Bob CollinsMinneapolis author Steve Stratman is roiling the peaceful waters that typically surround the cycling scene in the Twin Cities.
“Bicyclists are becoming unlikable, even to other bicyclists,” he writes in his op-ed in today’s Star Tribune, “Six Signs You’re a Twin Cities Bike Jerk.”
You are quietly stymied when you realize there are people out there who don’t share your infatuation with yourself. It’s true. After you’ve zoomed past cowed mortals who flee your directives like peasants in a pogrom, you hear the wails and lamentations in your wake and you think, “Don’t they understand that I’m the god of special pants?”
Ouch. It always comes back to the spandex.
Stratman suggests that bicyclists are responsible for the disappearance of some “no biking” signs on Minneapolis park trails.
If riders can’t maintain their speed, they should get off the bike path. I used to think that when something bad finally happens to me, it will be at the hands of an addled meth fiend in a cloud of vapors or society’s most popular boogieman, the “hooded youth.” But now I believe my personal safety depends on a random score of fierce-eyed cyclists with bulging adrenal glands and legs the size of Maryland bearing down on children with pink helmets in a brume of caffeine and attitude.
Ease off on the power bars, Stratman writes.
“As usual the few are the cause of the cursing of the many,” a commenter astutely observes.
Related: Pedal Hub: Don’t be a jerk!
