“More protected bike lanes!” was summer’s war cry for take-no-prisoners cycling advocates. But the roughly 98 percent of New Yorkers who get to and from work by other means than bicycles need protection from the young, testosterone-fueled white males who comprise the vast majority of two-wheel desperadoes.

The demand for more “protected” lanes popped up most recently in a New York Times editorial in favor of legalizing electric scooters. Sure! let’s make things even cushier for the city’s most pampered, elitist constituency.

Although it was a female Department of Transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, who opened the gates to widespread street cycling, getting around on two wheels is mostly a guy thing.

The DOT doesn’t track demographics, but according to most studies, more than 75 percent of city riders are male. One meticulously researched 2014 Hunter College report found an even greater disparity — that 79 percent of city cyclists are men. And the first five pages of Citi Bike’s online data for April 30 — which covered 185 trips — listed 113 males and only 25 females among riders whose genders were known.

The predominance of male riders on streets is surely even greater than those citywide figures suggest. That’s because many women who ride bikes do so not in bike lanes, but in parks and in dedicated, car-free spaces such as the Hudson River Greenway — a fact clear to anyone with eyes.

The way alpha-bros zoom through red lights is at odds with the cycle lobby’s claims to upholding humane values. Bikers long ago replaced muggers as the No. 1 fear of those on foot.

Assurances that biking reduces noise, congestion and pollution mean zilch when a helmeted macho man bears down on you at 30 mph. On Second Avenue at 74th Street the other day, I scrambled like Cam Newton when a guy zipped by within a foot of me, ran the red light, nearly hit a woman in the crosswalk and yelled “Move it over!” to remind us who was boss.

Cycling isn’t just a guy thing — it’s a white guy thing. Despite lack of data, anyone can see that in a city that’s 55 percent nonwhite, black, Latin and Asian faces on wheels are relatively scarce. (The exception is hard-working food delivery people, for whom access to bike lanes makes their backbreaking jobs somewhat less risky while ensuring that more affluent citizens won’t have to wait too long to get their General Tso’s chicken.)

It isn’t just a white guy thing — it’s a young white guy thing. Neither the DOT nor any major biking organization could provide data on cycling use by age. But another scroll through those 185 Citi Bike trips turned up only 29 uses by riders aged over 45.

It’s also an able-bodied young white guys’ thing. Many cyclists look more suited to running the New York Marathon than to merely getting from Point A to Point B.

Meanwhile, subway riders with every imaginable disability brave jammed platforms, stairs and trains. Legless men hop from car to car.

Now, it isn’t inherently sexist, racist, ageist or ableist that cycling is most popular with athletic, younger white males. What’s sexist, racist, ageist and ableist is that the wishes of so narrow a slice of the populace are institutionally favored over those of all others.

Cyclists in New York City aren’t as legion as they might seem. Despite a “boom” touted by City Hall and the New York Times, the number of citizens who bike to work remains a minute fraction of all commuters. According to the US Census, 3,599,786 New Yorkers get to work by means other than cycling, while the DOT reports that just 45,800 commute by bike.

Yet, to mollycoddle this racially and gender-distinct elite, the city expanded bike lanes from 513 miles in 2006 to 1,133 today. This, of course, comes at the expense of the polyglot masses. It means 1,133 fewer miles for cars to maneuver. It means less room for delivery vehicles and emergency vehicles to park. It means turning lanes that baffle pedestrians, motorists and cyclists alike.

Yet, after warping the entire pattern and fabric of movement to funnel motorized conveyances through ever narrower spaces, City Hall has the chutzpah to growl about “congestion.”

Hilariously, the Dale Earnhardts of the handlebars turn into colicky babies over every minor impediment to their progress. They tweet their rage whenever a bike lane is blocked by any of the inevitable nuisances — like utility digs, construction and fire trucks. You know, the things most New Yorkers deal with every single day while taking it in their stride.

Fury’s in their blood, as was true of the guys who wished me death by dump truck over my last bike lane-bashing column. Bring it on, boys! But spare the women and children.