Weaving between pedestrians, speeding through red lights, fighting with cars, riding against traffic, holding the handlebars with one hand and a phone in the other... The streets of our cities have become the stage for a new kind of relentless battle. It's no longer just motorists against each another or cars versus pedestrians. The new surge of cyclists and other users of public roads are now pitted against each other, not to mention cyclists against cyclists. Once isolated and extremely vulnerable in the midst of the automobile melee, bicycles now rule the roads in Paris and many other cities.

But this shift of the "balance of power" has done little to calm the urban atmosphere. A consequence of the bicycle's success in the city is the chaos now reigning on bike lanes – and sometimes on sidewalks. This has become a source of frustration not only for pedestrians, who no longer know where to walk safely, and drivers, who see two-wheelers appearing from all directions, but also for some cyclists themselves, who have fallen victim to the disorder and are acutely aware of the resentment directed at them.

Gone are the days when, in 1972, demonstrators marched chanting "Cars stink, pollute and make you stupid" and "Bikes, not cars!" At that time, bicycles in the city were a symbol of rebellion against the lifestyle, economic logic, and nuisances imposed by the dominance of cars. It represented not only an ideal of autonomy, freedom, and sustainability, but also of community and altruism. The polar opposite of "mass automobilism, [which] creates and maintains in everyone the illusory belief that each individual can prevail and benefit at the expense of all," wrote philosopher André Gorz in 1973 in the environmentalist monthly Le Sauvage.

'100% of the population is a pedestrian at some point'

It took nearly half a century for the bicycle – long a popular means of transportation but driven out of cities – to make its triumphant return. But this pollution-free vehicle, once the epitome of cool, has now become a symbol of aggression, selfishness and urban chaos. In just a few years, the "cool cyclist" has morphed into an advocate of "every person for themselves." The 1970s slogan equating stupidity with holding a steering wheel has reached its limits. Likewise, sociological analyses attributing motorists' individualism and irritability to their isolation inside a cocoon have been upended. "There are as many jerks on bikes as there are in cars," observed Thibaut Chardey, co-president of the Lyon-based advocacy group La Ville à Vélo, in La Tribune de Lyon.

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