No one wants a bicycle

No one wants a car either.

What people want is freedom, flexibility, and convenience. They want to enjoy themselves. They want to be accepted by their peers. And they don’t want to worry about getting killed or maimed.

Judging by the success of cars (and a litany of data) people only give trace importance to health or environment.

So why are we trying to convince people to ride bicycles because it’s good for your health and environment?

We should redefine bicycles as freedom and cars as slavery.

We should tell people that cars are actually shackles. They lock you up in expensive car payments, maintenance fees, insurance and gas. Some people work an extra job just to pay the cost of their cars. They are troublesome to park. You get parking and driving tickets. Road accidents kill globally the equivalent of about 150 people a day, which is like one plane crashing every hour of every day.

Why don’t we tell people that bikes are an easy, fun way to get around? They offer door-to-door convenience. You can park it right in front of where you are going. Never pay for gas again. You can afford to buy a bike up front in one payment. You can easily learn to fix it yourself. Even if you take it to the shop, a full tune up for only a bit more than an oil change. You can feel the wind in your hair and the sun on your face. Bikes have never killed a person driving in a car. And kids never cry on a bike seat.

Cars imprison you. Bikes set you free.

Where are all the good bicycle commercials?

WorldStreets posted a new Hyundai commercial today showing all of its ‘green’ initiatives and featuring happy birds singing “What a wonderful world”. Clearly this atrocity is evidence of a dying industry clutching at straws. Most of us get pummeled by car advertisements everywhere.

But what I want to know is, where are all the good tv advertisements for bicycles?

A quick look at YouTube suggests that this area is pretty ripe. There aren’t really any good bike advertisements. This is the most watched (188K) but I find it a bit lame. It finishes with “we believe… in bicycles”. That’s bull.

This is what Americans believe in. Cars and Freedom.

Notice this viedo has also been viewed 1.2M times.

We need bicycle commercials that can compete with this kind of thing. So where’s the “bicycles and freedom” commercial? Can someone make that happen?

Mikael Andersen is perhaps making the most commendable efforts in this direction, but we need more voices.

We have got to get away from the bike-because-it’s-good-for-you-and-the-planet health and environment plugs. People should bike because it’s great, it’s fun and it’s liberating. Biking is freedom.

If we don’t start doing some serious work to change people’s mentalities, bicycles will just continue to be followers of so-called “green” cars.