Monday 15 June 2009

High-Viz Fetish? No, more a lifestyle choice

On our previous post on Bristol Cycling Chic, we got some wonderful feedback from the Copenhagen cycling chic team, who accused us of having a high-viz fetish; that our interests in bright green outer wear was somehow unhealthy:
And your fetish for hi-viz and other gear is odd and by promoting it you are merely stunting the growth of bicycle culture. Where are your photos of pedestrians in hi-viz or your calls for them to wear these things?
Good point. We haven't been covering the pedestrians properly. Consider this posting a correction.
Interestingly, since we were denounced, traffic to the site, indeed that post has been fairly high. The initial thought was that our philosophy had taken seed across Europe, and soon even in Amsterdam and Copenhagen people would be riding round in hi-viz tops and budget Lidl waterproof trousers.
But no, that turns out not to be the reason for the sudden surge visitors. A quick look at the search keywords that bring people to the site shows the real driver. If you type "High-Viz fetish" into your favourite search engine, Bristol Traffic comes out on that first page. Clearly enough people have been doing exactly that, that it's been bringing a whole new audience to the site.

We can but welcome these new viewers, with their special interests, and invite to Bristol, where they will blend in, on foor or bike.

Those who are about to put on High-Visibility clothing, we salute you!

1 comment:

Colville-Andersen said...

haha, this is great. for the record I stand/stood corrected for my shocking misinterpretation of your satirical view on the previous post.

now all we need are walking helmets. fortunately, one of your fellow citizens is on the case: www.thudguard.com