One of the things I did once I got back into biking was look into local resources for cycling. The big kahuna group was easily the Centre Region Bicycle Coalition, so I joined their mailing list.

Before too long, I pissed off everybody in the group with my outsider perspective on an emotionally charged topic (the death of Bohdan Kulakowski and the resulting light sentence of his killer), but I stayed in there and defended my position. Eventually, things quieted down.

Then, this week, one of the group posted a note about a citybike program in Tulsa and how it was the first in the US. Well, it sounded a lot like the Yellow Bike programs, so I responded with that info along with info about a “green bikes” program in Oregon and the Free Wheelin’ program in Annapolis, MD. What followed was a response from this person basically calling me out for having not gotten the point and providing bulleted lists of why the Yellow Bikes programs are nothing like the European citybike programs, on which the Tulsa initiative is based. Ah, okay, sorry for not keeping up on European urban bicycling programs. How lax of me.

Of course, it’s tough to read intent and tone in any electronic message, but I’ve decided that I’m having too much fun actually riding bikes to want to deal with folks who are militant about them. It’s a real shame, too, because I would like to think that there are other casual riders out there like me who could really benefit from access to a centralized resource of information but who might also be scared away by the prevalent attitudes among individuals in the community.

Bike-in Movie night, while more relaxed, still carried with it a social message of the world’s reliance upon oil and how it drives men to madness (hence the movie choice of The Road Warrior). I just thought it was cool to be parked in my trike at the top of a garage watching a movie and eating popcorn out of my panniers. I didn’t really go for social commentary.

So, I removed myself from the CRBC mailing list tonight. There’s enough strife in my everyday life that it makes little sense to have to worry about who I might set off next with a well intentioned though possibly naive submission to the list.

Certainly, I respect and support the CRBC’s mission to make Centre County a more bike-able place, but I just don’t have a skin thick enough to actually walk the walk and talk the talk among those folks.

I don’t want to join an army. I just want to ride my bike.

UPDATE: The discussion has now spread to other list members and has taken a more even tone.  Still quitting the list, though.