In case you haven't seen it yet...

This is the extent to which relations have soured between Critical Mass and the NYPD.

As most comentators on the web and elsewhere have already noted, Critical Mass are a tough nut to crack. On the one hand, they are a cyclist advocate group focused on reclaiming not simply 'the streets' (as per their ambiguous catch-cry), but a place for the bicycle in the collective psyche as a serious means of transportation, one deserving of recognition and thereby safety on said streets.

On the other hand they are a bunch of bike lifting, tunnel obstructing zealots in desperate need of a steady job and/or a hobby. Too slow for crits, too clumsy for XC, too impatient for brevets, too sane for cyclocross, but still eager to participate in group activites with their bikes that don't require a polo mallet, they turn bicycle advocacy into a kind of bicycle supremacy - Homo Velo Superior. They are the Magnetos of the road. Sure, it's great for 3Aw's talkback hour, but perhaps not most effective way to get motorists to hand over a piece of the asphalt pie.

My point, before anyone rushes to their keyboard in defense or denunciation of this or that, is not that Mr Long (the cyclist) deserved to be hoisted from his fixie in such a manner. Personally I think Officer Pogan (the hoister) is a disgrace. My point is that this is the kind of inexcusable behaviour that springs from either side of any 'Us v. Them' arrangement given enough time, people, and collective myopia. First a motorist nearly kills 50 elite cyclists, then cops start shoving people off bikes, then articles about deadly scofflaw cyclists claim that we're mowing down the elderly. It's tempting to think of the roads as a battleground, but it's a mistake. The CMers need to see what it's like to try and hold down a job with long hours 60-150kms from home, and the motorists and cops and journos need to get on a bike in traffic and see how long it takes for someone to almost kill them.

They need to, but they probably won't.

Stay tuned for red t-shirts featuring Stuart O'Grady smoking a cigar in a beret I guess...