Jed Blisterwig hates bike lanes.
“These are modern times,” He says. “And I’m a modern person. I didn’t hit my wife in the head with a club and drag her back to my cave, did I? No. I asked her to marry me. And just like other modern people, who don’t go around hitting women with clubs, I drive in a car with air conditioning and cup holders.”
Blisterwig, who owns and operates Jed’s Clamp-It, a Madison Ave shop specializing in clamps of all shapes and sizes, has vocally opposed bike lanes since the controversy over shared roadways began, regularly describing the dedicated strips as, “drug dealer lanes,” “and, “a clear gateway to Collectivism.”
“And I’m still against them,” Blisterwig says, although he admits his business hasn’t suffered as much as he predicted since the lanes were installed in 2011.
“I had a real good month last month,” Blisterwig says, allowing that many of the clamps he sold were, in fact, purchased by cyclists.
“It’s true,” he says. “Those people, they do use a mess of clamps. They know how important it is to have the right clamp for the right job too, and, given a choice, they will pick quality over value almost every time.
“But that don’t mean nothing,” Blisterwig continues, insisting that the end, while not imminent, is still near. “They’re always zipping up and down the street in front of my business in those tight lycra suits, all yellow, and baby blue, and fuchsia, and wearing those hard helmets. And, I really don’t think I need to spell the rest of this out, do I?
“Look,” Blisterwig says, explaining his position. “That billboard preacher has been wrong about the end of the world three times now. But you and I both know this world is going to end, right? And if there was ever a clearer sign than these two-wheeled terrorists tearing around like they own the the damn place, I don’t know it.”
