My Modest Wager

I have been an avid, even militant bicyclist since first discovering the exhilarating sense of freedom I first experienced when I mastered balancing on 2 wheels when I was 5 or 6 years old on a big boys bike. In Detroit, we rode in the snow, on the ice. I rode everywhere. I lived in Toledo, Ohio for 10 years and for years, I used a bike to commute to work...out to Maumee when I worked as a chef...a 25 mile commute everyday. I worked on a railroad bridge for a few years at night and I would ride to work, carry my bike out to the bridge house in all but the most inclement weather. I lived in New York City for over 20 years and used a bike to commute almost every day. I loved riding in Manhattan late at night. I owned the city. I discovered the nooks and crannies of Manhattan, all of the boroughs, as much of the shore line from the tip of Staten Island, Long Island then up the Hudson River with my trusty Trek. I even had a magnetic resistance bike trainer in my kitchen.
When I first moved to New York in 1977, I was kind of amazed that the Mayor, Ed Koch seemed to have had a rather transcendental vision for Manhattan that involved making it bike friendly. There was a massive project to build bike lanes encourage the use of bikes. The bike lane seemed to be a reality in 1978...but...that was the Reagan Era and anything eco friendly or anti maximun petroleum consumption was automatically labeled LIBRUL....Kommunistical and anti multi national corporate free market laissez faire profit mad American business. I had a brief and life threatening career as a bike messenger in Manhattan in 1978/79....I admire the survival skills these guys have...you have to be kind of like half human half hummingbird and able to live on fast food and sugar, luckily I survived and bought a truck and started became a sort of all purpose roadie hauling band equipment and learned how to install and move neon lighting....before the internet, this was how you got things done fast!

His worst nightmare was a guy named Emmett Tyrell, the conservative author who at the time was writing rabid editorials for the New York Post. Tyrell was possessed, by what, well we can only speculate, because he made the bike lobby in NY State his target. He wrote frothing editorials that claimed Ed Koch was trying to make Manhattan into Peking and we would be seeing thousands of bicycling Manhattan Maoists on the streets...this went on for months. Tyrell worked himself into a frenzy which culminated in his September 1979 editorial in the Post railing against the personal offense he had to endure each day of scantily lycra clad male bikers showing off in his face when ever he ventured into Manhattan in his air conditioned limo.  Tyrell did attain his goal. He was able to use his position at the Post to inflame the conservative Reaganite anti Libruls upstate and out on Long Island to convince Koch that he  had better take out the bike lanes because they were getting in the way of their god given constitutional right to drive where the hell ever, when the fuck ever and burn as much gasoline as the god given free fuckin market they had fought so hard for would allow them to.....So Koch caved...the bike lanes were ripped out and the New York Police Force fought a 20 year battle to rid Manhattan of militant bikers. Many of my friends and myself were arrested in the historic protests which took place over the next 20 years. You know what, the bikers won! If you go to Manhattan today, you will discover one of the best urban bike networks in America. Now the reality is major bike infrastructure rapidly expanding all through the 5 boroughs. Check out 23rd Street, Broadway and 5th Avenue....it's closed to traffic! It's a sea of outdoor cafe tables, bike racks outside of the paradise of Eataly...all in the intersection across from Madison Square Park. The West Side Hudson River shore line is a paradise for bicycling. You can go now from lower Manhattan all the way to The George Washington Bridge on magnificent bike paths through parks...if you are a bicyclist in Manhattan, everyday can be a vacation. This is the eternal stake in Rudy Guiliani's conservative 9/11 Vampire heart...
I still try to bike when ever I can. I live in a very rural place and the terrain is not that friendly, but even in the winter, I get out 2 or three times a week. The hardest part is getting out of here and to the main road, about 2 kilometers...I long for the urban flatness of NYC and Toledo...
So, I ran into this little item today from the March 2nd Seattle Bike Blog. It seems the Washington State Republicans are tying to introduce a bicycle tax to pay for Washington States Highway system. When Tacoma bike shop owner activist Dale Carlson tried to contact the Republican State Representative Author of the bill, Ed Orcutt about the logic of the bill, which would impose a tax on Bike riders in Washington, he received this rather bizarre reply:

Look, it's not just the fact that a Republican anti tax blowhard is trying to hypocritically impose an illogical tax ( I mean, are tricycles exempted? If a bike has training wheels, do you pay more for the wheel wear and tear on the road...the mind boggles at the sheer idiocy of this man) on those he sees as LIBRULS, it's the utter illogic of his reply. Contacted, later, Orcutt cites discredited facts and figures that pro energy industry propagandists generated almost 25 years ago to discredit the healthy physical and environmental effects of biking. I guess it's time for me to issue a challenge. Ed, babe, if this is what you really believe, then you should be man enough to back it up. Do let's make a little wager. Name the charity. Maybe something a poor schmuck like me can afford? Like say 1,000 bucks US Currency paid to the charity of your choice? The terms? 2 closed and sealed garages...I will be on one on my mag trainer pedaling away emitting my allegedly toxic emissions and you can sit ion your fat ass limo with the motor running. I can keep a good pace for perhaps 2 hours...and the first person to pass out loses the bet...Eddy, you don't have to do nothing but sit there and inhale the fumes....it's a cinch, right? Just make out the check and deposit before the bet...okay? Hey, here's an added bonus...me in Central Park just last year on my buddy Bob's hi tech Eliptigo bike...no pedals, no seat...I rode it from Central Park up to the GW Bridge. It's like skiing and once you get used to it, it's pretty easy to get going even up hill! The gearing is automatic. I had lots of Japanese tourists stopping me and shooting videos of me on this machine.