WSJ: Mainstream cycling

The Wall Street Journal prints a column about how normal bikes are in New York City.

I love it because everything Journal sports columnist Jason Gay writes is what Cyclelicious all about: cycling is fun, safe, and natural.

Spring was a little shrill and embarrassing. There were crazed media furies about bike lanes, non-stop reports of police crackdowns, hyperbolic worries that the city was transforming into an effete Euro village. If we didn’t defend our streets, the cyclists would overtake Manhattan. Mayor Bloomberg and Department of Transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan would open a leg-shaving station in Union Square.

But then a funny thing occurred. It got warmer, more people started riding, and the mania was eclipsed by reality. When you can turn a pedal and feel safe, it’s fun and makes sense.

And anyone can ride. There have been cheesy distortions of cycling as a trendy, elite activity—to link bike paths to ongoing gentrification, and claim the city is catering to a hipster fringe.

You want to see what a fraud that argument is? Get on a bike and ride.

The biggest mischaracterization about the infamous New York Cycling War is that there’s a war at all.

Look all around you. The bikes have won, and it’s not a terrible thing.

Full article at the WSJ: The City and Bikes: Rubber Meets Road. Via Jon Winston.

3 Comments

  1. Awesome….it’s great to see stuff like this being published.  Yes, this is one of the reasons I’m such a fan of what you’re doing over here at Cyclelicious…..biking is fun, safe, and totally natural.  I Love It.

    Darryl

  2. I hesitate to bring up Wiener but he did say that if he were elected mayor, he would tear out bike lanes.  In principle, the Wiener affair was overdone, and in principle he should not have been pressured to resign.  But I consider his opposition to bike lanes a major character flaw.    Anyway, if this article represents reality, good for New York. 

  3. Thanks. I’ve heard and read entirely too much BS the last couple of days about cycling being one step removed from attempted suicide. Some of it from people that know better. It is a relief to see a little reality creep back in.

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