Summer is finally here, a time when the winter chill and piles of snow have gone. In their place blossoms of new life and finally the return of my annual pilgrimage to and from our home in the mountains to the hardware store over Galena Summit. I look forward to this time of year as I have spent all winter digging and sifting, crushing and blasting rock, in arduous mental effort to corner that elusive yellow metal. Now my plans are ready for practical application. Like salmon returning to spawn I gear up for another summer’s expedition up the mountain.
With eyes glazed over in anxious anticipation of finally hitting the “big one” I realize it’s time to hit the road and gather supplies. I see about Galena that I’m not the only one with eyes glazed over. There in front of me, like a gaggle of geese, lined up in the mandatory dress of the day (fluorescent green spandex with a wee aerodynamically designed bicycle helmet) lies a fleet of bikers making their way up the mountain at a whopping 5 mph. I’d almost forgotten my grief from last summer’s traverse across the land of lemmings. Oh no I sigh! I’ve got places to go and things to do but my progress has foundered in the wake of those free spirits out on their bikes saving the planet from industrial abuse from the likes of my carbon spewing pickup truck and the 200 mile long carbon footprint I’ll leave. The quantum loss of velocity gives way too much time for my agitated mind to think about the ridiculousness of the situation. I’m obviously the bad guy here as I catch a finger or two from the healthy, almost anorexic enthusiasts of pain who salute their displeasure at my need for speed as I pass the first hairy legged pod of ….. women.
It makes one consider the sanity of those perched so precariously adjacent the thin white fog line with only six inches of pavement between them an a 3,000 foot vertical slope. How healthy can all this aerobic exercise be? Not to mention the carbon dioxide left wafting in my trail now filling the oxygen starved lungs of those socially conscience riders in my purple haze.
This extremely dangerous exercise in eco-awareness offers great opportunity to analyze the schizophrenic dualistic oppression doled out by the peddlers of progressive culture. Seriously, you’ve got to be a complete attention starved idiot to wear one of those stretchy, see every nook and cranny painted on racer pants just for the chance to be an actor in this uber-trust fund “tour de pants”. On closer inspection this is what the progressive movement it is all about. Invade space that is not theirs, cry how unfair it is that cars don’t share the road, disguise the invasion as a cultural necessity or that their action appeases the environmental gods. Those with low self-esteem are easy targets to their cause. How wonderful to enjoy the great outdoors in the company of elites all dressed in the décor of the movement. Useful idiots employed in the transformation of the individual to a communal tribe always dependent upon the chosen few at the head of the pack.
The playbook is the same whether mountain biking on a state highway where no bike lane exists or by inserting their ideology into established culture. Their ends justify their means even if a few fashionably flawed must fall by the roadside. The farcical reality is that a bike path exists on the opposite side of the Wood River within eye-sight of Scenic Highway 75 paid for with State and Federal transportation tax dollars. The over $1,000,000 spent on the project years ago is apparently not good enough for the need to be seen progressive.
