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Vice Blog

NEW YORK - BIKE SUPREMACISTS

Here's the thing that pisses people off about bicycle activists and makes them laugh when a Critical Masser gets shoved off his bike by a cop instead of going "Oh, that's horrible" (besides the intrinsic comedic value of the shove, as also evidenced in that thing that happened to Oasis on Sunday). They act like they're out fighting the good fight against car pollution and trying to make the city's roads safe for alternative forms of transportation, but the only alternative they actually give a shit about is their own. Take this sign that popped up on Kent Ave in Brooklyn last night (a high-traffic truck route directly adjacent to two streets with bike lanes running either way).

It's a reference to the number of bikers killed by cars in NYC last year--wait, sorry, the number of cyclists killed, the number of bikers was 35. Now, they could have combined this figure with the six times as many pedestrians who were killed in the same span and added a little bloody sneaker to ratchet up the guilt and body count, but instead they isolate themselves from the pack, as if bicycles have been singled out by the Car Drivers of New York to mow down by accident. How bad of a persecution complex have you got to have to shoot your own scare tactics in the foot by 136?

The whole anti-pollution angle is yet another canard. I'm sure the air down by the East River would reek a little less of stale exhaust and more of its natural septic musk if more car drivers switched to bikes, but if that's your  goal, why would you take over empty parking spaces for days at a time, forcing drivers to circle the block in search of others while their engines pour out that much more crap into the atmosphere? It's all just one more group back-pat for smug collegiate types to feel like they're doing something instead of actually getting something done.