Bicycling Under the Influence (BUI) is not one of the brightest behaviors. On two wheels, we need all of our reflexes, our balance, and our judgment as sharp as possible, maybe even more so than on four. You’d think, then, that an organization dedicated to promoting safe bicycling would steer clear of promoting tippling while pedaling. In the case of the East Bay Bicycle Coalition, of which I’ve been a member for some years, you’d be wrong. For some time now, this otherwise intelligent and valuable organization has revealed a blind spot by accepting ads and sponsorship from a brewery. Now this blind spot has got bigger, and we find the organization promoting a “Tour de Biere,” which will take riders not just to one but to several breweries, where they’ll be treated to free samples of the merchandise. Have they no shame?
A famous California politician once said, in so many words, that if you can’t take their money and vote against them, you don’t belong in politics. The EBBC obviously doesn’t have that much stiffness in its frame. The organization’s leadership needs to learn how to take the breweries’ money without promoting the brainless and dangerous behavior of consuming alcoholic beverages while riding a bicycle. When the first rider on one of these tours falls and gets injured or killed, the EBBC leadership will have moral responsibility, if not also legal liability. Get a grip, EBBC. What people put in their bodies while at rest on the ground is not the organization’s business, but when it comes to the issue of biking under the influence, a responsible two-wheeler group has to have the courage to say a loud and clear “No Way.”
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