Health & Fitness with Bill Hauda
Bicyclists represent red states, too "Save the environment: Plant a Bush back in Texas"
bumper sticker quoted by the Mad Dog
Mad Dog paced back and forth along the chain link fence of his kennel. "Can't be," he growled. "Only Democrats ride bicycles. Republicans run bicyclists off the road with their gas-guzzling SUVs."
Mad Dog was fuming because his master had left the television on in the kennel. There, much
to the Dog's chagrin, was an image of Republican President George Bush riding with the Chinese Olympic mountain biking team. In the Dog's rabid mind, it simply did not compute. Republicans, who are lower on the food chain than Democrats, just don't or shouldn't bike.
The latest media kick at the Dog was followed by a slap a few weeks later. The Dog had to endure news coverage of the Republican president riding with Lance Armstrong at Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch. He could hardly
stand it.
Mad Dog is in real life Patrick O'Grady, columnist for Bicycle Retailer and Industry News (BRAIN). BRAIN is the official publication for the bicycle retail industry. Since he's the only columnist, and since no other views are presented (except when bike shop owners angrily write in to complain about the Dog), what Mad Dog says is apparently the accepted position of the retail bicycling industry.
The Dog is so political that he's worn out the grass on the left side of
his kennel. In columns, he's rated Democrat John Kerry better than Bush simply because Kerry rides a sleek, expensive road bike and Bush only a mountain bike. The message BRAIN sends through Mad Dog is that roads reign supreme and mountain bike people are trash.
The Dog likes to make fun of Bush for crashing his bike. Some examples:
"He's too dim to be able to do two things at once, like whistling and riding a bike."
"I think Dubya should stick to jogging."
"Maybe if the prez spent a little less time acting like a man and a little more time actually being one and in the White House, where it makes a difference ..."
"We would be better served if he kept both feet planted firmly on the ground, preferably in Crawford, while someone with a better sense of balance operates the bikes and the White House."
So the Dog doesn't like bicycling presidents (if they are Republican). He thinks people should just stick
to their jobs, never exercise and never get out on bikes (unless they're Democrats). What a wonderful message to send to bicyclists. Bicycling is a left-wing activity.
It is interesting that someone else from the industry got a chance to bike with Bush. Stephen Madden, editor-in-chief of Bicycling magazine, and a number of other prominent people in bicycle journalism went to Crawford, to ride with Bush, who was on his mountain bike.
Madden said the president began the ride by stating, "This is not a race."
"Then, in big dog, I-know-I-said-it's-not-a-race-but-try-to-keep-up fashion, POTUS (president of the United States) pulls out onto the pavement to warm up, at about 21 miles per hour. He pedals with a crazy-high cadence, and his knees jut out a bit. He wears a sweatband under his Giro. But he is strong and smooth on his bike. He motors up hills, leaving a couple of members of our party in his
dust. We never ride singletrack, but the jeep trails we pound have some good bogs, and as riders in mid-pack stall and fall, those of us in the back have to clip out. I'm gapped. I've lost contact with Peloton One. I can't get dropped by a guy almost 20 years older than I am, I think, even if he is the leader of the free world the guy can hang."
That's certainly a lot different from the view of Mad Dog.
The conventional wisdom is that bicyclists are Democrats. The advocacy
groups do tend to hang around with the Sierra Club, other environmentalists and the animal liberation people, not the road builders, Realtors and developers. But cycling still spans all political persuasions.
The best testimonial to that may be George Bush, who told Madden he'd be a roadie, too, if the Secret Service could find 40 to 60 miles of roads secure enough for his workout. The guy even has an exercise bike on Air Force One.
But to Mad Dog, whose looney leftist politics
seem to govern everything he writes. For someone who often quotes Mao, Fidel and Che, it's the politics and not the bicycling that really matters.
It's true that many, perhaps a majority, of the key supporters of bicycling are Democrats. One standout is U.S. Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota who you can always count on to represent cycling interests. Democrats like Sen. John Kerry are pretty much there, too.
But not all Dems are backers of bicycling. For example, Democratic Gov.
Jim Doyle of Wisconsin was so cool to discretionary transportation funds that pay for things like bike plans and facilities, that the program has gone out of existence under his administration. It flourished under his Republican predecessors.
Doyle also raided the transportation fund, financed by user taxes that are supposed to pay only for transportation projects (including things like shoulders on roads bicyclists ride). Doyle raided the fund to pay for other state programs. Even
intense lobbying by the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin failed to get the money restored.
At the federal level, bicycle advocates pressed during the last budget period for money for bike facilities. The funds were in deep trouble until a legislator came to the rescue. The legislator was Rep. Thomas Petri, a Wisconsin Republican. The end result when President Bush signed the legislation was the inclusion of $612 million transportation budget for bicycling and pedestrian-related
projects over five years. The lesson was that we need more of these sympathetic Republicans, like Petri, not more bashing of them by the likes of Mad Dog.
To be sure, many Republican-inclined interests like the trucking industry and the radical right were not happy. They screamed that the federal transportation bill diverted money to non-highway uses (like bike trails) and contained lots of "pork." But pork is in the eyes of the beholder; what's pork to the trucking industry
can be programs to cyclists.
The League of American Bicyclists gave a national award to Kerry. I'm not sure he did anything exceptional beyond being a traditional Democratic supporter of cycling. At the same time, the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin recognized Petri, who everyone acknowledges was the key person in achieving funding for bike programs.
There's a lesson here. You can disagree with a person's politics and stands on various issues. But having runners and cyclists, no
matter their political persuasion, in public office is just simply good for the silent sports. These people understand our needs and our problems and can benefit us greatly. We need to encourage them and keep the Mad Dogs locked in their kennels so they don't bite our benefactors.
Bill Hauda is a veteran of about 50 marathons, including 13 in Boston, a former competitive triathlete, a bicyclist, founder and first president of the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin, and currently a BFW
board member. A professional journalist, he is currently director of Wisconsin's two major cross-state bicycle tours.
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