I found today's instalment of Yehuda Moon apposite. It sums up neatly the crisis which cycling continues to experience in Anglo-Saxon countries (which I suggest includes Scotland, despite our supposedly Celtic and European affinities).
Cyclists are either die-hard "cultists" or casual, bike-in-the-garage/shed/garden-most-of-the-year "dabblers" who refuse to consider ditching the car/bus. What then is cycling "culture" in these circumstances?
Like Yehuda, many of us hope that more people will get on their bikes more often, building the necessary "critical mass" to enable something more similar to the situation in much of the rest of Northern Europe, where cycling is just a normal, everyday activity. And yet, even on those rare sunny summer days when the massed "dabblers" join the "cultists" on local shared use paths, somehow that normality still seems a long way off.
So what's wrong? How do we change our cycling "culture" from its present "cult" status to something that's seen as normal? Is this desirable? Is it achievable? Or like Joe should we just shrug our shoulders and squeeze into the lycra one more time?
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