That Escalated Slowly – Bike Snob NYC

As a Rivendell rider I am of course familiar with the bike shop Blue Lug…

…though I had no idea that they also had a barber shop:

I’m stunned that nobody in New York City has thought to combine bikes and haircuts.

Oh wait, yes they have:

Never mind.

Meanwhile, here in New York the e-bike backlash continues:

As usual, the debate revolves around the fact that on one hand e-bikes make stuff slightly easier for old people, but on the other hand they suck:

And yes, I’m being deliberately reductive, so no need for Silas to weigh in with his anecdote about how his e-bike means he no longer has to take his kids to gymnastics camp in an Uber.

Of course, we’ve seen all this before–or at least our velocipedist forbears have. Indeed, from the very first many people thought bicycles were a nuisance, and they were banned from the parks accordingly:

At the same time, now that so many bicycles are electrified the response has escalated accordingly too. NYPD crackdowns on scofflaw cyclists are also nothing new, both in and out of the park:

By the way, if you think I’ve evolved into some sort of reactionary curmudgeon, please note that I’ve always been a reactionary curmudgeon:

As well as an astute futurist:

But yes, while there have always been crackdowns, now that the bikes are motorized vehicles used primarily for commercial enterprises the NYPD is supercharging its crackdowns by issuing criminal summonses to riders:

And “regular cyclists” are collateral damage”, as the NYPD metes out enforcement in its characteristically bewildering way:

These dolphin-in-the-tuna-net incidents notwithstanding, whereas once people despised bicyclists as a menace, now that e-bikes have taken over they may now be coming to see us as not only benign but positively quaint. Consider the pennyfarthing, erstwhile blight on the parks and now just something you point at and smile when you see one on the Five Boro Bike Tour:

Is this a glimpse at our future as riders of purely human-powered bicycles?

In fact in some places we’re so innocuous we’re now considered pedestrians:

Clearly this won’t stop people from hitting us, but maybe they’ll stop hating us.

Just kidding:

They’ll always hate us.