To Deny or Demand Bikes?

People have very different attitudes to bikes, and where they should be allowed.

On the one hand some people are committed to banning bikes from “natural areas”, in response to a new purpose built trail centre in North West America. The main thrust of the argument is that bikes shouldn’t be allowed as they are inanimate objects, which surely begs the question whether the only way Mr Vanderman believes you should be allowed to use natural areas is without anything inanimate. I guess he’d like to see an upsurge in naked hiking in the hills of California, but this doesn’t seem like a particularly safe or practical way to explore the wilderness. While I have no scientific study to back it up, I’d say that I’ve seen more extensive trail damage by horses than by bikes, and horses are definitely animate. Encouraging people to enjoy natural areas is the best way to save them form being concreted over, surely?

On the other hand Norfolkline ferries are actively encouraging people to use bikes on their cross channel ferries. In fact, a group of London businessmen, stranded by flights grounded from the volcanic ash, found that they were only allowed onto the ferry if they bought and rode bikes onboard rather than walking. It’s good to see a ferry company taking such an active interest in getting people onto two wheels, but I guess any attempt to ensure a continued interest in bikes probably failed, as the bikes were then dumped in Dover and the majority of journeys continued on trains. Perhaps the ultimate demise of the plan was in the train companies’ patchy rules on taking bikes on trains.

Let’s hope the ash clears and everyone can get back to normal to save the any potential for cross channel drug-smuggling by bike. We’ve mentioned smuggling drugs in bike tyres before, but it seems the bar has been raised, with opium hidden in the frames of a consignment of mountain bikes coming into Kuala Lumpur. You can picture the scene; a naïve businessman desperate for a way home finds a surprisingly good deal on a second hand bike to allow him on a ferry, and before he knows it he’s starring in a Channel Four documentary filmed through the bars of his prison cell.

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