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Permalink Reply by Gort 12-mile Pinklegneep on September 15, 2014 at 2:36pm

This was kind of already a thing when there were just any bikes on the street at all and since it had already been ramped up hyperbolically to ten from the get-go, it hasn't had anywhere to go, so it's tough to call it a response to the growth of bike culture. 

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Permalink Reply by Gort 12-mile Pinklegneep on September 15, 2014 at 4:47pm

“Bikelash” is a snappy little word that names a condition quite familiar to anyone who’s been following the politics of city streets in the United States over the past few years. It describes the resistance and hostility that the increasing presence of bikes on city streets sometimes produces in people who don’t ride bikes. That hostility can take many forms: drivers who honk and throw trash at people on two wheels,

edit because this html editor just ate my post 

Calling this a thing familiar to people who have followed this for "the past few years" kinda tips the hand for how long someone has been following this. I've experienced this for over twenty years so I can't really buy that it's just a reaction to the more recent gains in cycling ridership and infrastructure. 

How long it's been going on combined with the fact that it comes with a plausible existential threat of someone in a few thousand pounds of steel and the nearly nonexistent legal consequences of killing cyclists kinda undermines the idea that the best response is patience and generosity and kindness. 

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Permalink Reply by Tricolor on September 16, 2014 at 10:41am

Other than a few internet freaks that get forwarded around like old chain letters and op-ed blowhards trying to keep things controversial to maintain their jobs there's not much hostility out there, and certainly not in Chicago.  I didn't notice anything with a few days riding around Pittsburgh and hitting all the major attractions in Washington DC last year, either.  The main city I'd like to see if London since it would seem there are a lot of riders with no real laws or standards.  Maybe New York, too, just to see Bike Snob is all he's cracked up to be.

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