Yer man at 49 seconds obviously knicked that second bike, he’s on his way to sell it for a few shillings for gear.
from old clips it looks like it was way more common in the city centre to cycle than it is now. they turned it into a motor traffic hellscape since. and every other city and town in ireland.
See? Cyclists were never the problem. The trouble started when we allowed middle aged men wear lycra.
Cars were a mistake
Not a north face jacket in sight, lovely.
Overly romanticised. Ireland was bleak. Everyone’s on bikes because there too poor to get the tram or bus. I can only imagine the accidents that happen.
Yer man at 39 sec with his fancy pants racer. Went down hill from there.
There were far fewer cars in Ireland in 1949. People cycled mostly because the did not have access to a car.
From the CSO web site: “The number of new cars registered
in 1945 was only 261, but four years later it had risen to over 15,000”
Probably wrecking people’s heads back then as well.
u/savevideo
None of them are wearing helmets, high vis vests, or have lights. Typical cyclists and their death wishes.
Rolling my eyes here reading all the nonsense posts about infrastructure by the amateur urban planners with no concept of historical context.
What’s different about the infrastructure back then? Very little – If anything the roads are less segregated, there’s hardly any road markings or traffic lights. People are mixing it with the few cars and HGVs. I notice we’ve not gotten much better at road drainage since 1949 for a country where it rains, a lot.
The main differences are – people are dirt poor so most people can’t afford cars.
On the other hand, these dirt poor people can afford to live in their actual city and not a suburb miles out. The huge population centres like Blanchardstown or Tallaght would literally not exist for decades so cycling 2-5km for the most part and not 10-20km, which is why no-one feels the need to go full tour-de-farce. Cycling is normalized so no-one gives a feck, it is not seen as “dangerous”. No helmets, no hi-viz, if you did have lights, lighting tech was crude and unreliable (and would be right up to the 90s!)
Population was signficantly lower too.
People saying “cars were a mistake” perhaps have very little idea of the pre-car (and bicycle.. the development of the two are intertwined and inseperable) world and how utterly filthy those streets would have been when horses were used to transport goods. Here we see motorized trucks already taking over. They take for granted the mobility it has provided. Like all tech, it’s how you use it. The problem is less the tech and more the society we’ve built that forces commutes (most of which aren’t necessary in the digital era) and then doesn’t build dependable public transport. Commuting by car was not really a thing for the first 60 or so years of the car, even after the introduction of affordable cars like the Austin 7 and model T- cars were used mostly for leisure and people still took trams to work. It was only with post war suburbanization we see this global trend of rapid low density sprawl but wiithout the rail network to back it up in many cases.
I think people look at the how we got here through contemporary lenses too much so we’re doomed to fail going forward if you simply adopt car good/car bad extremes rather than just seeing technological change as inevitable but social change (or lack of) often being what causes the actual problems related to the technology.
One thing is consistent, the chaps rolling along a second nicked bike.
I’m trying to make it the music. Is it John Hopkins?
18 comments
Very nice. The year my dad was born.
Yer man at 49 seconds obviously knicked that second bike, he’s on his way to sell it for a few shillings for gear.
from old clips it looks like it was way more common in the city centre to cycle than it is now. they turned it into a motor traffic hellscape since. and every other city and town in ireland.
See? Cyclists were never the problem. The trouble started when we allowed middle aged men wear lycra.
Cars were a mistake
Not a north face jacket in sight, lovely.
Overly romanticised. Ireland was bleak. Everyone’s on bikes because there too poor to get the tram or bus. I can only imagine the accidents that happen.
Yer man at 39 sec with his fancy pants racer. Went down hill from there.
There were far fewer cars in Ireland in 1949. People cycled mostly because the did not have access to a car.
From the CSO web site: “The number of new cars registered
in 1945 was only 261, but four years later it had risen to over 15,000”
Probably wrecking people’s heads back then as well.
u/savevideo
None of them are wearing helmets, high vis vests, or have lights. Typical cyclists and their death wishes.
Rolling my eyes here reading all the nonsense posts about infrastructure by the amateur urban planners with no concept of historical context.
What’s different about the infrastructure back then? Very little – If anything the roads are less segregated, there’s hardly any road markings or traffic lights. People are mixing it with the few cars and HGVs. I notice we’ve not gotten much better at road drainage since 1949 for a country where it rains, a lot.
The main differences are – people are dirt poor so most people can’t afford cars.
On the other hand, these dirt poor people can afford to live in their actual city and not a suburb miles out. The huge population centres like Blanchardstown or Tallaght would literally not exist for decades so cycling 2-5km for the most part and not 10-20km, which is why no-one feels the need to go full tour-de-farce. Cycling is normalized so no-one gives a feck, it is not seen as “dangerous”. No helmets, no hi-viz, if you did have lights, lighting tech was crude and unreliable (and would be right up to the 90s!)
Population was signficantly lower too.
People saying “cars were a mistake” perhaps have very little idea of the pre-car (and bicycle.. the development of the two are intertwined and inseperable) world and how utterly filthy those streets would have been when horses were used to transport goods. Here we see motorized trucks already taking over. They take for granted the mobility it has provided. Like all tech, it’s how you use it. The problem is less the tech and more the society we’ve built that forces commutes (most of which aren’t necessary in the digital era) and then doesn’t build dependable public transport. Commuting by car was not really a thing for the first 60 or so years of the car, even after the introduction of affordable cars like the Austin 7 and model T- cars were used mostly for leisure and people still took trams to work. It was only with post war suburbanization we see this global trend of rapid low density sprawl but wiithout the rail network to back it up in many cases.
I think people look at the how we got here through contemporary lenses too much so we’re doomed to fail going forward if you simply adopt car good/car bad extremes rather than just seeing technological change as inevitable but social change (or lack of) often being what causes the actual problems related to the technology.
One thing is consistent, the chaps rolling along a second nicked bike.
I’m trying to make it the music. Is it John Hopkins?
That’s brilliant
that would bring a tear to owen keegans eye
👍🏻🚴🏻🚴🏼♂️