Human Powered Transportation
From The Encyclopedia of Pointless
It’s a brave new world of gas prices!
Well actually, no, It’s not. It’s the same old stupid world of gas prices since summer 2005, when they all suddenly jumped up to around $3.15 and took their sweet time going back down to a slightly more reasonable 2 two bucks. Because of this, filthy dirty hippies, Canadians, movie stars and Bono all started recommending that people stop driving places, and start using the other transportation options available to us.
Of course, none of them actually took their own words to heart. They all just bought hybrid cars. An undoubtedly awesome technology that will be embraced by the mainstream the second we have conclusive evidence that buying one of these vehicles does not immediately turn you into an insufferable arse.
Whatever. The point is that there are ways to move yourself from point A to point B that don’t require expensive driving or stupid boring walking. Let us take a moment to examine these alternate means of movement, and try to determine which one sucks the least.
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Bicycles
One of the very first human powered vehicles ever invented, early bikes had a hilariously awesome design that was perfectly suited for silent movies. The charming Comically large wheel + comically small wheel was a winning design that had people putting on their riding goggles, their ridiculous hats, and their leather gloves in droves! Truly these were the golden days of the bicycle.
Unfortunately, nothing good can last forever, and the glory days of the bike were brought to an abrupt and sad close by the invention of the bike chain, a malicious set of metal links that seeks nothing but it’s freedom from the equally horrifying Bike gear. It feeds primarily on the human pants leg.
The horrors of the bike chain aside, the bike’s main failing is in it’s size. Due to the fact that bikes are naturally big and klunky, they cannot be taken inside of the journey’s destination with you, and must be locked up with a bike lock that is easily cut, and removed. Also, if you’re on a college campus, people will take it upon themselves to remove the seat from the bike, under the impression that they are “Teaching you a lesson”. After much research we have managed to discern exactly what lesson this action drives home.
“Some people are DICKS.”
Roller Skates/Blades.
I used to believe that rollerblades were awesome. Oh what a fool I was.
In between how easily they break, how quickly the wheels wear down, how much they hurt your perfectly innocent feet, and the fact that it takes a good 5 minutes to replace the clunky wheeled boots with sensible footwear to go into any civilized building, there is virtually no reason to ever operate or own any sort of in-line skates, under any circumstances ever.
Razor Scooters
Ha-ha! It’s like a rollerblade and that toy you had when you were 5 had some sort of horrible unwanted child!
Segways
It’s like that horrible child of Rollerblades and scooters died, and was brought back to life by some sort of mad scientist as a hulking abomination! Ha-ha!
Skateboards
Skateboards seem to be the perfect alternative to all this nonsense. They’re relatively fast, easily to learn, and quite fun to boot. They can cut a 10 minute walk down to 2 minutes of riding, and once you’ve reached the destination, you can simply pick it up and carry it inside with you. They don’t require any sort of special shoes, they don’t wish to ravenously eat your pants leg, and they aren’t stupid and worthy of hatred like razor scooters. It would seem as thought they are the best of all possible worlds.
The problem lies not with the skateboard itself, but with the skateboarder. Take one moment to consider what the model ideal of the young, non professional skateboarder is exactly. Just dwell on it for a long, long moment.
Yeah I know. It scares me half to death too. Looks like the environment and all our wallets will have to take one for the team for the foreseeable future. Bummer.
| -- Beat |
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