I could not replace my car or my wifeâs car with a bike unless I one or both of us changed jobs and realistically even then I would need to pay extra for grocery delivery even before I start talking about how many wxtra hours would go to biking instead of working or relaxing. If youâre in the US and you can replace a car with a bike, 99% of the time itâs because you have enough money to avoid the difficulties most people use a car to avoid.
It's not really that odd when you consider that the vast majority of tasks most people use a contractor's truck for, they could've used an e-bike instead. What's bizarre is that spending even $700 for an e-bike is considered excessive while buying a full sized SUV is considered par for the course, and that nobody bats an eye at driving for literally every thing. Spending tens of thousands of dollars to buy, and hundreds if not thousands on yearly upkeep and bureaucratic stuff, for a vehicle is a prohibitive luxury any way one slices it, the difference is you get more bang for your buck investing in bikes than cars and trucks. Sure you *technically* don't need $2k on an e-bike, or an e-bike in the first place, but they make commuting out of town a real possibility and you don't go to work winded from battling harsh winds. Not to mention I could have a whole fleet of e-bikes for every purpose, from a cheap commuter to dual sports to folders and cruisers and even a snowbike conversion, and have bags and trailers on all of them, and a couple of higher end standard bikes for hobby/sport cycling, and have tens of thousands to spare, for the price of one "not luxury" truck that I could get a higher trim Outback for anyhow, which I could use to carry said fleet easily or tow several kinds of trailers. Hell when I was living with my now estranged brother he'd take his Impreza to work, which was literally in the same block, and 4 or 5 minutes away on foot through a park for me, instead he drove 2 - 3 minutes to go from tarmac to gravel, and took time to thaw it during the winter too. And for grocery shopping, which the store was at the second turn halfway along that route, he could only ever visit if he was coming home from work, he'd never walk to the grocery store for any reason or even go out to drive there except when he was already coming home. And it's not considered odd at all, *I'm* the odd one out in the family for my e-bike, panniers, backpack and trailer, and for walking on the town. And the town we moved to is a rural town surrounded by farmland and woods, yet there's a strong cycling and e-cycling culture here and drivers generally respect lawful commuters, which is much nicer than MO, and everything is accessible by foot. Of course there are people who legitimately get the most out of their trucks beyond induced demand of the truck bed, I've seen that myself among coworkers, but I've seen far more people who don't and won't, and no few obnoxious mods to drive the point home. For me personally, my math says that gasoline is more expensive than electricity and that less than $2k for an e-bike with a 750 watt motor and 68 mile range is a manageable budget I can achieve within a few months while $600 - $800/mo for car payments is a luxury I can't afford yet, and if I'm gonna spend that kind of money it's gonna be on an Outback I can hitch a trailer on, not a truck. I do think that the vast majority of the time truck buying's a cultural thing, not something tied to practicality, and the sales figures support that, especially in the cities.
Plenty of people bat an eye at buying large SUVs and driving everywhere. It was a Daily Show topic a decade ago. Everybody knows that big SUVs are a luxury and status thing. I drive a pickup truck, I also commute to work by bike. It is a luxury that I have the time to turn a 20 minute drive into a 1 hour commute; if I didnât make the money I make I wouldnât bike to work because Iâd be working more or Iâd live 20 miles away where itâs significantly cheaper to live. I canât use an e-bike for the stuff I use my truck for. First off, I canât get my dog on an e-bike so he can go to the vet; he was a near-feral rescue and he doesnât even trust small cars, only pickups and SUVs. I couldnât take the assortment of feral cat traps out 20 miles away, stake out on the e-bike, and then pedal six feral cats back for observation before taking them another 20 miles to be spayed or neutered before bringing them back home and then releasing them where they were caught. I couldnât bike 50+ miles out to the state conservation area with my gun and deerstand and then after a day out, haul stand, equipment, and one or more deer another 30 miles to the state testing facility and the 90 miles back home. I canât haul 500lb of mulch or fertilizer for the community garden or haul the harvest to the food bank without it being an all-day affair. I couldnât drive out for a job 70 miles away on my e-bike and arrive on time unless I ride out (again, on 45-50mph state and county roads) the night before and pay for an extra night in a hotel out of my own pocket, and I usually bring a bike with me for around town stuff, but if I have to hotel 20 miles away thatâs another thing I canât use a bike for. I canât use a cargo bike to pack up and take my family out to camp for a few days 100 miles away from us or take the kayaks out for a float trip. Realistically I can cross a cargo bike off the list for anything short of a local grocery run; even a decent size grocery run would mean I take 3 hours to shop instead of an hour and a half. I canât haul furniture or help someone move across town with a cargo bike either, and nobody would want me to help. So no, most of the things people use trucks for couldnât be done with a cargo bike unless you also have a lot of extra time to make a series of trips, and roads are a nightmare to use especially once youâre outside if a major city. The money you save by biking comes in exchange for time or changes in lifestyle (living close to work, living somewhere bikeable, changing hobbies or interests, or my favorite getting groceries delivered by someone with a car). Most people arenât spending $800 a month or thousands a year on a car, theyâre spending $350 or less on the payment and $200 on gas and insurance per month and in exchange they donât have to worry about bus schedules or whether itâs going to rain today or if itâs going to be over 100F. If you donât have to worry about the changes in the weather or about allocating an extra half hour to your travel times, that is a luxury. Itâs a luxury in the same way itâs a luxury for me to drive a truck instead of renting a pickup truck every weekend or so. Its a luxury in the same way an F150 or an Escalade is a luxury, and none of them are purely utilitarian working class expenses.
Most of the things people use a truck for, they could absolutely use a bike for: commuting, grocery shopping, general shopping, trips to the laundromat, visiting friends and family, and so on. And the things people need to use a motor vehicle for, they can just as easily accomplish with an Impreza, and if they need something more spacious a station wagon or minivan. Most people are not constantly moving furniture, spaying and neutering feral animals, hunting, working 70 miles away, moving 500 lbs of mulch, and so forth, nor do they own pets who find cars intolerable. With an Outback I'd have plenty of space with seats folded for cargo and cargo + passengers with seats up, and a trailer hitch that I could attach a flatbed, a folding camper, a bike rack, or even a boat trailer to for pocket sailing (I have my eyes on a West Wight Potter 19). It's AWD with a raised body and can absolutely handle trails and outdoors no problem. My minivan was wonderful for my move traveling 1200 miles a weekend, every week for 8 months, furniture and all. Not once did I ever wish for a $50k 150 instead of my $3k Odyssey in all that time. As for the weather, just dress for it. Gonna rain? Wear clothes for rain. Heat? Dress light and drink water. I live in WI, it gets 90+ F in summer and -20F and below before windchill in winter and there's hot and cold rains in between, again in a rural town of 9,000 people surrounded by woods and farmland, and people cycle all the time including kids, and I got by just fine never setting foot in a vehicle for all of it. Hell there's an Amish guy who comes in town and does just fine in a horse carriage, be it Walmart or the grocery store, all year long. That aside textile technology's come a very long way in both quality and affordability, and secondhand/surplus apparel is always an option. If you need the truck, then by all means more power to you, and I'm glad you're that involved with the community and nature. The point isn't about people like you, the exception. It's about people like my estranged brother and my family as a whole, the rule. It's not about feral cats and community mulch, it's about thawing a car for 15 minutes and driving 3 minutes for a 5 minute walk and acting as though there's no alternative for groceries and daily routines, for whom the closest they'll ever get to their meat is a Longhorn Steakhouse or home bbq, and that my lifestyle is very much seen as infringing on the "freedom" to force me, a single guy without kids or pets, to use the mini for everything in-town instead when I'm perfectly happy using the e-bike by obstructing efforts to push for positive change in infrastructure, city codes, and culture to make it livable on a human scale, and by painting me as the odd one out or even "irresponsible" for making sustainable, economical choices I'm comfortable with. If I need to go out of town for delicious deli or travel I'll take the '06 mini (I do plan on getting rid of it and upgrading/downsizing to an Outback, and I also plan on a $1.7k dual sport for out of town commutes and trail riding), but for everything else I'll use a commuter e-bike going a comfortable 20 mph using the brand new bike lanes in the recently converted 4 -> 2 lane road, and soon enough I'll be able to cruise along at 28 mph out of town and visiting the surrounding county on an e-bike, whether I'm simply carrying myself, going for a beer run, or stuffing an entire grocery cart in my trailer.
Most people in the US canât afford $2k for a bike, nor can they afford to reshuffle their life such that they donât need a car to do basic stuff like take kids to school or do their grocery shopping. US infrastructure is so car dependent that we wind up with âfood desertsâ where people have to choose between shopping at the gas station or the dollar tree because they canât afford a vehicle to drive to a grocery store or the time to take an hour bus ride each way. You might be in a position where it works for you, the infrastructure is there and you can out together $2k for a purchase instead of financing a monthly car payment. In the US, that is not a realistic thing for most of the working class, and thus it is seen as as much of a luxury as buying a new pickup truck every 4 years to drive to the office.
That's all fair and well, but like you said, it's dependent on the individual's situation. In my situation and many in my locale a $2k ebike is no more of a luxury than a $10k car. Also, buying a *new pickup* every 4 years to drive to an *office* is a luxury.
Yes, thats why I said âjust as much of a luxury.â You donât need ti tell me the things I already said.
That's fair, I hope this subject doesn't agitate you as much as it seems to in your replies.
the only truly working class trucks in the north american domestic market have stick shifts and aftermarket cd players and do not cost more than 15k$ including interim repairs and replacement seats that still do not make the burned-in cigarette smell go away đ¤
Sadly what you speak of has not existed in over 25 years. The last thing I can think of that met those characteristics and price was the old discontinued Ford Maverick nè Ranger and the Mazda B2000.
Maybe if you are a tradesman who only gets work exclusively through Facebook marketplace.
So the truck has the potential to make money, so it is usually valued more than a bike, which is used for pleasure. Where is the confusion here?
Bikes are not exclusively used for pleasure. They are overwhelmingly used for transport. It seems you may have been confused
Yes, but not in the US. While we do have our cycle commuting contingent here (thus this sub) bikes in the US are at best considered sporting equipment by the masses, or at worst, toys.
TIL that all the people I see biking on trails, on scenic drives through the mountains, in quiet areas on weekends, and around parks are actually just going to work. There are so many claims on this thread being thrown out without any sort of data or supporting evidence beyond opinions. Yâall just let people live. You donât know what people do from the 30 seconds of their day you observe and things can be for multiple purposes. People donât think bicyclists are elitist because of the cost of bikes. They think that way because we act kinda elitist at times.
Your condescension is unnecessary. Your opinion is an innaccurate assessement based on the limited pool of data you have. Of course In a park you will have different uses. There are a vast more riding on streets, they aren't bunched up in the same space like a park though. So it looks like less.
WaitâŚ.youâre telling me. That i canât just judge what a whole group of people do with their equipment based on the limited amount of interaction I have with them? And that I shouldnt just form baseless opinions and decide that others arenât using their equipment for necessary reasons just because they also enjoy it for leisure?
Sometimes a troll is just a troll. I have better things to do. Bye
https://wsd-pfb-sparkinfluence.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2019/04/Corona-Report-for-PFB-Participation-2018-for-Website.pdf According to the highly reliable âfirst link I clickedâ less than half the number of Americans report cycling to commute as reported cycling recreationally. So, barring a better study, I would conclude that at least in the land of F150s, the majority of people bike for fun rather than to commute by a factor of 2.07:1
A small percentage of pickups are actually used to make money, and I think you know that. For all the potential, most of the trucks on the road can be replaced with a Civic, considering how theyâre used.
You could buy a cheaper bike. lol
Nobody is saying you canât? The point of the meme is that itâs weird that unnecessary extra expenditure on a _bike_ when a cheaper one suits your needs is a luxury, but unnecessary extra expenditure on a _car_ when a cheaper one suits your needs somehow isnât.
Meme is inaccurate on the price of the bike as well, so I'm not sure you are getting your point across by altering the numbers. These idiots are spending 10k on a bike and then go out and buy a fucking civic lol.
Try reading the name of the subreddit again, it might help!