Why is riding on the footpath an offence?

[Paspie]

Remarkably, I found an almost identical argument on another cycling forum I frequent:

how do you define a cyclist?

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Anyone who rides a bicycle.

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How do you define rides?

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Gets on it and pedals it in public.

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That makes no sense. Gets on it when? Ever? Just once, ride 10 yards as a child, fall off, and never get back on makes you a cyclist? If not that then where is the cutoff?

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When someone is riding a bicycle in public they are a cyclist.

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Can't argue with that.

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=71875.0

Oxford still hasn't provided me a way to distinguish rides as in rides frequently or unfrequently, or is actually riding a bike in present time.

 

[morrisman]

Oxford still hasn't provided me a way to distinguish rides as in rides frequently or unfrequently, or is actually riding a bike in present time.

The beauty of English is that we have a whole subset of words called adjectives that add information to nouns. So I think you are looking for - keen cyclists - infrequent cyclists - long distance cyclists - nobber cyclists, etc etc.

 

[Paspie]

But if the term does imply the frequency of cycling trips, where is the threshold between cyclist and non-cyclist? Where would children (who may not ride much later in life) fall? The black and white variant ('someone who is riding a bike') is much simpler and shouldn't need any questioning.

It shouldn't matter for the sake of discussion anyway. I had other points earlier, if you're going to cherrypick one of them and lead an endless debate on it then I don't see why I should bother.

 

[Dan B]

[QUOTE 3155080, member: 45"]Horses are rubbish.[/QUOTE]
But what else is there to do in Cheltenham? Apart from riding "PTW"s of course

 

[Paspie]

I'm comfortable with my definition, you're comfortable with your definition. There's no need to argue over it, that wasn't my intention.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

I'm comfortable with my definition, you're comfortable with your definition. There's no need to argue over it, that wasn't my intention.

The fact that there's no need to argue about it begs the question why bother quibbling about it in the first place. I do believe you started it. What was your intention then?

 

[MontyVeda]

since that silly chat is out of the way... can i ask this again?

...
As cyclists we need to learn to accept that we are not a priority and ensure that our relations with other traffic are as smooth as possible.

...

I'm not sure what you're getting at here... but I'll have a try at paraphrasing it (AKA, putting words in your mouth)

as a cyclist, i should accept that the car is king of the road, and as a cyclist, i should ensure i don't get in the way of a car.​

I've probably grabbed the wrong end of the stick, but as i say, it's unclear what you're saying.

 

[Paspie]

since that silly chat is out of the way... can i ask this again?


I'm not sure what you're getting at here... but I'll have a try at paraphrasing it (AKA, putting words in your mouth)

as a cyclist, i should accept that the car is king of the road, and as a cyclist, i should ensure i don't get in the way of a car.​

I've probably grabbed the wrong end of the stick, but as i say, it's unclear what you're saying.

You can't paraphrase it and then answer the paraphased version, that is dishonest.

I didn't imply that cars were superior, what I mean is that cyclists are not the only fish in the sea. As road users we are all equal.

As for the definition debate: I was the one who gave a definition to begin with, others decided to be offended and questioned it.

 

[Scoosh]

MOD NOTE:
This has been going round in circles for a few pages, so it's probably time to lock it.

Hope you enjoy other threads on CC - and, yes there are lots of them !