Motoring 2010 is all about automobiles—that’s understood - but there is a connection between cars and bikes. BMW, Mercedes, and Cadillac all sell—or have sold in the past—their own brand of bicycles, for example, and some manufacturers—Honda and Peugeot, for two originally got their starts as a bicycle-makers.

Automotive scribes like bikes too, and this one has been riding bicycles in a fairly serious way for most of his life. I used to commute to work by bike, and it’s been one of my principal forms of exercise for at least 35 years. I prefer cars and motorcycles, but I do like bicycles. Time and weather permitting, I’m good for 50–60 km a week. I’d do more if I could, but there are times when you just have to have four wheels instead of two.

But I’m at a loss to explain this holier than thou attitude that seems to be prevalent with bicyclists in this country. Let’s face it: cyclists have become the new urban terrorists. While motorists sit patiently in traffic, moving forward an inch at a time, and terrified they might be breaking some new law, cyclists breeze through stop-lights, completely ignore pedestrians, weave in and out of traffic, and behave as if the rules of the road don’t apply to them.

I can live with most of that, but I tend to choke on the prevailing attitude among cyclists that they somehow have the high moral ground here. That those of us in internal-combustion vehicles are acolytes of the devil, befouling the atmosphere and sending us all down a one-way path to environmental perdition. Cyclists steadfastly maintain that their way of getting around is good for the environment and better for the physical health of Canadians. That may or may not be true, but as it is now, most militant cyclists’ just hate automobiles more than they care about clean air. And to the Critical Mass chuckleheads that seem to feel it’s acceptable to tie up traffic while they fool around downtown and work themselves up into a self-righteous froth....there’s a special circle in hell reserved for you. I like bicycles as much as the next guy, but I don’t feel it’s necessary to take off my clothes and cover myself in silver paint once a month just to piss people off.

Not to mention the fact that the bicycle, environmentally correct though it may be, is a fair weather vehicle, useful mainly in the city when the sun is shining. When the weather turns ugly, it’s back to four wheels for most people. Plus, for a lot of folks, there is no alternative to driving an automobile. You want us all to scrap our cars and jump onto the nearest Schwinn? Tell that to the single mom who has to drop off and pick up her kids at kindergarten every day, or the retired senior that provides meals on wheels, or the guy that has to commute 80 klicks to work and back, or the handicapped guy that needs to get to the local mall for his groceries. Bicycles and public transit are fine and dandy, but we can’t all ride bikes....and sometimes, we don’t want to.

And before I forget, you road-hogging, coffee-shop monopolizing, scofflaw Tour de France wannabes: lose the uniforms. You look ridiculous.

Visit Ted's site @  www.driver-seat.ca