Thought for Today

[Hedgehog]

′′ Bike is the slow death of the planet ".
A banker made economists think this when he said: ′′ A cyclist is a disaster for the country's economy: he doesn't buy cars or borrow money to buy. He doesn't pay insurance policies Doesn't buy fuel, doesn't pay to take the car to revision and repairs needed. Does not use paid parking. It doesn't cause major accidents. Does not require multi lane highways. He doesn't become obese
Healthy people are not necessary or useful to the economy. They don't buy medicine They don't go to hospitals or doctors They add nothing to the country's GDP.
On the contrary, each new McDonald's store creates at least 30 jobs, actually 10 cardiologists, 10 dentists, 10 diet experts and nutritionists, obviously as well as the people who work in the store itself ".
Choose carefully: a bike or a Mc Donald? Worth thinking about
PS: walking is even worse Pedestrians don't even buy a bike!

 

[Gunner]

The Moral Threat of Bicycles in the 1890s
(https://daily.jstor.org/the-moral-threat-of-bicycles-in-the-1890s/)

If you’re an American adult who regularly rides a bicycle, you might feel a tiny sense of moral superiority about getting exercise and reducing your carbon footprint. But in the 1890s, the moral discourse around bike riding was very different, and much more fraught. As Michael Taylor explained in a 2010 paper, Protestant authorities saw cycling as a significant threat to morality, and tried to mold the sport into a Christian activity.

Cycling women often wore bloomers that were much like men’s pants and were widely seen as indecent.
Up until the invention of the modern “safety” bicycle in 1887, few women rode the high wheel bicycles of the previous generation. But in the 1890s, a “cycling craze” offered a new kind of mobility to many young women.

Bikes facilitated unchaperoned dates—even elopements. Just as troubling to some moralists of the day, cycling women often wore bloomers, widely seen as indecent, that were much like men’s pants. The Women’s Rescue League of Boston even claimed that, were much like men’s pants. The Women’s Rescue League of Boston even claimed that, following the closing of brothels, prostitutes were riding bikes to reach their clients.

Another charge against the cycling craze was that people were spending their Sundays—often the only work-free day of the week—on bike rides rather than at church. Already, male church attendance had been on the decline. As a sport open to both women and men, cycling threatened to leave preachers with congregations made up of only the sick and the elderly.

One Indianapolis minister started a riding group with young members of the church, only to be censured by older congregants for his “frivolous bicycle ways.”

Cycling opened rifts between and within churches. One Indianapolis minister started a riding group with young members of the church, only to be censured by older congregants for his “frivolous bicycle ways.”

Taylor writes that the moral controversy over bicycles ended as quickly as it began. By the early 1900s, the cycling craze wound down. The price of bicycles fell, transforming their image into a working-class mode of transportation rather than an accessory for leisure. Meanwhile, the automobile replaced the bicycle as a subject of religious concern. And within a few decades, Taylor writes, “it was hard to imagine a more inoffensive means of transportation and entertainment.”