I'm always conflicted by Brunelle's videos. The skill displayed is certainly impressive, but I think it's wrong to glorify that kind of behavior. Those people are irresponsible fools. If you want to do stunts, don't do it around people who don't want to be involved. And I say this as someone who commutes by road bike daily.

I agree with you on some level, and I don't condone everything in this video. I think I probably draw the line in a different spot than most people however.

Alex Honnold has honed his craft to a point where he can casually do things that would probably have a 99% mortality rate if tried by most climbers. These folk aren't that good, but there's a huge gulf between your average road bike enjoyer and someone who races to win alleycats. While this behavior on a bike CAN cause severe injury, including to bystanders, I think compared to checking directions on your phone etc. the amortized increase in mortality for those around you is likely much lower.

I think it's wrong to "glorify" this behavior, but I don't want to live in a world where we can't appreciate the beauty of it. Where we don't understand why some people chose to do it, and where we can't take a step back to reflect that perhaps chasing this visceral sense of aliveness is worth some the danger it may cause to other people, perhaps more so than checking your phone while driving, or even going maskless in public during flu season.