what of the average onewheel commuter?
Oh, and once when I was so drunk I fell off 2 seconds after getting on the bike.
In London it's necessary to plan a quieter route, using roads most people don't even realise exist. It can't be as nice as the Netherlands, but it can be OK.
I'd like for my skills at each of these to be better than they are today, and I ride my bike quite a bit.
I've cycled to work for 15 years, and I've never hoped up a kerb and I don't even know what a whip skid / ted shred is.
My commuter e-bike weighs a solid 80lbs fully loaded. I'm not hopping curbs or doing "whip skids" on it. I basically ride it like a touring motorcycle.
I found through trial and error that riding aggressively was safest, not because it was inherently safer but because everyone would take note of the idiot hooning around too fast and take extra caution. Of course the failure mode here is when someone doesn’t notice you…
Years later I now commute by bike in Cornwall where the local population is ignorant of cyclists. I ride an electric cargo bike with my son on the back and I’m incredibly conservative.
There’s no real difference in incidence of accidents, but incidence of “near-miss” and severity of possible accident? Hands down riding conservatively with no hopping around is safer. Duh! ;)
When I ride my bike I'm always hopping up curbs at speed, doing quick whip skids/ted shreds etc, not just because it's fun, but because those are the skills you need to stay alive in abnormal situations. It's honestly kind of baffling to me that most people don't actively work on expanding their safety envelope.
You can get good at crashing, and at avoiding crashes, and when you do you can either do the same things safer, or do more fun things with the same level of safety. This is why Alex Honnold isn't dead (yet).