And the seats are absolutely brutal

Last week – or is it this week? I lose track of these things – was/is ‘Bike to Work Week’. Do they keep stats on this stuff, I wonder. I wonder how much of an increase there was in incidents of flimsy velocipedes, operated by ‘PC thinking’ novices being schmucked by semis? Just askin’.

I didn’t, by the way, bike to work, or to the store, or to anyplace else that was either walking or driving distance. That’s mainly because I no longer own a bicycle, but secondarily because, considering the SUV-wielding maniacs on our roadways, I wouldn’t be prepared to take the risk.

In any case, I’m somewhat of the George Carlin school on the matter of bicycles. This holds that if I am driving my car and you’re on a bike, get the hell out of my way because you are using a ‘toy’ on a public thoroughfare.

I used to cycle a lot when I was a kid. When I was growing up cycling was a kid thing. At a certain age – 16 or so – I graduated to a car. Getting a car was sort of like shaving or having sex for the first time – it was a rite of passage. That’s why the ‘carbon footprint’ bullies are having such a hard time convincing people of my generation especially that they must rely less on four wheels and an engine, and downsize to two.

By the way, I am a great believer in the value of exercise, and am also a great believer in walking wherever I can, especially if I have the time to do so. I am very happy if I haven’t taken my car out of the garage on any given day and have carried out my errands on foot. My motivation here is to enhance my health and to not put any money into the coffers of tax-grabbing ‘nouveau enviro-embracing’ governments and the international petroleum trading swine who have inflated prices outrageously mainly because they can. And they can because we are addicted to the internal combustion engine. Drug dealers work in much the same way.

Part of the problem I have with cycling (aside from the anatomical assault on a part of my body of which the less I discuss ‘that’ matter the better) is cyclists themselves. So many of them are such smug bastards. The worst are those incline bike weenies, but that’s my bigotry showing.

But, you see them out there in their little helmets and their unspeakably hideous cycling garb (why is it necessary to look like a pool of vomited M&Ms in order to ride a bicycle?) riding along as if they owned the road; two-abreast sometimes. And too often they have one of those li’l ‘baby killer’ trailers on tow. Wow, that’s the ticket for taking wee Wendel out on a crowded roadway, but make sure he’s all trussed up in his expensive infant seat when he’s in a car – encased in steel rather than a flimsy hunk of canvas. The mind boggles, I tell you.
The only other people you see riding bikes a lot are guys with whom maybe you don’t entirely want to associate – either junkies or guys who have chalked up their 7th DUI.

So, for now I’ll stick with my car and my legs, and eschew cycling. Eventually, however, I might be forced to use (shudder) public transit. Sometime I’ll explore my feelings about buses. They are not good ones.