Dealing with the "i hate cyclist" rant from relatives at Christmas

Motorists will kill 5 people today and every day.

Speeding motorists kill more children than paedophiles do.

85% of motorists, given the oppertunity, will speed in a 20mph zone.

Make it a proper arguement.

Do they know you ride a bike ? just wondering if its a rant by proxy kind of thing, but to be honest unless you think youll be able to change their minds, Id let it go, Ive several friends I know who always launch into an anti-cyclist tirade whenever I see them out and about, though they always prefix it with a "oh we know you're not one of those types" I just let them get on with it or try and steer the conversation to a different topic, as Ill never be able to make them think differently

As has been said above, it should be relatively (ho ho) easy to disect their arguments with logic, reason and statistics. Good luck with that, as in my experience these people have great difficulty with logic and reason.

Does the person in question know you are a cyclist? If so, then I would assume they were looking for an argument, so you just say to your other half that you don't want to spend any more time with this person - after all they are essentially insulting you to your face, when they say 'cyclists are...' they are actually saying 'you are...'. I'd hope your partner would support you on this, although it may put them in an awkward situation.

Seems obvious but didn't you simply ask "why"?

Get a divorce

You could point out that roads were actually built for cyclists & horses and later adapted to allow motorised traffic. Cyclist have always had the right to use the roads whereas car drivers are licensed to do so, which is a privilege that can (and in many cases should) be taken away.

It's not about cyclists, they just don't like you.

We like you though.

An Andrew Neil style forensic dissection of his views is required. No insults, no ridicule, just simple questions and cold, hard facts.

"we don't belong on the road" - ask him who does, and why they do rather than people riding bikes. It's almost guaranteed that you'll get the "road tax" response, which of course doesn't exist - roads are funded from general taxation (and 98% of cyclists also own a car and therefore probably do pay "road tax" as he calls it)

"we are just annoying" - ask him what else annoys him about the roads (you'll get a list of 100+ other items of trivia) then posit that he's quite easily annoyed.

"holding up traffic" - what would he rather overtake - a cyclist doing 20mph or a tractor.

"tour de yorkshire keeps closing roads" - tell him that over 2m people lined the roads of the TdY last year. Should their enjoyment be taken away just so he can drive his car on a handful of roads, one day per year?

Just call tem a c... and be done with!

I'd go for a reasoned dissection of each particular complaint and explain calmly and clearly why their complaints don't have any kind of logical basis.

The chances are that they haven't put any thought at all into their complaints and are just repeating emotional reactions to being stuck in a metal cage for long periods.