To My Fellow Cyclists: Quit the E-Bike Hate [Bicycling.com]

[Aushiker]

I am a cyclist because it is how I make my living. And because it brings me the greatest joy in my life.

So, I think I qualify as a “real” cyclist. And to many of my fellow “real” cyclists, I say: Knock it off.

As long as I’ve been around this sport—again, my entire damn life—I’ve noticed how we tend to “us-and-them” other riders who don’t fit our vision of what a cyclist should look like. We form cliques and freeze out others who we feel don’t fit.

More in the article at Bicycling.com. Read it at your peril

 

[Taylor57]

I don't hate e-bikes or regular bikes for that matter. The riders on the other hand...

 

[keithj69]

Members only article. Sorry I am not interested in paying $30 a year on a subscription.

 

[Aushiker]

Members only article. Sorry I am not interested in paying $30 a year on a subscription.

I am not a subscriber (paid or otherwise) and can access the article so I have no idea as to this membership you refer to.

 

[Slaphappygamer]

I'm sure it's a great article.
Maybe it's USA that wants our money? Time to whip out the VPN.

 

[circuitsmith]

Members only article.

It can be accessed in Firefox reader view.

 

[mclewis1]

... or the Chrome reading mode.

 

[Slaphappygamer]

Was able to access the article through safari (iPhone) reader view. That’s a cool trick that I’ll use and share.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

... or the Chrome reading mode.

Enabled Chrome reading mode on my Android. Didn't help but might not be using it properly.

But I did get to see the subtitle: LOVE YOUR FELLOW CYCLISTS, NO MATTER HOW THEY DRESS OR WHAT THEY RIDE.

Words to live by, but not always easy. Took me a while to accept the fact that many of the many ebikes in my hilly area are ridden mostly just for transportation with little pedaling other than ghost-pedaling involved.

But hey, every one of those represents a car not in the road, so good on them!

 

[mclewis1]

Jeremy, Sometimes you have to be a little quick. I usually open the article in question. Press stop (X) - it's also the page reload button, and then right click in the webpage and open reading mode. This works for most websites. Sometimes the paywall stuff comes up quickly and I might have to reload the page and press stop again. Some of the big news outlet websites also do some interesting things like initially loading the main page of just links in reading mode (making it difficult to find the link your interested in without scrolling through a bunch of them), but I usually just click on the link and do stop/reading mode method and usually also in incognito mode too to keep the tracking down to a minimum.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Jeremy, Sometimes you have to be a little quick. I usually open the article in question. Press stop (X) - it's also the page reload button, and then right click in the webpage and open reading mode. This works for most websites. Sometimes the paywall stuff comes up quickly and I might have to reload the page and press stop again. Some of the big news outlet websites also do some interesting things like initially loading the main page of just links in reading mode (making it difficult to find the link your interested in without scrolling through a bunch of them), but I usually just click on the link and do stop/reading mode method and usually also in incognito mode too to keep the tracking down to a minimum.

Thanks! Had to hit the reload icon (partial circle with counter-clockwise arrow) to bring up the reading mode icon on my Samsung Note20. Tapping that got me into reading mode and past the paywall. Text only, no photos, but that was all I needed to see.

The us-them mentality the author mentioned is hard-wired into the human brain and all too easy to fall into. Any reading of human history makes that crystal-clear. Us-them is the racist's and religious zealot's and propagandist's favorite human trait, and I'm quite sure that it will ultimately be the end of our species.

 

[Aushiker]

For what it is worth this is what I see hence I had no idea there was a paywall (not that I can do anything about it).

 

[Readytoride]

How to read paywalled articles - add the prefix: 12ft.io/ http://[the article browser address] and hit enter. Easy.

Here is the article:

To My Fellow Cyclists: Quit the E-Bike Hate​

LOVE YOUR FELLOW CYCLISTS, NO MATTER HOW THEY DRESS OR WHAT THEY RIDE .

BY MATT PHILLIPSPublished: Feb 13, 2024

I just turned 51. Ever since I can remember, cycling has been the biggest part of all parts of my life.
When I was a kid, I tagged along with my dad to his bike races. Growing up, I worked in bike shops. I chose my university for its proximity to great mountain bike trails. I started working at a cycling magazine as an intern in late 1995 and became full-time in 1997. I’ve been here ever since.
I was riding a bike when I met the person I would marry. I was riding a bike when I experienced the most physical pain and heartbreak of my life.
I am a cyclist because it is how I make my living. And because it brings me the greatest joy in my life.
So, I think I qualify as a “real” cyclist. And to many of my fellow “real” cyclists, I say: Knock it off.
As long as I’ve been around this sport—again, my entire damn life—I’ve noticed how we tend to “us-and-them” other riders who don’t fit our vision of what a cyclist should look like. We form cliques and freeze out others who we feel don’t fit.

Since my focus is on cycling equipment, I notice how we make assumptions about the bikes people ride, the clothing they wear, and even the tiny things—like sunglasses worn arms under or over helmet straps, which is somehow something to ridicule cyclists about—are evidence to categorize people as different or undesirable.

This applies to everything: Riders on less expensive bikes are slower, cyclists in old apparel are Freds, and those with high-end gear are poseurs. Someone on a Crust is a hipster doofus, while the person on a Pinarello is a rise-and-grind alpha-douche.

Jonathan Mehring
With this mindset, a quick glance at another cyclist is supposedly all it takes to know everything about who they are, what they stand for, how strong they are, and their skills.

Have I done all this? Yes! But the longer I’m around bikes, the more I’m routinely reminded that equipment should not be used as a basis to judge other riders. I’ve been aboard the very best and latest equipment and been dropped by a rider on an old Centurion with downtube shifters. I’ve seen a guy on a mountain bike dressed in trail gear easily hang with roadies on a group ride. I’ve watched kids on rattletrap 26er mountain bikes send it further than I dare on the most dialed enduro bike.

Those are only examples of making assumptions about someone’s fitness or skill based on equipment. It doesn’t even consider how much that person loves the sport or how much they give back to cycling.

Someone I know—Chad Cheeney, founder of Durango Devo—gives more back to cycling than almost anyone and routinely rides pretty beat bikes. Did you celebrate Sepp Kuss winning the Vuelta aboard his glittering $15,000+ Cervélo with SRAM Red and Reserve wheels? Well, a scruffy-looking guy in jorts who rides a haggard Kona helped that happen.

This sort of factionalization has always been part of cycling. When I started at the magazine, it was in the heart of the roadies-versus-mountain-bikers days. Unfortunately, sneering at recumbent riders, triathletes, and tandem riders is a long-standing tradition in cycling.

Recently, though, things have really gotten out of hand with the rise of e-bikes. Here’s an example of the kind of crap people say about e-bike riders (from Bicycling’s Instagram post about the SRAM Powertrain e-bike motor):

“Is there a photo of the lazy dude who rides it? The essence of cycling is enduring difficulty and persevering suffering powered by your own will and your own legs.”

Look, I understand that being a jerk on the internet is a sport on its own but screw you. You don’t get to decide what cycling is, much less how people choose to ride.

I love celebrating e-bikes because they are an incredible tool for opening up our sport. A sport with physical demands that might exclude or limit many peoples’ opportunity to enjoy it.

But you don’t need to be old or physically limited to enjoy an e-bike. Do you know who else likes to ride an e-bike? Me! And (so far) I have not suffered a life-altering accident. Nor am I 88 years old (yet), and although I’m much heavier than I want to be, I’m not “lazy” or out of shape.

There are plenty of e-bike riders like me. Because riding an e-bike is fun—Really fun. Giggle-inducing, hoot-’n’-holler, grin-so-much-your-cheeks-hurt fun. For me, Riding an e-bike brings the same joy and feelings as riding a bicycle does—Because it is riding a bicycle.

And just like riding a bicycle, riding an e-bike is also as hard as you want to make it. I participated in the e-mountain bike race at 2023’s Sea Otter Classic. Throughout the hour-ish race, my average heart rate was 170 with a max of 190—almost exactly what my heart rate is when I do a cyclocross race.

Sure, the motor makes the hills (a little) easier and allows me to go (somewhat) farther with less effort than a non-assisted bicycle. But what is wrong with that? Why is that such a problem for some people?

Why are you, author of the Instagram comment above, so indignant when another rider chooses a different sort of equipment than what you prefer? That someone else would instead ride an e-bike has no effect or consequence on your cycling, and it does not make them lazy or any less of a cyclist than you.

If you don’t want to ride an e-bike—or a recumbent, a tandem, or a trike—great. If you never want dirt under your wheels, super. If you can’t imagine yourself wearing lycra and riding on curly bars in a peloton, that’s okay.

You be the cyclist you want to be. Ride and be happy. Don’t disparage other riders for doing the same thing on different equipment.

We’re all cyclists, every single one of us.

MATT PHILLIPS
Senior Test Editor, Bicycling
A gear editor for his entire career, Matt’s journey to becoming a leading cycling tech journalist started in 1995, and he’s been at it ever since; likely riding more cycling equipment than anyone on the planet along the way. Previous to his time with Bicycling, Matt worked in bike shops as a service manager, mechanic, and sales person. Based in Durango, Colorado, he enjoys riding and testing any and all kinds of bikes, so you’re just as likely to see him on a road bike dressed in Lycra at a Tuesday night worlds ride

 

[mclewis1]

How to read paywalled articles - add the prefix: 12ft.io/ http://[the article browser address] and hit enter. Easy.

If you are curious about what/how this works ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12ft

 

[Readytoride]

There are quite a few bypasses for paywalls. I just grabbed this one rather than a perennial favorite archive.org or archive.ph or archive.is

From Reddit's r/Piracy forum:
"...
Some general information you need is that there are two types of paywalls: hard paywalls and soft paywalls. Hard paywalls are usually not possible to bypass with traditional methods, as the content is not exposed to the client until you subscribe. In other words, the only way to get this content is if someone who has access individually submits it to something like archive.is.

Now, most sites have instead soft paywalls, which means that the content is accessible, but blocked to users either by popups or only exposed to certain user agents like Googlebot. In this case, here are the best methods for bypassing, that I learned by reading the source code for https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome (a great tool in its own right, that does everything below).

1. Googlebot User Agent: Many sites allow unrestricted access to Googlebot to ensure their SEO ranking. You can emulate Googlebot by changing the User-Agent of the browser to Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)on desktop
2. Clear cache: This works for an alarming number of sites.
3. Bingbot User Agent: Similar to the Googlebot method, some sites allow unrestricted access to Bingbot for SEO purposes. The script can also emulate Bingbot for certain sites.
4. Remove Cookies: Some sites use cookies to track how many articles you've read in a month and limit access after a certain number. For many sites, you can read the content if you clear your browser cache/remove cookies. This is probably the easiest method to implement without external tools. Incognito also works for many of these sites.
5. Referer Override: For some sites, you want to emulate your referer to 'https://www.google.com/' or 'https://www.facebook.com/' or 'https://t.co/x?amp=1' depending on the site. This can bypass paywalls that allow users coming from search engines or social media unrestricted access.

Now, above are the methods typically used by extensions, or if you want to scrape a paywalled site by using a virtual browser.

However, for most of us, this is far too much work. For one, clearing your cookies can be annoying (instantly logs you out of things) although fantastic for digital hygiene. Also, setting your user agent to Googlebot for all sites is also not a great solution, as it isn't trivial to do and can also mess up some pages, so it's definitely a good idea to use extensions. They are very powerful, and Bypass Paywalls Chrome actually does some more cool stuff I didn't get into.

The most robust solutions are the caches and web archives. They scrape the whole internet, and then archive websites. Here are the best ones, and they are heavily used by the tools below as they can scrape sites most other providers can't without help:

1. Archive.is: By far the slowest, but the most robust. If you have been scratching your head for 20 minutes and no other tool works, give this a try. (cool trick is archive.is/latest/<url>) as a shortcut for the latest archive.
2. Internet Web Archive (archive.org): This tool is excellent, and is a bit less robust than archive.is, but a bit faster. Best for everyday use. Shortcut is https://web.archive.org/web/2/<url>
3. Google Cache: Unreliable. High rate limits. Difficult to scrape. Blazingly fast. You get similar results to just using Googlebot, but in my experience is far more consistent. That said, there are capchas and it works for fewer sites than those above. Shorcut is https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:<url>

Still, most of us just want to be able to go to a site and be able to read it easily. For that, here is an intro to my favorite bypass sites, how I believe they work, and some background on them.

1. 12ft.io. This is currently the most commonly used tool, with tens of millions of visitors per month. It claims that it only fetches without javascript (it uses a proxy so it fetches for you, the request isn't made from your browser), but I'm pretty sure it uses Googlebot, and maybe some other methods as well, although not directly stated. Got banned from its hosting provider recently, but is back up.
2. removepaywall.com. This site does many things: it first tries to fetch from Wayback Machine (archive.org) and then with Google cache. Then it tries a direct fetch with Googlebot user agent. It claims it also tries archive.is, but redirects users to archive.is when it fails. In general, this might be the most robust solution I've seen.
3. smry.ai. Shameless self-plug (mods were made aware). Does everything removepaywall.com does, is completely open-source, and also generates free summaries of each article until I run out of money. Also, tells you where the content was fetched from and lets you try different options.
4. 1ft.io. This one is new and has blown up quickly because it is fast. From what I can guess, it just uses Googlebot. which is why it is so fast (fetching from Wayback Machine or Google cache would be slower). But it also fails a lot. Good quick solution to try before moving on to other more robust methods.
5. darkread.com. Read in dark mode. Nuff said.
6. https://leiaisso.net. Very popular in Brazil. Pretty buggy for me.

Really curious what other tools/techniques you guys use, and what you think of the tools above.

*Any doesn't include hard paywalls


Edit: I made this post a couple of months ago, and I continue getting comments asking if 'x' is a hard paywall. Here are some tools to figure out if something is under a hard paywall (and therefore is not bypassable without a subscription)

1. Does this tool need to show its content to search engines?
   If a tool does not need to show content to search engines, it very well be using a hard paywall. This goes for tools like Patreon, Onlyfans, and other subscription services that only cater to subscribed customers.
2. Is this a downloadable file?
   If you need to sign in to download a file, it probably is under a hard paywall. That doesn't necessarily mean that it is secure though, but you likely won't be able to bypass it with one of the tools above.
3. Is there a visible obstruction of the content?
   If some content is visible, and the rest of the article is not accessible or obstructed in some way, it is often a soft paywall. However, if no content at all is visible, it's more likely to be a hard paywall.
4. Do the tools above work?
   If the tools above do not work, that's a strong sign that it's a hard paywall.

Note, don't read the following if you are a hardcore pirate: Also, I want to point out that if paying is an option for you, you should do so. There are several reasons for this, one being it is good to support the creator of the content, but more importantly (in the context of this sub) that bypassing hard paywalls often takes a lot of time and effort, and if you value your time, it can often be cheaper just to pay. Take something like Chegg. You can definitely join some shady Discord server and pay a fraction of the cost to access a document, but this will slow you down, possibly scam you, and you won't have a good time.
..."

 

[fuyume]

Let's be honest here. It's only men who get upset about ebikes.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Let's be honest here. It's only men who get upset about ebikes.

Probably some truth to that. Women have other inexplicable things to get upset about.

 

[Readytoride]

Probably some truth to that. Women have other inexplicable things to get upset about.

LOL!!! That comment is too funny for words.

Not too long ago I'd get the funny looks and the teasing (ohhhh, that's cheating! Har-har) about my ebike, but all I get now is "how do you like your ebike?", "who made it?", and "what range do you get?" Other cyclists are recognizing my ebike on sight, and are curious about it. Maybe because they see a little old lady on it and figure I have a legitimate reason to ride one. I'm certainly not threatening...until I hit Turbo and leave them miles behind.

 

[Rexlion]

It can be accessed in Firefox reader view.

Thank you for posting that! You made me wonder what in the world this 'reader view' is (I have FF but was unaware). A quick search, and now I'm up to speed on how to use 'reader view'! You da man!

 

[Rexlion]

“Is there a photo of the lazy dude who rides it? The essence of cycling is enduring difficulty and persevering suffering powered by your own will and your own legs.”

I do not (and would not) cycle in order to "endure difficulty" or to "suffer." That is crazy talk if you ask me! I ride because I want to enjoy the ride. Whoever thinks that the goal is to suffer.... well, I would like to invite him over so I can administer some "endurance" taser sessions for which I will charge $500/hour; the treatments plus the billings should immensely gratify his desire to suffer.