A few weeks ago, Pekka and Tom did a Plus 1 Minus 2 challenge comparing urban cycling in two much different winter cities Oulu, Finland and Calgary, Canada (https://youtu.be/_KeOnZgQWjA).
Now, they will discuss the videos live! Bring your questions.
17 Comments
You want to compare a micro city of under 200,000 people to a North American city built for over a million people and compare winter cycling? Might as well compare the potato diet of a hamlet in Siberia to the burger and fries diet of a apartment across from McDonald’s in L.A.
terrible audio quality for such a long stream
Its naive to think that you can have a large metro without lights, without spending millions on overpasses and pedestrian tunnels… I don’t think the comments made were realistic, more fantasy.
On light signals: most cities do have different cycles for lights depending on time of day.
Where I live, during overnight period, the stroad is green by default, unless a car is detected on crossstreet. problem is cyclists don't trigger it so you have to cross on red when there are no cars. (I do that only couple times a year for very long rides when I start before sunrise).
On pedestrian lights: my guess is that green is reserved for cars, and the white pedestrian makes it obvious it isn't for cars.
Washington DC downtown has timers and many intersections are on the long 45 second cycle for one side. Seeing it on a bike tells you whether you shoudl accelerate to catch it, go normal because you have plenty of time, or no chance to make it, so slow down right away. But for cars, it causes drivers to have heavy foot on pedal before the light turns green for them.
in New Jersey, many lights are arranged such that if you are going north-south, you have 0 visibility on east-west lights, so you have no advance notice of east0west turning yellow and really have to wait for your light to go green. So the philosophy varies from area to area, and the time between the others getting yellow and you getting green also varies from city to city. There is no standard. (during my long rides, I really notice this.
In downtown Montréal, they dump snow in the large sewer collectors that go to the eastern end of island to water treatment plant. So dirty street snow isn't dumped into river (probited in Québec) and saves trucks from having to drive far away in traffic to dump their snow in some of the officuial snow dump sites.
(for the snow blower to run constantly, it needs constant supply of dump trucks to receive snow, and the father the snow dup is, the more trucks they need to ensure snow blower always has a truck ready to take over).
On wide residential street: after snowfall, many cities have "no parking on street" rules so that streat clearing can go ahead without impediment., so right after a snowfall, it could be quite normal t see empty streets like that.
Technically, those small streets in Netherland where bikes ride and cars co-exit would be sharows. but bikes are in sufficient numbers that cars have to slow down, whereas in north america, car drivers see cyclists like a target to destroy in a video game because there are so few of them.
This video is all fake !!!! I checked Google Street view for the Lowes at the shopping mall destination and there is no snow there. Proof that you rode your bike and spent time in After Effects to add snow into the video 🙂
Despite your compl;aints on the coat hanger bike racks, at least they left them for winter. Where I live, the local supermarket removes the bike rack in winter, so I have to put muy bike behind a bench (in snow) and wrap lock cable around the pole between the seat and seatback of bench. However, at the municipal pool, the bike rack is left but in an uncleared area. I am the only one to use it in winter. So I can plant my front wheel in the snow between the 2 bars and it holds the bike steady in snow (instead of leaning on the bike rack) 🙂
Great content but between the thick accent and the audio quality I cannot understand about 40-50% of what's being said. Run a test stream or pre stream before the show next time to get the kinks worked out before you're doing a major upload like this. Otherwise great in-depth chat though, I'd love to see more like this.
I actually think Montreal has the best infrastructure for winter cycling of any of the Canadian cities.
Terrible audio, gave up
Was Pekka playing your video call audio through speakers, instead of the right way for both through ear/headphones?
I made it about 10 minutes before the audio got me and I had to switch off. As a webcast producer, this was so frustrating, I’m pretty sure they just needed to mute when not speaking. If you want any help with the next one, just let me know =]
Thanks!
Oh no! The audio was unbearable for such a long stream. Maybe next time…
Audio jacked up and really only saw the thumbnail but I can tell you confident Finn’s > Canadians in every single aspect of anything on earth
Was this recorded in 1833 for christs sake?
For theft. North America has less cheap bikes because commuter bikes are barely a thing here, historically. Most of our cheap bikes for the last few decades have been the poorly built department store bikes with no durability, so you're not going to be finding many bikes that are old or have been left outside on the used market. Furthermore, affordable bikes are not immune to bike theft and an unfortunately large portion of the bikes on the used market are stolen.
That said, I still think it's more of a psychological barrier than a financial one. It's well known that people care more about losing their possessions than getting new ones.
When it comes down to it though, most people who cycle end up having a bike stolen unless they are diligent about locking it up, while automobiles have low rates of theft in comparison.