How a bike-obsessed weirdo’s pro-bike crusade actually made cycling worse for everyone else – Jalopnik

There probably isn’t a single person out there who is truly happy with the current state of cycling in the US. If you’re pro-cycling, you hate how dangerous it is to cycle anywhere and how strong the opposition is to anything that would make cycling safer. If you’re against bicycles, the fact that bicycles are even legal to ride on public roads offends you to your core. But while you might assume that their misfortune is the only thing these two parties share, they also have a common enemy: a now-deceased, bicycle-obsessed weirdo named John Forester.

And when I say Forester was a lunatic, I really mean it. The man didn’t just like cycling. No, that would be too normal. According to Forester, there was only one way to be a true cyclist, and that was to be the kind of stereotypical, aggressive rider that so many people love to hate. Do you want to ride to the store on a comfortable bike in regular clothes? That’s not right, and you’re not a real cyclist. Do you prefer mountain bikes to racing bikes? That’s not right, and you’re not a real cyclist. Do you want front suspension and straight handlebars? You guessed it: wrong and not a real cyclist.

These days, obsessive weirdos like Forester can usually be found on enthusiast forums, writing long-winded rants about how to assemble a good timepiece by hand from start to finish, berating another user for daring to buy a pair of boots that use a durable fiberboard slab, or extolling the virtues of the RCA Type 44. But since the internet didn’t exist at the time, Forester instead started giving local governments all the wrong ideas about cycling policy and reducing cycling safety. decades. And if you’ve never heard his name before, you’re in luck, because Not Just Bikes just dedicated an entire 95-minute video to how wrong John Forester was about everything.

But by recognizing that it is dangerous to put small, slow-moving vehicles in the middle of a bunch of large, fast-moving vehicles, the UCLA engineering department caused a major panic among the hardcore cyclists already riding the streets of California, including John Forester. They loved riding on the road and thought separate cycle lanes were the first step towards a total ban on bicycles. Besides, anyone who was too afraid to ride in traffic was just a coward and not a real cyclist. In their view, a separate infrastructure turned cyclists into second-class citizens.

The problem, of course, was that the research available at the time already supported the UCLA recommendations, but Forester didn’t let that stop him. Instead, he wrote the book Effective Cycling, in which he simply told readers that the research was on his side, while also misrepresenting studies and issuing long-winded rants. And when researchers published newer studies that also showed Forester wrong, he pretended they didn’t exist. And yet, despite telling himself he was fighting for cyclists and their rights, what he has actually accomplished is making the US more dangerous for everyone on bikes, while also making motorists even more hostile to cyclists. Great job, dude.