Among the greenies’ articles of faith are bike paths. While there’s really nothing wrong with a city building nice pathways for walking, running, and bicycling, the idea that such byways will somehow reduce climate change has always been faulty. And now we discover the bike path fetish has run afoul of another, more important leftist imperative: protecting criminals, and particularly criminals of color, from the consequences of their crimes. In this case, bicycle theft.
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One might think bike theft is inconsequential, but that probably means one hasn’t shopped for bikes lately. Trek is America’s premier manufacturer of bikes of all kinds. Its Madone line of carbon-fiber street bikes starts at $3,499.99 and skyrockets to over $14,000. A mid-range mountain bike will cost around $6,000.00, and its least expensive electric bike retails for $2,199.99. Computers, water-bottle mounts and bottles, flashing taillights, mirrors, flags, and other useful accessories can easily add $400.00. In virtually every state, that’s felony-theft territory.
As is fitting, our tale of justice-system woe takes place in California—San Francisco, to be exact:
Having won the battle for bike lanes in the city, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s dwindling membership wants to make sure you don’t accidentally get a minority killed by the cops. So, think twice about reporting bike theft, comrades!
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So, it all started on one of those accidental deep dives, spurred by a funny tweet by one of those urban cycling enthusiasts: tech guy Grant Slatton.
being a cyclist kinda sucks politically because your options are always
— Grant Slatton (@GrantSlatton) July 12, 2026
Candidate A: loves bike infrastructure, but refuses to jail bike thieves
Candidate B: wants to send bike thieves to the gulag, but hates cyclists
anyway my bike was stolen last week, RIP
The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s website is very concerned about the danger—to bike thieves—of reporting bike theft:
Black and brown people are often deeply harmed or even killed by interactions with the police, and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition decided in 2020 to end any formal relationship with SFPD. Because policing is interwoven into nearly all current solutions to bike theft, some of our recommendations do involve minimal contact with the police, but we identify those and try to propose alternatives. We encourage everyone to to human life of involving the police in any situation.
Yes. They’re crazy, but the SFBC is at least sufficiently rational to recognize who is stealing their expensive bikes:
SBFC said its “recommendations generally avoid involving the police whenever possible to minimize harm to Black and brown people.”
Read more ‘My county, ’tis of thee …’
Unfortunately, their pro-bike-thief stance isn’t sitting well with their members, who may not care much about the race of the people stealing their machines.
It’s a short path from winning on bike lanes to becoming social-justice scolds, and even in the super-left Bay Area, the San Francisco Standard reported that the group’s membership has dwindled from 12,000 to just 6,000.”
Apparently, suicidal empathy among bicyclists has a price. There’s an old aphorism to the effect that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. We’ve seen innumerable examples that prove that even the murder of people they love isn’t enough to convince leftists of the folly of protecting criminals. It appears, however, that Slatton may be a convert, at least so far as his bicycle is concerned:
i support the compromise policy in which we use the ground up bones of bike thieves as mortar for the bike lanes
— Grant Slatton (@GrantSlatton) July 13, 2026
Slatton is on to something. Leftists love virtue-signaling when it costs them nothing. The costs to others are irrelevant when compared to their self-esteem. Many Americans dislike arrogant bicyclists but certainly want criminals to face real punishment for their crimes. While Slatton’s compromise might be a bit extreme, the suggestion that people committing felony theft deserve felony-level punishment is the kind of rationality seldom seen in blue states and virtually never seen in California.
Of course, there’s an obvious solution to this particular problem: flee California as if from a plague. Millions of former Californians have taken that advice and presumably kept their bikes.
Image created using AI.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, lifelong athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer, and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
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