In Vancouver, British Columbia, a strange battle is brewing around a small local bike share station located at Commercial and 20th Street. There’s a war being waged: Bike tires are being deflated, notes are being written, and—funny enough—the notes are being aggressively responded to by the person responsible for the deflation.
It’s perhaps the most polite battle we’ve ever seen between an angry driver and a cyclist, but that somehow makes it more disturbing and, frankly, weird. So, what’s the deal with the now-viral Deflate-gate?
It started with a plea from a local cyclist, captured by Vancouver cyclist Mihai Cirstea on Twitter: Could whoever has been deflating the tires of the bike share Mobi bikes please stop? “Please stop taking air out of the tires. I need these bikes to get to work. -neighbor” reads the first note.
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A second note followed with a similar plea as the tire deflator continued to ply their trade. (Side note: Tire deflation may be one of the strangest passive aggressive tactics we’ve seen for protesting bike shares.)
Then, things got weird. A note was left on top of that note, presumably from the person responsible for deflating the tires!
That note read: "Too bad, so sad. Us motorists want our parking spots back, bitch! Your options: Buy a car. Buy your own bicycle. Walk. Take transit. Join Evo [a car-share in Vancouver]."
Of note: The lyrical language at the beginning. The egregious use of the word ‘bitch.’ The strangely specific list. No wonder the Twitter thread has since gone viral.
At a glance, the motorist’s angry rhetoric doesn’t exactly make sense: The area in question seems fairly quiet, with plenty of parking available despite the bike share taking up a couple of former parking spots. Cirstea also shared photos taken by fellow Vancouver-ite Julian Mentasi that show plenty of space for parking:
Naturally, some people are arguing that this could be guerrilla marketing for either Mobi or Evo, or simply a bid for viral levels of attention from cyclists.
Plenty of people are also pointing out the flaws in the ‘motorist’ argument. If every person using the bike share bought a car, surely that would take up more parking spaces than the bike share currently does!
Others are advocating for a more violent approach: If motorists deflate bike tires, the cyclists should deflate car tires. "If they want war, give them war. Their tires are just as vulnerable. The deflating of the neighborhood cars will continue until behavior improves," one person wrote on Twitter, presumably (hopefully) as a joke.
The area where the bike share is is apparently no stranger to tire drama: a Reddit thread about this incident has dozens of people recalling stories of slashed tires (on cars and bikes) in this spot, in addition to people pointing to a few specific local suspects in ‘deflate-gate.’
One thing is certain: There will be a lot of cyclists who are casually staking out that spot in Vancouver in coming weeks, keeping an eye on the bike share.
Molly writes about cycling, nutrition and training, with an emphasis on women in sport. Her new middle-grade series, Shred Girls, debuts with Rodale Kids/Random House in 2019 with "Lindsay's Joyride." Her other books include "Mud, Snow and Cyclocross," "Saddle, Sore" and "Fuel Your Ride." Her work has been published in magazines like Bicycling, Outside and Nylon. She co-hosts The Consummate Athlete Podcast.
