Cyclists are a scourge on roads and pathways

Living, as most of you do, in the City of Fairfax, you probably don’t have many reasons to traverse Rock Creek Parkway in the district.
It’s a lovely stretch of road, and if your excursions take you into the city, let me give my strongest recommendation to cruise the strip, even if it means going a little out of your way.
Its serpentine-like single lane runs from approximately the Lincoln Memorial to Connecticut Avenue, whereupon it is rechristened Beach Drive and continues northward another several miles.
It weaves through a well-preserved vein of lush greenery.
The roadway itself gently twists and turns, rises and falls with the lulling nature of a hypnotist’s pendulum.
And where the city has deigned to do road maintenance, the road is smooth and hums as you fly over it.
At a touch over the sanctioned 40 mph, you feel like a racecar driver.
You will have yourself a merry old time — that is, until you get stuck behind some damn cyclist out for a spin.
You know the types: weekend warriors, dressed up in their too-tight bike outfits with the butt-shorts, looking like they think they’re Tron freshly escaped from the grid and training for the Tour de France.
But let’s never mind the duds.
What’s tiresome is the mere fact of their presence, not unlike a square peg being ever pounded in a round hole.
Onward they peddle, gleefully holding up traffic and bristling with indignant self-righteousness all the way — God, what insolent bastards.
The problem is that ours is a society that has evolved in such a way that no place for bicycles exists.
And where we do decide to create such space (infernal bike lanes), it is done at the expense of patient, law-abiding motorists who need to get somewhere on time.
But it’s not just the roadways. It’s the trails, too.
Go for a leisurely stroll along the GW Parkway footpath for any amount of time and they’ll come blasting psychotically by from behind at 80 mph — fip, fip, fip.
They won’t surprise you because they’ll be calling out to you from 50 yards back to move over so — heaven forbid — they don’t have to break their precious cadence.
Like they own the damn pathway.Which brings me to my point about bicycles, collectively.
You may think that they are for enjoyment or exercise, and no doubt they once were. But they’ve since eclipsed such innocent pastimes.
Paired with the modern cyclist, bicycles have become a cudgel, meant for the truncheoning of motoring society in particular but society generally.
They’ve morphed into a symbol for holier-than-thou anti-establishmentarianism.
Their very essence now attracts the type of person who feels the need to stand apart and prove something to the world, everyone else be damned.
With the new campus bike shelters, bike lanes and the omni-present call to go green, we’d be well served by taking a step back and reminding ourselves what a bunch of arrogant twats are bicyclists, and what inanity this perennial campaign is likely to encourage.
Now, when it comes to making new laws, I take a page out of Thomas Paine’s playbook: “That government is best which governs least.” Better we deal with life’s vexations ourselves than putting more regulations on the books.
However, I’m going to swallow my pride here and suggest that we get an investigative panel or task force together or form a committee and put a stop to this rampant Quaker-style nonsense.
Enough is bloody enough.
Whatever it takes to begin driving home an unfortunate new reality: The only good bike is a stationary one.