Was Eric Cantor Forced to Ride This Bike?

Eric Cantor, I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and believe that 60 Minutes forced you to pose for this shot.

Because, Mr. Majority Leader, it seems a little hypocritical that a person who has worked so hard to keep others from biking would enjoy it himself.

To figure out whether you mounted this bike out of your own free will, I tried to Google “Eric Cantor bicycle” but mostly got links to news stories about all your attempts to kill bicycle funding. Like when you blamed bike-share for overruns on the Highway Trust Fund. Or when you slammed the tiny speck of stimulus spending that went toward bike infrastructure (which is proven to be a better job-creator than road-building, by the way). Or when you put Safe Routes to School funding up for a vote on your YouCut website — a pretty cold-hearted move, you must admit, Mr. Majority Leader. Really, you want to take away safety funding for children? That’s going to close the deficit gap?

And then there was the time you pretended to find a “compromise” position on infrastructure funding that consisted of killing the 1.5 percent “set-aside” (though you called it 10 percent, you sly dog you) for bicycle and pedestrian projects (and a whole bunch of other things too). The media, by and large, went right along with your rhetoric about holding out some sort of olive branch to the president. Nice job controlling the message, sir.

Anyway, it’s great to see you out on a lovely Virginia day, enjoying a healthy way to get around and getting your legs pumping. Maybe you’ll come on next year’s Congressional Bike Ride or join the Congressional Bike Caucus?

Hat tip to Murph at the Holier Than Thou Blog and Richard Masoner at Cyclelicious.