Growing hostility towards Mountainbikers and Cyclists

[Silvergoat]

http://metro.co.uk/2016/03/08/thugs-have-shoved-at-least-five-cyclists-into-london-canal-5739360/

I always avoid the canals, myself. There's also been reports of a pair of low-lifes on scooters riding up alongside moving cyclists to carry out bike jackings. This is in the fashionable East parts of London. Another new wheeze is for thieves to saw through the frames for locking bikes to and then gaffer taping around the saw cut to disguise it...

 

[legrandefromage]

Even cycling 500 yards from my house I get:

Oncoming car on my side of the road overtaking parked cars leaving me about a foot of space rather than waiting the 2 seconds for me to pass.

BMW X5 overtaking me on a blind bend, again, couldnt wait the 2 seconds for me to go first.

But then I get:

Farmer waits for me to pass all the huge puddles so I dont get soaked as he goes by

Another waiting for me to pass on a narrow road giving me priority

Which kind of balances it out but the X5 driver would have come unstuck if something large was coming the opposite way.

 

[Silvergoat]

Re:

You lose some, you win some. Or, "it's a game of swings and roundabouts", as my manager would say, before he got the chop. And he loved swinging but that's another story...

 

[M-Power]

http://metro.co.uk/2016/03/08/thugs-have-shoved-at-least-five-cyclists-into-london-canal-5739360/

Won't be long before the Media have more blood on their hands. I used to ride along the Regents canal everyday for years and never had any incidents. I struggle to believe these are isolated pockets of criminality or blatant thuggery and not some underground growing campaign of hate against cyclists in general.

 

[M-Power]

.

 

[Silvergoat]

Re:

It's a state of mind. Never underestimate the extent to which ill-informed resentments can be developed. There are many who just cannot comprehend why anyone – particularly a grown adult – would, by choice, want to get on and ride a bike as a way of life and enjoy it. Why would you? You can drive everywhere in comfort cocooned in high status or if you're poor, there's public transport and walking.

With the media, the more idiots that see/hear/read and believe things covered or reported with a negative slant about cyclists (or whichever undeserving group is in the cross hairs), the more that silly ideas start to prevail. Obviously, there are some right tools out there too. People are affected by what they consume and experience through the media and can lap it up as unbiased fact. All it takes is a tiny steady trickle of information or disinformation.

 

[We_are_Stevo]

Re:

...hence my assertion re the Media colluding with Government to demonize certain sections of Society so that no-one gives a damn when new legislation is brought in virtually unopposed to victimize them!

Everyone is so self-absorbed today that George Orwell's Big Brother society has been imposed upon us almost without a murmur of unease!

We have been brain washed to live in fear of 'everything' around us! At the same time, no-one notices what is ACTUALLY going on around them, so long as they can continue to fool themselves that it isn't affecting them!

Everyone these days has been encouraged to absolve themselves of all personal responsibility and become wholly reliant upon 'The State' to do everything for them: no-one seems to be able to think for themselves any longer, hence the ease with which they accept any and every total bollocks it suits Government to impose upon us!

Demonizing cyclists conveniently helps distract everyone from what is REALLY going on: like the total erosion of every civil liberty and privilege our forebears fought two World Wars to preserve!

The days of the 'Ting, Ting!' of a cyclists bell evoking a Utopian mental impression of idyllic summer days, without a care in the world, so long as you're home in time for tea, have long since been replaced by a Pavlovian "GRRRRRRRR!! F*CK*NG CYCLISTS!!"

Now THAT'S a rant!

 

[Silvergoat]

Re:

Quite right. It's fait accompli. People are sleep walking into an Orwellian situation – allowing it to happen because of authoritarian corporate governance and complicit media disinformation about what, who and everything that is going on around them. Control by diversion, division and fear. It's for our own good that we're losing our hard thought and won freedoms. Look, if you haven't done anything wrong, then you've really got nothing to fear... Get the pallet wood, ready the barricades. And what have the Ting Tings ever done for us? "That's not my name!".

 

[k-rod]

Re:

"Mystery Babylon - the beast is rising?

 

[Silvergoat]

Re:

Very biblical.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KCbqhJt16k

Yey, Demis!