Bike it off

Feel like everyone is paying attention to the wrong thing. Can someone elaborate on this bacon cheese wheel? It sounds like heaven!

@kaiken1987 Bro, you should take a look at your own country's Bacon/cheese inventions :P But yeah, Holland and Denmark are obsessed with cheese, so we also came up with a lot of varieties of our own, obviously including bacon-infused aged cheese and various smoked cheeses, etc. ^^

As a dane coming from a biking family, and now living in southern California, it's actually scary to be on your bike over here. And that's even with the city I am in being a "bike friendly" city. Having the "bike lane" be essentially the caution area for cars and having them use it as an extra lane when turning right makes me scared some times to bike around here. And I also hate the fact that cars don't understand that it is the bloody bike lane and honk at you when you are waiting to go straight and it is a red light. And if that isn't enough the police is often against us, on many occasions stopping up PROFESSIONAL bike groups that are riding according to the law, simply because they fill up the entire bike lane and the officer doesn't understand the laws... And if you can't go fast on your bike, or be good at dodging cars, it is a legitimate threat to your health
Rant over
In short I am not surprised that people over here don't bike, it is basically a counter culture and you are really only safe on bike routes where cars are 100% not allowed.

@Anteater Thats so true in SoCal. I grew up there and remember seeing news about bikers getting hit or killed sometimes. The bike lane is not.... safe unless you know what you are doing. The safest places to bike are the paths over by the beaches or "green belt" paths usually... :p

@Anteater I see a lot of people riding their bikes in Vermont. You'll see a lot of them in cities like Downtown Burlington (but I don't think its not as much as you might see back in Denmark).

@SuicideParker Yeah but that's Vermont; that's like half-way a Nordic state anyway ;) Considering the climate and general politics, Vermont probably fits in better over here. You should just move the entire state to Northern Europe

I have to say that my experiences of bikes in SoCal were not impressive either. Or walking, for that matter. Some of our friends got stopped by the police for walking to the shops... they were very puzzled.
Also last year while on holiday in the Keys we rented a house on Key Largo. The house came with bikes you could use, which we were very pleased with. However when we talked to the lady who handed us the keys and showed us around, she mentioned that she didn't know about the state of the bikes since they're hardly ever used because "well you KNOW only a certain kind of people ride bikes, right?"
We didn't know the kind of people she was referring to, and picking up on our puzzled expressions she made a gesture as if she was drinking from a bottle.
So that's clearly the only reason to ride a bike in Florida: If you've lost your driver's license -_-

@Jonathan Well shit I've never been to the wast coast before. Oh the first part reminded me me and SCA friends who read this comic that we have come to realize the Vermont is basically American Finland.

@SuicideParker I live up in Maine and no one here uses bikes for transit because everything important's either super close or super far. You might bike down to the center of town but beyond that, bikes are purely recreational. Then again, Maine's a lot bigger than Vermont and much less densely populated. Though up north you're sure to see some Amish in buggies.

@FlyingFridgeMaster Funny you say that. I've never seen anything Amish in Vermont and I lived there all of my life. The first time I've seem anything Amish is this really good chocolate milk that I found at Pennsic (an SCA event) that's held in Pennsylvania at the Coopers Lake Camping Site.

'@Anteater'
Southern California?? Yikes. Possibly the worst place in the US to attempt to be a cyclist. It's like a massive traffic and highway labyrinth down there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgsTgq-uSlM

@Anteater In Hong Kong bicycles are (legally) treated as normal vehicles on the road and most of the time there is no separate lane at all.

@Anteater SoCal is pretty terrifying even if you're driving. I run errands on my bike here in Seattle, and I've never had a problem. Seattle & Portland are OK culturally for bikes, but Seattle has lots of hills, which limits the popularity of bikes for commuting. I do see lots of people putting bikes on buses and trains here.

@Anteater This is true. I'm from San Diego County and bike lanes are kind of... optional. Mostly non-existent, and really, people just get mad at you for riding in the street. But then you ride on the sidewalk and get yelled at for riding on the sidewalk. So you switch back to the street and have to maneuver around parked cars (essentially making you drive your bike into traffic) and have a small heart attack each time. Despite City of SD plans to build more bike lanes, it is just hazardous to ride your bike here. :\

Wheres my brexit comic ಠ_ಠ

@Sboggi ಠ_ಠ

Can we have a Brexit comic?

@Irlanda Yes, yes please. Including Northern Ireland as Janus, Gibraltar & the Spanish, the Scots, the Welsh as being exposed as closet English and the English wanting to go back to an age in which they were an empire. The Polish as being afraid to be thrown out of the UK. etc. etc. etc. The EU now suddenly hasty in kicking the UK out and the brexiteers braking hard now they are confronted with the results of fact-free politics (no wonder Trump likes the result, as does his best friend Putin). The whole mess. Please? Crazyness enough for months, even years on end of comic fun.

@gctwnl
It's times like Brexit that I bury my face in my hands and wonder how the English got so fucking arrogant and xenophobic. i mean, they come from f*cking Saxony! How can they complain about immigration!

@Irlanda Clearly, the English also remember how the Normans invaded their country and put their own king in charge.

@Irlanda Hell yeah, one where daddy Britain finally starts to understand his son America when he learns firsthand why he needs independence. Then they share a fatherly bonding moment ruined by the two of them realizing they need to work out and eat less.

@Irlanda I don't think that's a political landmine that Humon would want to step on. It's like Gamergate back when it was fresh - the mere mention of it in a comic would cause chaos.

'@Irlanda' Yea we need a Brexit comic. The Scots and northen Ireish didn't like it. Perhaps Northen Ireland can be a female like the Korea siblings, but her having the Saint Patrick cross instead.
And Holland and France both wanting to leave as well, while king EU is a whiny little bitch that don't want to let go.

Am i the only one who initially thought that the bike riders were seals? Or am i going insane?

@Smol_akward_turtle

No, those are seals and I am positive of it.

I see people saying "They ride bikes all the time because they cannot afford a car!"
Meanwhile I ride a bike all the time because after the third time failing my driver's exam I was like "Fuck it! I hate cars anyway!"
Not sure if I should be embarrassed...

Also, Netherlands and Denmark are just ideal cycle countries because... Flat B)

it's impossible to bike in Norway because there's a small mountain every 5 feet

@Flapjackfan1622 Not imposible, just very challenging

@Flapjackfan1622 So impossible, that's why Norway has so many awesome cyclists like Thor Hushovd and Edvald Boasson Hagen... right

Great investigation

@AlephFIN Exactly. It's so impossible, those who achieve it become awesome cyclists.

@AlephFIN I mean,of course it's not impossible just really annoying

@Flapjackfan1622 Get a tramp boat or "cyckle boat" as the english apperantly prefer to call it.

Keep the viking spirit alive.

@Svenskefan *gasp* I'll be right back!!

But if they ride bikes all the time, how do they stay fat?

@Lheticus Because weightloss is a complicated science that we've yet to fully grasp.

@Lheticus Because they eat cheese-bacon wheels. Exercise is good, but if you don't watch your intake it's easy to eat more calories than you burn.

I don't get the logic that says bikers are fit... I mean, that consumes less energy than traveling by foot right? Seeing fat people on bikes isn't all that uncommon in the bigger cities where bicycle traffic in general is more common. The "health freaks" are more likely to jog.

@Finn123 ever cycled around hills?

@Finn123 At least where I live in the U.S., you have to be CRAZY fit to ride your bike anywhere. Not only are there steep hills pretty much everywhere, but because everyone is used to getting around by car (or transit, in bigger cities), things are farther apart than in much of the world. My nearest grocery store is several miles away and there's no way in hell I could bike up all the hills between my house and the store. I work 21 miles (~37km) from home. You have to be pretty crazy here to commute by bike unless you live somewhere flat and densely developed. ^^

In college I tried biking to class my first few weeks, but the combination of hills and heavy books made it impossible! And I'm...average in terms of fitness, I'd say.

Also, in the Netherlands (and AFAIAA in Denmark, too) we ride proper, sit-upright-so-you-can-see-what-the-rest-of-traffic-is-doing-around-you, town bikes, not those bend-over-the-handlebars-look-at-the-tarmac-pay-no-attention all terrain bikes the British and USAnians are so inexplicably fond of. Those are good for sports cycling or exercise up a mountain, not for commuting or normal touring. (And then they wonder why we don't wear helmets. Well, because we don't ride suicide bikes, that's why.)

@rlb If more cyclists behaved like that then there would be a lot less tension on the road. Sadly cyclists in the UK see it as some sort of class-warfare between cyclists and motorists and try and make every ride a competition.

@CrypticMirror if anything it's the motorists that treat it like a war, we cyclists just want to get to where we're going. the number of times I've been intentionally knocked off a bike while on the way to work I don't even want to count. serious on a bypass road with a single lane wide enough for 2 cars to drive side by side and with me cycling along the shoulder I still got hit at least once a week.

granted you have those who like to cycle 4 abreast on the road... they deserve everything they get for being jerks instead of going single file so other traffic can pass.

@rlb Ah, well, you know us folks States-side. We like speed. And the handlebar design looks sleek and implies speed.