*toss*

I’ve never operated a vehicle, motorized or otherwise, while alcohol-impaired. So, no, I don’t think it’s appropriate to ride a bicycle while drinking, even if it’s just low-alcohol swill like PBR.

I honestly don’t give a crap if you ride without a helmet, because there are valid arguments to be made against being compelled by the state to wear one. (“I don’t want to. So what!” isn’t one of them.) And while I do think a little less of you for drinking PBR (seriously, wtf? That stuff is nasty enough to more than offset its cheapness), that’s not something I really give a crap about either. It’s the combination of drinking and biking that I don’t think is a good idea, and I don’t care if you think I’m an idiot for being against it.

Is the argument that drinking and biking isn’t as dangerous as drinking and driving? Ok, then, where’s the cutoff? A VW bug? How about if you only drive it 3mph? A 250cc motorcycle? A 50cc Vespa? A stokemonkey-assisted xtracycle? A tallbike? Seriously, at what point does it become ok to operate your vehicle while drinking? I’d like to know.

And I didn’t know that Floyd Landis was drinking beer while biking the tour de france. For some reason, all the news stories I read had him drinking after the day’s racing was done. I wonder how they could all have gotten that so wrong?

(For the record, I don’t own a car, by choice. So it’s not like I’m some SUV-driving bike-hater. And I like beer, just not PBR.)

Failings? WTF? Not wearing a helmet? Drinking cheap beer?

Failing would be driving my kid to school every day in an SUV instead of “making” him take the school bus (or picking him up on my bike).

Failing would be drinking beer after work and then getting in a motor vehicle to drive home.

Failing would be not being honest and telling the truth….always.

Failing would be hating.

Floyd Landis indicated to the world that one can simultaneously drink beer and win the Tour de France. (Drug test – that’s just France’s good old boy network responding to the USA’s. “You want to have that jackass for a president? Then you must stop winning our bike race!”) So quit whining about the dangers of riding 8mph one handed. Go figure out how to do something real with your time and fix problems rather than make them.

So he who is without sin, cast the first stone!

I’ve only met him once, but from the impression I’ve gotten from others about him, I suspect that, yeah. He might tell them to stuff it, because the helmet law’s a stupid nanny state frippery that may protect children and people who don’t know how to properly ride a bike, but isn’t necessary for people like him, and part of the bicycle advocacy movement ought to be resistance to helmet laws. But I don’t really know him.

I do know that critical mass isn’t lightly-organized; it’s completely unorganized. It’s a flash mob without any guiding principle except “meet here at this time and make yourself visible”. Expecting the reasonable people in such a group to be able to persuade the unreasonable people to behave differently is a losing proposition.

Does the existence of CM hurt or help groups like CBC and WBA in the long run? I have absolutely no idea.

But if, as a bicycle rider yourself, you’d like to address Aaron directly and tell him he’s not helping, his email address is aaron@rideyourbike.com.

I confess to being bent out of shape by juvenile behavior by people who know better. I think there are more productive ways to make a case than making a rolling disturbance. You can ask the folks at Cascade how this helps their efforts. I have.

Food for thought, to be sure. If the “regular folks” are there every time keeping the yahoo quotient down, that’s great. I suspect it will be a core of professionals with a rotating cast of “regular folks.”

As for the poster boy, it seems he was also photographed at Chilly Hilly in similar style but sans beer. So this is a schtick that news people can rely on. A helmet with viking horns or some other amusing ornamentation would serve a better purpose but that’s not my problem. He is certainly representative if he keeps acting the same way and no one finds it worth the effort to dissuade him from it. I don’t know him: you do. Do you think if some reasonable person said, “Hey, the helmetless thing is really hurting the people doing their best to make cycling accessible and safe. Could you knock it off?” he would tell them to stuff it? I can’t answer that. Maybe it’s worth doing. You think I’m the only person to read that article and see those pictures and come to an misimpression, either of a couple of people or an event?

Aaron’s failings are his own deal. I’m pretty sure his thought process that day didn’t go: “I will be photographed for the cover of a magazine this evening. Should I bring the beer, or not? How will my choice reflect on the state of bicycle advocacy in general?” Maybe he should have been thinking like that. He certainly shouldn’t be bicycling while drinking, in any case. But deciding that he’s representative of anything but himself is all on you. Here’s what the article said about CM:

One guy pedals atop a double-decker bike, his panniers loaded with five 12-packs of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Another trails a large stereo speaker booming experimental Japanese music and Broadway show tunes. There’s a nude tattooed bicyclist, a steady ringing of bicycle bells.

But these are not WTO anarchists or hard-core bike messengers (who patronizingly refer to Critical Mass as “amateur hour”). Mostly, they’re regular folks, exactly the type Lagerwey and Cascade are trying to get onto bikes. There’s a real-estate agent, electronics technician, fourth-grade teacher, research engineer, graphic designer. The August night I rode Critical Mass, I chatted with Sadie Frederick, the manager of Mighty-O Donuts near Green Lake, who pedaled a sturdy commuter bike with a handle-bar basket, a la Wizard of Oz. She wore a skirt, not Lycra, and said she was riding Critical Mass for the first time to celebrate giving up her car.

Does deciding the first paragraph is more representative of CM than the second say more about CM, or about you?

Yes, the photo was chosen but I suspect more on its merits — big guy in a colorful shirt on an unusual bike surrounded by other cyclists, all of whom look to be having a good time — than out of a need to demonize Critical Mass. So think about the picture itself. Would it be a less illustrative image without the PBR can? I don’t think so. So if that’s true — that the photographer didn’t single out a guy with a beer — then the choice of carrying the beer can was — Aaron’s. He could have been on the cover of PNW without it. And we wouldn’t be having this conversation. And there were a few more pictures that showed Cyclists Behaving Well, just the two I noted were of people who should know better. So it’s not like the only pictures used were intended to make cyclists look like yahoos.

As I mentioned in the original post, I would be heartened if I saw some reader feedback that commented on this, that supported a more responsible view. I don’t know if that will happen.

So, ok. Aaron clearly shouldn’t be the poster boy for the bicycling community. Whose fault is it that he’s the one on the cover of the magazine? Not the Cascade Bicycle Club’s. Not Bicycle Alliance of Washington’s. Probably not even his. That’s solely the responsibility of the photo editor.