If you ride a bike, youre poor and crazy.
I was just over at bike hugger.com reviewing a piece there on the medias portrail of cyclists as socially inept, immature baffons. (I.E. the 40 year old virgin). Now, I myself hold that title with pride, but I dont appreciate those who clearly are not in the loop making such assumptions of my tribe. The following is a short rant I published in my zine 'Sideshow' last year on that very subject.
'Ive noticed a trend in American Media. Check it out; recently on a news broadcast I saw about the rising gas prices, they interviewed one lady who said, "well of course Im going to pay the higher price. I mean, what am I going to do? Ride a bicycle?!" Then, during one of the hard luck stories they do about Olympians, they were going on about how Olympic figure skater Rudy Galindo was so poor that he had to ride a bicycle to practice, (in fact, when I was doing a web search to get the correct spelling of his name, that was one of the first fun facts listed about him.) A bicycle? Can you imagine?! That poor sap. And again, when I was learning about Ted 'The Unibomber' Kizinski, well he was so crazy, that not only did he send bombs to people, and exact an extensive reign of terror across the land, but he lived in a cabin, and RODE A BICYCLE TO THE STORE! Oh my god, hes a total madman!
Im tired of this. Im tired of societies assumptions, and now at this point, Im kindof tired of typing.
Im leaving my house now, in my baked potato costume, green ski boots, my gigantic orange head phones, and Im going to ride to the store to commune with the produce. I assume that Ill be seeing you there.'
Comments
The U.S.A. is not a bicycle kingdom and will never be one. When the gasoline is gone then people will begin to kill each other for what they need as in killing the Iraqis for gas and the Native American for space.Old habits die hard.
Posted by: Lester | July 5, 2008 07:03 AM
Some people should die
That's just unconscious knowledge
Because, because the bigger you get
The wider you spread - Pigs in Zen - Jane's Addiction (before they sucked)
Yeah, people thought I must have received a DUI since I rode my bike to work...
Posted by: Mister Bicycle | February 2, 2008 12:12 AM
There are some interesting bike stereotypes out there. A lil' background info first: I race bikes pretty seriously, commute to work fairly regularly, and do the odd errand on my fixie. I usually don't get hassled on training rides when I'm all dolled up in lycra, I commute on rail trails etc so I don't get hassled then, but it's the errand-running that gets me the most hate.
I live in a pretty decent middle class neihborhood (NOT in the exurbs) and a few weeks ago I zipped a few blocks up to the grocery on the fixie. On the way home I was passed by a car only a couple blocks from my house with the cry "criminal!" coming at me out the window. I was so shocked I laughed out loud (which the driver heard). She then whipped into a driveway right in front of me screaming "loser!"
Apparently a dude on a fixie mountain bike with flip flops and a backpack is a loser. Put him in lycra and it's a different story. I guess bikes for working out are "OK;" not so for more utilitarian needs.
Sheesh.
Posted by: AH | September 5, 2006 08:41 PM
Hey! Bummer Life is reading Bike Hugger, well cool. We're going to Interbike, will you be at the Swobo booth and we'll discuss car culture at length . . .
Posted by: DL Byron | August 30, 2006 06:11 PM
I ride my bike to work. I work for a bike company. To get to work I have to ride past an area where a lot of homeless congregate. I've gotten a lot of hate stares from motorists - my bike-ness? My "homelessness"?. The other day, a "friend" who is an aggro mountain biker was in his BMW next to me as he was turning right and I was going straight. I was looking at him expecting him to recognize me. Instead it was a hate stare. I finally said "hi" to break the hate spell. The look on his face spoke volumes about predjudice.
Posted by: bobdod | August 28, 2006 07:37 PM
Fuckin A man!
You are so right!
But just one thing....
You ride a bicycle! HAHAHAHAHA
Posted by: Tage | August 24, 2006 03:59 AM
That one really hit home! When I started commuting to work a few years ago everyone asked if I had lost my license. Although I do enjoy my beer from time to time (every day!) I did not lose my license. The other question I got after that was, "Well, if ya didn't lose yer license, where's yer car?" On my driveway, where it should be!
Posted by: Yrjo | August 20, 2006 10:46 PM
Maybe in SF, but in Reno most of the people getting around by bile ARE wacked out poor people who would just as soon scrape together beer money for a nice old bondo encrusted pacer rather than ride that Next FS bomber to Sac-n-save one more time. Myself, I should have bought a LongHaulTrucker cause my heels keep hitting the USPS priority boxes when I strap them to my rack.
-M
Posted by: wolfy | August 19, 2006 04:46 PM