Skiing vs cycling

[snorri]

, and TBH you are clearly floundering in absence of your gang to back you up....

I've been waiting for some time for your gang to come charging to your rescue in some sort of last minute action to save your bacon, but like all the lost causes you have fought before, you stand alone, unbowed but very much alone.

 

[Linford]

argh.

Edit: To help prevent minor injury in the event of a minor accident. To fit in. To be 'accepted' as a cyclist. To keep my head warmer. Its a ritual. To get more approval from the uneducated.......

So you do see value in using them then....why take such a hypocritical POV here unless you are desperately looking to fit in with your peers ?

 

[Linford]

I've been waiting for some time for your gang to come charging to your rescue in some sort of last minute action to save your bacon, but like all the lost causes you have fought before, you stand alone, unbowed but very much alone.

Had it occurred to you that they may not want to engage on the boards with such hostile individuals....they have seen how you and your cronies treat me. You gang up and bully when you perceive weakness

I won't apologise for disappointing you...

 

[Linford]

Oh back to the point now are we.....

Show me where my POV is hypocritical and I'll happily discuss.

It's in the little writing at the bottom of the post ... you claim to have had an epithany...but still wear the lid

http://www.cyclechat.net/threads/skiing-vs-cycling.146520/post-2851606

 

[snorri]

Had it occurred to you that they may not want to engage on the boards with such hostile individuals....the have seen how you and your cronies treat me. You gang up and bully when you perceive weakness I won't apologise for disappointing you...

There was never any perception of weakness in your floundering efforts, the weakness was very real and clear for all but you to see.

 

[Linford]

There was never any perception of weakness in your floundering efforts, the weakness was very real and clear for all but you to see.

If you have nothing to add, then stop this....you only ever want to engage me in conversation to troll....You bring nothing else to the table.

If I went after anyone else specifically in the way you have with me, I'd be looking at a ban.

 

[Linford]

Go on then, let's try the question again. Seeing as you have posted data that shows how cyclists, pedestrians, and vehicle occupants all risk head injuries, and the relative risks are not massively different, why the cliff edge decision?

Before there were cars, bicycles, Tame Horses or wheeled carriages, there was just people on foot. We have evolved to have a reasonable amount of protection from the forces which we might be exerted to when walking, jogging...or even falling over.
This seems like the most reasonable place to put your cliff edge.
Now if you do want to jump of a real cliff edge (and hope to survive), you'd use head gear.

 

[theclaud]

Before there were cars, bicycles, Tame Horses or wheeled carriages, there was just people on foot. We have evolved to have a reasonable amount of protection from the forces which we might be exerted to when walking, jogging...or even falling over.
This seems like the most reasonable place to put your cliff edge.
Now if you do want to jump of a real cliff edge (and hope to survive), you'd use head gear.

So you'd advocate helmets for the occupants of motor vehicles, then? Just checking...

 

[Linford]

So you'd advocate helmets for the occupants of motor vehicles, then? Just checking...

I would say that unless they are strapped in, they shouldn't be riding in one in the first place.

 

[Linford]

People travelling in cars whilst strapped in still end up with head injuries. Don't they need protection? Will no one think of the children?

Specifically and at what speed ?

 

[snorri]

.You bring nothing else to the table.

It's rather difficult when you keep wandering off topic, and you ignored my earlier posting.

 

[srw]

I don't give a flying f*ck about statistics, I'm more concerned about what my neurons and my instincts are telling me right here right now, i.e. real life.

I'm more concerned about real life too, so I think I'll do what the oil industry must do when it invests billions in a new rig.

Eeny Meeny Miney Mo. R I G spells Rig!

Right - there will do.

 

[srw]

If the figures you quote are accurate, then a relative level of risk within one order of magnitude bears this out.

With apologies to Adrian and whichever guideline it is that suggests that "FTFY" isn't the best response to a debate, I'm highlighting a rather important bit of the post.

The motorcycling and driving stats are pretty accurate - distance and time are easy to measure to within a reasonably decent level of accuracy. The cycling and walking stats are not accurate to more than a factor of 50%. Measuring time and distance are difficult.

(Incidentally what @Linford doesn't point out is that those stats are from 1988, since when all modes of transport have got markedly safer, and also come from a time when cycle helmets were very rare. I bought my first one in 1989 and was an early adopter)

 

[srw]

I think this is very true. A friend who has skied in Switzerland for most of his life and broke his leg while skiing as a child, told me that Swiss hospitals focus heavily on ski injuries in large part because of the fear of negative PR to a very important tourism industry.
[...]
Whatever the empirical stats, I honestly don't think there is a fair or constructive comparison to try to make between downhill skiing and general cycling. Maybe make it with downhill mountain biking, otherwise it isn't really a like with like comparison.
.

In general I agree with your point about the comparison - except that the skiing PR industry seems to have nobbled every journalist who wrote about Schumacher's accident with the lie (and I use that word very deliberately) that "skiing is safer than cycling". Which means that a bunch of dirty bastards who have a multi-billion Euro leisure industry to defend are affecting the public's perception of a very safe mode of transport.

I have never been skiing - downhill skiing has never appealed (the risk has always seemed high, the smug middle-classness of the pursuit repellent and the leisure-wear horrific. And frankly if I'm going on holiday in winter I want something more interesting to look at than an industrialised mountainside.) Having read up on the stats I'm relieved that my perception of the risk wasn't wrong. If you take a coachload of people skiing for a week, you can expect one of them to be seriously enough injured on the slopes to require medical attention. It would need a trainload of cyclists.

Having said all of that, if someone offered me a week's cross-country skiing I'd jump at the chance - for exactly the same reasons that I'd choose road cycling over offroading.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Honestly I don't get this argument anymore. If I cycle 80km per week and walk less than 1km, is my risk not greater in the activity I'm doing more of at a higher speed in busy traffic? Am I dumbing this down too much? Stats include a whole load of variables that might not even be relevant to some of us. So shouldn't risk be assessed on an individual basis?

On the subject of risk and risk perception, I'd like to put this excellent and informative article again into the debate:

http://www.gicentre.net/blog/2013/11/24/risk-cycling-and-denominator-neglect