The Death of the Bicycle Will Triumph!

This is taking forever.

We’ve been talking about the death of the bicycle since the time of the Wright Brothers and Henry Ford.

But we still haven’t achieved it.

What will it take to make the death of the bicycle a reality?

Why does the bicycle need to die?

I think that all intelligent people agree that the bicycle needs to die. But just to be extra-cautious, I will again enumerate the reasons why the death of the bicycle is absolutely necessary.

• The bicycle is too slow. Perhaps the bicycle was suitable for 19th century life, but today it’s an embarrassment. The speed of the bicycle has long been surpassed by automobiles from the aforementioned Ford, and airplanes from the aforementioned Wrights. It poses a danger as slow-moving bicycle traffic risks getting hit by faster-moving vehicles, unless extraordinary measures are undertaken to separate bicycles from normal traffic. For this reason alone the bicycle must die.
• The bicycle is too weak. If that weren’t enough, take a look at the weakness of the bicycle and the huge threat from this weakness. You can completely destroy the bicycle and its rider with a simple puddle of oil, a nail, or a misplaced brick that a bicycle hits. This is yet another reason why the bicycle must die.

• The bicycle is too inefficient. Other factors of transportation are much better equipped to carry loads of people and goods. The bicycle? Forget it. Any attempt to carry a reasonable load of goods on a bicycle is doomed to failure.

• The bicycle is too easy to steal. It takes some effort to steal other factors of transportation, but it is pitifully easy to steal a bike, or part of a bike.

Despite everyone knowing about these security and personal threats for years if not decades, use of the bicycle continues to persist.

And we have to put a stop to it.

Why does the bicycle continue to live?

The problem is that a few wrongheaded individuals continue to promote bicycle use in a misguided way.

• Some of them argue that bicycles provide health benefits that you can’t realize with other factors of transportation. Any so-called health benefits are completely erased by the damage that could happen when a bicycle rider ends up face down on the pavement.
• Others argue that you can mitigate the problems with bicycles by requiring riders to change to a new bicycle every 90 days. This is also misguided, because even if you do this, the threats from bicycle use continue to occur from day one.

How do we solve this?

People have tried to hasten the death of the bicycle, but its use still persists.

We have continued to advance other factors of transportation, both from the efforts of vendors, as well as the efforts of industry associations such as the International Bus and Infiniti Association (IBIA) and the MANX (Moving At Necessary eXpress) Alliance.

Yet resistance persists. Even the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which should know better, continues to define bicycle use as a standard factor of transportation.

The three most recognized factors of transportation include “something you pedal” (such as a bicycle), “something you drive” (such as an automobile), and “something you ride” (such as a bus).

NIST Special Publication 800-8-2. Link unavailable.

It is imperative that both governments and businesses completely ban use of the bicycle in favor of other forms of transportation. Our security as a nation depends on this.

Do your part to bring about the death of the bicycle in favor of other factors of transportation, and ensure that we will enjoy a bicycleless future.

A personal note

I don’t agree with anything I just wrote.

Despite its faults, I still believe that the bicycle has a proper place in our society, perhaps as one of several factors of transportation in an MFT (multi-factor transportation) arrangement.

And, if you haven’t figure it out yet, I’m not on board with the complete death of the password either. Passwords (and PINs) have their place. And when used properly they’re not that bad (even if these 2021 figures are off by an order of magnitude today).

Oh, and about the title of this post. If you’ve heard of Triumph Motorcycles, you may already know that Triumph started as a bicycle manufacturer.