Follow the Grift: People For Bikes
“There is no swifter route to the corruption of thought than through the corruption of language”
-George Orwell
Nearly 13 years ago, John Allen, a genuine legend in the cycling community, posted a message from Tom Revay about the rebranding of an organization previously called Bikes Belong into a new group: People for Bikes.
Revay writing,
Bikes Belong isn’t a campaign. It is the bicycle industry public lobby. It is not a non-profit.
And Bikes Belong isn’t a public membership organization. To join, you must be part of the bike industry at some level — retailer, distributor, manufacturer, etc — paying annual dues proportional to the size of your business. Bikes Belong’s purpose is to tap the Federal gravy train to build facilities that the bicycle manufacturers believe will help them sell bicycles.
Revay later quotes from People for Bikes themselves:
While millions of Americans like us ride for their health, for the environment, etc. until now, only a tiny fraction of riders have stood up to help improve bicycling in America. Peopleforbikes.org hopes to change all that. They’re building a national movement with the clout and influence to get things done.
(This revisionist history, of course, isn’t new among the Platitude-driven activists.)
Revay continues:
What they want is to be able to walk into your own Congressman Bilbo’s office and say, “Hmmm, says here we got 2231 people in your district who want you to support the Great Swamp Boggity Bog Trail amendment to the current transportation bill … say, didn’t you win by less than 2000 votes a couple years ago?”.
It’s revealing, I think, that the “Who we are” page on that website doesn’t really tell you who they are. If you knew, maybe you’d figure that they should chop their own wood, rather than having you pay someone to it for them … ya think?
Remember that second to the last sentence, the bolded one.
PfB is a classic Swamp group masquerading as “for the people1,” but in all reality selfishly and narcissistically advocates for useless, mainly government-employed or government-dependent grifters. They’re no different than the Warpigs of the Military Industrial Complex. They take your stolen money and use the power of the unaccountable State to invoke their ideologies.
Revay closes in saying:
who writes the excellent Substack Fleeting West’s term brandfucking, applies quite well with People For Bikes’ use of language manipulation.But by all means, sign the pledge, if you want to. Just understand, this isn’t some kind of “grassroots campaign.” It’s an industry lobbying effort. And claiming it’s anything else is just political obfuscation. (And I wrote that instead of using the term “bull****,” since this is a family oriented group.)
On top of that, there’s also the language trick of a non-profit which dupes the economically-ilitterate and/or the “Progressive” Left. Many non-profits run two arms as seen in what
coined the “Anti-Industry Industry, “ using both the 501(C)(3) and a seperate 501(C)(4) entities which lets them play the dual strategy of bringing on copious amounts of money and in endorsing political canditates. Non-profits have to make a profit anyways to keep their operations going and in order to expand. The label of non-profit simply means they are not taxed on profits per the IRS. The more you know.People For Bikes have since been cheerleaders of so-called “protected” bike lanes, the types of bikeways that more often than not increase the risk for bicyclists of the most common car-bike collisions. Supporters of these manufactured conflicts have long been in denial of the basics of physics and human nature so long as the infinate fiat money printer feeds their scam.
John Allen, has been debunking People for Bikes’ claims over the years.
Recall in the previous post, Biking to Save the Oceans from Boiling, said piece quoted People for Bikes’ current President and CEO Jenn Dice:
In recent years, the stark realities of climate change have become more evident, more intense and more desperate for a solution. Thankfully, one simple, low-cost solution is right before our eyes. A solution that has been gaining momentum for years but exploded in popularity over the last 16 months. A solution for governments, industries and individuals alike. A mobility, sustainability, equity and public health solution all in one: the humble bicycle.
One would think that someone so passionate about saving the Noble Gaia would practice that she preaches, right?
As in, maybe in her spare time, she uses the humble bicycle for her recreational trips?
Well thanks to Adam Schaffer, fiece ally against the excesses of the Platitude-driven grift lobby and bullshit finder extraordinaire encountered something interesting. He was also chronicled in
‘s piece Battling the Bike Bros.In a year-old tweet tweet, Adam asks, “What’s the best way to describe cycling advocacy?”
The images attached to Adam’s tweets are damning.
The first image is this one.
The screenshot on the left is for a press release citing the latest “achievements” of the organization after they were able to sucessfully steal more of the hard earned money from those of us who actually do real work.
Adam underlines the quote:
“Every dollar invested in bicycle incentives guarantees returns for a cleaner planet, better public health, equitable mobility and economic growth,” said PeopleForBikes President and CEO Jenn Dice. “When so many of us are reevaluating how we move and the climate impact of our transportation choices, the GREEN Act will help bring electric bicycles into the homes of Americans seeking an efficient and emissionless transportation option.”
He then reveals that, (spoiler alert) Dice herself does not practice what she preaches.
How did he find this out? Like every good Cluster B(ike) Activist, Dice is a virtue signaller galore.
Channeling her inner Gavin Newsom/Lori Lightfoot/London Breed/Nancy Pelosi she chose to leave her humble abode of the lockdown-fapping People’s Republic of Boulder for, of all places, Wyoming, home to the murder site of Matthew Shepard.
To do what exactly?
And what exactly was used to haul this Airsream?
Hint: not a bicycle.
The quote from the third image in Adam’s quote, of course, comes from a PfB puff piece, “Helping America Recover and Move Forward with Bikes” written in August 2020, penned by Dice herself opening with:
COVID-19 has become a universal forcing function across all aspects of American life. Its devastating effects are making us reexamine how we work, gather, learn, shop, dine, access basic services and move around our cities and communities. We have changed our habits, are staying closer to home, reconnecting with our neighborhoods and turning to the bicycle in droves.
In other image, Adam shows a screenshot from Brandfucking fappers galore, Outsidehouse Magazine-owned Velo Magazine.
To their credit, at least they reveal, although likely accidentally, that People For Bikes indeed isn’t people, it’s instead the industry chiming in.
PeopleForBikes is an industry coalition made up of 280 cycling-industry members, and some 1,000 Ride Spot retailer members, along with a cycling community of almost 1.4 million individual riders. It was founded in 1999 (originally known as “Bikes Belong”) by a group of bike industry companies, to promote stronger representation in congress and coordinated advocacy programs – to help develop and promote economic policies that benefit bike businesses. Retiring CEO Tim Blumenthal has led the organization and overseen its growth for most of that time.
Today, PFB employs some 25 staff, primarily located in Boulder, Colorado, and Washington, D.C. It also works closely with about 100 key industry volunteers, who actively participate in various subcommittees that address specific bike industry issues – such as bicycle access, business research, legal, and safety concerns.
The last words in that last sentence are chock full of bullshit, given that People For Bikes have continuously placed the safety of bicyclists on the back burner and prioritized unafe “protected” bikeways over empowering education, have failed to uphold cyclists’s rights to use the roadway, and have been cheerleaders for the cartel that is government-funded or government-employed Bicycle Infrastrucure Industrial Complex.
The puff piece continues, now touching on the art of their “non-profit” grift:
PFB is governed by a board of directors comprised of leaders from all sectors of the bike business, including top executives from companies like Shimano, REI, SRAM, QBP, and Trek. The organization is funded by participating members of the bicycle industry, various foundations, non-endemic partners, and a wide range of individuals with an interest in bicycling and healthy living. It is organized for tax purposes as a 501c(6) trade association, under which it does its lobbying, business activities, and political advocacy program. Most of its fund-raising through a sister 501c(3) charitable foundation, through which tax-deductible donations can be made. The foundation then turns around and funds much of the organization’s infrastructure and city work – most of it specific projects on the ground. “In day-to-day practice though, most people don’t care if it is the Coalition or the Foundation, they just think of us a PeopleForBikes,” says Dice.
Interestingly enough, People For Bikes, makes this distinction between their two arms difficult, if not impossible to decipher, when perusing their website. They’re more than happy to ask individuals to make a tax-deductable donation to their 501(c)(3) arm but nowhere do they mention their 501(c)(6) arm. The only place in fact they mention it is in their Terms of Use, likely the last place anybody would think to find such information.
In order to find People for Bikes’ tax return information, one must search literally for PeopleForBikes (no spaces). Doing this using ProPublica’s free search engine for non profits indeed does reveal both non-profit arms.
Perusing both 1099s from 2021, the most recent date available, one can see that the top dogs at the two organizations are compensated quite well for their grift too.
A salary of (just one times..not two) $217k is 2.35 times the median income of Boulder County and likely significantly greater than that of the median income in the City of Boulder.
Said City, also home to what
correctly terms a resort has for several decades now been a “progressive” citadel as normal middle class residents were drawn out by Coastal Elite Colonists who followed both the calls of John Denver and John Muir. The surrounding cities in the county have become increasingly unaffordabe too an out of reach to the middle class as they’ve turned into virtual bedroom communities serving the grift center of Boulder.The 501(c )(6) arm is also largely funded by the 501(c )(3) arm as well as a number of other bike grift groups.
In any other context, such would be considered money laundering but because snobby elites manage to play the non-profit game, it’s perfectly legal.
In closing, among other things and fortunate to Coloradoans, PfB’s Boulder HQ is empty , replaced by a PO Box in Boulder. They claimed to have moved offices to Denver but still list no office address there.
Dice and Company apparently listened to ‘ol John Douchendorff’s song leading them back towards (and slightly past) West Virginia.
The psy-op of “People for” is a classic abuse tactic too known as “forced teaming.” There’s little surprise this group given their political leanings relies on such.
PfB was a sham as soon as Trek launched it as Bikes Belong. It's true orientation was laid bare by it's very name, never Bicyclists Belong, but Bikes. I simple address it as People for Inanimate Objects.
And last year California's one and only greatest Badvocate, Dave Synder, brought his incomparable fear mongering voice to the chorus of pleaders at the Federal well. Denouncing his one actual contribution to safe cycling, Sharrows and Bikes May Use Full Lane policies, he revealed his character
Thank you for your investigative journalism, Green Leap Forward. Sadly, no surprises.