Being somewhat stranded in Northern Manitoba for a little while, I have been a bit lapse in my rambling and ranting I fear. I can happily report that this exploration project is coming to a close soon and I will be able to enlighten on this site at my usual pace.

Along with oilfield operations slowing in spring, we will see a ramping up of the rhetoric coming from the rather entitled bicycle-cult crowd in urban areas across North America. Many many people ride and enjoy bicycles in urban areas and this certainly does not make them cultish. There is an element of the extreme in the urban bicycle lobby however and like vegans they tend to self-identify rather quickly whether you want them to or not.

The bicycle-cult folks are not so much pro-bicycle as they actually are anti-car. We can and should typically dismiss them but alas they do somehow hold a disproportionate sway on many municipal councils and countless dollars are being wasted around the nation as car lanes are removed from roads and given to bicycle commuters who simply do not exist in any significant numbers. Many cities such as Red Deer, Toronto and Edmonton have been removing these idiotic bike lanes but can’t seem to keep up to the addition of wasted lanes of pavement for invisible bicycles.

Despite inflated claims of as many as 12,000 daily bicycle commuters coming into Calgary’s core, I just can’t seem to find them. I will check again in spring. There must be a road that is simply bumper to bumper with bicycle commuters hiding out there somewhere.

The late great George Carlin pointed out that the common element in any joke is the exaggeration. Anything can be funny if the correct exaggeration is placed upon it.

In the video below from the TV series “Portlandia” a typical bike-cultist is parodied.

The funny thing is, they really didn’t exaggerate much. These types pepper the streets of every nation in the developed world.

It is worth a watch for a short Friday chuckle either way. 🙂