This is going to end up sounding really grumpy and totally unlike me, but for some reason this whole bike zeitgeist in Dallas is rubbing me the wrong way recently. I'm sure I'll feel different in a couple of weeks, but for now, it's true.

I know! Me! Who loves bicycles! And riding bicycles! And bike lanes! And such!

For those of you who read my blog who aren't in Dallas, and that is most of the very few of you, there has been an explosion of bicycle awareness and advocacy happening in Dallas the past year. I would have never guessed my first year here in 2007 that this would happen – rare was the bike rider I saw on the street, the city bike coordinator was vehemently anti-bike lane, and there was no advocacy to speak of.

But in the past year, all of this has begun to change. There is a great fellow over in Oak Cliff doing infrastructure advocacy, there is a new city bike coordinator, and there is a palpable sense of change in the air. I should make it clear that despite my grumpiness recently and my general lack of confidence there will ever be a philosophical shift in the city as a whole (I think some neighborhoods are a different story), I fully support the work that has been done.

So why the irritation recently?

I don't know. I feel like every time I look at fucking Unfair Park (Dallas Observer blog, the Dallas weekly) there is a damn story about bicycling around Dallas. Every fucking day I see a bajillion tweets and Facebook updates about some damn bicycling story or ride or something. And then there are these scheduled rides for which 200 people show up and ride around town to show solidarity or something, I don't know.

But in the midst of all this, you know what? I still don't see people using their damn bikes to simply get around. To go grocery shopping or something. So despite it all, rare still is the bike rider I see on the street just going about their business.

Critical mass rides are fine and all. I am not interested in going on them because I don't like biking with that many people. Though, ok, I get the point. Sure. And I am also sure at the very base of it they are a lot of fun for people who like that kind of thing.

But you know what would be even better? If all of those 200 people on those rides started using their bicycles every day. And started writing more letters to our city officials. And biked those letters over to the post office. Because you know what? I don't really blame a city for only investing $300,000 on a new bike plan though it would take a million to do it properly when they never see anyone on the street except for a mass ride. And if there is one time you DON'T need a bike lane, it's during a mass ride.

And get off my lawn.