Aligning characteristics which do not necessarily go with one another is to create a preordained conclusion and a stereotype. Examples: red-headed and hot-tempered; male and sexist; dumb and blonde. A respectable study would not lump characteristics together, but rather, describe each characteristic precisely and then study correlations between them.
Portland, Oregon bicycle coordinator Roger Geller’s four categories of cyclists each conflate two characteristics in this way: Strong and Fearless, Enthused and Confident, Interested but Concerned, No How, No Way.
Below is an illustration from the Web, showing Geller’s categories. There are actually 16 categories, as each of the characteristics could be either present or absent. Comments are below the illustration.
* Fearless is not necessarily strong. This category perpetuates the myth of bicyclists’ success on the road depending on speed, and the spandex-clad road warrior. I am old and so, slow, but fearless because I am skillful. People who train for fitness (often indoors) but lack bike handling and road skills are fast and fearful.
* Badvocacy’s driving force is people who are enthused but not confident. Counterexample: my son learned how to operate in traffic on the back of our tandem, but now as an adult doesn’t choose to ride a bicycle — he is confident but not enthused. What he learned, though, serves him very well as a motorist.
* Interested but concerned: Many people are concerned and uninterested. They don’t ride bicycles and worry about my safety as I am about to ride away. Others are interested but unconcerned. They ride bicycles or have friends and family who do, and are not consumed by worry.
* No how: literally, can’t ride a bicycle because of a physical, sensory or mental impediment (so much for the idea of “all ages and abilities”). No way: — can’t afford to keep a bicycle, it was stolen etc. The two terms recited together are slang term which refers to aversion, but the illustration is of a man with a cane, who has an impediment (no way).
A study was conducted based on these conflated categories, to reach preordained conclusions.
I like to demonstrate and teach how cyclists can be confident, safe and fearless without necessarily being strong — that is my goal as a bicycling instructor.
Levels of traffic stress depend on skill level, not only on riding environment as indicated in the image below the four categories. And as been indicated elsewhere, comfort does not equate to safety with infrastructure that introduces hazards and creates a false sense of security. For example, width of bike lane is included in the list of factors in the illustration, but not dooring risk.
I don’t think I have caught John yet, but as another old and slowed down cyclist, I am old and slowing down, but not fearful. That said, every once in a while something might happen that does get the adrenaline flowing. For example:
http://labikes.blogspot.com/2022/09/narrow-single-lane-roads-leading-to-and.html
I’m not sure if you can see this from the CABO group or not, but Bill Sellin wrote:
The underlying fallacy of Geller’s typology is that they are not static;
Building permanent infrastructure to serve a population that shift’s its operational skills and comfort level unfairly removes incentives to improve infra for the ‘fit and fearless’ and sets up disparity where only affluent customers (remember to follow the $ from badvocates back to manufacturers and sellers of bicycles)
I also reject Geller’s inclusion of no way – no how as a viable customer base for getting them to ride. You can build a “protected bike lane” cycle track from their hom eto work or school and they still won’t bike. “No Way – No How” is not a category of cyclist we should build infrastructure for.
https://groups.google.com/g/caboforum/c/ICSZNc8E8p8/m/VV5arQpdAgAJ
The persons I find best fit the “interested but concerned” category tend to be only vaguely interested and are less interested than they might be out of concerns they’ve learned from those overhyping the dangers of riding bicycles. Those mainly focused on facilities ‘solutions’ find those people a neat fit–they paint a picture of safe riding without learning safe riding principals by means of barriers to keep other traffic away.
It’s really a false picture. As one rider told me on Albuquerque’s Tramway Blvd segregated bikeway (up the curb, off the street) “if it’s this scary on the path, I can’t imagine riding in the r0ad like you are.” The problem he had? Conflicts with turning traffic at intersections, ones easy to avoid when riding in the curb lane but dangerous from the bikeway. He’d been sold a false bill of goods, even though the bikeway has its merits for those who are savvy that the bikeway requires a rider to take extra care to avoid conflicts. He and other interested but concerned riders would have been better off with some hours following the wheel of an experienced rider to lear the ways of the road than by a million dollars a mile spent to create a path used by a few who don’t know how to use it safely.
This is just the standard segregation advocacy tactic of dismissing ANY critic of their suggestions as unrepresentative. What is basically being presented is one category of bicyclist and three categories of NON-bicyclists (most obviously so in the last category). It is an essentially anti-cyclist analysis.
Yes, interesting to see that of the 4 categories of “cyclists,” the one labeled “no way, no how” is a “cyclist” category more than 3 times as numerous as the two composed of people who actually ride their bikes combined.
“C’mon, let’s you and I ride our bikes together to lunch this Friday” has done far more good for getting people I know on bikes than any amount of money spent on infrastructure projects.
As noted, this is designed to dismiss anyone who actually bicycles. Including No How No Way makes even less sense to me, unless the explicit plan is to prohibit private motor vehicle ownership and force people to walk or bicycle.
I find the Strong and Fearless particularly dishonest because while I may or may not be strong, I’m not fearless, I’m scared of different things. City planners and advocates keep telling me bad facilities are better than no facilities (inside RTOL, 3′ door zone, blocked by 30-40 18 wheelers in industrial areas). I fail to see the improvement.