My point was that the council person's comment and vote are only vocalizing what most people feel.
We all know that heavy people can bike...witness Tim's 4:30 biker...but you don't see images of heavy people biking in any of the promotional literature out there. As an obese bicycle advocate who had to write grants on a regular basis for years that essentially said that fat people are fat because they are lazy and if they would just get on a bike they would get skinny...I have to say that the problem in large part isn't the comment and vote mentioned...but the fact that, even though the bicycling community SAYS it wants to encourage large people to bike...they don't walk that walk (or bike that bike). I dare BFW or Trek or anyone else trying to sell bicycling to find the fattest regular bicyclist in the state and put that person on the front of their webpage or on their brochure. I guarantee it won't happen. If that isn't internalized fat phobia...I don't know what is. If you are passionate about bicycling and want more people to bicycle, you have to accept that there are lots of fat people out there. And that they ought to be biking whether it helps them lose weight or not. If you are fat and all you see are images of skinny people on bikes...you think to yourself..."that isn't me." Mike...you shouldn't have to say that you don't look like the typical bicyclist. That's the problem right there...there ought not to be an image of "a typical bicyclist"...we are diverse and it is a disservice to the promotion of bicycling to propagate the myth that bicyclists are thin or ought to be thin. -Dar __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
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