Rolling From S.F. to L.A. on Seatless Bicycle Even Stupider Than it Looks
Categories: Local News
Stand up young man! California laws encourage seatless cycling, discourage seated kind.
What could possibly be more inane than a publicity stunt in which an ultra-marathon runner rides from San Francisco to LA on a bicycle with no seat?
How about California state legislation passed especially to enable this sort of thing.
According to what looks every bit like a canned, PR-generated news story on KGO San Francisco March 16, a marathon runner is departing from the city to Los Angeles on a seatless bicycle-like contraption that moves forward when its user does an upright sort of stair-step.
We' can't explain why anyone would take any form of transportation to the smoggy breast-implant factory known as L.A., let alone why anyone would stomp all the way there.Even more baffling is the fact that pulling this stunt was specifically enabled by an act of the California state legislature. Last year's SB 527, penned by State Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, and sponsored by Elliptigo -- the manufacturers of the aforementioned seatless bicycle:
Allows a person to operate a bicycle on a highway that does not have a seat provided the bicycle was specifically designed by the manufacturer to be ridden without a seat.To review: Seatless bikes get acts of the legislature. Meanwhile, advocates for seated cyclists can't get in the statehouse door to change nonsensical laws that effectively prevent seated cycling.
A notorious local example: California doesn't allow bike lane networks unless municipalities pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for environmental studies proving the obvious fact that they don't cause pollution.
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