It's Wednesday, and call for questions time!
See below if you have cycle-y questions for this Friday.
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Next #BikeNite is this Friday at 4pm Pacific standard time (UTC-8)!
This is our weekly call for questions. Reply with any you'd like me to add to the discussion on Friday. Please add the BikeNitePQ hashtag so it's easier to find a Proposed Question. There is room for more!
(BikeNite is a Q&A type discussion on the Fediverse.) #BikeTooter cc @bikenite
Pete Prodoehl 🍕
in reply to Phil (ascentale) • • •Okay, this is a somewhat pedantic/silly one...
Do you say "ride a bike" or "drive a bike"?
I've seen people use "drive a bike" which seems weird to me. Maybe I just think riding is mostly meant for things you are "on" where "driving" is mostly for things you are "inside of"... or riding involves balance maybe?
It's not 100% of course, but "driving my bike" just sounds weird to me.
#bikeTooter #cycling #bikenitepq
Megan Lynch (she/her)
in reply to Pete Prodoehl 🍕 • • •Funny I was thinking about this difference in English just the other day.
Drive comes from driving livestock...in the case of carriages it's horses. You drive them forward with commands or a whip. 'Drive' is also used with shepherds who are on foot. Or cowboys who are driving cattle even though they themselves are riding horses.
As you say, 'ride' tends to be used for a human mounting something that moves. So in a way, once the carriage became horseless, it should have been 'ride', but just never made that change.
I suppose some folks say 'drive' a bike because they don't actually pedal it and use the e-bike more like a motorcycle. #BikeNite #BikeTooter
j4n3z
in reply to Megan Lynch (she/her) • • •Megan Lynch (she/her)
in reply to j4n3z • • •@j4n3z @rasterweb Yeah, I can tell you as a USian that I hate that some folks see "bike" as meaning motorcycle.
However, English is a bit fuzzy on this stuff because bicycle literally means something with two wheels. The acoustic cycle came first so you'd think it has first claim on the term, but motorcycle could technically apply even to a car in my opinion - because the number of wheels isn't in the name.
I feel like we need a re-do of these words because I have started using "cycle" to include uni- bi-, tri-, quadri-, etc. and include more types of riders. But it still doesn't indicate whether it's motorized or not (and motorized breaks down a lot of ways now - e-assist? Throttle? Speed governed? Moped? Motorcycle? E-motorcycle?)
But I can't make language reform happen on my own. :))) #BikeNite #BikeTooter
Kim
in reply to Megan Lynch (she/her) • • •j4n3z
in reply to Kim • • •"Bajk" or "bike" is jargon used by few communities.
That's probably why I'm confused sometimes by english texts 😅
Megan Lynch (she/her)
in reply to j4n3z • • •@j4n3z Let me know if there are any Czech cycling hashtags used on Mastodon I should add to this...
mas.to/@meganL/116382527995865… #BikeNite #BikeTooter #Cycling
Megan Lynch (she/her)
2026-04-10 21:27:25
j4n3z
in reply to Megan Lynch (she/her) • • •And from pure Czech/Slovak (very similar languages, those 2 tend to coexist in synergy) expressions there could be suitable tag #cyklistika.
Megan Lynch (she/her)
in reply to j4n3z • • •j4n3z
in reply to Megan Lynch (she/her) • • •Schmaker
in reply to j4n3z • •@j4n3z
In Czech language I only use #kolo (or #eKolo for electrified variant) as nobody uses these for actual "kolo" (wheel - on the car for example).
Also I don't think there are many other languages using the keyword "kolo"
@Megan Lynch (she/her)
j4n3z likes this.
Megan Lynch (she/her)
in reply to Megan Lynch (she/her) • • •Pete Prodoehl 🍕
in reply to Megan Lynch (she/her) • • •@meganL I used to ride "on the back" of a motorcycle when I was a kid. I guess that was riding a motorcycle but I was basically luggage since I had no control of the speed or direction. Yeah, it's all weird I guess.
And then there are sidecars, which are not found on cars, but on "bikes". 😜
Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐
in reply to Megan Lynch (she/her) • • •Bruce Elrick
in reply to Pete Prodoehl 🍕 • • •Same for me... your ride a bike, you do not drive it. It occurs to me that driving a car as a verb might be a holdover to driving a team of horses pulling a wagon, with the engine replacing the horses as the power source. You don't drive your legs as if they are something else you prod along...
adrinux
in reply to Pete Prodoehl 🍕 • • •@rasterweb
Yep very weird. Definitely ride a bike.
@ascentale @bikenite
Thomas =:-)
in reply to Pete Prodoehl 🍕 • • •Pete Prodoehl 🍕
in reply to Thomas =:-) • • •Nate
in reply to Pete Prodoehl 🍕 • • •Kim
in reply to Pete Prodoehl 🍕 • • •I say 'ride' a bike. Including the ones you're fully enclosed by, and for that matter the ones with motors.
I note the pedal-car racers use 'drive', but it feels like an affectation to me. Perhaps to make the kids feel like they're doing grown-up motorsport rather than a form of cycling?
(Native British English speaker.)
- BFPCR Pedalcar Racing
admin (BFPCR Pedalcar Racing)cognitively accessible math
in reply to Phil (ascentale) • • •"Thank you!"
I had my $20 Schwinn headlight on its brightest setting, and my redshift pedals freshly charged and blinking, and my nutcase helmet with the red lights all around... don't know which he was referring to.
Hmmm, maybe a question is: what are some cool things people have called out to you?