Bicycle wins!

To be honest, we don't like cars. Or rather, cars really bore us. Cars are an outdated, ecologically harmful, uneconomic and mostly downright stupid means of transport. Most times they are not beautiful to look at and car parks are even worse - in fact, pretty much any other use of a space is better and more beautiful than a car park. Cars also trap people inside them, where they communicate with rude gestures and shouting through opened windows. Cars somehow make people aggressive, scared and dangerous, especially for bicyclists. (Check out the links in our previous post.)

Despite this, sometimes we watch the car programme Top Gear. Why? Well, usually because there's not much else on TV when we eat in front of it. Top Gear is... crap. Really. They obsess over super expensive cars, anchorman Jeremy Clarkson acts like he is compensating and has the political views of a dinosaur with racist and homophobic opinions, they obsessively slur over bicycles, bicyclists and bicycling... The programme smells of male chauvinism and testosterone.

Anyway, not too long ago we saw the programme (series 10, episode 5) where the episode called "London Race" was - a race between car, bicycle, boat and public transport. The object was to travel from Kew, across London City, to London City Airport - a distance of about 27 kilometres - by bicycle, car, public transport or by boat. And we could note right here that the boat was a £52.000 racing boat, so that's really not an option for most people.

So what was the result of the race? The bicycle came first. Then came the boat, then public transport and the car came last. Bicycle: It doesn't cost you anything, you get exercise (maybe not so much fresh air when you ride through central London, though), you save time and you save the environment. Car: It costs a lot to have and to drive a car, you don't get any exercise, you lose time and you destroy the environment. Public transport is in the middle: It costs a bit, you get some exercise and you get to your destination in time if everything works. The real downside with public transport, the way we see it, is having to crowd with other people. (We're Nordic - we're not into that!) The upside is that while public transport also cause exhaust, it is less per person since you kind of "share it" with other people.

And all this, is also why we ride.

(Is this what you want the world to look like?)

(When public transport looks like this it is a very decent way of getting around. Metro do Porto, Portugal. Photo by Maria João Ruiz (who is not a member of Ensliga Bergens cykelklubb).)

Further reading on related subject:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2014/jan/13/jeremy-clarkson-cyclists-taking-the-lane

Ride safe, all of you!