Who Are They Attacking?

Motorists' umbrage over bike lanes or other bicycle infrastructure, is expressed as a matter of losing "their" traffic and parking lanes, and other facilities, to us.

Notice the last word in the previous sentence.  While the anger might be articulated about things, in the end, I think it's really a resentment against us--or, at least the way they perceive us.  That is to say, when I've been screamed at simply for being on a bike--all the while following traffic rules and regulations--the person yelling at me doesn't see me because, to them, a cyclist is not a person like me.  The stereotype of a cyclist, at least in New York and other US cities, is that of a "privileged" Milennial who washes down chia seed-garnished slices of avocado toast with IPAs brewed in small batches--who, as often as not, comes from privilege and some place far away.  In other words, they don't see a woman of, ahem, a certain age who grew up in a working-class enclave of their city.

In that image of cyclists, we are also painted as "lone wolves" or as people who ride and hang out with other people like ourselves.  What doesn't occur to them, it seems, is that one reason bike lanes and other facilities have been built is to encourage families to cycle together, whether for fitness, recreation or transportation.  And, in some places--including, not infrequently, here in New York--one does see adults and children riding together in the lanes.

So folks who break bottles, scatter screws and tacks and leave all sorts of other large and sharp objects in bike lanes are endangering, not only those whom they resent, but people who are more like themselves and, perhaps, people who matter to them--namely, their children.

That truth has become all too evident on a bike lane along Australia's Gold Coast.  Not only did the debris cause flat tires that caused people, including children, to push their bikes several miles; the shards of glass, metal and other substances also caused more serious damage to bikes and the bodies of people--including children who were riding with parents or other adults.

In the photo on the right is a box full of objects swept off an Australian bike lane on a recent day.  Photos from the Tweed-Byron Police District, on Facebook.

Whenever I see broken beer bottles or other trash strewn along a bike lane, or anyplace we might ride, I see not only an attempt to damage our bikes or injure us physically.  I also see an attack on a stereotype of what we are.  In other words, I see another kind of bigotry.