But…let’s look at it from a different perspective. What is the carbon footprint of, say, a baseball game? Both are sporting events. Both attrict a lot of people. More? Less? But….
Now, take the per capita health care cost for the attendees of the baseball game compared to the per capita healt care cost for the attendees of the Tour de Tucson.
Some people like big, sporting events. I’d rather see them train for a bicycle event and gain some health than just show up and watch someone else “exercise”.
I was thinking about the carbon footprint of the tour the other day when I was picking my little brother up from the airport. It just so happened that he was on a flight that was loaded with Team in Training people as well as other groups of people flying in to do the ride. Thats a lot of air travel. Thats a lot of emissions into the atmosphere just to take people to a place to ride their bike. Gosh- my friend Jared won’t even fly home to see his family because he thinks it’s wasteful- they have to wait until he gets there on his bike.
Seeing the airport filled with people flying in with bikes reminded me a bit of the people who kit up and drive their car to the coffee shop to drink coffee and maybe ride 30 miles with their friends…I am happy that El Grupo is bringing up racers who actually ride their bikes to training rides. It teaches the kids that the bike isn’t a toy…it’s transportation. It is really inspiring to ride with those kids because they really get it…and their attitude toward racing is the right one to have. I do enjoy bike racing…because it IS fun. Maybe not everybody wants to do it and thats fine by me…but its not a waste if you approach the race with the right mindset. It’s not asinine if you understand what your bike really is.
It would be cool if more people would ride their BIKES to BICYCLE races…the few times I have done that all the racer people looked at me like I was an alien. To me- they are the aliens…eating goop and riding really fancy bikes made of the same stuff spaceships are made of….
Erik’s old bike stories about riding his bike to the race and showing up with loaded touring panniers on inspired me to try to do that for a race up in Superior…I thought more people would say something- but it seems that a good portion of the racing community is pretty self-absorbed and hardly anyone seemed to notice…but it was a pretty hilly course and I raced with the rack on my bike and won the mediocre Cat. 4 division…which earned me the money back that I paid to enter the race plus enough for a bottle of whiskey for when I got to Globe later and was practically stranded on the side of a mountain…but thats another story….
One cannot argue that a race is not a waste based solely on an individual ability to derive personal satisfaction from such activity.
The philosophy of “ride to ride” is not compatible with that of “race to win”.
By the way, what are you saying a “bike really is”? If you’ll indulge me, a bicycle is just the product of attempt to mitigate, or marginalize waste produced in endeavor to satisfy the human need for speed.
Is it an inherently wasteful activity to ride a bike for personal enjoyment? What if riding bikes for my own satisfaction enables me to escape from depression and not have to rely on prescription drugs to keep myself happy? Is it wasteful then?
“Ride to ride” or “race to win”….why are these two philosophies incompatible? There are people capable of “riding to ride” who just happen to be strong enough to win as well.
As far as what a “bike really is” I believe that it is both a utilitarian and recreational machine. It is useful as transport, but riding bikes is also my greatest joy in life. What I was trying to point out is that some people who ride seem to perceive the bike as a “toy” or solely recreational.
Ride to ride and race to win are incompatible because not everyone can ride 100 miles to the race point, camp and then win the next day! You are an anomaly, Lauren.
If you put in 100% into the bike race and win by 2 seconds, who’s to say you still could have done it if you had to ride an additional 12 miles to get to the race start? And what happens when you race so hard that you physically shut down afterwards? How do you get home then?
As for the whole carbon footprint of the single day of el tour, well that can be misleading in itself. Focusing only on people who live in Tucson and drove 10 miles from their house to the course, what if training for el tour inspired them to bicycle commute the other 364 days a year. Yes, they drove to the course start the day of the race, but the other 300-some days should override that. The important thing is that it gets more people on bicycles and perhaps the scale and publicity of the race is enough to get more people watching to try to race the following year.
In short, not everyone is as young, fit, or has the endurance and extra energy that you do. Not everone has the free time to devote to touring to the race start or lives within a reasonable distance in order to reasonably do so. Also, not everyone is blessed with beautiful Tucson weather, and a reasonable bike route to and from the start.
And really, if people have the money, why not let the 56 year old retired dentist hire a personal trainer, buy a custom titanium serotta, fly it down, and hire a chauffeur to drive him to and from the race course? It’s still one more bike on the road for most of the year, and I’m sure he’s having the time of his life while maintaining excellent health for his age. It’s either that or he buys a new hummer or escalade.
I agree with the idea of riding to training rides and to races if you physically are capable of it, but really, if I wanted to win, why handicap yourself?
I’ll answer your questions in order.
Yes. You do what you do, whatever reason is your choice. Yes. For those that ride to ride, winning is not an option.
I agree that bicycles have both utilitarian and recreational function, but these observations are only (derivative) after-the-fact attempts to negotiate the value of a human-made machine as if the bike has any real merit or worth without people. Someday people will walk again, and it is okay
I too derive pleasure from riding my bike, but it is a guilty pleasure, and for that guilt I cannot afford to want or need to keep my bicycle any more than I can afford to lose it.
You sort-of sound like a brown-nosed bone-head. Anyway, not everyone is blessed (or burdened) with excuses. Even after all that logic and reason (which you have executed fairly-well) you are not correct.
Tony, I still don’t see why “winning is not an option” for people who ride to ride. It depends on what kind of bike race it is. There is a lot more to bike racing than the Tour de Tucson-style massive race. Most bike races are extremely small in comparison and there are a number of different categories as well as different stages. Real bike racers spend most weekends during the season waking up at 4 a.m. to go to a parking lot, kit-up, try to not get dropped from the breakaway, and then finish the race in front of a very small crowd of people.
You cannot argue that winning is absolutely impossible if you enter a competition with the “ride to ride” attitude. Some people happen to “ride to ride” pretty darn fast. Also, I know some very strong riders who choose not to race at all but ride very fast and could be quite competitive if they ever did choose to enter a race.
“Someday people will walk again”- I am really not so sure…it seems like technology is on a trajectory towards people existing in virtual reality pods where we don’t have to move at all to interact with the world or obtain the resources necessary to survive….Arthur C. Clarke’s sci-fi visions coming true?
“I too derive pleasure from riding my bike, but it is a guilty pleasure.” – Really? Me too, after especially long rides I feel so guilty I go home and put on a hair shirt and flog myself.
“brown nosed bonehead”- Lets not resort to name calling or ad hominem approaches to debate. Mickey might have a brown nose but he is no bonehead…
I often look at those that chatter and flatter from harsh perspective; That is my bias and bad. I do not take personally what is said in these discussions; I take it for granted that others do not as well. My apologies.
Lauren,
If a person riding does not race, they do not win. In the situations you have given for consideration, the attitude betrays the intention (of-course the events remain the same regardless). Sum-said sum-seen, expectations might even agree (though only coincidentally).
Perhaps I am the fool that hopes for the best, as opposed to those wise for expecting the worst; must be a “wait and see” sort-of thing. Walking might become the “in thing” in some future fashion.
As far as flogging yourself goes, I wonder: Is it necessary to go so far so fast? Consider that guilt to be honest without measure; I do not see the need in going to any extreme in order to prove it
Tony- I don’t really understand what sum-said, sum-seen means…or how expectations can agree…coincidentally…huh?
Yes we will have to “wait and see”. Not sure I will be around to see the distant future, but I am glad some are still hoping for the best…we need you. I think my longtime affinity for dystopian sci-fi and Adbusters is a gruesomely pessimistic combo….you should ask Erik sometime about my panic attack and phone call to him while I was on bike tour…I am thinking robot-wars, microchips, and virtual enslavement….but I don’t want to live in Sim City. I sincerely hope things go your way….or that there are at least some colonies where people are free to live that way.
“Is it necessary to go so far so fast?” –I hope you can appreciate my sarcasm…i try to make it overt…..sorry but its going to take a lot for guilt about energy expenditure to override the freedom i feel when i ride my bike. getting really far out on the bike is pretty much all i want to do with my life.
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About Me
I am an attorney who represents bicyclists who have been injured in
accidents, cited with traffic infractions or criminal charges, or assaulted by
motorists. Contact me at (520) 622-3333 or at ryberg@seanet.com. My physical
address is 312 South Convent Avenue Tucson, AZ 85701. Consultations are always
free. Please do not hesitate to contact me. --Erik Ryberg
November 23rd, 2008 at 8:00 pm
I feel the Tour is like any other bike race in the world; asinine.
What is accomplished by measuring excesses of waste? To me, waste is a waste.
November 24th, 2008 at 8:35 am
But…let’s look at it from a different perspective. What is the carbon footprint of, say, a baseball game? Both are sporting events. Both attrict a lot of people. More? Less? But….
Now, take the per capita health care cost for the attendees of the baseball game compared to the per capita healt care cost for the attendees of the Tour de Tucson.
Some people like big, sporting events. I’d rather see them train for a bicycle event and gain some health than just show up and watch someone else “exercise”.
November 24th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
I was thinking about the carbon footprint of the tour the other day when I was picking my little brother up from the airport. It just so happened that he was on a flight that was loaded with Team in Training people as well as other groups of people flying in to do the ride. Thats a lot of air travel. Thats a lot of emissions into the atmosphere just to take people to a place to ride their bike. Gosh- my friend Jared won’t even fly home to see his family because he thinks it’s wasteful- they have to wait until he gets there on his bike.
Seeing the airport filled with people flying in with bikes reminded me a bit of the people who kit up and drive their car to the coffee shop to drink coffee and maybe ride 30 miles with their friends…I am happy that El Grupo is bringing up racers who actually ride their bikes to training rides. It teaches the kids that the bike isn’t a toy…it’s transportation. It is really inspiring to ride with those kids because they really get it…and their attitude toward racing is the right one to have. I do enjoy bike racing…because it IS fun. Maybe not everybody wants to do it and thats fine by me…but its not a waste if you approach the race with the right mindset. It’s not asinine if you understand what your bike really is.
It would be cool if more people would ride their BIKES to BICYCLE races…the few times I have done that all the racer people looked at me like I was an alien. To me- they are the aliens…eating goop and riding really fancy bikes made of the same stuff spaceships are made of….
Erik’s old bike stories about riding his bike to the race and showing up with loaded touring panniers on inspired me to try to do that for a race up in Superior…I thought more people would say something- but it seems that a good portion of the racing community is pretty self-absorbed and hardly anyone seemed to notice…but it was a pretty hilly course and I raced with the rack on my bike and won the mediocre Cat. 4 division…which earned me the money back that I paid to enter the race plus enough for a bottle of whiskey for when I got to Globe later and was practically stranded on the side of a mountain…but thats another story….
November 26th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
One cannot argue that a race is not a waste based solely on an individual ability to derive personal satisfaction from such activity.
The philosophy of “ride to ride” is not compatible with that of “race to win”.
By the way, what are you saying a “bike really is”? If you’ll indulge me, a bicycle is just the product of attempt to mitigate, or marginalize waste produced in endeavor to satisfy the human need for speed.
November 26th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Is it an inherently wasteful activity to ride a bike for personal enjoyment? What if riding bikes for my own satisfaction enables me to escape from depression and not have to rely on prescription drugs to keep myself happy? Is it wasteful then?
“Ride to ride” or “race to win”….why are these two philosophies incompatible? There are people capable of “riding to ride” who just happen to be strong enough to win as well.
As far as what a “bike really is” I believe that it is both a utilitarian and recreational machine. It is useful as transport, but riding bikes is also my greatest joy in life. What I was trying to point out is that some people who ride seem to perceive the bike as a “toy” or solely recreational.
November 27th, 2008 at 6:30 am
Ride to ride and race to win are incompatible because not everyone can ride 100 miles to the race point, camp and then win the next day! You are an anomaly, Lauren.
If you put in 100% into the bike race and win by 2 seconds, who’s to say you still could have done it if you had to ride an additional 12 miles to get to the race start? And what happens when you race so hard that you physically shut down afterwards? How do you get home then?
As for the whole carbon footprint of the single day of el tour, well that can be misleading in itself. Focusing only on people who live in Tucson and drove 10 miles from their house to the course, what if training for el tour inspired them to bicycle commute the other 364 days a year. Yes, they drove to the course start the day of the race, but the other 300-some days should override that. The important thing is that it gets more people on bicycles and perhaps the scale and publicity of the race is enough to get more people watching to try to race the following year.
In short, not everyone is as young, fit, or has the endurance and extra energy that you do. Not everone has the free time to devote to touring to the race start or lives within a reasonable distance in order to reasonably do so. Also, not everyone is blessed with beautiful Tucson weather, and a reasonable bike route to and from the start.
And really, if people have the money, why not let the 56 year old retired dentist hire a personal trainer, buy a custom titanium serotta, fly it down, and hire a chauffeur to drive him to and from the race course? It’s still one more bike on the road for most of the year, and I’m sure he’s having the time of his life while maintaining excellent health for his age. It’s either that or he buys a new hummer or escalade.
I agree with the idea of riding to training rides and to races if you physically are capable of it, but really, if I wanted to win, why handicap yourself?
November 27th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Lauren,
I’ll answer your questions in order.
Yes. You do what you do, whatever reason is your choice. Yes. For those that ride to ride, winning is not an option.
I agree that bicycles have both utilitarian and recreational function, but these observations are only (derivative) after-the-fact attempts to negotiate the value of a human-made machine as if the bike has any real merit or worth without people. Someday people will walk again, and it is okay
I too derive pleasure from riding my bike, but it is a guilty pleasure, and for that guilt I cannot afford to want or need to keep my bicycle any more than I can afford to lose it.
November 27th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Mickey,
You sort-of sound like a brown-nosed bone-head. Anyway, not everyone is blessed (or burdened) with excuses. Even after all that logic and reason (which you have executed fairly-well) you are not correct.
November 28th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
None of these excuses aren’t mine. I rode 10 miles to/from the el tour start, but I can understand why others would choose not to.
But without logic or reason, you deem me incorrect arbitrarily. That works too. God bless the internetz.
November 29th, 2008 at 5:35 am
What?
December 1st, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Tony, I still don’t see why “winning is not an option” for people who ride to ride. It depends on what kind of bike race it is. There is a lot more to bike racing than the Tour de Tucson-style massive race. Most bike races are extremely small in comparison and there are a number of different categories as well as different stages. Real bike racers spend most weekends during the season waking up at 4 a.m. to go to a parking lot, kit-up, try to not get dropped from the breakaway, and then finish the race in front of a very small crowd of people.
You cannot argue that winning is absolutely impossible if you enter a competition with the “ride to ride” attitude. Some people happen to “ride to ride” pretty darn fast. Also, I know some very strong riders who choose not to race at all but ride very fast and could be quite competitive if they ever did choose to enter a race.
“Someday people will walk again”- I am really not so sure…it seems like technology is on a trajectory towards people existing in virtual reality pods where we don’t have to move at all to interact with the world or obtain the resources necessary to survive….Arthur C. Clarke’s sci-fi visions coming true?
“I too derive pleasure from riding my bike, but it is a guilty pleasure.” – Really? Me too, after especially long rides I feel so guilty I go home and put on a hair shirt and flog myself.
“brown nosed bonehead”- Lets not resort to name calling or ad hominem approaches to debate. Mickey might have a brown nose but he is no bonehead…
December 1st, 2008 at 4:23 pm
I found this on urbanvelo:
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/bridgestone/1994/pages/13.htm
December 3rd, 2008 at 3:14 am
Mickey
I often look at those that chatter and flatter from harsh perspective; That is my bias and bad. I do not take personally what is said in these discussions; I take it for granted that others do not as well. My apologies.
Lauren,
If a person riding does not race, they do not win. In the situations you have given for consideration, the attitude betrays the intention (of-course the events remain the same regardless). Sum-said sum-seen, expectations might even agree (though only coincidentally).
Perhaps I am the fool that hopes for the best, as opposed to those wise for expecting the worst; must be a “wait and see” sort-of thing. Walking might become the “in thing” in some future fashion.
As far as flogging yourself goes, I wonder: Is it necessary to go so far so fast? Consider that guilt to be honest without measure; I do not see the need in going to any extreme in order to prove it
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Tony- I don’t really understand what sum-said, sum-seen means…or how expectations can agree…coincidentally…huh?
Yes we will have to “wait and see”. Not sure I will be around to see the distant future, but I am glad some are still hoping for the best…we need you. I think my longtime affinity for dystopian sci-fi and Adbusters is a gruesomely pessimistic combo….you should ask Erik sometime about my panic attack and phone call to him while I was on bike tour…I am thinking robot-wars, microchips, and virtual enslavement….but I don’t want to live in Sim City. I sincerely hope things go your way….or that there are at least some colonies where people are free to live that way.
“Is it necessary to go so far so fast?” –I hope you can appreciate my sarcasm…i try to make it overt…..sorry but its going to take a lot for guilt about energy expenditure to override the freedom i feel when i ride my bike. getting really far out on the bike is pretty much all i want to do with my life.