The Weird World of Bike Advocacy: Mourning Becomes Electrolux

Entertainment is constantly changing, and this is because mores and technology are also constantly changing. For example, in the "Olden Days," people used to go to bear-baitings. However, it's now totally uncool to bait bears, and thanks to television and computers it's also totally unnecessary to actually go anywhere. Consequently, we now just sit home and watch things like "Jersey Shore."

However, certain forms of entertainment are timeless, and people will watch and enjoy them regardless of whether they're performed live in the village square or broadcast digitally to magic boxes. These are: 1) Watching people getting kicked in the "man-bag;" 2) Watching opposing teams chasing a ball around; and 3) Watching people in funny costumes fighting. This last form of entertainment is the basis of everything from gladiators to professional wrestling, and it's also at the heart of the ongoing "Hipster vs. Hasidim" Williamsburg bike lane controversy.

Still, while these are all universal, the duration of the entertainment is also crucial. The foot to the "man-bag" is entertaining as is the initial reaction, but nobody really wants to see the subsequent hospital visit. Millions of people will tune in to watch the Superbowl, but almost nobody wants to watch the maintenance crew clean up the field or see the players' uniforms being laundered. And, at a certain point, professional wrestling becomes "The Wrestler." This lends credence to the popular expression "Comedy plus time equals tragedy," or, when expressed visually, this.

Similarly, the "Hipster vs. Hasidim" conflict seems to be moving out of its alliterative and amusing novelty phase and into the "pathetic" phase as of yesterday, when the Time's Up "Clown Brigade" led a bicycle "funeral procession" through Hasidic Williamsburg to protest the removal of the bike lanes. Here is some video of the event, which apparently consisted of a small number of people dancing around in the rain:


And here is a local gentleman looking nonplussed:

While this "New Orleans-style 'funeral procession'" was ostensibly to mourn the bike lanes, what the participants really did was lay to rest the last remains of their credibility. Regardless of whether you agree with the Hasidim, they view bike lanes as an unwelcome addition to their neighborhood. How, then, is a group of wet bike dorks dancing to the schmaltzy sounds of "I Will Survive" supposed to change their minds? Time's Up claim to "promote a more sustainable, less toxic city," but if anything punishing people with that sort of music on a Sunday afternoon is about as toxic as it gets without unleashing actual chemicals.

If Time's Up really wanted the Hasidim to accept the bike lanes they'd try to make the Hasidim understand the bike lanes. Unfortunately, this would require that they in turn try to understand the Hasidim. However, this is far too time-consuming, and it would cut into Time's Up's busy schedule of putting on "Doggie Pedal Parades" and sending people in polar bear costumes to Copenhagen. So, rather than work towards mutual respect, Time's Up prefer to use torture instead. Basically, by presenting the Hasidim with something twice as repugnant as the bike lanes that were previously there, I can only imagine that Time's Up thinks they can pummel the Hasidim into a state of acceptance.

This, of course is ridiculous. You can't make someone like something they hate by giving them more of it. Let's say your friend loves jam band music, but you hate it (as I do). Because your friend lives in a state of inflamed passion, he cannot imagine that someone else might not also love this music. So, when he's driving you someplace in his hand-me-down Volvo with the bumper stickers all over it and you ask him to please turn down the Phish, he responds by saying, "What? You don't like this?!?," and making it even louder in the hopes that somehow the increased volume will reveal to you the nuances you missed and your musical tastes will somehow change. But the louder Phish gets the more you hate them and the more you protest, and the crazier he thinks you are, and so you turn off the stereo, and he says, "This is my car!" and turns it back on, and you get in a big fight, and ultimately someone winds up lying dead on the side of the road with a Hacky Sack lodged in his throat.

Still, this is the approach that certain "bike advocacy" groups take, and it's the basis behind rides like "Critical Mass." When you attain a certain level of self-importance you honestly begin to believe that simply amplifying yourself is all you need to do to make people agree with you. When some people say they want "livable cities," what they really mean is that they want cities in which everybody lives the same way that they do. Really, one person's "livable city" is another person's uninhabitable hellhole.

One reason bike advocates in the United States behave this way may be that we are one of those countries in which bicycles are a "fetish," which is the term used by Mikael Colville-Andersen of Copenhagen Cycle Chic in this interview:

While you may or may not be perturbed by the narrator's manner of speaking (which to me evokes a leering man who's not wearing any pants) as well as the subject's alarmingly fashionable glasses, Colville-Andersen does make some interesting points, and I would certainly agree that many of us do tend to fetishize the bicycle. (The existence of the top tube pad alone is proof of this fact.) He further claims that "We've demystified the bicycle in Copenhagen," in the sense that people there simply treat it as a tool, and that they use it as a mode of transportation and not as a source of identity or a pretense for social interaction. "The relationship to the bicycle in Copenhagen is the same as it is to our vacuum cleaners," he explains, adding that "We don't go to a specialty shop to buy vacuum cleaners."

I was with him until the part about the vacuum cleaners. What's so wrong with buying a vacuum cleaner from a specialty shop? Why not take pride in your old Electrolux, and why not keep it running for decades by bringing it to Desco instead of buying a new one every few years at Target? Are we Americans just a bunch of materialist bicycle fetishists, or are the people of Copenhagen simply using "demystification" to rationalize their total lack of quality bicycle and vacuum cleaner repair?

Also, I can't help feeling as though Colville-Andersen's talk of "demystification" is at odds with the content of his site and Flickr account, which consists largely of surreptitious photographs of attractive women on bicycles, many of whom are either shot from behind or in various stages of thigh exposure. If anything, cycling in Copenhagen seems to be about some elusive state of feminine beauty and insouciant style which the rest of us can only aspire to either possess or fondle, or at least photograph from behind a lamppost or a shrub. Really, Copenhagen Cycle Chic exudes fetishism, though perhaps that's just a cultural difference. In Copenhagen secretly taking pictures of women in short skirts is "demystification," but here it's just stalking.

Yes, we do things differently here in America. In Copenhagen a bicycle is just a tool, but here it's something that defies description, as you can see in this Craigslist ad forwarded by a reader:




'O9 Ironhorse Mountain bike. Fully loaded! Must See!!! - $3995 (West LA)
Date: 2009-12-12, 2:01PM PST
Reply to: [deleted]

I cannot even begin to describe this bike. The following are the additions alone.

• It has protective "antlers" in the front which I designed myself. (for bike and self-protection)
• All kinds of lights all over the front and back-You will be seen!
• Waterproof fenders
• Two bicycle pumps
• Tool box under the seat
• 4 Added mirrors
• 1 set of Veiwpoint high and low beam lights
• 2nd set of high and low beam lights
• Harley Davidson bike lock rotor cable
• Upgraded Handle bar grips
• Extra battery pack
• Speed bar

You must come and view this bike! It's a great bargain.
Valued at $5000, Sacrifice at $3,995 OBO

Beola 310-570-[deleted]
Angel 818-634-[deleted]

Those "protective antlers" are just what you need to survive a bike lane-less Bedford Avenue. I'm thinking about installing a pair on my vacuum cleaner too.

Posted in: cycling in nyc