Standing in the rain learning about water

I went on a bicycle field trip on Saturday. I want to show you just what Oregonians will do. You put on an event that involves spending several hours under a downpour, and that’s educational, even, and people not only show up, but stick with it to the bitter end.

This would not happen in Italy. If people saw one raindrop when they got up that morning, that would be it. If they showed up and it started raining later on, they would run for cover (some even emanating a scream while doing so) and/or grab any item whatsoever to hold over their heads till they could get to shelter. Then at the first break in the rain they would flee, back to their dwellings.

The reason I know this, and the reason I often compare Italians and Oregonians is because I happen to have spent most of my youth in that grape land, so its people are with me always. Not to mention a few other peoples in whose countries I spent the rest of my youth and some of my adulthood.

The rainstorm that was predicted for last weekend finally arrived this weekend. Being a long-time converted Oregonian, I went on the field trip anyway. It was called Cycling the Well Fields. At first I thought this meant that our fields were “well” as opposed to “ill,” but I soon figured out that the two words go together, and the word “well” is a noun being used to modify the word “fields” to indicate the kind of field they’re talking about. In summary, it was a tour of our drinking water system in Portland and how it works. I have lots of pictures. Today’s just the intro. More tomorrow.

Rain bad, Sun worse – don’t be lulled into complacency

Ok, boys and girls, I know you’re all as happy as clams out there with all this glorious weather. So what do people do? Immediately dump the perpetual load of rain gear -- and with it goes the luminescent rain jacket / windbreaker. Aren’t we all ecstatic to be able to hop on the bike with 50% less junk? Because isn’t that the Number One complaint about biking – that there’s too much STUFF you have to schlep around with you?

HOWEVER – all is not perfect in P-town -- or anywhere else where the sun is shining brightly. What happens (especially in a car) when you pass abruptly from a brightly sunlit area into the dark shade of a row of trees? Ever notice? You’re temporarily struck blind, that’s what. Isn’t it true? For a few seconds you can’t see a durned thing and you’re operating entirely on guesswork. This effect is much less dramatic when you’re on a bike because you’ve got the whole dome in your visual field, filled with an array of light and shadow happening in all the 360 degrees around you, providing for gradual adjustments from light to dark and vice versa. In a car, however, you’re all closed in, making the light more glary and the dark mo darker. And having all that glass reflection to contend with further compounds the problem. Once again the cyclist has the advantage of better vision BUT, ironically, is at the mercy of the impaired vision of the bigger and much heavier Moving Metal Deathtraps.

Conclusion? In sunny times, that luminescent garment is just as crucial as it is in rainy times. That could be the ONLY thing the driver sees once you enter a shadowed area. I have for that reason been enduring my caution-yellow rain shell throughout the sunshine so far. People look at me weirdly, but at least they look at me. Finally I’ve bought myself a simple VEST which is a lot cooler. Later I’ll post a photo and brand information and tell you why I think this one is so much better than the last one I had.

Memorial Day weather misleads thousands of tourists

Nothing better than to stay home on a holiday weekend and watch the city empty out. Especially when it’s a 3-day weekend, that day sandwiched into the middle is so blissfully quiet. I wouldn’t miss it. The few people that stick around are all on slow mo. Like me.

No doubt for some vacationers, Portland was a destination. These are dangerous times, my friends. Our holiday weather has been so unbelievably perfect that many of those hapless visitors will leap to the conclusion that they would find true happiness if only they moved here. That results in a growing population of wrist-slitters who can’t manage our dreary damp grey never-ending winters. If you know someone on the verge of such an error, do them the kindness of informing them of the truth. Otherwise we’ll not only become horribly overpopulated, but the mood of the overpopulation will be: extremely crabby.

Cyclist bolts from path of mud for fling with slothdom

You might have noticed I haven’t posted in a while. Sometimes people need a break. Then maybe they realize that the slovenly life they thought they coveted isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. At which point they’re happy to go back to their nice predictable routine, which was put in place for a reason. Or more likely, a hundred reasons. Now they remember what those reasons were.

The truth of it is, I broke down and drove my car for three days last week. There, I said it.

And it didn’t stop there. Once I’d gone that far, everything really went to hell in a handbasket: On Saturday morning I drove my car to the gym. Stupidest thing in the world, right? Wait. I know what you’re thinking: that after driving to the gym, I spent my gym time on the stationary bicycle, right? Nope. Worse. Are you ready? By the time I got to the gym, the inside of my car was so warm and toasty that I notched the seat back, curled up in a ball, and read a book for an hour. Then I drove home.

Ha!
(So far, you are the only one that knows this.)

Look. The weather has been inhuman. I can’t take this freezing cold, all-permeating wetness. Wednesday I used the excuse that I had to schlep a bunch of heavy and awkward items. Thursday my excuse was that I needed to go to a far-away appointment in the middle of the afternoon which on a bike would have taken forever. Friday evening when I left my hideout it was raining just as hard as it was when I left home that morning, only now it was dark on top of it. Remember the formula Lindi and I came up with? Dark + rain + traffic = no bike. So I felt 90% justified in having brought my car – the missing 10% comes from the fact that I could’ve taken the bus. Which I didn’t feel like. If you’re going to throw all your principles to the wind, you might as well do a complete job of it till you get it out of your system.

After a few days of car life, I remember that I didn’t start this bike thing only for virtuous reasons like saving the planet. Another reason was that I thought it would help with my sleeping problems, which it has. Some of my sleeping problems are that (1) I can’t sleep; (2) I get that notorious “jumpy-leg” syndrome, which means that I feel an overwhelming desire to ferociously drum my heels into the footboard of the bed. Getting rid of the feeling by simply giving into that desire proved to be super unpopular with Lindi, so I had to come up with another strategy. I found that riding my bike for a total of an hour a day almost completely took care of it, and I rarely get it anymore. But by last Friday night, after three days of not riding, jumpy-leg was back -- and my sleep endangered anew.

As a reward, apparently, for my “just say no to this weather” attitude, today is balmy, with sporadic sun through random clouds. It's the kind of day when even the most die-hard car drivers would rather be out on a bike.

As you pedal your way around the city trying not to get killed, here’s a question to ponder till I get back to you: Can an 84 year old man with Alzeimer’s waltz into the DMV and obtain a driver’s license?

Like a moth to the flame, they come to Portland

I arrived at my hideout this morning to find an unfamiliar bike locked to my rack. My first reaction was to ask myself. “Grrrr. Who the hell’s in my parking spot?”

To which my Self answered, Oh stop. Number one, there’s room for two bikes on those racks; and number two, you’re supposed to be happy when you see that more people are riding their bikes.

“Oh yeah,” I remembered. “Bikes good, cars bad.”

To me it seemed the kind of bike that was someone’s best friend, perfected over time with features acquired gradually and thoughtfully. The tubing bore a funny name I’d never heard, and the bike was a kloodged together mix of distinctive parts, including high handlebars on an already tall frame.

I saw a guy emerge from the side of the building and weighed a series of clues. 1, he was tall; 2, he wore a bike helmet; and 3, he was walking toward the bike.

“This your bike?” I asked him.
“Well, not really. I’ve rented it from City Bikes while I visit Portland.”

Is the world changing, or what? Usually the first thing people do is rent a car. This guy doesn’t even know his way around yet and he rents a bike. Not only that, it’s a really rainy day.

His name is Chris and he’s moving to Portland. He comes from what I think might be the only city in Texas that could produce this kind of person, namely Austin. (Am I being unbearably prejudiced? What would Molly Ivins say?)

Get this: One of the main reasons he’s moving here is so he can ride his bike around. He says that in Austin you get too sweaty. He’s visiting Portland in our worst weather to get the most realistic experience of it. Smart man. How many dodo-birds visit us in our spectacular summers and impulsively decide to move here only to slit their wrists by late February?

Word about Portland’s pedestrian-scale living is obviously getting around, and I’d be interested to know how. Maybe Chris can tell us. Are we totally famous for being a great biking city, or is this only going on at the word-of-mouth level among cyclists?

Still crabby after all these months

Hi.

I haven’t forgotten that I’m going to tell you all about what I wear on my head. Today, though, I was too busy with what’s inside my head – which I’m not going to tell you about right now – or in fact, ever. This isn’t the kind of blog in which me, me, me tells all, all, all to you, you, you.(Aren't you glad? Would you not start snoring immediately?)

Today, in addition to riding the usual five miles to my secret hideout, which is in northwest Portland, I also rode another five miles to an appointment I had in southwest Portland, and then another five miles back home. Plus it was freezing the whole day, and rainy. What do I want, a medal? Yes. And not just A medal – I want a daily medal. At least till summer comes, which as we all know doesn’t happen here till the end of June.

These are THE worst days for riding. The. And if you’re out there riding too, we should all get some kind of award. Preferably money – forget the medal idea. We should be getting paid for this. How about every person in a car has to pay a per-trip tariff to someone on a bike? I could live with that. Even with all this rain gear it’s miserable. I recently spent a couple of hours strolling through the Portland Memorial Mausoleum. Eight miles of tomb-lined labyrinthine corridors on six or seven floors. You want cold, go there. But it’s like Hawaii in there compared to what it feels like outside today.

The only way to survive Oregon winters in even a reasonably good mood is to take the middle out of them, i.e., go to a tropical country for a couple of months between November and March. I did that one year, and when I got back the rest of the winter lasted about ten minutes. I’m planning that in for the creaky future that probably awaits me. And I'm taking my bike with me.