As a cyclist it can sometimes feel that the world is stacked against us. We've often got to deal with hostile drivers, traffic controls that don't work for us, and outdated laws that don't take cycling as a serious mode of transportation. That might be the case now, but like the man said "the times they are a changin".

Starting this weekend the place where I work, Oregon State University, becomes a smoke free campus. This is a huge personal victory for me. I have hated smokers all my life, even before some big kids blew smoke in my face on the bus when I was 10 years old. I'm old enough to have lived through the time when smoking was allowed everywhere. Restaurants, trains, buses, even planes, all a big cloud of smoke. It made me sick, literally. But the worst part was the smug attitude of the smokers, thinking they were so cool and superior. Oh how the tables are turned. Just this morning coming in to work I noticed a smoker sitting off by himself, looking dejected, knowing his days of smoking on campus were at an end. I looked him in the eye and chuckled.

Motorists take head, your days are numbered. You may control the roads today but eventually the sinking economy, rising cost and scarcity of fuel, and ever increasing awareness of the impact cars have on the environment, are going to force you off the road. It probably won't happen in my lifetime but the die is already cast, and there is no stopping it.

So cyclists and walkers hang in there. They may treat us like freaks and outcasts now, but soon they'll be knocking on our doors for help as they adapt to life without a car. We may be few in number, but we're just the early adopters. We need to be ready as more of the masses take their timid first excursions down the streets on two wheels. So ride on with pride, and imagine the world we are creating.