Originally Posted by
bragi
...Riding a bicycle in traffic is not an arcane art that only the initiated can master; anyone over the age of 12 can do it unsupervised with a little instruction, and even much younger children can do it with supervision. I'm completely astounded that you're suggesting that vast swaths of the adult population of this great country are completely incapable of doing something that I, my partly senile 90 year old German grandmother, my 10 year old niece, and my very fat 25 year old neighbor all do on a regular basis.
I agree that riding a bike in traffic isn't something that requires superhuman skills. I do find it somewhat interesting that the people who are objecting to the OP's characterization of the difficulty of riding in traffic for obese and older people (who happen to be younger than me) are often the first in line to claim that we need segregated infrastructure in order to make cycling available to the masses. At the risk of having I Like TB agree with me on something, there may be a bit of groupthink going on here.