Dropsafe

by Alec Muffett

The Brompton Bicycle makes you a Sweaty Menace?

I always wondered how long it would be before folks started to whine. The obvious question is: why are they complaining about the cyclists when they could be complaining about getting a bigger train. Trains are not a fixed resource. If there is demand, there should also be supply.

It’s funny also how the guy also gets it wrong. Taking his observation to an extreme, people should stop existing because they take up space that other people could be using to exist. Fat and tall people are worse than small, etc.

Sweaty menace?

“Here’s one! Right here,” pipes teacher David Pyle, as he opens the train doors to reveal a folding bike strapped to a handrail on the 0628 BST from Sevenoaks to Charing Cross.

Stepping inside, there are no seats left and he struggles to find a place to stand and hold on.

He complains that bikes, even folding ones, take up too much room. And he doubts their environmental credentials when some riders are dropped off at the station in a 4×4

And there is wrath for the sweatier cyclists.

“Yes, you should try to protect the environment, but you should be sensitive to others,” he says. “If putting your bike on the train obstructs other people’s standing space, it doesn’t fulfil any ecological criteria.”

ps: I tend to use the fold-down seats and park my bike beneath. Zero excess space usage. On tube trains I stand with it between my legs. Same “footprint”.

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Comments

13 responses to “The Brompton Bicycle makes you a Sweaty Menace?”

  1. Melanie Rimmer

    Ah, but trains are a fixed resource. Or at least, track is, and so is the minimum possible spacing between trains on tracks. I’m told that the UK train system is close to capacity, which is why it is much cheaper (a 10th of the cost) to fly between Manchester and London, for example, than to get the train.

    Reply
  2. Philip Antoniades

    But at least when you are at your destination the motorists are happy to share the road, no? 🙂

    I have the same experience on the NY subways. When I lived in Chicago, the rule for the commuter train was that bicycles were only allowed in “non-peak” times, which would seem to discourage cycle commuters completely.

    Reply
  3. alecm

    >Ah, but trains are a fixed resource. Or at least, track is,

    So people should not use them for travel purposes, unless their journey is absolutely necessary?

    As for being close to capacity, that might be belied by the way my local (small) station gets trains every 12 minutes or so during peak times, but relaxes down to every 30 minutes (and slower service) off-peak.

    Then comes the question: what is capacity? And why are some trains 4 carriages long, whilst others are 6, 8, 10 or 12?

    Reply
  4. alecm

    >When I lived in Chicago, the rule for the commuter train was that bicycles were only allowed in “non-peak” times, which would seem to discourage cycle commuters completely.

    Fortunately the British system (law?) provides that any object that is carried in the hand is a parcel, and if it is less than a cubic meter I believe the public transport systems are bound to let you carry it. Hence the foldy-bikes.

    Reply
  5. alecm

    >any object that is carried in the hand is a parcel

    ps: notorious get-out for being drunk-in-charge-of-a-bicycle in Cambridge; hoist it and carry it on the shoulder, at which point you are merely drunk in a public place…

    Reply
  6. Chris Gerhard

    This is just another way of attacking the out group. Now if they made the same point about fat people there would be an out cry but cyclists are fair game.

    It’s just the usual petty complaining you get from people who refuse to accept that cycling is a viable alternative. It then winds them up that some people actually enjoy it.

    Reply
  7. Melanie Rimmer

    >>Ah, but trains are a fixed resource. Or at least, track is,
    >
    >So people should not use them for travel purposes, unless their journey is absolutely necessary?

    I didn’t say that, and I don’t see how it logically follows from what I did say. I believe the usual approach to fixed resources is to allow the price to rise until demand and supply balance each other.

    Anyway all this carping about cyclists on trains is nonsense. It’s also a non-story, just a journo filling column inches with gibberish. As Chris said, there are probably train passengers who whinge about fat people taking up too much space on trains, but the journos quite rightly won’t write that story. Young people with big backpacks take up a lot of space on trains. So do mums with buggies, people with wheelchairs and blind people with guide dogs. So what? As long as they’ve got a ticket, they’ve a right to be there. Just because you can find some miserable old bugger whinging about something, doesn’t make it a news story.

    Reply
  8. alecm

    >I didn’t say that, and I don’t see how it logically follows from what I did say.

    No, you didn’t, but it seemed to be one possible corollary of your position – that rail transport is a scarce resource.

    >As long as they’ve got a ticket, they’ve a right to be there.

    Exactly. And it’s stuff like the original article that tries to make a case for surcharging one community over another on the basis of what they carry, backing it up by claiming to be a scarce resource rather than an under-invested one operating a limited monopoly.

    Reply
  9. Neil

    Some tracks are definitely at capacity e.g. Reading and just outside Paddington according to various bloggers.

    Alec, I’;m not sure the relevance of you mentioning that there are less trains at off-peak time. By definition there is less demand then, so off-peak shouldn’t be the issue, and wasn’t in the scenario you mentioned was it?

    Reply
  10. alecm

    Hi Neil,

    I was trying to get across the possibility of greater demand being enabled smeared out over time if the actual capability existed – my station gets half-hourly trains which is not bad, but frankly at weekends there are times I drive into London because I can’t face the faff of getting to the station (12m) getting a ticket and then waiting around (15m +/- 14) for a slow service (65m) and then tube to my destination (10m) … when I can drive to London (60m +/- 15) and park at my destination, and spend 14 quid in parking fees which would have been a 14 quid train ticket.

    Weekend trains are all slow trains. Having a few expresses and/or commuter-timetable-frequency-like trains would be a lot more attractive.

    So: smaller but more frequent trains at weekends, and larger commuter-type ones during rush hour. Is that really so hard?

    Reply
  11. Stephen Usher

    A great deal of the problem, at least for “express” services, is that the German train builder doesn’t have control systems which will work with trains longer than 4 coaches (so I read on uk.railways), which is why the Virgin trains are so relatively short and are generally two sets linked together.

    Why do you think that we still have the HST/IC125 sets still running 31 years after thier introduction (other than under investment during the Conservative years)? The fact is that there is no real replacement on the market.

    The Pendalinos are too short. The Eurostar/TGV need straight tracks and electricity.

    If you’re asking what happened to the British railway building facilities, well, most of them were closed just before privatisation, along with all the major maintenance depots (‘cos it was an expense and it could be out-sourced, appeantly, even if you do have to ship the units by road and by ship overseas). The only major BREL facility to survive was at Derby and that was sold at a rock-bottom price to a French company, who are winding it down after completing some carrage refurbishment.

    (By the way, yes, it costs less to move railway rolling stock by road for refurbishment than it does to ship by rail in this topsy-turvey world of privatisation.)

    Reply
  12. alecm

    The comments on the original article have got interesting-ish.

    Reply
  13. Chris Samuel

    In Sydney yesterday a motorist tried to wipe out a group of about 50 cyclists because it seems he was annoyed that they were slowing him down..

    http://www.smh.com.au/news/beijing2008/road-rager-takes-out-aussie-cycle-champ-pack/2008/05/08/1210131112608.html?page=fullpage

    About 50 cyclists – including Australian racer Kate Nichols, who was injured in a 2005 German road racing crash in which a teammate was killed – have been involved in a hit-and-run crash in Sydney this morning. The resulting smash forced a semitrailer to lock up, jackknife and screech to a halt behind the cyclists while cars had to swerve to avoid them.

    He managed to pull in front of them and slam on his brakes. 🙁

    Melbourne tried to ban bikes from peak hour trains, but failed.

    Reply

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