Victor Villas

I feel like my comment has upset a few people.

Doesn’t seem that way to me at all

so taxes were raised on things like parking

That’s a great thing, though. So kudos for being very targeted in the budgeting gymnastics

What new Gear Hub Tech?

I think nowadays most tech innovations have been in internal and integrated gear systems and drivetrains around continuous gear shifting, though most often related to gearbox and e-bikes.

eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1Ak8ZsQpl8

But then new gear hub tech comes out, and you start considering ebikes, also a pannier would be nice… maybe a cargo bike makes more sense instead…?

Any hobby entry point can cascade into upgraditis

Interesting research but very early stages. There’s a good chance that this isn’t really specific to bikes, but more generally applies to the benefits of people enjoying hobbies and a good quality of life translating into a better psychological state, which is known to affect health outcomes in a myriad of ways specially related to brain function and hormones.

Interestingly, the data also shows that mixed-walking is associated with reduced dementia as well… and I find it a bit confusing that the authors are lumping driving and public transit together in the nonactive category because public transit usually involves a good deal of walking too without people categorizing it as a walking mode of transport.

Beyond separating public transit from driving, I think major factors to control for are: 1) how often these non-commute activities happen; and 2) what’s the stress level of that transportation mode. With those three things in mind I think it would clarify why would walking be associated with worst outcomes than nonactive…

A bike (the bicycle kind, not the motorbike kind, that’s a different wallet-sinking hobby)

Not saying “trust”, I’m saying “might be interesting, evaluate it”.

I find Beeline quiet routes generally pretty likeable, so I do give them a try from time to time.

I’d give it a try. It’s probably a very basic suggestion algorithm that is just being labeled AI because why not, AI is the new Metaverse so everything gotta have AI in it to make it flashy.

That’s what this paragraph seems to indicate:

Strava says every activity is now automatically analysed by a machine learning model, which looks at 57 different factors, such as speed and acceleration.

They properly call it Machine Learning, meaning that this is probably old school supervised techniques instead of LLMs so it means it’s just a glorified linear regression. Should be fine.

I don’t think so. Sure first step is regularizing sales and not going after existing owners, and the ones already on the streets are a long term problem, but these things will eventually break down, they don’t last generations.

I think no one disputes that we need a clear separation of electric bicycles and electric motorcycles and the presence of pedals ain’t enough.

Presumably once that’s sorted out, e-bikes can and should become the norm. They’re the “all ages and abilities” equalizer.

Cyclist in Japan have had dedicated bike lanes or marked paths on the road for many years but still use the sidewalk even if it causes problems for pedestrians.

I’m speaking a bit out of my field here because I’m not Japanese, but I had the impression that historically, many Japanese cities are much more amenable to share the sidewalk with cyclists (compared to EU/NA), and several of these bike lanes start and end abruptly as part of the sidewalk instead of the road anyway, right? Same goes for pedestrian sharing space with cars and bikes in their narrow streets, sidewalks are almost non-existent because they’re culturally acclimatized to just walking in the street and hop on the sidewalk only if a vehicle needs to pass by.

And by looking at the ridiculously unsafe bike “lanes” they have (almost all are totally unprotected), I’d definitely be on the sidewalk if I lived there too. If you want Japan to enforce bike lanes, you gotta ask Japan to build better bike lanes first 🤷‍♂️