why are non cyclists not interested?

[stevieb]

in the relativeley short time that i,ve been into electric bikes i have discovered a trend.
it is the exact opposite of what i thought it would be.
existing cyclists appear to be interested in my bike and will ask all the relevant questions.
i expected more ridicule and cheating comments from them but this hasn,t been the case.
non cyclists or folks that don,t regularly cycle tend to show little or no interest at all [ there are the odd exceptions in both camps]
i am surprised at this because the non cyclist could possibly benefit the most and gradually increase their fitness level in a more gradual way.
i,m not on a mission to promote e bikes but i wonder if anyone else has experience of this.?
the only explanation i can think of so far is that existing cyclists may have a medical condition, fancy a change or are fed up with issues like hill climbing or wind so the e bike is seen as an easier option.
the non cyclists are not as keen because e bikes are perceived as not an easier option to what they are currently using.

 

[flecc]

It illustrates what I've long said, the UK is a car driving nation and those car drivers won't even consider a bike of any kind. A high proportion of them actively hate cyclists. Even those without cars usually aspire to owning one, and it's been noted during the recent recession that people cut down on food rather than cut down on their motoring.

In these circumstances only the few who cycle will potentially buy an e-bike.

 

[Alan Quay]

I'm most often accused of cheating by non cyclists, when I attend the office at work. I can normally keep my cool, but if I'm caught off guard I will snap back:

"I'm cheating? How the f*ck did you get here today?"

Many of these people think that driving solo, one mile through a city in a seven seater 4x4 is playing by the rules.

 

[fishingpaul]

One keen cyclist at work has been known to say, why dont you get a real bike, but often gets a taxi when he is too tired to ride to work,as i told him thats what motors are for,and how i used to have a bike like that about twenty years ago.

 

[stevieb]

had to laugh when i read mike higgins reply
i have commented exactly the same and snapped at non cyclists when they accused me of cheating
even to the point of getting into a debate with them
and they cannot defend their argument.
so it appears that i,m not the only one that has noticed this trend.
sad really when you consider that if a lot of non cyclists were made to ride to work for one day then they may change their views.
there was a program on tv a couple of nights ago on stv so i,m told that did something like this but i,ve yet to watch it

 

[Daz Marshall]

I think a lot of it comes down to our poor weather. Two wheeled vehicles are always more popular in warmer countries. Car drivers just don't want to get wet!

 

[JohnCade]

The weather isn't that great in Holland and Denmark either. I think the main obstacle is the danger involved on our roads, where cyclists are seen as a nuisance and the road structure and joke bike lanes are seemingly designed to funnel them into traffic at points of maximum risk.

Many parents won't allow their children to cycle now, particularly to school which was commonplace when I was young. So whole generations have grown up unable to ride a bike. But we used to have a good bike infrastructure in this country as they still do elsewhere.

I can remember the wide bike lanes built beside the suburban arterial roads in the thirties to get a bike riding workforce back and forth. They were still there in the fifties, and it was only into the sixties when the car started to become king and most were lost.

 

[Marchant]

I would just like to say that famously Sir Edward Elgar was a keen cyclist who rode a bicycle he called Mr Phoebus (because it was a Sunbeam!), but he gave up cycling in 1912 because there were getting to be too many cars on the road...

 

[flecc]

I can remember the wide bike lanes built beside the suburban arterial roads in the thirties to get a bike riding workforce back and forth. They were still there in the fifties, and it was only into the sixties when the car started to become king and most were lost.

That's the key, the Dutch never stopped cycling as car ownership expanded. We not only did but started that movement away from pure cycling in the 1950s when first adding cyclemotors and then changing to scooters from Vespa and Lambretta as they arrived. So the changeover was already well advanced even before the 1960s cars expansion.

Quite why we were so eager to get off bikes while the Dutch and lowland Germans didn't isn't known, but perhaps there's a clue in the latter. We have no lack of hills in Britain.

 

[Marchant]

Flecc makes a good point regarding hills. Here in Bath, cycling east-west is a doddle, while north-south is a challenge. Typically, the company I work for moved south; I didn't want to shower & change every day so I sold my Moulton and bought an ebike. But the fact remains that cycling has always been my preferred form of transport, I have never been an enthusiastic pedestrian...

 

[axolotl]

To be honest, I think it's more the perception of risk than the actual risk when it comes to cycling. People see how exposed cyclists are, relative to motorists, and assume that cycling must be many times more dangerous than driving a car.

In reality, for the average person, cycling fits between driving and walking when it comes to the risk of fatal injury.

What's really interesting, though, is when you look at specific age groups. For young men, driving is actually 5 times more dangerous than cycling.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/9729218/Driving-is-five-times-more-dangerous-than-cycling-for-young-men.html

 

[stevieb]

the issue of hills in this country is another reason why an e bike should be more popular i would have thought.

 

[Chris the Sheep]

There's also the cost thing; most people with no knowledge of cycling will regard £100 as the right price for a bike, and £200 as about the upper limit. When you can get a roadworthy car for £1000 an ebike looks expensive; and people conveniently ignore the maintenance and repair costs of a car, the insurance, tax etc. Moving to an ebike makes a lot of sense as a replacement for a second car, but you have to be open minded to even consider it. As other comments have noted, most British drivers are NOT open-minded and many see cyclists as the enemy.

One final comment; the majority of ebikes I actually notice look a bit naff.

There are no doubt plenty of other ebikes around but a modern crank drive doesn't stand out from the crowd. In other words, it's possible to buy an ebike that doesn't look naff, but people who don't know this will continue to see them as some sort of two-wheeled disability scooter.

 

[flecc]

To be honest, I think it's more the perception of risk than the actual risk when it comes to cycling. People see how exposed cyclists are, relative to motorists, and assume that cycling must be many times more dangerous than driving a car.

Indeed, in Britain 6% of the total road deaths are cyclists, 24% are pedestrians. But I bet the population at large believe it's something like opposite that.

Put another way, in London there are roughly 500,000 cycle journeys per weekday, so about 125 millions per year, with an average of 14 deaths.

So the annual cyclist deathrate is 0.0000112%, making one's chance of being killed in a year almost infinitesimal. Any London cyclist taking sensible precautions when riding has effectively virtually no chance of ever being killed.
.

 

[RobF]

Indeed, in Britain 6% of the total road deaths are cyclists, 24% are pedestrians. But I bet the population at large believe it's something like opposite that.

Put another way, in London there are roughly 500,000 cycle journeys per weekday, so about 125 millions per year, with an average of 14 deaths.

So the annual cyclist deathrate is 0.0000112%, making one's chance of being killed in a year almost infinitesimal. Any London cyclist taking sensible precautions when riding has effectively virtually no chance of ever being killed.
.

It's similar to the National Lottery argument.

The chances of me winning are tiny, yet somebody wins every week.

 

[flecc]

It's similar to the National Lottery argument.

The chances of me winning are tiny, yet somebody wins every week.

Not really! We can greatly influence whether we have accidents by our behaviour and choices, but there's nothing we can do to better the 14 million to 1 odds of winning the lottery Lotto jackpot.
.

 

[trex]

you can buy all 14 million tickets

 

[flecc]

Nice idea, but since one cannot stop the existing buyers, the odds would only change to at best 50/50 on the 28 million tickets.

Since the average wed/sat jackpot is now circa £4 millions, one would still lose £24 millions at least* on the £28 millions of the cost.

* any win may be shared.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

It's a safer bet if you wait for a double rollover.

 

[flecc]

Lotto never rolls over to enough though, and EuroMillions no good either with the vast numbers who enter that competing.

My daft father used to think pumping more and more money into the football pools must get him a big win in the end. He died poor at 89.

Gambling is a mugs game, except for the bookmaker.