In the comments on a recent post readers leveled accusations that the Faggin, in its current incarnation, is aesthetically displeasing, or what we colloquially call “ugly:”
To this I say, “You’re damned right it’s ugly!” You might even go so far as to call it a grotesquerie. It’s a sickly, fleshy, bloodless pink, like the carcass of a freshly-slaughtered pig. Furthermore, the lone Spinergy in the rear resembles a medical apparatus, like something Eric Von Stroheim might have worn to evoke the sense of some past trauma:
Ah, but the ride is far from ugly. Sure, it may have peaked aesthetically in this configuration (though that’s debatable):
But in this filthy landscape of salt-strewn streets and sooty brown snow it has the advantage of offering a top-notch ride whilst having aesthetics that even the worst corrosives couldn’t diminish any further.
Speaking of the poor road conditions, I did incur a flat yesterday, and so after deploying my spare tube I stopped at a bicycle shop to procure another. It was about noon on a Sunday, on the first warm-ish day in quite some time, and when I stepped into the shop all the lights were off, it smelled strongly of marijuana, and the person behind the counter informed me that they were closed. While I’m not implying my inner tube purchase would have made a meaningful difference on their balance sheet or seen them through the dead of winter, in nonetheless struck me as a strange business model and a peculiar time for a bicycle shop to be closed…though perhaps he simply denied me service because of the ungodly appearance of the Faggin, and was worried I’d attempt to engage him in some potentially time-consuming and non-remunerative task like servicing my ancient Spinergy. (I’d have to imagine an old Spinergy is the one sight a bicycle shop proprietor dreads even more than a Walmart bike.)
Meanwhile, over on Streetsblog, a former Transportation Alternative Board member is distraught over the state of the city’s bike lanes:
In particular, he cites anecdotal evidence that with the proliferation of all the various forms of motor scooters and e-crap even long-time bicyclists are hanging up their wheels:
While I ride as much as ever, I’m far less eager to ride in the city than I once was, and the Microbility Shitshow certainly has something to do with that. At the same time, I suspect this would be the case even if the bike lanes weren’t overrun with idiots on fast-moving contraptions, since the older I get the less willing I am to deal with any form of annoyance, of which there has always been plenty around here, even before all the e-tards (sorry). Sure, I’m less enthusiastic about riding a bike in the city, but I’m also less enthusiastic about being in the city at all, on or off a bike. Whereas in my youth I went into the city whenever I could, now it’s something I only do when I have to; it’s become like going to the dentist or pulling clumps of hair out of the bathtub drain. So as pernicious as I find a lot of this micromobility stuff, I think it’s important to keep things in perspective and acknowledge that with age comes a certain amount of sheer orneriness, and a tendency to conflate one with the other.
As for what to do about the situation, he has some good suggestions, such as limiting the speed of e-Citi Bikes and that sort of thing. However, I’m a little skeptical about some of his other idea, in particular “wider bicycle paths:”
I know from years of reading Streetsblog that widening highways is bad because of “induced demand.” See, the idea is that everybody thinks that more lanes means more room which means less traffic, but apparently what really happens is that more lanes just means more cars which means even more traffic and all the bad stuff that comes with it. So if we widen the bike lane wouldn’t the same thing happen–that is to say more speeding e-contraptions all the concomitant chaos? As it is there’s quite literally no escape from these things:
Fortunately for me, while I become more ornery as I get older, I also care less at the same time, and at this point I’m content to let everyone fight over what should or shouldn’t be done in the city while I keep riding my bike away from it.
Also, one potential upside of all of this is that it could help the perception of “traditional” pedal-powered cyclists. For decades and decades, people have derided us as the most annoying things on the road, but as motorized devices become exponentially more irritating maybe they’ll start to find us quaint in comparison–though no doubt this will take awhile, and for now we’re still the number one scapegoat when it comes to reasons for driver exasperation. Consider this Hyundai commercial I saw last night:
In it we see a Pack of Freds:
The run the light, because of course they do:
The drivers exchange glances:
Worldlessly and wearily conveying the universal sentiment to which all drivers can relate–“Stupid cyclists:”
Thank you, Hyundai, for saving us from ourselves.