SOCIETY
The Leisurefication of Society
Now everything is easy
I was on holiday on the Brittany coast last week with my wife. On one of our daily excursions to find a swimming spot, we found ourselves on a very flat, coastal path between the fishing towns of Lesconil and Loctudy.
Half an hour into our walk, an elderly man and woman cycling their old Peugeot bicycles gently passed us. We said Bonjour and we went on our way.
Two minutes later, two male cyclists dressed like they were extras from the Tour de France powered past us on their gravel bikes. But not just normal gravel bikes. Electric gravel bikes!
My heart sank. So this was what the world was coming to. On a five-kilometer stretch of perfectly flat track, two men, who were probably in their early 30s, were re-enacting the final-day sprint on the Champs Élysée, on electric bicycles.
This is the Leisurefication of Society. A society in which sport and leisure are undertaken with minimal effort but at maximum expense. I can’t exactly say how much the guys’ bikes cost, but as I saw the brand name Cube, we’re looking at a price tag of $2000 per bike (minimum).
Think about that. That’s two thousand dollars to cycle along a flat 5 km path. A path that was so easy to cycle on, a child on a tricycle…
