Get Involved at peopleforbikes.org
 

Initiated by the bunch at Bikes Belong: http://www.peopleforbikes.org/pages/get_in

They're looking for a million e-signatures from cyclists.

Endorsed by Bikes Belong? They're an initiative of Bikes Belong. That'd be like Internet Brands saying they endorse Bike Forums...

Spending 5 minutes poking around on the site I was unsure of what, behind the anodyne "we support bicycles" statement, they are claiming each signature will be taken to endorse? Given the rest of Bikes Belong's campaigns it seems likely to be: wear a helmet[1] and ride on a bike path[2].

Is that completely inaccurate or close to the truth?

1. Which is awesome for the bottom line of Trek and the profitable accessories sales of bike shops
2. All part of the Thunderhead Alliance strategy of build any old crap regardless of the expressed desires of current cyclists

It's a marketing email collection scheme.

Already discussed here.

I've seen no evidence of that.

All you need is a smidgen of common sense. If you go to the site, you can plainly see that they have no clearly stated objective for the data they are harvesting from you. There is no specific purpose for this pledge, no legislation that it supports/opposes, no intentions to actually sending it to anyone, although their privacy policy does state "We may provide compilations of the sign up pledge participants to national leaders in order to influence decisions that will improve the future of bicycling."

Excuse me, but WTF does that mean?

Organizationally, their goals are so general as to be equally applicable to anything from the use of bicycles to sponge mops.

The final red flag is that Sarah Murer, who started the thread, is the office admin for Bikes Belong, and she registered her account on the same day that she made her post and hasn't been back since.

That's the signature for every phishing operation since Peter had his bobber out on the shores of Galilee.

If you were actually concerned about promoting your million-person dohickey, don't you think you might bother to check back on the thread you started and answer questions like:

--What are you doing different than LAB?
--What do you actually plan to do with this personal data?
etc., etc.

Nope. Just your name and address please, so Trek can send you their latest promo. Which, as I've said before, if you like getting email from companies like Trek, it's fine. But let's not try to pretend that the lady isn't wearing a miniskirt and fishnet stockings, ok?

I have a "junk" email account that I never venture into (except once or twice a year to clear out) just for things like this. I never get any spam in my regular email account from any e-petitions, so the great trek bicycle making company or any other unworthy spammer gets to send their junk to my virtual garbage can. It took all of five minutes to set up ten years ago and has worked well for as many years.

For those who seem to want to vilify Bikes Belong, even if they do a little good, it's still good. The donated funds recently to CicLAvia, which brought an estimated 100,000 people out on bicycles to ride closed-off streets in Los Angeles for a day. That seems like advocacy to me, along with their support of many other worthwhile projects for cycling. Anything to get the fatazsed american public out on a bicycle is advocacy, even if they have some harpy organization suggesting that a helmet and riding on Class I bike paths will keep you from dying. Once some of them get the bug, then they will be able to make up their own minds what they wish to advocate, including upgrading from their entry-level gear all of the way up to USA made boutique bicycles (which I advocate heavily). It's not quite "first one's free", but could be considered a gateway to what other advocates may seem to believe cycling is to them.

FTR, I searched and couldn't find any previous posts referring to this website.

They are going to visit your congress critter, and after a few drinks say "look at all the people who will vote for you for being the pro bike candidate." The worst email you would probably get would be "Vote for congress critter X, the pro bike congress critter."

I signed the pledge back in March, I didn't see any spam related to this organization:

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...=#post10546983

Zizka, I sense a brick wall.

Sure, BB is supported financially by those who would benefit financially from them. Why wouldn't they be? Is it criminal that those funds are being directed towards all kinds of advocay issues? BB supports all forms of cycling, directly and indirectly whether anyone wants to admit it, or not. I have very little love for the great trek bicycle making company, but am wise enough to look past my distaste for their shoddy business practices to see that other more worthy members of the bicycle world will benefit financially from them once novices become enlightened.

I don't care how Bikes Belong is funded, and I, for the most part, don't care how they choose to spend their money. I do care when they jump on the congressional pork gravy train to get some bike related thing built that I will never use using money that I didn't exactly freely give up for the primary purpose of benefiting the bicycle industry. I'd have the same reaction if this was Tobacco Belongs, Unions Belongs or, especially, Corn Belongs. It's the principle of the thing.

That's a shame...
http://www.digitaljournal.com/img/1/...y_Seinfeld.jpg

cycling is to them.[/QUOTE]
This is the debatable point. My reading of BB is that they promote fear of normal cycling. The very examples that you mention spread the idea in people's minds that cycling is an abnormal activity that requires streets without other traffic.

Someone once showed me an article where the founder of BB confessed that his family would not let his own teenaged son ride to basketball practice in the mornings. Instead they drove him in their SUV.

That's fairly typical of that sort of bicycle advocacy and stems from people that have different "advocacy" interests. Cycling is not just one big happy family: there are competing interests. In this case the interests are those of the sport-industry-shop-501c3-pathpainters.

Their underhanded approach (clearly shown by this front group -- a move reminiscent of Trotskyist infiltration tactics) stems from the belief that people need to be tricked or "persuaded" out onto the road. An hypothesis for which there's little if any proof.

As you'll gather I'm not a big fan of BB.

I hadn't noticed it either. I don't think you were deliberately spamming.

I'm all about the numbers. The more people get turned on to any form of cycling, the more its legitimacy as transportation will be recognized. When oil spikes up again, the bike-pathologicals may think twice before turning a key, then hop on their bike to run down to the store. I know of a few cases where that was true before and it will happen again. BTW, the few I know are still hopping on their bikes instead of turning a key.

They gave me a Breezer for signing the pledge. They can't be all that bad :P I turned around and gave my brother an old bike of mine. He now rides.

So an action of P4B / BB got another person riding a bike. Works for me.

So what does the collection of names and emails of people who are already active cyclists, with truly amorphous plans to give this list to somebody, someday, for something (but don't worry, we'll delete all personal information from it (??)) have to do with increasing the number of cyclists?

Absolutely nothing.

So, don't sign it and move along, friend.

looks like nothing to me^