"Whites Only"?

wrote in message
oups.com...

Chris Zacho "The Wheelman" wrote:

Where are all the black riders? What is it about our sport that makes
it
so unappealing to an entire race of people?

Anybody have any theories?


Let me ask about one dark possibility.

To become proficient at cycling, one has to spend a certain amount of
time doing it alone, unless you've got a close friend or spouse to
accompany you all the time. You generally can't even start with club
rides; most people won't keep up until they've logged some miles.

Is there a chance that black folks feel too vulnerable out on the road
alone? FWIW, I once lived in an area of the country where that might
have been reasonable. (That's one of the reasons I left.)

I've heard women complain about the same problem, and even some male
posters here have expressed a surprising amount of fear of hostile
attacks.

I'm a pale male, myself, so - like the president of Harvard - I'm just
speculating.

Frank, I'm as white as they come(well, tan in the summer...) and I've had my
share of abuse and scary moments. Brushed by cars, hit with beer cans, wolf
whistles from rednecks, chased by pit bulls, you name it. It's not just
blacks and women who have problems out there. You've cycled thousands more
miles than I have, so surely you've seen it also.

This effect has been seen in church attendance also. In large cities
with several churches of the same denomination and large numbers of
different racial groups, people will go by a nearby church to attend
another with their racial group in the majority. Ministers have asked
their members to attend other churches on occasion so they can meet
other people in the same denomination, but have had very few people go
to other churches.

"Roger Zoul" wrote in message
...
wrote:
Chris Zacho "The Wheelman" wrote:

Where are all the black riders? What is it about our sport that makes
it
so unappealing to an entire race of people?

Anybody have any theories?


Let me ask about one dark possibility.

To become proficient at cycling, one has to spend a certain amount of
time doing it alone, unless you've got a close friend or spouse to
accompany you all the time. You generally can't even start with club
rides; most people won't keep up until they've logged some miles.

Is there a chance that black folks feel too vulnerable out on the road
alone? FWIW, I once lived in an area of the country where that might
have been reasonable. (That's one of the reasons I left.)


I have to admit that these kinds of thoughts always creep into my head on
my
solo rides. I just ignore them and keep going.


Roger,

I have some black friends in Clemson and Anderson who are nervous about
riding IN A CAR through the rural areas of many South Carolina counties.
To be perfectly honest, I would understand completely if you didn't feel
comfortable riding on the roads down here where I live. There are plenty of
really sweet folks. Unfortunately, there are also still plenty of Bubbas
with rebel flags, too.

--
Bob C.

"Of course it hurts. The trick is not minding that it hurts."
T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia)

Claire Petersky

As long as I'm in the process of generalizing -- a friend of mine
has this theory about riding in rural areas of Washington State.
He believes that inareas where the predominate economic
activity is logging, motorists treat cyclists badly. Where the
predominate economic activity is agriculture, motorists do
not treat cyclists badly. Does this theory bear out in your
experience? If so, why do you think it is?

This is just speculation on my part, but then so is most everything on
this thread. I grew up in a farming area and I recall often being stuck
behind a tractor or other piece of farm equipment for a few minutes.
Everyone recognized the use of the roads to move such equipment from place
to place as legitimate and necessary, so they didn't get upset if it added
a couple of minutes to their trip. Maybe that attitude carries over to
being patient about having to slow down briefly before finding a safe
place to pass a bicycle. On the other hand, while I know cyclists of all
political persuasions, I think we are often seen as having "green"
tendencies by the general public. Loggers (and whole communities that
depend on logging) may view environmentalism as threatening their
livelihoods and take their anger out on cyclists as symbols of
anti-logging policies. And, of course, it's a lot tougher to safely pass a
bike in a logging truck than a pickup truck.

--
Paul Turner

Gooserider wrote:


Frank, I'm as white as they come(well, tan in the summer...) and I've
had my
share of abuse and scary moments. Brushed by cars, hit with beer
cans, wolf
whistles from rednecks, chased by pit bulls, you name it. It's not
just
blacks and women who have problems out there. You've cycled thousands
more
miles than I have, so surely you've seen it also.

I've gotten a little of that, of course, but in my experience it's
rare. In a 2500 to 3000 mile year, I might get yelled at ten times
(big deal), but even a tossed beer can comes only once every five years
or so. IOW, these things are rare enough that I just don't let them
bother me.

My point was this: To most motorized yahoos, I'm just another guy on a
bike - in their minds, deserving a catcall but nothing worse. But if I
were black or female, I might fear that they'd be more physically
aggressive.

Of the readers who are not white males, let me ask: How frequent are
minor harrassments? How frequent are harassments that are really
troubling?

"Bob" wrote:

I don't mean to single out Leo as the only offender- he may not be an
offender and even if he is, he's hardly alone- but IMO the unspoken
assumption that diversity is a goal to be "achieved" is silly. It's not
unlike the idea that having a positive self-image is a worthy thing of
itself. Treating all people fairly as individuals and deserving a
positive self-image are what should count, not some artificial and
paternalistic attitude, "We need diversity" or "We have to be sure
Junior feels good about himself".

Excellent point. As with most things in life, the "goal" should be to
remove any and all obstacles, and let the rest take care of itself.

FWIW, it's painfully obvious that human beings are clustering animals
- we tend to hang out with those who are like us. That in and of
itself isn't a bad thing - just the way we're wired. It can be
uncomfortable to join in a group that's homogeneous with the glaring
exception of you, even if that group goes out of its way to make you
welcome. That applies whether you're the only black cyclist in a lily
white Sunday morning group ride, or the sole white guy in a pick up
basketball game (or I suppose the only guy with teeth on the hockey
team). ;-)

Luckily, there seems to be a fairly low threshold for overcoming this
tendency - in my church, just a few years ago there were only a few
non-whites attending (out of a total of over 1,000 on a given Sunday).
There were certainly no barriers, but for whatever reason not many
people of color showed up. Slowly, more started attending, and now
there's a much more representative mix in the congregation including
many black, Asian, Hispanic and Indian attendees. No changes to the
organization - all it took was for the first few brave "pioneers" to
enter the white bread zone, and that seemed to make it more
comfortable for those who followed.

I suspect it's the same with cycling - if we can get just a few
insert demographic here to regularly attend our interval sessions
and weekend century rides, the self-leveling will follow.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

"Roger Zoul" wrote:

wrote:

Is there a chance that black folks feel too vulnerable out on the road
alone? FWIW, I once lived in an area of the country where that might
have been reasonable. (That's one of the reasons I left.)

I have to admit that these kinds of thoughts always creep into my head on my
solo rides. I just ignore them and keep going.

Good for you... I once lived in an Asian country where (for various
reasons) there were spikes of anti-Western sentiments. I too had to
consider the possibility that someone might feel it prudent to reduce
the Western population in that country by one with a twitch of the
steering wheel, but didn't let that stop me either.

The way I look at it, if prejudice keeps you from doing what you want
to do, the weenies win, and we can't have that! Sadly, we live in a
world where we can legislate equality (which is a good thing), but we
can't legislate the attitude of the individual. Hopefully those who
are truly warped will die off and not pass along the behaviors to
their offspring.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

On 4 Mar 2005 17:49:20 -0800, wrote:


Chris Zacho "The Wheelman" wrote:

Where are all the black riders? What is it about our sport that makes
it
so unappealing to an entire race of people?

Anybody have any theories?


Let me ask about one dark possibility.

To become proficient at cycling, one has to spend a certain amount of
time doing it alone, unless you've got a close friend or spouse to
accompany you all the time. You generally can't even start with club
rides; most people won't keep up until they've logged some miles.

Is there a chance that black folks feel too vulnerable out on the road
alone? FWIW, I once lived in an area of the country where that might
have been reasonable. (That's one of the reasons I left.)

I've heard women complain about the same problem, and even some male
posters here have expressed a surprising amount of fear of hostile
attacks.

I'm a pale male, myself, so - like the president of Harvard - I'm just
speculating.

People of all colors come in all the ranges of boldness. I recall a couple of
black guys who worked for me once teasing another for being afraid to go too far
north, like past Hillsborough Avenue. Some people, especially those raised in a
ghetto environment (mentality) are bashful about being elsewhere. Frankly, that
ghetto mentality is IMO a significant part of the economic problem in those
areas. Look at the common whine that there are "no good jobs in the
neighborhood." Who the hell wants commercial and industrial crap in their
neighborhoods - people who are afraid to leave the comfortable boundaries of
their neighborhood. The rest of us would rather drive, bike or take a bus.
Anyway, only a small portion of blacks are subject to that sort of affliction.
Don't let their over-representation by the louder voices confuse the issue.

I will say that hitting the open road on a bike is different feeling - it is
exhilarating. And whatever one person finds exhilarating another must consider
terrifying. The open road just feels different from pedaling around say a Rail
to Trail even if the cyclocomputer and the HRM say it's the same ride, it isn't.
Maybe it's just knowing that you can just keep going at will and be gone if you
so choose, I don't know. It is a very Bilboesque thing to know that you are on a
road that can take you somewhere very much else.

Ron

On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 08:46:39 -0700, Mark Hickey wrote:

"Roger Zoul" wrote:

wrote:

Is there a chance that black folks feel too vulnerable out on the road
alone? FWIW, I once lived in an area of the country where that might
have been reasonable. (That's one of the reasons I left.)

I have to admit that these kinds of thoughts always creep into my head on my
solo rides. I just ignore them and keep going.

Good for you... I once lived in an Asian country where (for various
reasons) there were spikes of anti-Western sentiments. I too had to
consider the possibility that someone might feel it prudent to reduce
the Western population in that country by one with a twitch of the
steering wheel, but didn't let that stop me either.

The way I look at it, if prejudice keeps you from doing what you want
to do, the weenies win, and we can't have that! Sadly, we live in a
world where we can legislate equality (which is a good thing), but we
can't legislate the attitude of the individual. Hopefully those who
are truly warped will die off and not pass along the behaviors to
their offspring.

Last year in St Petersburg, Fla, the KKK held a rally. The turn out of Klansmen,
NeoNaz, fellow travellers, sympathizers and immediate family was five (5).
That's right, the Klan held a rally and got five people to show up. There were
about 40 newsmen and 200 some counter-protesters. Even that was a historically
low turnout since the Klan isn't even worth protesting anymore.

Evil really hates being yawned at.

Ron

wrote:
Gooserider wrote:


Frank, I'm as white as they come(well, tan in the summer...) and I've
had my
share of abuse and scary moments. Brushed by cars, hit with beer
cans, wolf
whistles from rednecks, chased by pit bulls, you name it. It's not
just
blacks and women who have problems out there. You've cycled thousands
more
miles than I have, so surely you've seen it also.

I've gotten a little of that, of course, but in my experience it's
rare. In a 2500 to 3000 mile year, I might get yelled at ten times
(big deal), but even a tossed beer can comes only once every five
years or so. IOW, these things are rare enough that I just don't let
them bother me.

My point was this: To most motorized yahoos, I'm just another guy on a
bike - in their minds, deserving a catcall but nothing worse. But if
I were black or female, I might fear that they'd be more physically
aggressive.

Of the readers who are not white males, let me ask: How frequent are
minor harrassments? How frequent are harassments that are really
troubling?

I did 2400 miles last year starting in mid April. During that time, I've
only had one event that bothered me. A Sunday morning, I'm on my first
major road ride with a buddy who has a lot more experience (20+ years and a
white guy) than I. We're riding along a narrow road and a car comes up
behind us very quickly. Before we could get all the way to the side (okay,
I was perhaps too far in the lane, but it was a narrow lane), the driver of
the car pushes down hard and long on the horn. Scared me crazy! Turns out,
it was a good-looking black lady going to Sunday morning worship! If I
could have caught up the her, she'd have gotten a piece of my mind (and I
probably would have asked for her number, too, after I'd laid that big guilt
trip on her! )