People Can't Stop Saying Dumb Things About Bike Lanes

Bike lanes.  They've been compared to Nazis:

They've been accused of inducing a "dizzying type of vertigo" (as opposed to the non-dizzying type?):

And now, finally, the former mayor of San Luis Obispo has finally "gone there" and compared them to out-and-out rape:

"The rape will not be performed by a male penis, but by thousands of inanimate bicycles."

Weirdest off-key description of proposed bike infrastructure in history, by San Luis Obispo's former mayor.https://t.co/8BSvvsPMqO pic.twitter.com/8DE45hLvha

— Peter Flax (@Pflax1) February 9, 2018

Yeah, that's right, rape:

Just think about it: until now you probably had no idea who former San Luis Obispo mayor Ken Schwartz even was.  Now you know him as the person leaning jauntily on a white piano who uttered one of the dumbest and most insensitive things ever said by a human being:

It's a good thing he specified male penis, by the way.  That's an important distinction to make:

Also, somebody should probably tell him that he's watching too much Black Mirror and that self-riding bicycles which roam cities raping people aren't a thing yet:

So what is this "urban rape" anyway?  Well, apparently the city wants to put in a [gasp] bike boulevard:

In past meetings and city polls, community members have criticized adding bike pathways on the city’s north end, including Broad, Mission and Ramona streets. They believe bicyclists will be in harm’s way of motorists and disrupt the neighborhood’s parking and traffic flow.

Others say it will provide needed safe cycling routes to Cal Poly and Foothill Boulevard, as well as for area children getting to school.

Wow, making the streets safe for children getting to school?  Now that definitely sounds rapey.

Actually, the only explanation for Ken Schwartz's letter that makes any sense is that he suffers from a rare brain disorder which makes him think "rape" means "make safer."

Yes, spare some sympathy for poor Ken Schwartz, who lives in a lonely world where these are called rape goggles:

This is a rape pin:

And where in 1983 Canadian synth-pop sensation Men Without Hats delighted the world with this catchy number:

("Rrrr...Aaaa....Pppp...Eeee...Yyyy...")

On second thought, don't spare him any sympathy, he's clearly a giant asshole.

Anyway, if people on bicycles constitutes urban rape I'd love to know what this schmuck thinks cars have been doing to us all these years.

Speaking of words that don't mean what people think they mean, meet the Freedom Bottle, the hydration system which reduces your versatile bottle-and-cage system to a proprietary pin for some reason:



Here's the pin:

"Eliminating the cage, we can mount anything on our pin."

Hmmm, there's a word for what that pin's doing to that bottle, but I can't quite think of what it is...