Chicago’s Rat Patrol Bicycle Club
Chicago has a bicycle club that makes bikes out of “recycled” parts. These are parts that they find in dumpsters or are otherwise abandoned. Many of the bikes they make are utilitarian, which are dubbed Pack Rats.
Also on their site, one can read about the international sporting goods industrial complex which has bought out pro-cycling organizations by making “donations.”
The worrisome part of this conclusion is the realization that many progressive pro-bike organizations have already been infiltrated by addicts and slaves to the multinational sporting goods manufacturers.
How does one identify one of these possible wolves in sheep’s clothing?
Persons exhibiting the following behaviors are best regarded as covert operators of the capitalistic conspiracy to further coopt and defuse non-fossil-fueled transportation movements. If someone you know fits these descriptors, be careful!
- Abnormal concern with perfect finish and perfect operation of the bicycle
- Keeps glossy bicycling magazines under the mattress
- Suggests you should buy new equipment instead of repairing old bicycle
- Always rides in superhero tights
- When riding, is more concerned with speed and distance covered than scenery or places visited
- Onanistic attraction to excessive features of top-of-the-line bikes
- Unable to hold a conversation unrelated to bicycles or biking
- Cannot go even one day without bicycling somewhere
- Paranoid delusion that he/she is being persecuted for his/her hobby
- Speech is sprinkled with component brand names
- Constant desire to witness to bicycle’s transforming power in his/her own life
- Unable to socialize outside like-minded group of fellow addicts
- Believes that biking is a morally superior choice, therefore befitting a morally superior attitude
- Attempts to bring bicycle-related issues into every conversation
- Awkward duck walk caused by wearing cleated bike shoes into roadside businesses
- Easily impressed with expensive equipment and celebrity endorsements
- Wears helmet even when not on bike
As you can see, these easily-identifiable symptoms of sporting goods addiction are identical to the symptoms of capitalist-driven automobile addiction. They are caused by the fetishization and worship of lifeless objects. What was once viewed as a useful tool, a means to an end, becomes the end in itself.
Should your comrades seek to impose these dangerous ideas on you, or should you find yourself believing them, stay on your guard, and remember that these innocent-sounding ideas are in actuality part of a sinister plot to coopt the velorution. Do not let the greedy multinationals once again derail progressive attempts to save our Earth from global warming and environmental disaster!.
