It was alright at first, cycling with masks was amusing, but then corona cycling happened and it was like Eternal September but for bicycles. Unracing, "but in amsterdam", and "not a cyclist just a guy on a bike" subcultures, which were loosely related but not the same, used to be something associated with eccentric but harmless old people that you could be like "oh, ha ha, yes you do have an interesting opinion, anyway..." Like we all knew a couple-a guys like that, and sure they were some odd ducks, but we all pretty much got along.
But overnight their ranks increased a thousandfold, like a starved bowl of yeast given a scoop of cane sugar, and immediately event-horizoned into a singularity of the most profoundly punchable overbearing busybody assholes the cycling world has ever known.
I think what happened is you got millions of adults with nothing better to do and suddenly a not so small amount of disposable income, and rather than putting them through the usual tentative steps, trial and error, asking questions, experimenting, making little mistakes and learning from those, like what used to be a rite of passage for new cyclists, they all arrived in one unhinged mob and glommed on to whatever pre-existing forum lore appealed best to their insecurities. And what better to appeal to a beer gutted male neophyte's insecurities than to tell him that people who are way into bicycles are all wrong and dumb, and that actually being slow and performatively unenthusiastic about everything makes you a better person and here's a group or two that sort of resembles that, let's just warp and twist the harmless views of a few friendly old geezers and turn it into a weapon of forum warfare to be wielded for reddit karma.
And as for you "rent free" guy, I know you're feeling attacked right now but you also know I'm right
