Recently, the owner of
Lovely Bicycle, a 'bike pron' blog I enjoy as a sort of guilty pleasure, posted
a set of images on Flickr (including the above).
I have to say, there's something I find deeply unsettling in images like this. Yuppies in faux-corporate-endorsed lycra and cleated bike shoes sipping energy drinks in a coffee shop during their weekend ride. It just seems so decadent and elitist. There's a level of almost imperialist wealth and arrogance on display here that is hard to ignore. Hard to get beyond the thousands of dollars of equipment on display in these images to the place where I can appreciate the simple freedom and enjoyment that cycling should encompass. I'd be willing to bet that none of these guys cycles to work at a coal pit or works on the shop floor at a clothing factory or in a machine shop. Every stitch and every bit of polymer and alloy on and around these guys yells: "Look at me! I'm wealthy enough to spend thousands on my toys!"
Here's a similar example from another site which somehow doesn't seem quite so bothersome to me (maybe it's the bad haircut that indicates a hint of humility that's not in evidence in the above images):
What's missing from pictures of expensively decked out cyclists, in my view, is the pure simplicity of getting on a bike and pedaling. Here we have the art of cycling, corrupted, complicated and turned into a pursuit of the moneyed elite (or more precisely the upper middle class). Here we have the modern equivalent of Marie Antoinette declaring contemptuously: "Let them eat cake!"
Would such cyclists happily mix with the sort of cyclist who rides a Schwinn he bought for $150 at Target, who doesn't just cycle on fair weather weekends, who (like me) commutes to work every weekday, rain or shine, in jeans and a cotton T-shirt, and who celebrates the end of the week, not with a glass of Chardonnay at a wine bar, but with a beer at his local pub?
In other words, would they be seen with someone like this guy:
Somehow I don't think so.
Maybe it's just that I'm an angry pinko commie who is jealous of these guys and their loot. Maybe, like many folks, lycra just pisses me off for some weird reason. Does any of this make others unsettled, as it does me, or am I being crazy/stupid/bigoted?
I have to say, there's something I find deeply unsettling in images like this. Yuppies in faux-corporate-endorsed lycra and cleated bike shoes sipping energy drinks in a coffee shop during their weekend ride. It just seems so decadent and elitist. There's a level of almost imperialist wealth and arrogance on display here that is hard to ignore. Hard to get beyond the thousands of dollars of equipment on display in these images to the place where I can appreciate the simple freedom and enjoyment that cycling should encompass. I'd be willing to bet that none of these guys cycles to work at a coal pit or works on the shop floor at a clothing factory or in a machine shop. Every stitch and every bit of polymer and alloy on and around these guys yells: "Look at me! I'm wealthy enough to spend thousands on my toys!"
Here's a similar example from another site which somehow doesn't seem quite so bothersome to me (maybe it's the bad haircut that indicates a hint of humility that's not in evidence in the above images):
What's missing from pictures of expensively decked out cyclists, in my view, is the pure simplicity of getting on a bike and pedaling. Here we have the art of cycling, corrupted, complicated and turned into a pursuit of the moneyed elite (or more precisely the upper middle class). Here we have the modern equivalent of Marie Antoinette declaring contemptuously: "Let them eat cake!"
Would such cyclists happily mix with the sort of cyclist who rides a Schwinn he bought for $150 at Target, who doesn't just cycle on fair weather weekends, who (like me) commutes to work every weekday, rain or shine, in jeans and a cotton T-shirt, and who celebrates the end of the week, not with a glass of Chardonnay at a wine bar, but with a beer at his local pub?
In other words, would they be seen with someone like this guy:
Somehow I don't think so.