Safe Speed Forums

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080314/tts-uk-eu-environment-tax-cff01a2.html

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Speed camera policy Kills

Interesting how they used the example of a steel bike, I would've thought aluminium and carbon fibre were even more damaging during the production phase than steel.

i struggle to see how any man made product can be green by that definition!

they're all manufactured.. using... materials.... which is going to have some environmental effect!

Its the future......

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Speed camera policy Kills

ah the sandwich bike... neat idea

but i still see metal spokes & chainset

Ah,. but that's the nub. Most modern bikes are manufactured so.

Hey Peyote. We are the first to admit our roadies and mountain bikes -- whilst comfy and speedy are costing the planet plenty to make.

OK ,, maybe not as much as the two Jags me and Wildy drive.. My excuse is that mine is an estate and carries most of our litter of children My wife picks up the excess "litter" in her car. Or we use the people carrier which does use more fuel than the Jags - ironically .

Our other excuse is that of logistics. I have to ensure we all arrrive in one spot to time on occasion. I cannot do this on a bicycle as we all have different abilities re age.maturity .. endurance,, stamina ,, health. And whilst I can cope with one child seat or trailer. . we have a problem when faced with a lot of youngsters to ensure absolute safety to. I challenge any muesli muncher to cope with our needs. I know they'd fial miserably. And why I will use our car no matter what it costs to ensure we all arrive sanely and safely to wherever we travel TOGETHER as ONE FAMILY UNIT"


Cycling as hobby... fine for family bonding.

As a commute means? You is having a right larf and cannot be a Papa as it is not a serious option with a larger brood or litter.

OK .. you would suggest no kids.. a certain snip.. pills.. or a bit of "marital restraint"

But we LIKE kids. I would not be without our kids. I love them to bits .. and my wild wife too. Marriage is about creating a family. ensuring our progeny and race continue . live.. and evolve further. Basic instincts to survive.. and why we seek to preserve life.

By the way.. I still have the STEEL bike my parents bough me as a reward when I passed the test to attend the SENIOR school Trusty.. true .. straightforward and reliable .

OK .. not quite as fast as the Stinky Mountain bikes or the roady Diamondbacks But sturdy and strong and epitomising a reality of the past perhaps


Mean what I said about being very glad to see you back posting here. Enjoy reading your point of view. Sensible and pleasant to read.

More!

Can I say fairer mate?

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We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
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Like I said ages ago.. ..

Nothing in our world has ever been "green" or "planetsaving"

We are here. The planet or God or Nature or Evolution provided us with the means to develop and evolve.


Man has made choices. Survival and labour saving devices. Tree huggers and those intent on embracing medieval life styles frown at any progress which takes wealth and superiority from them and thus we enter into a Puritan age whereby all pleasures get taxed . but the Puritans )(aka old style Communists . acquire at the expense of those who toil. All are equal .. but some are more equal than others and f you disagree.. there's always Room 101..



Discuss. If you dare..

_________________
If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

i suddenly have an urgent appointment somewhere ummm... else.

and since i'm about to build up a custom framed titanium time trial beastie i not be one to talk anyhoo.

Mmm... ...Hang on, there's a hook in this juicy morsel!

I think that you could be falling for the classic Daily Mail line of "everyone who is environmentally aware is a hessian clothed cave dweller who would like nothing better than to revert to neolithic times".

But I think you're smarter than that MM, I think you know that the majority of folk out there don't fall into this bracket! I've met a few "crustys/treehuggers" (think old-skool Swampy) and none of them have held this point of view. But I'll freely admit to the numbers I've met not being a realistic sample size (never mind peer reviewed)!

Anyway, what I really think you're upset about is that some of your lifestyle choices could be being attacked and you don't like it! Which is fair enough, just don't confuse "environmentalism" with "convenient stick with which to beat those who don't subscribe to your point of view".

Also I don't think it's really fair to compare Puritans to Communists either. It's a bit like comparing Catholics to Capitalists. All are confused and sold lies!

I quite like Room 101, paul Merton is quite a funny guy (at least when he had is own show anyway!).

Hiya Peyote mate.. back. I enjoy reading your views as do those Mad Cats.

I am enjoyin' "hooligan company" at a Swiss family social. By gums .. they sure can party

The've been reading comments. They asked me to log on here.


Andreas (posted on C+ as Brandystifter has asked me to post in late proxy to you that he appreciated your advice on saddles that time and that you suggested a really comfy one to him. He has asked me to pass on his sincerely meant thanks to you.

Ted (MM) has read and is sat by me as I type here.



Ted's no fool. He, like me , judges what suits a larger family unit. I am not faced with his stuation in that my two eldest are more independent from me. He fosters and still has a young family to cope with. He does cycle and does take family on cycling sorties// but he has very different abilities, needs, capabilities and stamina to cope with . which makes it impossible for him to rely on cycling as his main means of transport. My own brood are more synchronised.. but his include a children he adopted and children he fosters // so his personal needs are a LOT different to MINE and those of most of the Swiss riff raff. I said before that MM deserves medals for what he takes on here. I could not do what he does.

So Peyote my friend... do not take the wrong way.. but MM does contend with the "extraordinary circumstance" and with his JAg estate and the people carrier they have are really very "green minded". Perhaps their collection of classics and Wildy's sporty Jag are green bones to gnaw over.. - but these are show/display/.show off/ get cash back sponsor situations .. with the exception being the rather nice sporty type Jag as driven by the wild to get to and from work

But .. they pay for their whims and privileges all the same. They are human . as you and me ... and they grumble over assault to bank accounts in taxes and are even more incensed when they read of the "john Lewis" listings. They say .. OK .. we accept costs of living . but teh pay should be based at the same bargain bucket shoppe we all turn to and not the "more cash than common sense overpriced outlets"

I bought some stuff at a cut price store. The stuff offered by John Lewis was three times what I paid .. but the goods were identical.. and made by same manufacturer

a FOOL gets duped/ I do not.. nor do most out there


Muppets though . become sock puppets for idealists who do nto live in reality

Do discuss. No one being attacked for point of view - but we should make clear what is menat by "green policies"

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

<shiver runs down the spine, hairs rise on the back of the neck>

Please don't bring back bad memories IG, such dark times and fell deeds should remain in the past. Hidden...





I've heard many times of the good works that MM and Co. do. :wink: He has no need to justify his transport choices to me. Just like I don't have to persuade him why I'd be such a poor foster parent!



Yeah, yeah, I've heard this all before! like I said, I'm not here to judge. I prefer to persuade, cajol and encourage!



And so we get to the crux of the issue! What are the "green" and "planet saving" things that MM is upset about?

That'll shut the ones up who claim to be "saving the environment" Which isn't the majority of cyclists which have a fairly reasonable attitude in my experience. A scenario I imagine of most cyclists would be this:
I come up behind a group, wait a few seconds, they go into single file, I go past no problems and everyone's happy It's only a few who are claiming environmetalism.

I think it's the hypocrisy of some of these people - not you Peyote mate. The "militant brigade" who are not "saving anything.

Each generation has made the best of what the planet offers and exploited for furthering their economies and wealth. In each case there has been an "ephemeral cost" to the planet - some of which corrected itself over time. Some areas have lived with constant drought/flood/drought since time began because of geographic setting. For example, I do not think we can ever solve Africa's problem in that respect and any science we develop to stimulate food growth for them will still have some enviro-impact cost somewhere else no doubt - but even so - the benefit brought would surely outweigh any such "enviro-damage".


But in the "so-called developed" world- post the industrial revolution

1. We have one brigade claiming they are "savng the planet by cycling". Um .. a return to using horses (manure and methane potential ) and bicycles as main modes of transport when "now currently developing countries are churning out industrial gases faster in one year than the Western collective over the past two centuries" is a gesture equivalent to spitting into the Atlantic Ocean.

2. The bicycle is still mass produced.. of steel.. carbon.. alluminium , gell saddles, various plastic addies in terms of gear - and more of them on the market have travelled more air miles already than the average commuting cyclist who "screams how green he is being" will ride over his entire life time.

3. Mad Doc has opened a thread in "Chat" applauding the ecyling endeavours of one chap who works in a rubbish dump. This is just ONE rubbish dump in Manchester. He has fixed and given a new lease of life to three thousand bicycles. As he wryly comments in the Manchester Evening News piece which MM has posted up in entirety - all those bicycles would have ended up in land fill

If there are 3000 in just one inner city dump - how many of these things across the country . causing further pollution potential in landfill dumps which we are trying to reduce to "save the planet" or rather "our England"

So .. how "green" are we cyclists in all reality then? At least the crushed car's metal does get recycled. :p :p :p

4. Computers. We all have them. They are made from plastics. They consume electricity. They can take "forever" to decompose like the dratted plastic bag.

5. We all shop. We all buy some of the stuff in the ridiculous packaging too Including the enviro-militants. They are the ones who "shop on-line" - but seem to forget a big truck delivers all this stuff to the warehouses and a big van drives around delivering them.. all neatly packed in plastic bags

I think it's the sheer hypocrisy of the "holier than thou" militant minority , who in all reality only pay lip service to green issues - an this perhaps annoys most folk more in addition to the excuse of "bugging bins"/threatening to introduce a "pay as you throw away" scheme when we've already paid out a small fortune in council tax - when we know there will be zero investment in local enviro-schemes in return for this extra tax. Of course as food prices continue to soar .. along with fuel costs - perhaps this will curb the "chuck-away society" more naturally

I think the Mad Cats and even those other "devilish" Swiss rogues and villains are perhaps "greener" in actual lifestyle than these militants in that they do grow some of their own food where they can and we all use the local farmers' market/shops - taking our own bags and loading in boots at one fell swoop of a shoppo trip

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.