
Cargo bikes as symbolic markers of egalitarian gender roles - okket
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14649365.2018.1489975
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kaitai
This is a really interesting read for me, as I'm considering the purchase of a
cargo bike. Apparently, I fit the stereotype pretty well -- highly-educated
urban coffee-drinker (no yoga, no vegetarianism, though). The cargo bike would
solve the problem of hauling hardware-store purchases home with kid and sans
car. But they're expensive! 1.5 or 2 thousand dollars! So for now we're making
do with the bus and the stroller we found with a "free" sign on the side of
the road.

It is important to be thoughtful about the roles various types of
transportation play for people of different socioeconomic groups in the US. I
take the bus and train often in my town, and it's generally a very mixed
population. The train/light-rail is becoming a de facto homeless shelter at
night, though. At the same time light rail gets criticized for being for the
upper class, rather than efficiently serving the poor, because it goes between
downtowns/to the airport/to the suburbs/to the sports complexes. Biking, as
well, has huge class and race divides. In the US the weekend spandex-wearer is
a huge set of the bicycling public. Everyday commuters are a segment too, and
then family weekend bikers, and then people who've lost their drivers'
licenses due to DUI/DWI or other entanglement with the criminal justice
system. How these communities interact and how they use our infrastructure
differently is worth considering when planning new investments or thinking
about how to encourage bicycling. The weekend warrior wants a nice scenic
45-mile continuous route; I want a seamless path across the city that doesn't
involve battling any cars at highway speeds to get into the left-turn lane;
neither of us wants to run over a 5-year-old getting the hang of the bike.

~~~
noelwelsh
If you haven't considered it already, a bike trailer is likely to be a cheaper
alternative to a cargo bike. I've had a bike trailer for years. Mine is a
Croozer 2. I transported my kids to nursery in it, and did supermarket runs
etc. The tradeoff is it is an extra thing you have to worry about. It's much
less convenient to park / lock-up than just the bike on its own. Regardless,
I'm looking forward to getting it out when we more to a more bike-friendly
place in a month.

~~~
anonacct37
I have a trailer for grocery store runs. I feel like a total hipster, probably
because I am.

But I have so much shit to do and so little time to exercise I have to
multitask and game myself into doing things. A good grocery store recently
opened up near me and I committed to riding my bike there whenever possible.

It literally takes 5-10m more but in return I get 20-30m of good exercise.
Seems like a good trade.

~~~
st26
FWIW, a good pannier bag will fit a day or two's groceries just fine. I have
both a trailer and a pannier, but the pannier is less hassle for small trips.

~~~
smartbit
I have a huge pannier that fit a pair of large groceries bags. I fitted two
large holes on the front side for a strap that goes around the saddle pin.

On Saturdays we strap it on our bike, ride to the farmers market and fill the
bags up with grossiers for all week for a 3 persons household no problem.
Probably some 30kg it can carry with ease. Back at home we take the panniers
off so the bike fits in the typical Amsterdam bike shed and fits in the 2
stories bike-racks the train station for daily commutes.

So much more convenient than a Cargo bike that can not be properly stored in
90% of the Amsterdam bike sheds and therefor will need to stay outside all
year and take precious sidewalk. At the farmers market it would be quite
difficult to find a proper location to park it too. And at train stations even
more difficult to find a place to park it.

Taking 30kg on our back in a backpack is not an option for us. Neither is
walking through the narrow alleys of a farmers market with a huge backpack.

In the busy pedestrians & bike traffic of Saturday Amsterdam, mounting a canal
bridge with an additional 30kg can be quite a feat but not more difficult than
a with Cargo bike.

IMHO a _large_ and _dismountable_ pannier is a economic and more convenient
alternative for a Cargo bike that can replace it for almost everything except
transporting a couple of kids. It's time this means of groceries transport is
revived.

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pasta
As a Dutch man owning a cargo bike I have no idea how they came to this
conclusion.

There are some stange parts of this study. For example: because the website
Geenstijl is linking cargo bike owners to the party Groen Links it is suddenly
true what Geendtijl says? It's like saying that electric cars are bad because
Top Gear said so.

A cargo bike is just a way to move stuff and kids around in a city. People
with low income buy used ones, people with high income buy new ones.

It has nothing to do with status. It's just very convenient.

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st26
Does anyone know why dads riding these are called "soft"? I've never ridden a
cargo bike, but it takes strong legs & constitution to regularly tow a kid or
utility trailer more than a few miles.

Is it just that whole notion that fathers who are involved with their children
are not masculine?

~~~
rgrieselhuber
I'd imagine it has to do with symbolically giving up the role of predator to
nurture children.

~~~
whatsstolat
Yep seems like pecking at a keyboard is the alpha thing to do.

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bluejekyll
I bike around SF with my kids in a Cargo bike all the time. The bike is
freeing in the city, and the kids love it.

As they’ve gotten bigger and older, I had to put a motor on it for the hills.
I hate that bikes are controversial in the City, as they are such a great way
of increasing mobility around town. eBikes, are also amazing for this aspect
of mobility.

With all the new scooters and rental bikes though, it’s stressing our already
limited bike lane capacity, pointing toward what’s been set aside as far too
shortsighted.

~~~
u801e
> As they’ve gotten bigger and older, I had to put a motor on it for the
> hills.

How steep are the ones you have to deal with? I take mine up a short 6% grade
in my second to lowest gear without too much difficulty, but I imagine that if
the hill was much steeper, I wouldn't be able to make it up without getting a
granny gear on my bike's cassette.

~~~
bluejekyll
it wasn’t really a capability, so much as a speed thing. I didn’t like being
so slow compared to the cars when going up hills. With a bionix I we can
cruise up minor grades at a much better clip.

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bullfightonmars
I have been commuting with my son on a cargo bike to school and to work for
the past year. It has a canopy/fairing on the front that keeps him dry and
warm in the winter rain so that we can commute year round. We are up to about
~3500 miles.

It has been the best purchase I've ever made.

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erric
The major problem with biking in the US, is cyclists are not first class
citizens. Having lived in The Netherlands for two years and Portland Oregon
(which has a fairly progressive bike culture) for sixteen years, there is no
comparison.

There is no political or financial willpower to make the kinds of changes that
would make cycling more pervasive and safe for both drivers and cyclists in
the US.

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jacknews
This seems like fake research to me.

It's simply gethering some news articles and saying that the stereotype of
cargo bike owners is of liberal upper-middle-class families of a certain
stripe, and implying that they are also possibly riding them to signal virtue
and status as much as for practical purposes.

ie dressing up a commonly held stereotype in the garb of an academic paper.

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novaRom
Let's say following: all the urban infrastructure is car-centric, period. Even
in most developed European cities the car drivers are privileged. Why should
we bike riders use side lanes/walks and not main lanes for example? On rare
sundays when vehicles traffic is nearly absent in my town, we do really enjoy
cycling the main roads - it is much faster to get to any place even if my town
is relatively good place for bicyclists - there are many separate cycling-only
roads and bridges.

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21
Can someone explain why the title and abstract is in 3 languages (English,
French, Spanish), but the article just in English?

Is this a new thing?

~~~
rabboRubble
I'm guessing it's an EU thing to make the article easily discoverable for 3
main EU languages (how the English language thing will work after Brexit, no
idea. EU may still have English as an official language for cross border
communication).

Many academic people speak English well enough to read the article. I'm
guessing from my own struggles while Googling stuff in a different language,
that is a different art.

~~~
Freak_NL
I don't think it's that; German would have been chosen instead of Spanish if
that was the case.

~~~
rabboRubble
True. The strange thing is the site overall has other journal articles with
the same English, French, Spanish abstract set up. May be a convention for
that site.

I'm guessing that the article itself isn't translated into those other
languages due to cost. The site provides paid translation services.

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gburt
This is merely a series of opinions in academic article form.

~~~
black6
Taking something as innocuous as a utility bicycle and applying classist and
sexist connotations to its use is so _progressive_.

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40acres
I see more and more parents out there with cargo bikes in Portland, especially
no with young kids. Personally the risk is not the reward for me...

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whiddershins
Although bikes are well protected in Dutch cities, for American cities, I
intuitively see taking kids around on a bike as extremely risky.

~~~
djsumdog
I don't. So long as they have helmets in States with helmet laws, the risk
isn't any greater than having them on one of those kid sets behind you or in
one of the single wheel things you can attach to your bike.

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burntrelish1273
Whatever. Subtle "toxic masculinity" "slut-shaming" of men whom don't act
meeker than women.

~~~
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