Another word needed for cycling commuters, says Dame Sarah Storey – but what should it be?

So is a roadie on a mountain bike, a bi-cyclist, or just single track curious?

While we are at it, could we also find names for all other groups who for some reason are  not valued as "fully human"? Because it is obviously about the names and not anything else.

Whilst I appreciate the intent, and agree that people who cycle for different reasons have different needs, what worries me about this would be if the Winstons/Morgans/DM-readers - and the govt - used it as divide and conquer: support real medal winning sports cyclists, cos that's good and admirable and great national PR type stuff, but get rid of all thosr annoying people on bikes who get in the way of real traffic.

Who am I kidding? That's their current policy isn't it??

How about "person"?

For example:

"A person commuting on a bicycle."

"A person riding to work on a bike"

But ultimately we should not allow the word "cyclist" to become equated with negative connotations just because of the drivel espoused by the likes of Piers Morgan, Street-Porter and Lord Winston.

What about "people who doing the right thing".

I have felt for a long time that the term cyclist is generally used in a dehumanizing and derogatory fashion, by the bulk of the media. It isn't just the word 'cyclist', the Daily Mail appear to have a policy of not printing a picture of Boris Johnson unless he is either on a bicycle or wearing a cycle helmet.

In much the same way the word 'car' is used to absolve drivers of blame and responsibility.  Apparently it is cars that crash into people, pollute the environment, cause congestion (although there are people like Robert Winston, who would disagree with even this).  It has nothing to do with the (generally) lone occupant, sitting behind the steering wheel.

As ridiculous as it sounds, I think this might actually help. 

Cyclists are not a single group, any more than drivers or any other group of people. We have boy racers, sunday drivers, etc... to distinguish between very different groups of motorists. 

When discussing infrastructure, casual/leisure cyclists have different needs to commuters who in turn are different to road/sport cyclists. 

Obviously there is overlap but I'd argue even if a road cyclist is commuting with drop bars and full lycra, the issues they have commuting in heavy traffic will be different to issues on a sunday morning spin. 

The difficulty would be getting others to adopt any terminology, particularly if they are already in the mind set of using phrases like lycra clad lout or "hoodlums in lycra" (per Lord Wills in the recent HofL debate)

I propose "Heroes".