BLEVE (pronounced Blev-ee) is an acronym for Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion. I’m sure you’ve all seen one or two on the news, some amazing video caught on camera show, or YouTube at some point, but…just as an example, if someone takes a sealed can of any flammable liquid and throws it onto a campfire (this is a very, very bad idea by the way…rednecks beware), the liquid within begins to boil, and the pressure inside, of course, increases. As the pressure builds, the remaining liquid becomes super-heated to temperatures far beyond that which would normally find it excitedly changing states to a gas under less tense conditions.

When the vessel, because of the fire’s intensity finally weakens to the point of rupture, the super-heated liquid, now free from the confines of the can, vaporizes in an instant, expanding violently as it goes. A massive and dangerous event by itself, but, mixing with the atmosphere’s oxygen and then being licked by the surrounding flames, the combustive mixture ignites and explodes into something even more devastating and all consuming, shattering windows for miles around if the container of fuel was big enough.

For reasons mentioned earlier, the late 1960’s and 1970’s saw bicycles begin to find their way once again into the hands of American adults. Understanding this so-called “American Bike Boom,” an event signaled by a doubling of annual sales for adult bikes between 1960 and 1970 and then a doubling again between 1970 and 1975, is pivotal in wrapping our heads around the conflict on the streets today.

You can just picture it, no? The rise of the muscle car and the interstates coinciding with the reappearance of lowly and slow bicycles on an American road that hadn’t seen the chain and sprockets of the bike used as a mode of transportation since Henry Ford and the model-T made the auto affordable.

Years earlier, bikes in the hands of children doing laps around the neighborhood and building jumps in the driveway, the road had become the exclusive territory for cars, trucks, and buses. This was nobody’s fault, just that nobody had any interest in, no one was advocating on behalf of bikes during rule making and road construction back then. Shoulders and lanes were narrow, only as wide as they had to be for cars that were fast and gigantic…and traffic laws? Made for cars and trucks alone, I mean, why would those that penned those laws even consider anything else?

But with the American Bike Boom, American adults were once again riding, cyclists began forming clubs and pushing for cars to share the road. Bicycle commuting and advocacy was becoming trendy and hip. Bicycle racing, that had enjoyed continuous popularity in Europe since the safety bike’s invention, began gaining new ground in the US, and in 1986 Greg LeMond became the first American–first non-European even–to win the Tour de France…a race that’s been going on since 1903! Spandex-use mushroomed on the local cycling scene as club riders, whether they had a body for it or not, wanted to emulate their racing heroes. Cycling simply became popular and like it or not, drivers just had to deal with it as more and more bikes appeared on the road for fun, for exercise, and transportation.

Now…I can see if this Boom just happened yesterday that there might still be a problem today, but as we all know too well, several decades have gone by now and bikes are still having a hard time fitting in (ever try and trip an Induction Loop Sensor with a carbon fiber bike?).  Drivers still don’t like (dare I say hate) cyclists, period. Drivers are still yelling at us for no apparent reason and yet, be honest now, many times there’s plenty of reason to yell and get angry…we’re still going the wrong way down the street…still running lights…still running stop signs…still riding sidewalks.

What the heck is really going on here?

What’s a car rack if not a symbol of would-be bipartisanship?