Completely happy Friday! So right here’s a query for you:
As a bike owner I’ve lengthy resented the truth that folks make all types of assumptions about me simply because I journey a motorcycle. Like, I’m robotically some kind of urbanite “woosie” with a liberal arts diploma who maintains a gluten-free eating regimen and who has by no means even fired a gun? I imply, certain, all these issues are fully true, however you might no less than take the difficulty to get to know me first!
So why is it then, that we’ve been “robotically conscripted into the woke military,” as she places it?
It’s an excellent query, although a humorous one coming from a Guardian columnist. In a means, the reply’s proper there on the backside of the article:
It’s the media who conscripts folks for the “tradition wars,” and when you’re on the “woke” facet of it just like the Guardian is then what higher draftees than the types of namby pambies who journey bikes?
Although as you may see, the article is over 14 years previous, and there’s no means they’d use a culturally insensitive phrase like “tribe” at this time:
See that? Already we’ve discovered one more reply to the “Who conscripted cyclists into the woke military?” query, so when you’re preserving observe it’s: 1) “The media;” and a couple of) “The bike trade:”
Nicely, good for them, it seems like they’d a powwow and determined to take their advertising in a distinct course–although it nonetheless doesn’t handle the problematic identify “Yeti,” which they appropriated from Tibetan tradition and Sherpa folklore:
Fast! Any person begin a petition!
By the way, I do really feel like I’ve to deal with that Guardian picture, which was the primary and possibly solely time in my life I’ve been the topic of a full-on Zoolander-type picture shoot:
I felt fairly foolish hoisting that Scattante over my head, however I’d even be mendacity if I stated I didn’t get an important massive ego enhance out of getting a brand new e-book out and being photographed by a big-shot photographer, who I recall being a real and fascinating man, and who I’m solely now studying died again in 2019:
I’m a bit late, however I’m going to do all these issues in his reminiscence, although I hope he received’t thoughts that the poem could also be extra of a unclean limerick, as a result of that’s the one kind of verse I’m able to composing.
In fact there’s one other much more necessary think about the entire “cyclists versus drivers” factor, and it lengthy predates the tradition struggle–or no less than the present model of the tradition struggle, which I assume you’d summarize as “woke” vs. “primarily based” or one thing like that–which is that drivers kill cyclists, and so they began doing it nearly instantly:
Sure, because the Guardian columnist factors out, most cyclists additionally drive and all that stuff, however there’s no getting round the truth that drivers kill cyclists and never the opposite means round, and when you journey a motorcycle it’s one thing you confront as quickly as you expertise that first shut cross. Not each bike owner is radicalized due to this, although some actually are, and I’m shocked the columnist says “I’ve by no means really met a bike owner who needs to be a part of this battle,” when there are tons of of them at any given group journey or advocacy assembly. As for the remainder of us, most of us do handle to efficiently reconcile (or no less than rationalize) our personal automotive use with the various issues the sheer pervasiveness of motor autos has prompted. A few of us drive reluctantly, a few of us drive with out hesitation, and a few of us even love vehicles simply as a lot as we love bikes. However I’d wager even these of us in that final group have a perspective on motordom that many individuals who don’t journey bikes lack, and it’s equal elements respect for the facility and hazard and awesomeness of the machine, and contempt for and resentment of the various, many clueless and irresponsible individuals who lack that very same respect. So completely, the concept that there’s a struggle between vehicles and bikes and also you’ve obtained to select a facet is usually ridiculous. On the identical time, when you do journey a motorcycle (or a motorbike for that matter) odds are you’ve obtained a certain quantity of skepticism and cynicism the place vehicles are involved, even when you drive one your self.
Definitely if it had been as much as me folks wouldn’t robotically affiliate individuals who journey bikes with “wokism” or local weather zealotry or herding folks into 15-minute cities and making them eat bugs or another agenda whether or not actual or imagined. It’s necessary to do not forget that not all people suits neatly into well-defined classes. I not too long ago chanced on the social media feed of somebody I used to know in school; it was publish after publish of “We want local weather justice for trans folks in Gaza!” or regardless of the newest progressive rallying cry is, interspersed with the odd screed about how the DOT must cease destroying New York Metropolis with bike lanes as a result of STREETS ARE FOR CARS, two sentiments you actually don’t anticipate to see collectively. Some folks do like their ideology laid out for them fully, such as you do with a toddler’s garments, however she’s extra like the child attempting to decorate himself for the primary time who emerges from his bed room carrying a type of swimming shirts with a pair of pajama bottoms and a pair of Spider-Man underpants on the skin. He could look ridiculous, and none of what he’s carrying appears to work collectively, however no less than he’s attempting.
For me, biking’s about freedom and steadiness. Some assume the vehicular embodiment of freedom is a Harley-Davidson or an F-150, however what’s extra free than a car that requires no insurance coverage, no registration, no license, and nothing from the power grid to be able to function (the bicycle trade’s efforts to vary that final half however)? And who is aware of higher than the bike owner that you may’t be all uptight and inflexible, and that generally you should lean left, or lean proper, however when you lean too far left or too far proper you fall over? An intrinsic understanding of the significance of self-sufficiency and steadiness is that’s all I’d assume about anyone who rides a motorcycle. The remainder is simply projecting.
