Thank you! Finally someone speaks out, too. Singapore is a totalitarian capitalist dictatorship and the closest thing we have to a true cyberpunk dystopia. It is a horrible place with clean sidewalks.
The law hadn't been applied decades, male homosexual sex was decriminalised in 2007 and legalised in 2022.
The legal situation before that was inherited from the British Empire, a 1871 law which made all kinds of "sodomy" (oral, anal) illegal for everyone. By now you also have protections against discrimination, hate speech, etc. There's a gazillion things to criticise about Singapore you don't need to make shit up. Other things on the list of "don't criticise about Singapore" include public transit, public housing (though they could ease on the mandatory ethnic mixing a bit), and the food. Oh gods the food.
Dictatorship is also kind of a misnomer... Singapore is one of a kind. Certainly paternalistic as fuck, authoritarian it depends, the PAP is actually listening to people and considers electoral results <70% an issue that must be addressed by fixing shit -- and no they don't mess with the ballot: They mess with media and election timing, as is British tradition.
Two particular things that stand out is the lack of corruption and actual respect for the law, otherwise the whole system would long since have collapsed. That is: All the authoritarianism is actually codified, there's laws you can read, rights that you have, you're not going to prison because some big-wig doesn't like your face or your business idea is interfering with their kleptocracy but because you broke the law, and there's no easily abused laws like Thailand's lese-majeste, either. All that is highly untypical for your usual run-off-the-mill dictatorship where favours and loyalty are the only legal currency.
Things to criticise that aren't caning for littering or insanely hardcore drug laws? Things like the abysmal status of foreign workers. Or, from a more Confucian perspective actually: The failure of the grand daddy PAP to properly see discontent coming, and address them proactively. Lack of connection to younger people who don't happen to be PAP members.
Chewing gum is not illegal, the importation and sale is. You can bring in gum from abroad and chew it. What you do with it afterwards is also important.
I know it's almost impossible but I'd be taking the bike out so much more often if I knew I could leave it somewhere and it'd still be there when I got back.
Same, and mine is not even close to this price range. I heard Japan is like that as well. If you have any semblance of protection, like tying it up with rope, no one will touch it, ever. Must be nice living in civilized world.
Absolutely this. The only times I take my bike out is when I know I'll never have to leave it. Which basically excludes using it for transportation purposes, and leaves only cycling just to cycle (which I do still enjoy).
Just too high of a chance for it to get stolen (completely or just parts), or vandalized. It's not even that great of a bike either.
I have a friend who "solved" this problem by having such a junker of a bike that it didn't even look like it functioned.
Check if there are any facilities in your area for secure bike storage, my nearby city for example offers free staffed bike parking and a free bus to get around. The inter city train station offers 20/7 keycard access bike parking with changing facilities, but that requires a deposit, proof of address etc.
I usually end up using one of these two facilities when I visit the city because of the rampant bike theft issues there, with the preferred one being the inter city station since it's open almost all the time
There was even a docked e-bike hire offered by the local govt, which sadly went bankrupt because people were vandalising the e-bikes and destroying the docks ☹️
Multiple, actually. No one can keep up with him for long, so they swap out. Each concierge (usually called "Domestiques") sweeps the path clean of all gravel, dirt, and random people with strollers for the rider.
(I just realized how much I miss /r/bicyclingcirclejerk.)
I met a guy at a party who said he was into cycling. I told him I used to like cycling but my bike is so broken the repair tech said I should cut my losses and get a new one. He started giving me advice about what wheels and tires to put on my new bike. I asked him how much they would cost and he said they weren't expensive - just about $1200 per wheel. Turns out this guy was significantly richer than me.
Carbon fiber wheels, carbon fiber frame, high end bearings, location of manufacture, billet machined parts from titanium or aluminum, and the brand tax.
I don't get it but if you got the money for the nicest and lightest ride; why not?
I'm into mountain biking and it's fucking criminal what they charge for bike prices these days. A good bike with decent quality components is like $5000-$7000. High end name brand components will bring that up to $9000 easily. Higher end frames and boutique components can bring it into the $11000-$15000 range. It's fucked lol.
Oh and for an electric bike add $2000-3000 to the price.
Your notion of "decent" is certainly not the same as 99.99% of the population. Or you live in a very expensive place and have a very specific use of mountain bikes.
I'm more wondering why someone would spend that much on a damn bike. I bought my car for 15k of course that was in 2010 but I'm still driving it to this day. Toyota Corolla before anyone asks.
Edit: I just realized this was posted under fuck cars and now I feel like a dick comparing it to the price of my car. It wasn't intentional but still holy shit that's still a stupid amount of money to spend on a bike. Like how can you even justify that price? It has to be a completely insane amount of markup.
Entry level racing bikes are about $3-5k these days. That's a top end Pinarello with custom paint. It might be $15k, but it's probably closer to $10-$12k with those wheels.
I'm the guy who puts my $8k mountain bike on the back of my 20 year old shitbox Honda when I drive to the trails
I think most people forget when you get these bikes it's like buying an f1 car in motorsports. That 15k bike is probably nearly identical to what the pros are running, like maybe they use a different hand grip or seat but for the most part that's a completely custom chasis, redesigned from the previous year and up to spec to compete in a professional capacity right off the bat.
Almost certainly competition / training. A bike like this is your exercise, leisure, hobby, your source of competitive spirit, your hobby, and of course its your baby who you love and keep tuned up. A 15k car is a great value, a workhorse. Is it your baby? Maybe it is if you're still driving it.
Definitely not my baby. Just a cheap reliable source or transportation in a city that you have to own a car to get anywhere. Paints chipping off and it has rust but still gets me to work everyday so I don't care. I'm a tightwad so spending like this will never make any since to me. I'm just not a person that wants many material things.
Probably a status symbol to some extent. And some people are so rich they will spend a lot more for very slight, incremental improvements. For them, the difference between $5k and $15k might be more like $5 and $15 for an average person.
now I feel like a dick comparing it to the price of my car
I don't think its an unfair comparison. There's simply nothing that you can do to a bicycle that will make it more complex or difficult to manufacture than the most bare bones automobile. So it is a bit crazy that folks can charge $15k for a fancy frame and tire set, when an extra ton of precision engineered material costs the same.
At some level, it just feels like gouging. A good bicycle should be the sort of thing anyone can afford, not a luxury good reserved for wealthy hobbyists.
Someone who spends 10k+ on a bike is probably fit as fuck, so biking 10s of miles to get somewhere is nothing, plus you can take it on the train. New bottom bracket every couple years, maybe 200 in tyres, maybe 100 in brake parts. Cost of getting around, it only takes a few years to pay for itself even at those prices when you add on the actual costs of running a car, saying all this as someone who drives.
If you don't need to move a bunch of stuff or other people around, in terms of transport cost even an expensive bike is cheap of you use it.
People do that all the time in my area. It's not because it's "safe", it's because they're stupid. Then they want to join my communities so they can spam it with their stolen bike posts and get help finding them.
Not in Singapore, but I see a lot of people in my area doing this. I've always wondered how the unafraid part works when the bike is obviously over $5k.
Unfortunately wouldn't deter anyone where I live... addicts will flip that for $20 within an hour, and go get their drug fix, before the owner even has a chance to catch the thief
Even worse are the organized criminals driving around in SUVs looking for high end bicycles, a good few videos of them all over xitter sadly, brazen enough to follow people home and rob them in their driveway
I took my Kona Private Jake with me (nowhere near that bike, but $2-3k) which I would expect to be gone in an instant in the UK. I kept placed my bike on the balcony of the monthly apartment in Roppongi, which was only on the 2nd floor, and would check it at night as I thought someone would nick it
This shortly progressed to leaving it outside when going to the conbini, etc
Yeah, I was thinking this was a mispost and the intended community was supposed to be "fuckbikes" since this ahole is blocking a to go order window that patrons will use.
I got one for $20 at a garage sale and worked ok until the tires gave out and I haven't gotten around to changing them yet. But I don't need high performance tires or anything since I just bike around the neighborhood, so that will be what, another $50? Bikes are cheap if you don't care if they're brand new.
Can do too, Germany, the nicer part of the city here. Left my car with open windows in the summer, with my stuff in it, over night, nothing. Wouldn't do it in the northern city though. My seats would've been gone.
I'll raise that by the time I left my car window open for 4 days in a semi big German town.
After police couldn't get ahold of me, a neighbour covered it himself with plastic so the inside wouldn't get wet.
Reminds me of when my friend moved to Las Vegas, the shitty side of town, not the strip. And on the first day he had every wheel stolen off of his car when he stepped in a store for a couple of minutes.
When i went to Singapore people told me how bad it is and you're not even allowed to throw trash on the street and might get to jail for spitting your chewing gum on the street. Sooooo, you're saying I'm perfectly fine in that nice city then?
I mean your examples are trashy things to do in the first place. If you're traveling to other countries and your main fear is "am I allowed to litter here" then it's best you stay home.
Singapore has a lot of intense laws, and they enforce everything fairly strictly. That being said, almost every country has littering laws, just because they're not enforced doesn't mean you should litter.
Possession or consumption [of cannabis] can result in a maximum of 10 years in prison, with a possible fine of $20,000, as well as caning, under the Misuse of Drugs Act. Trafficking, import or export of more than 500 grams may result in the death penalty.
As we say her in the USA, let the punishment fit the crime. There's a Star Trek episode where Wesley gets sentenced to death for walking on the grass or something like that... Singapore is basically that.