I mean … it’s mostly functional but in times when I’m in decent shape (which fluctuates) in a way I like the look of a well-fitted jersey 🫣 😅 … bibs and helmets always look kinda awkward though …

They don’t have to though … mine looks moderately fancy but is really just a collection of used or discounted parts I scraped together over the last 20 years … I have two jerseys, both bought when they were on sale, one is probably 15 years old …

New shorts every once in a while because they wear out, the cheap ones work fine for me …

So I still look like a MAMIL but in reality it’s a fairly low-budget hobby …

I use locking axles for the wheels and have the saddle attached with a chain. That reduces the effort quite a bit :) Admittedly I don’t use a saddle bag on the city bike.

With the big trade-off that it eats up space and money when it’s not a weekend or a holiday … I sometimes think it’d be nice to own a car to go out on the weekends, but then I remember that I’d have to pay insurance and taxes independent on how much I use it (which would amout to “any other weekend”, maybe), and couldn’t use my garage as a workshop anymore because it’d be occupied by a car. Plus, short-term rentals and car sharing are a thing … so, yeah … in the end it always feels more like a liability than “freedom”

Theoretically, in many places, bikes are allowed in the same places as cars most of the time. But, if a biker shares the space with cars, it’s just a matter of time before that biker collides with a car. When that happens, the person in the car won’t be injured. The biker may be dead.

Assuming every cyclist who shares the road will eventually have an accident involving a car is kinda fatalist IMHO, but I guess it depends on where you are … where I live, bicycles on the road are very common, both in the city and outside.

My typical ways in the city involve a multilane road that doesn’t have a bike path yet, and while it can be stressful I don’t consider it overly dangerous.

Road cycling is a common pastime here so having bicycles on the country roads is expected, and motorists are required to maintain a certain distance (1.5m), as indicated by many roadsigns along popular roads. They typically comply.

So, yeah, I don’t think it’s a given and very much the results of cultural attitudes more than anything …

Heh I was about to post the exact opposite … now, it’s true that if you want to use certain DAWs and plugins, they’re not available on Linux … but with Ardour, Reaper or Bitwig you still have some very amazing DAWs at your disposal and there are many great plugins available.

Other than that I frequently perform as a laptop musician on stage (with my own software) and I wouldn’t want to use anything but Linux anymore. Pipewire + a class-compliant Interface, esp. on Arch (btw), seems to be the most rock-solid combination I know of …

Drivers on Windows seem to be so consumer-oriented that they try to do all kinds of stuff for you and I wouldn’t trust it at all in a live situation … everything seems to be way to fragile. MacOS is stable but I find the configurability is lacking behind.

When it comes to multichannel audio, I don’t think anything can beat Pipewire or JACK … free system-level anywhere-to-anywhere routing is so much better than the whole aggregate device + blackhole dance you have to do on MacOS … it’s super inconvenient if you ask me (and I’ve been developing multichannel audio software for a living for some time).

So, yeah … It all depends on your needs but for me, as someone who develops audio software both professionally and for their own music practice, and performs frequently, I’d say it’s the other way 'round … Linux, in 2026, blows everything out of the water audio-wise …

Switched to being a full-time Linux user around 2005, still love it …

Used AwesomeWM for a long time but a few years ago I switched to an even more minimalist WM a friend of mine is developing … still love it despite some bugs …

Tried a variety of IDEs but always ended up with Emacs …

And, last but not least, I’ve been developing my own software for music composition and performance for more than 10 years now, and use it every day … can’t say it’s the same because it always changes, but I use it practically every day :)

As some people have pointed out, it protects the liver, but from personal experience, I can’t confirm the “not getting drunk” part … so I’d be really cautious about blanket statements as the one in the title of this post.