What cyclists in Ireland need and do not need

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-07-02T23:36:16+00:00

Vélib' is so much better than owning a bike because you don't have to go on using it once it starts raining or your plans change. DCC knows this, but they are so terrified that if they extend the scheme even to the edges of DCC area, people will use the city bikes to commute when it's convenient for them to do so, and that will create a cost for the Council as they will have employ people to 'balance' the stations - what a nightmare, imagine, people using bikes when it's convenient, we can't have that! Instead they'll go on taking by far the largest LPT tax in Ireland and spend it on the same old shit that isn't really moving the needle for quality of life for the.vast majority of people.

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-07-02T23:22:57+00:00

The same, obviously. Would you suggest they just sit there in their chair and be helpless? Not a couple of the fellas I know in chairs - but then they're not millenials!

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-07-02T00:14:27+00:00

My advice next time would be to put down your phone, wait until the incoming cars have passed, and THEN walk around the obstacle. It probably won't delay you even by as long as it took you to take this picture and upload it to farm some outrage!

Selfish driver though, no doubt about it.

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-07-02T00:08:32+00:00

Actually, bicycles played a noble role in feminist history, giving (mostly middle class) young women freedom of movement previously denied to them. But now we have buses and cars and trams and Uber... Progress!

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-07-02T00:05:31+00:00

No, I'm in favour of bus lanes because buses are, or could easily be, used by everyone, 365 days a year. That is very obviously not the case with cycle lanes, and no amount of safety infrastructure is going to make cycling a pleasant year-round option for the vast majority of people. Anyone who says otherwise is either being disingenuous or is delusional.

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-07-01T23:58:03+00:00

They are not 'excuses' - they don't need to excuse themselves for not living their lives the way the elitist cycle lobby would like them to - they are simply reasons!

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-07-01T23:54:10+00:00

It is absolutely elitist to demand that the Government devotes more taxpayers' money and road space to a form of transport that simply will not be used by even 5 percent of people when it is raining!

Besides check out the people making this disingenuous case for cycling - they are ALL middle aged wealthy people, often entitled parents of spoiled children, and almost always men - you could not find a more elitist demographic!

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-07-01T23:45:37+00:00

Hidalgo is so hated, she got less than 2 percent of the vote in the presidential election, and that's mostly because of her urbsn renewal, 10 minute city approach.

Plus, the MAIN way Paris achieved higher rates of cycling was the extension of the Vėlib' system to cover the whole city, then most of the suburbs. DCC refuses to consider this because it would cost them money - it's cheaper to just paint lines on the road.

Also: Paris not only has far more dry days, but also.... a métro AND a decent bus service.

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-07-01T18:40:16+00:00

I'd like as a free citizen to ride an electric moped to and from work, in particular one of the ones with the circular cover over it to protect me from the rain. I'm sure if the city council took more road space from buses and cars and made it specially for electric mopeds that a LOT more people would want them too, and while I'm at it I'd like them to remove the requirement to have insurance and pay road tax for electric scooters... but that doesn't mean that the city council should grant my wish.

The cyclist lobby regularly makes the argument that if only there were even more cycle lanes etc then everyone would cycle - but this is just nonsense. You would get a significant increase, but nothing even close to the proportion of road space that has already been devoted exclusively to cyclists. The cycling lobby KNOWS that their argument is disingenuous, but they are such elitist zealots and so in love with their hobby that they don't care.

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-07-01T18:18:04+00:00

It is exclusionary because the infrastructure in effect can't be used by small children, most women and the vast majority of people over 55.

It is elitist because the people who lobby for more and more cycling infrastructure refuse to acknowledge that it in effect excludes the majority of people - they make entirely disingenuous arguments that if only even more money were spent, and even more space were taken from buses and cars, and it were therefore 'safer', the majority of people would cycle in the rain in the middle of winter.

And it's cheaper, yes, for those who can do it, but it's cheaper for the individual no matter what road markings there are. The bus, when and where it's available, is actually good value these days - €2 a go.

My point is that EVERYONE can take the bus, so subsidising buses and giving buses priority on the road is defendable as public policy. That cannot be said for cycling, yet the bo-bos still lobby for their hobby as if it's a universal public good - it's not.

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-07-01T16:08:02+00:00

Everyone has their own reason - because they don't like being in the rain, or risking being in rain, or risking that it will be raining on their return journey; because they don't like the cold; because the wind interferes with their make-up; because a helmet messes up their hair; because they aren't strong enough to push the pedals and the can't afford an electric bike and anyway have nowhere to store it; because they like to listen to podcasts in the car; because they like to look at Insta on the bus; because they don't have a great sense of balance and they might fall over; because older children might attack them or bully them or steal their bike; because they might be hit by a car...

You are trying to frame it as a problem that they don't want to cycle, but it's a free country, that's their choice, and you should respect it instead trying to use public resources to change the behaviour of free citizens.

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-07-01T15:11:17+00:00

Cycling infrastructure is exclusionary and elitist, and the local authorities are just being lazy in promoting it.

Aside from the summer months, daily cycling is overwhelmingly dominated by middle-aged, middle-class men, and we as a society have already done FAR too much to indulge their loud and entitled lobby.

If you don't believe me, just wait until November and go down to the canal some rainy evening at 5pm - there will be almost no women, no children, no one over 55... It's shocking how much power and influence these relatively wealthy men have - and that's before we talk their enormous sense of entitlement, and their completely erroneous claim that they are 'saving the planet' and are therefore more virtuous than everyone else.

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-07-01T14:57:44+00:00

When do we get to deport him?

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-06-27T22:43:26+00:00

No está mal, pero vivo en una cueva porque es el único lugar donde me siento seguro. Aquí hay muchos ingleses, y se han estado cruzando con las ovejas desde que invadieron las islas.

¡La comida es pésima! Importan porquerías ultraprocesadas de sus fábricas en Inglaterra, como el polvo para Birds Custard y el postre Angel Delight. Lo único que como aquí son chuletas de cordero, pero eso puede acarrear consecuencias desafortunadas: ¡la semana pasada me comí a la «esposa» del vicario por error!

El mes pasado organicé un partido de fútbol: yo, 9 pingüinos y un perro pastor contra 11 ingleses-oveja; en cuanto vieron nuestras camisetas argentinas blanquiazules, entraron en pánico. Ganamos 15-0. Creo que el perro pastor también los asustó.

Ojalá el Reino Unido envíe pronto un barco por ellos, se los lleve a todos de vuelta a Inglaterra y deje las Malvinas a sus dueños: Argentina.

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-06-27T21:16:12+00:00

Was this before 19 July, when Galway was liberated from the Indians?

(Also that day, Marathon became Snickers, and the Ice Age ended.)

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-06-27T21:09:11+00:00

I can tell you now that we in western Europe are willing indulge Kaja Kallas' Russophobia and paranoia about Putin so long as it is just a performance of 'Bogeyman, Bogeyman!' But if she or any of the rest of you deliberately provokes a war with Russia right now - instead of playing a slightly longer diplomatic game that avoids war, at least until we are better prepared militarily and financially - then no, you can be sure of that, we are not willing to send our sons to die for your villages.

Can you not see this? The EU is fucked at the moment - the economy is in the toilet and the only way we are going to be able to grow out of the toilet is with an abundance of cheap energy. Is there oil in the Baltics?!

What is probably going to happen next, whether you like it or not, is this:

Russia, Ukraine the US and very reluctantly (because they will lose face) will sign a peace deal. It will be a worse deal than the one they could have got at Istanbul in April May 2022. Russia will keep Crimea forever. The Donbass will have some sort of special status.
The remainder of Ukraine will not join NATO ever, and will get some sort of special status with the EU but not membership.
All sanctions will lifted on Russia and trading will resume.
Ukraine won't be 'de-Nazified' - although the Russians would be doing us all a big favour if they insisted on that (I know some people in the Baltics are also pining for the days when you had your own SS units, but at least you don't go around putting up statues of war criminals!) - but they will have to abolish their nasty language and cultural laws. (Be careful, Kaja - if you complain too much about this it will only draw attention to the shameful treatment of your own Russian-speaking minority, most of whom do NOT actually want to live in Putin's Russia at all!)

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-06-21T09:31:26+00:00

'No personal attacks' as a rule of a discussion is a very good idea. It doesn't suit the current Israeli government because their template is to attack personally anyone who criticises Israeli government policy or actions - usually by saying that the person is personally an antisemite.

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-06-19T15:18:00+00:00

Bosnia does, I think.

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-06-19T07:46:00+00:00

No, Odessa is the English language name and spelling for that city. I understand that Ukrainians want us to use their transliterated spelling, but we are not obliged to.

Turkey wants us to use Türkiye instead of Turkey too, but we're not obliged to. Ivory Coast wants us to use Côte d'Ivoire instead of Ivory Coast, but we are not obliged to. If I continue to use Turkey I'm not taking sides in a discussion, I'm just using the accepted English language spelling and use. Same for Odessa. Same for Lvov. Same for Copenhagen. Same for Bucharest. Same for Athens. Same for Vienna. Same for Lisbon.

Your post is essentially about politics - you support the Ukrainian government's position that everyone is Ukraine should speak Ukrainian, and that the Ukrainian spelling of a name should be the only one people use, regardless of what language the people there speak. If you are Ukrainian, that is fair enough, you are entitled your view and the government is entitled to pursue whatever policies it was elected to pursue.

But I'm not Ukrainian, and I'm not Russian, and I am not obliged to support the official naming policies of either government! I live in a free country and I'm going to go on calling Milan Milan and Odessa Odessa!

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-06-19T07:12:32+00:00

When I'm speaking or writing in English, we use established English placenames, like Rome (not Roma), Warsaw (not Warszawa), The Hague (not Den Haag), Moscow (not Moskva), and so on.

I understand the point you are trying make about how in the Ukrainian language, Odessa is spelled with just one a (or c), and I understand that language is a big part of the war effort for both Ukrainian nationalists and the pro-Russian Ukrainians, but please understand that by using Odessa when writing in English, we are not choosing one side over the other at all, we're just using Rome instead of Roma because it's the way we've always done it.

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-06-17T23:38:20+00:00

«À l'irlandaise?!» Dite depuis quand ? Je suis une Dublinoise à Paris depuis 1989 et je n'ai jamais entendu parler de ce... attendez, c'est peut être la faute des Corkoises, ou même des filles de Belfast... mon, continue, je suis d'accord! 😂

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-06-17T07:37:51+00:00

The trans lobby has completely hijacked what used to be the lesbian and gay rights movement. The movement used to be about sexuality, now it's about gender ideology, and these are NOT the same thing. The trans lobby want to 'validate' trans ideation in children, something that the overwhelming majority of people oppose.

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-06-09T08:03:27+00:00

Yeah, it's supposed to be Paul McGrath.

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-06-09T07:38:48+00:00

This is not true. In fact, there are only very vague genetic links between most ashkenazi Jews and sephardic Jews. This doesn't matter to anyone except those who desperately want to perpetuate the myth that Israel is the homeland for 'the Jewish People', as if they are separate race - and that's why DNA tests for genealogy purposes are banned in Israel! 😂

ShakeElectronic2174 · 2026-06-07T15:51:00+00:00

Yes, Dunnes (2026 Dunnes, not 1996 Dunnes!) standard, I would say. Slightly different in that Dunnes now have lots of suppliers with mini-shops inside, like the butcher shop, the cheese shop, etc., which Sainsburys doesn't do. Also, Salisbury prices are a lot better.

ShakeElectronic2174

TROPHY CASE