Article on conservatives who ride?

I am a freelance writer hoping to do a story on how different segments
of bike culture align themselves politically, the correlations between
biking and certain politics, and, more specifically, how conservative
riders are distributed throughout a (sub)culture that is increasingly
portrayed as liberal by the media and in stereotypes.

I've had this idea ever since I started reading certain bike
magazines, like Momentum, which all but make a foregone conclusion
that cyclists are going to be left-leaning—clustering in liberal
cities like Portland, Minneapolis, San Francisco, etc.; politically
active in environmental efforts and green living; advocating for
better transportation infrastructure, community cooperatives, and
other progressive causes.

But what about the riders who don't fit that category, the ones who
love to ride but aren't comfortably ensconced in the overlap of
lefties and cyclists? I'm genuinely curious what it's like to be
politically conservative but also part of a subculture that seems to
skew left. In a larger sense, what's it like to agree with a group
whose core principles you embrace, but whose secondary or auxiliary
causes you have trouble with?

My question to you a 1) Do you fit this description? and or 2) do
you know any websites or groups devoted to conservatives who ride?
Feel free to respond here or by private message.


CAVEATS/CLARIFICATIONS:

(As I’ve talked to more people and gotten some confused/hostile
responses in other discussion forums, I've felt the need to qualify
some of my points. Consider what follows fine print.)

Just to clarify: I am not assuming everyone in bike culture is left-
leaning—I am saying that's the perception, at least among some non-
bikers (and bikers too, for that matter—I ride, and it’s a perception
I held until relatively recently). Increased media attention to
cycling and things like Critical Mass have created an image of a left-
leaning, and even anarchic, bike culture which many more moderate
bikers (and citizens in general) have attempted to repudiate. My
article is actually a response to that perception and to the
assumption that bikers are all liberals. I am attempting to break down
some stereotypes, not reinforce them.

Another provocative question is, "What is bike culture, anyway?" This
is actually my lead-off question with the people I've been
interviewing. Everyone seems to define that term differently. Perhaps
it's useful to distinguish between the generic use of the term, to
mean any subculture within those who ride bikes—i.e. commuters,
mountain bikers, the velodrome folks, etc.—and a more specific usage
(Bike Culture, capitalized) to describe the recent (last 10 yrs or so)
increased visibility of bikers, clustered in urban areas, who advocate
biking as an all-encompassing force that permeates every aspect of
their lives, and for whom the practice is inseparable from activism,
whether it's Critical Mass, environmental advocacy, or lobbying for
change in public policy, transportation infrastructure, urban
planning, sustainable fuels, etc.

That's the hardest I've ever tried to pin down a working definition of
Bike Culture, and I'm not entirely satisfied with it. But it's this
(very nebulous, badly stereotyped, quite possibly mythical) population
I'm curious about, whose visibility and cultural currency has been
amplified (often for the worse) by the media, and whose popularity/
mythos has increased in tandem with a mainstream awareness of
alternative transportation and the possibility of environmental
crisis. It's also a group that I think quite frequently functions as a
convenient boogeyman for those who fear or resent bikers for whatever
reason. Here, I think, is where a fascinating (at least to me)
politicization of biking occurs.

But then there are those who shrug and say, "I ride my bike because
it's fun and it feels good. It's not political." And that's cool too.

Part of the goal of my article is to break down all these stereotypes
and separate fact from perception. If we want biking to be an easy and
fun part of mainstream society (and despite our many differences, I
think it's fair to assume we all do) then no group, subculture, or
node on the political spectrum should feel excluded, right? But I'm
not sure we're at that point yet, and my article is going to try and
examine why.

I can tell you that only one of our large group of cyclists is a "righty"
(to be parallel with your use of the word "lefty"). Cyclists seem to cherish
the outdoors, nature in general and lack of structure that riding a bike
gives one. If that makes a person a "lefty", then so be it.

Ask this guy:
http://bagnewsnotes.typepad.com/bagn...ain%20bike.jpg

On Jul 2, 12:56 pm, Shippy wrote:

Yeah, the media derives a lot more of its advertising revenue from
local auto dealers than it does from local bike stores, so it's
certainly in the media's best interest to portray people that go about
on bikes as something other than mainstream. Well, people that
actually do their going about on bikes anyway, people that just ride
for fun are a whole different matter. Since these recreational riders
need to haul their bikes to the starting point, a large segment of
them own big honking motor vehicles and suck down buckets and buckets
of foreign petroleum like good right wing flag wavers.

At the end of the day a lot of this perception that bike commuters are
a bunch of anti-capitalist hippies is made up by the liberal media.

=v= How about John Forester? In the 1960s, he worked on ICBMs
to save us all from the commie pinko Red Menace Russkies. Then
he noticed a bunch of young people on bikes, some of which were
draft-dodgers staying in college and others were tree-huggers,
so he wrote his landmark book, "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!"

=v= What I don't understand is why the great preponderance of
conservatives support car-based transportation over every other
alternative. After all, that's the ground transportation mode
that requires a far greater expenditure of tax dollars than
any other, which is to say, it's the most socialist. Why, it's
almost as if conservatives are more interested in oil company
profits than conservative values. I, for one, am shocked.
_Jym_

"Shippy" wrote in message
...
I am a freelance writer hoping to do a story on how different
segments
of bike culture align themselves politically, the correlations
between
biking and certain politics, and, more specifically, how conservative
riders are distributed throughout a (sub)culture that is increasingly
portrayed as liberal by the media and in stereotypes.

[snip]

You could take a look over here at Britain, where the same
stereotypes apply.

However the leader of the Tory party, David Cameron, is a cyclist,
and even more so is London's new Tory mayor, Boris Johnson. Both of
them have been followed by packs of paparazzi, and I think the
results are on You Tube, as they go through red lights, the wrong way
up one-way streets etc.

Boris was eventually badgered into buying a helmet, but a little
while ago he decided one day to ride to work at City Hall without it,
and wrote an article in the London Times musing about whether he
should continue to do so.

Actually, there have always been the occasional right wingers like
that, generally high enough up the social scale to ignore public
opinion, even if they were politicians (Boris is like that, which
probably helped him to be elected). This goes back to the 19th
century, with Lord Salisbury, who was right wing enough not to really
believe in democracy at all, and who laid out the grounds of his
estate with bike trails for his tricycle

Jeremy Parker

Yeah, the media derives a lot more of its advertising revenue from
local auto dealers than it does from local bike stores, so it's
certainly in the media's best interest to portray people that go about
on bikes as something other than mainstream. Well, people that
actually do their going about on bikes anyway, people that just ride
for fun are a whole different matter. Since these recreational riders
need to haul their bikes to the starting point, a large segment of
them own big honking motor vehicles and suck down buckets and buckets
of foreign petroleum like good right wing flag wavers.

At the end of the day a lot of this perception that bike commuters are
a bunch of anti-capitalist hippies is made up by the liberal media.

Okay, I've read your post twice and still can't make any sense of it. There
is no "promote cars and denigrate cyclists" agenda going on! Our local
papers, both in Dallas and Fort Worth, just had stories on bicycle riders.
One paper even had an editorial on cyclists and car drivers looking out for
each other. There has been NO effort to paint cyclists as "something other
than mainstream." In fact, the stories which ran were all about how
ordinary people are either turning to bicycle commuting or have been bicycle
commuters for some time. The articles were on how to do it, not about "those
awful people who ride bicycles."

Some recreational riders "need to haul their bikes" and others do not; they
simply get on their bikes and ride down the street. And, just how do you
know what percentage of recreational riders own "big honking motor
vehicles"?

At the end of the day, all you've done is made a ridiculous post on stuff
you obviously know nothing about. The "liberal media" isn't making up
anything about cyclists. Are you that "commandante ape****" guy who has
been writing all of the ridiculous stuff on several newsgroups lately? You
don't seem to be grounded in reality...and you certainly haven't been riding
with groups of cyclists.

Pat in TX

At the end of the day a lot of this perception that bike
commuters are a bunch of anti-capitalist hippies is made up
by the liberal media.

=v= ITYM the SCLM. HTH. HAND.
_Jym_

=v= Bike Fridays are built by a company called Green Gear
Cycling in Eugene, Oregon (a known hippie haven), yet these
customers are using one of their tandems to go entertain
Republicans:

http://www.bikefriday.com/gallery?imageId=6061

Another photo of these folks in the product catalog shows a
"Mittens" Romney campaign poster in the background.

=v= Judging from the fellow's attire, it must be some sort of
drag show, in the rock-ribbed conservative spirit of J. Edgar
Hoover.
_Jym_

P.S.: Note that neither of these folks are wearing helmets,
which I wouldn't normally mention, except that there was once
a great hue and cry over a Bike Friday campaign featuring a
photo I took of a lovely helmetless lass. She's a hippie,
though. Rules only apply to little people when Republicans
must be entertained or enriched.

Jym Dyer wrote:
=v= Bike Fridays are built by a company called Green Gear
Cycling in Eugene, Oregon (a known hippie haven), yet these
customers are using one of their tandems to go entertain
Republicans:

http://www.bikefriday.com/gallery?imageId=6061

Another photo of these folks in the product catalog shows a
"Mittens" Romney campaign poster in the background.

=v= Judging from the fellow's attire, it must be some sort of
drag show, in the rock-ribbed conservative spirit of J. Edgar
Hoover.
_Jym_

P.S.: Note that neither of these folks are wearing helmets,
which I wouldn't normally mention, except that there was once
a great hue and cry over a Bike Friday campaign featuring a
photo I took of a lovely helmetless lass. She's a hippie,
though. Rules only apply to little people when Republicans
must be entertained or enriched.

Helmets and politics - now if you had just been able to tie "bicycle
lanes" into the post all the bases would have been covered.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful