4 Dead in Ohio

Just when you thought you'd heard it all..........here comes Gabe lobbing in a molotov cocktail. I love the analogy of the MNR to Malcolm X, but c'mon. You guys sure know how to get a discussion going......and going, and going.....I  think Thoreau, Emerson and WEB Dubois belong in there somewhere, too.

Is that what you're about? A social revolution? That's pretty neat......most of us are just trying to get to work, get some exercise, save a few bucks and reduce our carbon footprint. After riding to and from work 5 days a week, I don't really have the energy to ride around town on Monday nights (and get to work on time the next morning).

Could also be that I'm getting old (52). Since me and my friends grew up in the 60's and 70's, we're pretty familiar with the protest movement........some of us remember choking on tear gas and dodging rubber bullets. We thought what we were doing was important.......and it was. We'd like to think we forced dialogue and change by protesting and taking over admin buildings.....and we were mighty disrespectful of authority and rules. They took over the administration building at Harvard in 1969 and carried the Dean of Students forcibly out of the building. They say he was a great guy who loved being around students and the students really liked him.........before this incident. Afterwards, the bond was broken and he became more and more distant. By the time I arrived in 1974, he wasn't much involved with students at all. The professors and grad students told us he was never the same after that day. The lesson I took away is that it is important to stand up for what you believe in, even to the point of taking risk, even breaking rules and laws (especially laws that don't make sense). But you have to be damn careful that you don't hurt others, especially innocent bystanders, in the process. This type of collateral damage is unacceptable and unnecessary.

And, of course, you have to be careful that you aren't just kidding yourselves and mistaking a social event for a social revolution. Or that it's really not about a cause at all, but just all about you.

I love group rides and what they can do to promote cycling (which I actually hope IS becoming a revolution of sorts). But I don't like the way you guys on the MNR defiantly break rules and disprespect others. Justify it all you like.....yes, you're starting dialogue and getting attention, but you're not helping the cause. You're making it harder for cyclists to get respect, not easier. And you're certainly not setting a good example for our young people. You don't remind me of X or MLK.......you remind me more of the hooligan movement in Europe (this is really scary and could easily jump the pond......you can check it out on my son, Brandon's blog, www.wheresmorgan.com). Sorry, guys, but if you really want to make a positive difference for cycling in CBus why don't you do something constructive like helping get children back on bikes, riding to school, or lobbying the colleges and universities to quit paving over green space to create parking for the students and faculty who should be walking and biking around the campus. (I apologize in advance to those of you who I'm sure are doing constructive things like this.)

I'm also really worried that one of you is going to get hurt or worse. Cycling by the rules is dangerous enough, but what you're doing is extremely unsafe. Martyrdom is overrated. 

I rode in this morning in the rain......it's been so dry, it felt good. We really need the rain.

Comments

[Jamie Fellrath]

Doug, wonderful comments and right on the money. I was putting my comments here but I decided it was worthy of a blog post of my own (and it was getting pretty long) so I posted a response at my blog.

http://tinyurl.com/6hu3ly

[Parker MacDonell]

Doug - thank you for speaking out on this entire range of issues. I appreciate your advocacy of the biking community in Columbus. I also agree that both bikers and "box drivers" need to obey the rules of the road. That breeds mutual respect and safety, two things that our community needs in large supply.

[Tyler Steele]

Thanks for summing this up Doug. I agree completely with your comments on being spoilers, and hurting the cause more than helping.

As a longtime biker and occasional bike commuter, it drives me nuts to see cyclists (or at least people on bikes) blatantly breaking the law.
We all want our mission to be strengthened and receive the amount of attention we think it deserves, but we really have to be mindful of the consequences of negative publicity. Doing things that piss-off even the most die hard, activist cyclists are certainly going to infuriate some red-neck looking for a fight (like corking intersections).

Organizations like Critical-Mass have been promoting group rides and "awareness raising" activities for years. These events (like the MNRs) only target a niche audience, the individual who is already into biking. We need to think more about how our cyclist mentality is perceived and portrayed to the greater population. This isn't some boy-racer phenom, we are starting to see a modal shift. If you want to take your fixie out for a MNR and have some fun, do it! But don't think that you're raising awareness by upsetting people, or getting in their face-- You're giving us all a bad image.
Follow the rules, take off the ipod and try to wave to fellow cyclists.
We're all in this together-- and
THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED!!

[Jamie Fellrath]

Great point, Tyler - I hadn't even considered the audience for Critical Mass and the audience for the Monday Night Ride as an issue. The MNR folks make it clear that they're going at a certain pace, and if you get dropped that's your own fault. There seems to be nothing in place to make sure that all the riders can get home from the ride and not get lost.

An elitist attitude? Yes, a bit. There's nothing wrong with a good hard training-type ride, I totally understand people who want to push themselves on bikes or in any other endeavor. But if you're going to lead a ride like this, you need to at least provide maps so that if people do drop, they can figure out how to get home!

But it's attitudes like this that MNR rider leaders need to be wary of taking, otherwise they're going to be increasingly hurting their own standing and respect level within the cycling movement. And that's sad - experienced cyclists always are welcome in the discussion of how to move things forward, and we need every voice we can get.

They need to lose the attitude and think about the big picture - the big picture that says if they play nice in the sandbox with everyone else, then the sandbox is going to keep getting bigger and less filled with cat poop.