We saw one parent cycling up Cotham Hill on the school-run last week. On a strange tandem thing where the kid goes in front, the dad behind. This is the kind of thing those cycling campaigners and living streets people will be thinking is sweet: someone turning the school run into exercise.
But wait, look at this blurred shot. The little girl is working, but the dad? He's just sitting there with his feet hanging off the pedals.
This is an electric bicycle, and while the child is helping out, the dad is just sitting there, doing nothing at all!
This destroys the whole "bicycles are a form of exercise" argument. You get more exercise pressing the stop and go pedals on a car, changing gear aggressively, spinning the wheel as you try and do a mini-roundabout while going from 1st to 3rd gears and texting your friends at the same time.
BBC 1 West is going to look at the Cycling City program at 19:30 tonight, with councillors and cycling activists talking about the cycle city program, and whether it is making progress. Will anyone be up there denouncing it for encouraging lazy parents to get on electric bikes and get in our way? We think not.
You're right. And that's a beer belly if I'm not mistaken. There he is, sitting there, and he's making the kid work. If it wasn't for modern child labour restrictions -some of that Health and Safety bollocks- he'd be able to drop her off at the coal mines.
ReplyDeleteBut now: kids aren't allowed to go down coal mines and there are no more coal mines in Bristol. Coincidence? I think not.