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May Bicycle Stack Exchange be used for questions about transport (bike related)? If no, may the scope be enlarged?

Examples:

  • What is the most efficient means of transport?
  • What is the safest means of transport?
  • How much you may save for using the bike everyday to work?
  • etc.

Or Bicycle Stack Exchange shall always be by its definition just a Q&A platform strictly allocated to bicycles' hardware?

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Reset to default
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https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic

Bicycles is a question and answer site for people who ride, repair, or build bicycles.

Most questions regarding bicycles, tricycles, unicycles, handcycles, and their use are on topic for this site.

Basic answer: the topic of this site includes (and always has included) questions about riding a bicycle, not just about repairing bicycle. That absolutely includes any issues that come up around using a bicycle for transportation.

Most of the current questions about using a bicycle for transportation are tagged .

Your specific examples are on topic, but might not do well. Asking what the "most X", "safest" or any other kind of "best" needs to be done carefully, to avoid it just being a call for a bunch of opinions. The "how much would you save" thing is also tricky.

In fact, your examples are more "advocacy" than "transportation", but advocacy is also on-topic, and mostly tagged with: .

Here's some guidelines on what types of questions you can ask about on bicycles.SE: https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask

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  • Just to let you know guys that I made such question "How much one saves for riding a bicycle in everyday life" and it was simply erased for being "subjective". Americans are simply car-addicted and bicycle for them is nothing but a toy, a hobby.
    – João Pimentel Ferreira
    Commented Apr 23, 2016 at 17:47
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It is possible that they could be relevant on the site, but note that we don't like questions that boil down to one person's opinion versus another person's opinion, or those that are essentially a straw poll. But you can do yourself a lot of favours/harm just by the way you ask the question.

For example, if you want to know about "safest means of transport", I can see nothing wrong with asking if anyone knows any statistics regarding the safety of various formns of transport. Well, except you'd probably also need to define what you mean by "safety". You never know, the question may already have been asked, which will save you the trouble.

However if you simply ask "what is the safest", the way the question is phrased is inviting opinion and anecdotes. You're almost inviting some guy to pipe up and say "cycling must safer than cars because my neighbour's dog got run over by a car".....which has limited value as an answer.

For something like "how much money do you save", there you're lookingb for a bunch of answers, "I save x", "I save y" and so on, and that doesn't fit with my understanding of what this site is about. You're more likely to have some joy on a forum-type site.

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  • I would naturally be specific. It was just a broad example. Safety could be the less fatalities per person-distance travelled.
    – João Pimentel Ferreira
    Commented Jan 11, 2016 at 14:30
  • How much money would you save on average. It's objective.
    – João Pimentel Ferreira
    Commented Jan 11, 2016 at 14:31
  • Rephrasing :) How much money the average driver would save, replacing their daily trips from car to bicycle on every business day?
    – João Pimentel Ferreira
    Commented Jan 11, 2016 at 14:36
  • @joao_pimentel but who could possibly know that? Sure, someone could give an answer with regards to their own situation. But nobody could give a definitive answer that would encompass every, or even most, scenarios. The only sensible answer to such a question would be that it would depend on the distance, and on the costs of whatever transport system you're not using. It would also depend on hardware and maintenance costs of whatever bike you happened to use. I think you have to ask questions that can be answered.
    – PeteH
    Commented Jan 11, 2016 at 14:44
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    Bear in mind that regardless of what I think, the actual litmus test is to ask the question and to see whether it floats or sinks. It takes a consensus of users (five, normally, although a moderator can act unilaterally) to agree that a question should be closed, so if you feel strongly that there is merit in asking, go ahean and ask it.
    – PeteH
    Commented Jan 11, 2016 at 14:55
  • Yes, what @PeteH said. Note that "closed" doesn't mean "killed", it means putting answering the question on hold in order to focus on improving the question (so that it will get good answers). Also, while moderators have the power to unilaterally close a question, we will generally avoid using that power for a question that is borderline on-or-off-topic (letting the community decide). Moderator closes are usually done on questions that clearly have problems, or as the 4th or 5th vote on a question.
    – freiheit Mod
    Commented Jan 11, 2016 at 17:23
  • @PeteH, there are some sources, like in every stack project you can link to them. For the money you save on average (it's not opinion making, it's statistical data) you may have for example this site weather the driver sells or not the car: autocosts.info/US IRS for example considers that driving has a cost of around 55 cents per mile, so, there is a lot of objective information around the web.
    – João Pimentel Ferreira
    Commented Jan 11, 2016 at 18:56
  • ok, I will try my chance! Thank you
    – João Pimentel Ferreira
    Commented Jan 11, 2016 at 18:58
  • I see you asked the question, so good luck.
    – PeteH
    Commented Jan 11, 2016 at 20:27
  • it was wiped out. I tried again: bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/38405/…
    – João Pimentel Ferreira
    Commented Apr 23, 2016 at 17:53
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Good question. I'd be happy with anything that has a significant cycling-related component. We have questions about hardware sure, but there are food/hydration questions and training questions as well. We even have reasonable questions about ebikes which would be the furtherest off-topic-but-still-okay subject..

There's already questions like What type of bicycle rack should I buy for my car? and I'm going to take my bike with me on a plane. Do I really need a special bike travel bag to have it transported safely?

Answer on topic provided significant bike-related component to question.

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  • When I meant transport was not the transport of the bike but in general.
    – João Pimentel Ferreira
    Commented Jan 11, 2016 at 14:27
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    @joao_pimentel OK thanks, "how much cheaper is cycling than driving?" would be on topic, but "why is flying considered safer than cartwheels?" would be off topic, IMO.
    – Criggie Mod
    Commented Jan 11, 2016 at 18:46
  • I made such question. It was simply erased.
    – João Pimentel Ferreira
    Commented Apr 23, 2016 at 17:48
  • @joao_pimentel looks like it was removed as "too broad" SE is about specific answers to real questions. So my 1973 landy would be $3 USD/km to drive, but a smartcar might be 40c/mile, and a veyron is over $60 USD/mile at highway speed. Provide more info to narrow down the answer. What car? What driving style? Does the initial cost of the bike/car come into the equation? How much distance do you do a year in your car and your bike? Log your puncture rates on both car and bike. Do you want to include tools? Are you mechanically minded? Do you wish to include registration? Insurance??
    – Criggie Mod
    Commented Apr 24, 2016 at 1:13

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