Cycling bullies

Re “Cyclists have support in many different corners” (Sports  March 6):

Kudos to Doug Krikorian – it’s about time that folks start standing up to the bullies in the “big-cycling lobby.” There is a big difference between building or modifying infrastructure to accommodate current demand and in building or modifying infrastructure to create demand. It’s not the job of people in city government to decide what is and what isn’t a healthy lifestyle, and to spend our tax dollars to try to force us out of our cars.

Here’s a message to everyone in City Hall: Fill our potholes, pave our roads, maintain adequate police and firefighting personnel, balance your budget, and leave us all alone.

William Burkett

Long Beach (see letters to the editor in today’s paper March 10, 2011)

BlahBlahFreddie’s position on cycling advocacy:  “It’s all about the safety stupid.”

BlahBlahFreddie advocates education for both motorists and cyclists to bring about safer conditions for cycling on our city streets.  We believe sharrows and bike lanes help raise the awareness that bicycles use the city streets too.

An Excerpt: Outside of this city—and many places inside the city—it’s still very risky to ride a bike. Cyclists remain afterthoughts in the planning process. Parents don’t dream of letting their kids ride on the street. A lot of adults are too scared to even try.

This is why Tim Johnson is riding into New York this weekend. Johnson, 33, is an unfamiliar name to most sports fans, but to hardcore cyclists, he’s something of a cult hero, a six-time U.S. champion of cyclocross, a muddy racing genre that’s an exhilarating mix between mountain biking and skinny-tire stuff found in the Tour de France.

Saturday night, Johnson and a group of other cyclists are riding into the city amid a 550-mile trip between Boston and Washington D.C, where the National Bike Summit occurs next week. The ride is designed to raise awareness and funds for Bikes Belong, an organization that seeks to make roadways safer and get more people on bikes.

Read the full article at the WSJ.