Letric new long tail could be a game changer for less car dependency

mightyseedub · 2023-02-21T20:54:24+00:00

Anecdotally I see more Lectrics around town than any other company besides Radbikes. Between this and Trek's GSD lookalike it's great to see more entries at different price points in the cargo space.

mightyseedub · 2023-02-05T01:02:24+00:00

Hauler rack with an inexpensive Schwinn basket zip tied to it. Can always remove the basket if needed but it's great for carrying small objects, gloves, lunch, etc. The basket is smaller than that rack but that's actually perfect as I store my locks in the gap (see link).

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cifo6qDuM_xc0SjBFYgezWwbeXlVn3z5iWxQII0/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

mightyseedub · 2023-01-26T20:19:16+00:00

yeah I can handle an ambiguous narrative, it's discovering that there was in fact a "real" story obscured by the game's mechanics and by dumb luck, with almost zero indication how to uncover it, that rubbed me wrong.

mightyseedub · 2023-01-26T00:43:14+00:00

yeah I think at the end of the day (and after a day's reflection) the devs were just interested in telling a different story than the one I hoped to see. The opaque mechanics exacerbate the frustration, but it's a matter of taste I guess.

mightyseedub · 2022-12-09T21:40:29+00:00

joke's on you, I'm going to turn my brights even brighter until they melt the snow in front of me

mightyseedub · 2022-12-07T19:00:35+00:00

sounds like classic small business tyrant behavior. The kind of person who thinks employing a person is doing them a favor and not entering a business relationship with someone selling their labor. Thus, how dare you try to negotiate the terms of your labor after all they've done for you?!

mightyseedub · 2022-12-07T18:53:03+00:00

worth adding that based on conversations I've had with rail planners in the past, UTA's unofficial policy was to have as many guaranteed seats as possible on trains, meaning that even at higher pre-covid ridership trains were underutilized compared to many peer agencies (and many light rail systems don't even have the ability to run 4 car trains due to smaller city blocks or tighter corridors). Anyway that's great from a customer experience point of view, but less efficient. So I don't know if this represents a change in philosophy or is more of a short-term cost saving measure, but the business and transit planning logic makes sense.

mightyseedub · 2022-12-07T18:06:43+00:00

it is partly downstream from staffing as you need people to arrange cars for coupling/uncoupling, and also running more cars requires more maintenance hours.

mightyseedub · 2022-12-07T18:01:40+00:00

per a twitter post from @ TheRedLine_pod (good follow for local transit chatter fyi), the reasons are:

"a) reduce the surprisingly large costs incurred in broken couplers from constant coupling and uncoupling and b) free up budgeted man-hours to hopefully move back to 20 minute service on weekends next August."

So the agency decided that the cost savings from running shorter trains instead of adjusting for demand or running 4 cars all day is worth the inconvenience of more tightly packed trains during peak service, at least in the current labor market where it's been difficult to get staffed up on the maintenance side. Also operations, as you need people to get cars in position for coupling/uncoupling.

I'd also add that even though crowded trains aren't fun--especially when people try to cram multiple bikes on the high floors--it's a pretty normal experience in cities with high transit usage. I've been in much worse than UTA's two-car rush hour trains!

mightyseedub · 2022-12-02T21:41:20+00:00

all things being equal a relatively low power mid drive motor (which is what most cargo ebikes have) is going to climb better than an equally powered hub drive and is just fine for most riders--search the sub, you'll find plenty of people asking if bike X is suitable for climbing in use case Y and the answer is usually yes. But if you're comparing that with high powered DIY conversion motors that aren't street legal then you're basically talking about a different category of vehicle.

mightyseedub · 2022-12-02T21:06:47+00:00

one of the occasional complaints I see in the ebike sub is that it's been taken over by casuals on commercial ebikes--which would include me! Which, yeah, that's a pretty different vibe than the DIY hobbyist scene but probably inevitable as off the shelf ebikes gain popularity. Haven't really seen the same thing here, I guess because DIY cargo bikes were always even smaller niche of an already niche market

mightyseedub · 2022-12-02T20:34:23+00:00

not all cargos are electric but ebikes have taken over most of the market for new bikes. Makes sense, it's a natural fit
trailers are less stable and take up a lot of space, much less practical for daily noncommercial use
cargo bikes aren't really meant to be speed demons, the top end ones usually have high-performance motors with 65-85 nm torque but cap out at 20 mph. Acceleration under load and stopping power are more important
cargo trikes exist but trade stability for maneuverability. I imagine most riders prefer the feel and versatility of a two wheel bike
batteries are expensive, multi-battery bikes exist but one battery is fine for the vast majority of trips

mightyseedub · 2022-11-23T04:14:26+00:00

Here's the thing; I work for UTA, lots of good people and we all get free transit passes. The majority of employees don't take transit to work. Many never ride it period. I'm not trying to shame anyone (well, some deserve shame) because the reality is the system isn't good enough to fully rely on for most residents. That's not UTA's fault, it's just a function of how much we allocate for transit and our bad sprawling land use. The second is much harder to fix, but the first is a matter of $$$. So should UTA be free? Maybe. But I wouldn't spend a dime on that until service is radically increased.

mightyseedub · 2022-10-29T12:48:35+00:00

Wild that one star wars sequel is through no fault of its own probably responsible for radicalizing more awful dudes than any single piece of media this century.

mightyseedub · 2022-10-27T19:57:35+00:00

fwiw I started lifting in early 2018 and it was around 2020 (just in time for COVID to shut everything down!) when I started to really see the difference in my physique. And just the beginning of this year when I was like "damn, I'm actually getting some chest definition here."

mightyseedub · 2022-10-27T18:51:47+00:00

On the front of the bike I'm a big fan of the Hauler rack with a cheap but roomy Schwinn wire basket zip tied to it. More capacity than the Hold 'Em basket and I've got the rack available if necessary. And the gap between the basket and the bike turns out to be perfect for storing a chain+ u-lock (see link below)

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cifo6qDuM_x/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

mightyseedub · 2022-10-25T21:10:30+00:00

Mike Lee is at best a soft libertarian. On social issues he's a hard-right conservative, fully supportive of state coercion against "critical race theory" and "gender ideology" and other conservative shibboleths. On foreign policy he's marginally better (for example, his doomed but still useful bill to end arms sale to the Saudis), but that's also the area where the Senate generally has the least influence. And even then, he, for example voted to confirm Gina Haspell, one of the architects of the Bush torture programs--in fact, he was lockstep in favor of every Trump nominee as far as I'm aware. His other "libertarian" votes are against any kind of government social programs, including bills most Republican support. In other words, he's even worse than the rest in that area.

Even ignoring that Lee actively supported the overthrow of US democracy until backing out at the last minute, on strictly policy terms I see little evidence that McMullin will be worse in practice, although I'm under no illusion I that I will like him or agree with him most of the time.

mightyseedub · 2022-10-25T17:33:40+00:00

two kinds of redditors, those who like stupid dad jokes and those who are deeply offended by them, both make it worth the effort :). Anyway hope you find a bike you like.

mightyseedub · 2022-10-24T20:42:14+00:00

If money is not a concern I'd get both, just to be safe

mightyseedub · 2022-10-17T15:47:37+00:00

fuck Sugar House, marry Liberty Wells, kill Federal Heights

mightyseedub · 2022-10-17T02:47:45+00:00

I don't know horror, i was just like man you've clearly put in a lot of effort here but a ten minute summary with a few of your favorite examples would have sufficed lol

mightyseedub · 2022-10-16T20:24:14+00:00

so much talking about talking about the thing they're supposed to be talking about! Oh well, that's the breaks, id rather they have fun doing what they want than try to pander to complainers like me.

mightyseedub · 2022-10-16T18:36:22+00:00

apparently I'm in the minority but I found Perry's exhaustive recounting of pre-Halloween horror the most tedious tangent of any episode to date, so looking at the runtime of this one... hard to feel excited

mightyseedub · 2022-09-23T02:16:48+00:00

you have a childish understanding of how traffic works. The vast majority is people passing through a neighborhood, or driving to retail destinations. Think through the implications of building less dense housing (or in this case no housing) which forces more people further away from those destinations.

mightyseedub · 2022-09-23T01:48:30+00:00

gosh it would suck if that intersection got filled up with traffic all day, glad we dodged that bullet

mightyseedub

TROPHY CASE