Bike Utah Valley

I got an interesting email from a close acquaintance yesterday. He came across this website and among other things, had this to say:

I had to suppress my vomit when I went to bikeuv.org and saw all that commuter rail crap neatly framed behind a picture of a beach cruiser.  Man oh man.  And the post about the NYT and more efficient cars?  Oh, and what’s the link “sans automobiles” something or other?  Are you in the Al Gore (we’ll be extinct in 10 years) camp or the Sheryl Crow (you can only use two squares of toilet paper) camp?  Consider your answer carefully, because you might offend me and never ride on my V12 Malibu pulled to the lake by my V12 pickup truck when I rent a gas guzzling, CO2 emitting air conditioned house boat on lake powell

Considering his personality, the smiley, and taken in light of a previous conversation we had, I don’t think he was 100% serious. But his comment does highlight what I think are real misconceptions about cyclists and proponents of things as vomit-inducing as commuter rail. It got me thinking.

1. We’re not all tree-huggers — I have never watched “An Inconvenient Truth” or taken seriously anything Sheryl Crow says or sings.

2. We don’t all have a personal agenda against automobiles — I own two cars, but I do think a disproportionate amount of government money goes to car-centric transportation (how much did GM ask Washington for yesterday?).

3. We’re not all liberals — I don’t claim membership in either party. The truth is, I wish all railroad and highways could be privatized. It’s true, UTA and FrontRunner are state-sponsored, but in light of #2 above, I’ll take any alternative the state will give me.

4. We’re not all poor — Just because an adult in the U.S. chooses to get around on two wheels instead of four, or chooses commuter rail over driving alone in a car, doesn’t mean that he or she is not well off. For some reason people, Americans mostly, have the notion that a nice car equals wealth.

Here is the truth. I like the word “sustainable” a lot more than the word “green.” I like the thought of less cars on the road (that equals more room for V12 pickups which certainly have a place if you wish to drive one). Finally, there are a lot of people in the world who depend on bikes for transportation. I want to be one of them. I don’t think that’s weird.

If you’re reading this, you probably got here because you believe in bikes. But what are your thoughts? Have you ever been cast as a weirdo because you get around on a bike?