Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Bike Snob: just another naive nerd

Someone posted a link to this Bike Snob article from November 2018, about how we shouldn't promote bikes as good for the environment.

First of all, no one who should get his message is thinking about riding bikes in November. Dedicated riders, whether they call themselves cyclists or loathe to be called cyclists, are probably still riding in the late fall, but the vast majority of people think of biking as strictly a warm, sunny weather activity.

Also unhelpfully, BS mentions "annoying people in cars" as a benefit of cycling, when we will only grow our numbers by enticing people out of those cars, not just pissing them off. Pissing them off perpetuates the climate of conflict. People on bikes will never win a direct conflict with motorists. If motorists really wanted to eradicate us, they could do it in less than a day by running over us on sight.  "See a cyclist, kill a cyclist," could be their slogan. Any rider not killed in the initial assault would be a fool to go out there again except on a tandem with a tail gunner armed with a machine gun. Even then, it would be a short, glorious defeat. So just shut up about how it's a benefit to annoy the motoring public.

Bike Snob goes on to state the other advantages of bike riding: better health, better fitness, more physical energy, fantastic economic benefits, reduced traffic, easier parking. He's young. Riders like me have been trying to set that example for decades, with little success. Writing about it in Outside Magazine is worth almost nothing in creating real public awareness. I was writing about it in newspaper columns, following on the heels of promoters like John Forester et al., before I had even heard of them.

 A couple of years ago, a friend sent me a book called The Man Who Loved Bicycles, by Daniel Behrman, published in 1973, which proves how long we have been losing this particular losing battle.

Bike Snob is not wrong in his assertions, any more than Behrman was, or I am, or any of the thousands of other unsung advocates have been. We keep trying to set the example and we keep getting ignored. Human history is one long sad tale of the majority rejecting simple things that would make life more pleasant for everyone. Instead, our species chooses things that make life much more comfortable for a ruthless minority, and then aspires to join that club. We also choose labor saving devices even if we'd be better served to keep a little labor in some areas and save more in others.

The fact that I'm just seeing this now, ten months after its publication, because someone else just saw it, similarly belatedly, shows you how the internet grants you instant global access, but that the global population still has to find your work, read it, and bother to share it around. It's a little faster than letting a newspaper loose in a hurricane, but about as haphazard. I'm a poor example, because I'm the furthest thing from an information junkie. The information junkies need to get on some meth and speed up their dissemination if they want to get the word around fast enough and far enough to do any good.

Is the teachable moment at last arriving? Bike nerds have been thinking so since the 1970s. We haven't been right yet. But evolution grinds on. The distress in the United States, bellwether of the consumerist world, may finally rise to the bursting point and drive a significant percentage of the population to look at fundamental lifestyle changes. Odds are against it, if history is any guide, but one can hope.

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