About the video here by Mikael Colville of copenhagenize.com:
Mikael Colville’s talk in the video is introduced by a video clip of a rather sorry infrastructure situation, with a crowd of bicyclists slowly making their way forward, cramped in a narrow passage to the right of an opaque barrier, while a line of cars turning right must yield to the cyclists after turning past the barrier. To me, this choice of a clip conveys the message “look, we are morally superior, motorist, we’re going to make it hard for you: you have to yield to us.” It doesn’t say anything about making bicycling more convenient, or anything but a nuisance to people who might think of switching from motoring. Or that whoever chose this location had any other sense about infrastructure — certainly none about sight line hazards.
And the music — the Rolling Stones’ Sympathy for the Devil! Now there’s an odd choice!
Similarly, at the end, there is an overhead drone shot of a bridge which has recently been restriped from four to two lanes of motor traffic, to add street level bike lanes next to already existing bikeways behind curbs. The implication is that bicyclists are winning by taking space away from motorists, and that space is to struggle over, not to share. In this case, on a bridge, I’d agree that bike lanes are suitable, but are four needed? What happens where they turn off at the end of the bridge while motor vehicles can go straight? We don’t see. Who knows?
The talk is all about marketing. The core of his message is that guilt-tripping people about environmentalism doesn’t work, and we must use marketing to make bicycling look attractive. Two products which Colville discusses for purposes of comparison, sewing machines and vacuum cleaners, are both highly useful labor-saving devices which quickly became popular for that reason, but he doesn’t mention that. He does praise improvements which made them more compact and useful in the home, but mostly, he praises the decorations on sewing machines which made them more attractive to homemakers.
My mother owned a Singer treadle sewing machine, and indeed it was a beautiful product — to some degree because of the flower stencils but also because of its elegant product design, with a table to hold supplies and attachments, and into which the machine could be folded down to make the table useful when the machine wasn’t in use. Treadle power was perfect for the pre-electrical era, and the wheel on the right end of the machine could start, slow or stop it with precision. Not to speak of my mother’s machine’s being several decades old and still working perfectly.
My mother also owned a 1950-ish Kenmore (Sears brand, made by Electrolux) vacuum cleaner, and it was an esthetic horror, shaped like an airplane fuselage, painted dull gray and very loud. She made much more use of the vacuum cleaner than of the sewing machine.
Colville says that we must market bicycling like these products. He deprecates “the 1%” of people who will wear fancy cycling clothing” — guilt by association with political class struggle, divisive, and also a reference to the categorization which Roger Geller made up, pulling the numbers out of his head, only to be followed up by a home-town study which found that his numbers were exactly right (surprise!).
Colville says that people are conservative and don’t want to stand out. But, tattoos peek out from under his plain white T shirt.
I don’t think that bicycling can be sold by marketing alone. It must be practical and useful like a sewing machine or vacuum cleaner, or people won’t use it for daily transportation. Though some people like to show off with Spandex and carbon fiber bikes, others wear street clothes and ride beater bikes. Some do both. Should instructors even care? We make bicycling more practical for any cyclists by helping them to do it well — and offering informed opinions on what works, or not, in bicycle planning and infrastructure.
