Wheeled warriors

by RAF KATIGBAK

MONTREAL—Twenty Bixi stations are being opened on an experimental basis in four far-flung Montreal boroughs to determine if the bicycle-sharing scheme is as popular there as in the city centre. The first 10 sites were launched yesterday in LaSalle and St. Laurent, with five stations in each borough, six bikes per station. In two weeks, another 10 stations are to operate in Verdun and Ahuntsic- Cartierville. —The Gazette

While this may be exciting news to many health-minded enthusiasts in Montreal’s outlying boroughs, it scares the bejeesus out of me. I know what you’re thinking: “C’mon Raf, this is great news! New Bixi stands are giving a whole other set of people access to an affordable, healthy and environmentally conscious mode of transportation!” And yes, you’re absolutely right. But you know what it’s giving the rest of Montreal? A whole new legion of shitty bikers. That’s right, I said it: Montrealers are shitty bikers.

Before I go into why I think that, let me just say that I didn’t always feel this way. In fact, a couple of years ago, I was a devout follower of the two-wheel army.

I was a bicycle enthusiast. Heck, I’d go as far as saying I had an unhealthy love affair with my bike. I became obsessed. I even joined the co-op where I could learn how to build, fix and maintain my ride. I started building bikes for friends and preached the two-wheeled gospel to anyone who listened. It was empowering. When I rode my bike, I felt like a hero. I was doing my part for the environment and becoming a healthier person at the same time.

I was freewheeling and idealistic. I began to see cars as the enemy. How could people just drive around willy-nilly knowing that they’re destroying the environment? Bastards! For me, biking became more than just a mode of transportation; it was a statement that I had made a choice to steer Mothership Earth in the right direction and that the “Man” would never lock me into his four-wheeled poison mobiles.

Then I got a driver’s licence.

This was mostly out of necessity. I came to understand that if I wanted to do stuff that was off the island of Montreal, if I really wanted to be free and do whatever I chose, I would need to be able to drive. Soon I discovered how awesome it is to just get in a car (well, motorcycle in my case) and just go wherever I wanted. I also then discovered how shitty a lot of Montreal cyclists are. “Shit, did that guy just blow through that stop sign and hit that kid trying to cross the street?! WTF!?”

Suddenly, the same self-righteous mentality that once powered my mobility became my biggest pet peeve. Once I started spending time behind the wheel of a car, I realized how so many bikers suck at riding bikes. And yes, I was one of those sucky people. When I was on a bike, I thought that since I was “taking back the streets” I could just do whatever I wanted, including blowing through stop signs and red lights, riding on sidewalks and just zigzagging in between cars. After all, the laws don’t apply to me, right? This, of course, is completely idiotic. I’ve seen so many kids nearly get annihilated by not giving a shit about traffic laws.

Not to take anything away from Quebec drivers, who are their own special breed of dumb-dumb. Why are we allergic to checking our blind spots or verifying that no bikes are coming before we open our car doors?

Maybe it’s our joie de vivre that’s killing us. That same carefree approach to life that has us partying like no other Canadian city is also the one that has us using cell phones in our cars or on our bikes (seriously, I almost witnessed a collision between a biker and driver, both chatting on their phones) or carelessly rolling through stop signs with a cursory glance to the side. Who the heck knows.

And what is to be done? We’ve reached a stalemate where both drivers and bikers suck. Is the answer more police enforcement of traffic violations for both parties? Should everyone go back to traffic school? Would more bike lanes make a clearer divide between the two worlds of suckiness? Maybe we should have a day where shitty bikers and shitty drivers switch roles and discover how crappy each other are. Or maybe we should all just stop with the vehicles and walk everywhere. But then again, I don’t know how to handle finding out that Montrealers are shitty walkers too.