Tony Kornheiser vs. Bikes

This week one of my favorite sports personalities Tony Kornheiser went on a rant on his ESPN radio show about his disapproval of new proposal for bike lanes and how he thinks cyclist should be "run down" because we get in his way.

I get it, believe me, the bikes vs. cars war is going to last for as long as I am able to kit up and throw a leg over a saddle, but to have someone with the kind of soap box that Kornheiser has to go on air and encourage people to hit us is absurd!

My good friend and faithful follower of TeamLandall, Lance Armstrong, posted a link on his twitter feed to the radio show (the link doesn't take you to the clip) but also a link to let ESPN know that you're not ok with one of their personalities encouraging the extermination of cyclists. Here's the link to that if you feel so inclined to send a letter: http://www.espn980.com/info/contact_us.php

So, much to my own surprise really, I submitted a letter to the Tony Kornheiser show to express my disappointment in his comments. I'm not calling for his suspension or firing or anything like that. I understand that live TV and Radio hosts work on a fine line where it's easy to say one thing that takes it too far. What I'd like from Tony Kornheiser is a simple apology. Not to me specifically but to everyone who rides a bike for whatever reason they do. The battle of car vs. bike isn't going away, but comments like his certainly aren't steering the ship towards progress either.

Oh, and for the record, I think any cyclist that participates in critical mass is an idiot and should really think about how their clogging up the roads effects all other cyclists the next day when motorists are still pissed off. Critical mass does nothing for helping the already enraged motorist. The next day, that guy that had to wait at a stop light for 1 hour when all he wanted to go was go home sees me on the side of the road training and thinks I was in that big group and decides it's not worth the effort to give me a little more of a cushion when he passes me. But the idiots in critical mass don't care about that because they're too busy figuring how their going to attach a boom box to their handlebars and time all the stoplights so they don't have to get off their stupid tall bike. They're probably also concerned with getting their new color coordinated crank, wheels and stem on their super rad fixie before the start of the ride. Ok, rant over.

And, apparently I can't include the letter I submitted because I copy/pasted something else over it. Opps.