When I Am Old, I Will Ride a Tricycle

Biking south on Broadway today (duh, it’s a one-way street– there’s no other direction to bike on Broadway), a large blue American-made sedan pulled across two lanes of traffic to get to parking spot three feet in front of me. I hit the brakes and hollered, but the car never hesitated, although it did stop right in the middle of the bike lane when the driver realized that the angle wasn’t going to work for parallel parking.

Breathing hard and pulling around the left side of the car, into the car lane, I waved my hands at the driver-side window, yelling, “Watch what you’re doing!” Once I was alongside the vehicle, I saw a tiny, parched old lady behind the wheel. Her wispy hair was dyed brown, with silver roots showing, and she had that funny old-lady lipstick, with all the creases from her wrinkles digging light pink furrows in her otherwise Elmo-red lips. She didn’t even look at me, and never saw me waving.

My first job out of college was working at a nonprofit transportation service for seniors, and in the course of researching all their propaganda I heard a lot of horror stories about old people driving. They scare me under the best of circumstances, and parallel parking across a bike lane in downtown Portland is not the best of circumstances.

I’ve seen a few old people around here riding what are basically giant tricycles– these were also very popular with developmentally disabled adults in Brunswick, Maine. I propose a bicycle life cycle that goes something like this:

tricycle ===> training wheels ===> bmx ===>

fixie ===> road bike ===> recumbent ===> tricycle

I hope I don’t get hit by an aging driver before I’m old enough to ride a trike again.

Bicycle Epigram #1

Some days I just want to bike off into the sunset, but I don’t have the energy to make it over the West Hills.

Methods

I’m supposed to be writing the “Methods” chapter of my thesis right now, but the sun is shining through the rain and I’d rather be biking. As a compromise, I’ll write about bikes, pausing only to gaze wistfully out the window.

Title:

The Effect of Winter Cycling on Low-Grade Respiratory Viruses

Hypothesis:

Bicycles have miraculous healing powers.

Methods:

A subject with a minor pulmonary infection biked sixteen miles a day for five days. During the trial period, she supplemented this vigorous physical activity with a range of auditory stimuli, including several National Public Radio podcasts touching on timely political and economic concerns, and a comprehensive review of the entire Mountain Goats independent rock catalogue, inspired by two live shows at one Doug Fir Lounge. The subject also attempted to manage her symptoms with a variety of alcoholic home remedies.

The subject’s health was measured throughout the week, with on-going evaluations of throat pain, in-class coughing, enthusiasm for thesis research, and general disposition toward humanity.

Results:

The subject began exhibiting symptoms of a sore throat on Saturday, February 23. Initially, the subject believed that said sore throat was an unanticipated outcome of the ill-advised ingestion of rosemary oil– earlier in the day, the subject’s sister had paid her $2 to squirt Max the Cat’s foul-tasting anti-lick spray onto her own tongue, which resulted in lingering side effects throughout the day. However, the sore throat persisted, eventually spreading to the subject’s bronchial tubes.

Symptoms persisted throughout the week, with a peak of in-class coughing on Tuesday. On that date, the coughing was disruptive enough that the subject missed several minutes of a presentation on dramatic signifiers in Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta because she was doubled over in the hallway, gagging. A lack of enthusiasm for her thesis research intensified throughout the week, abating temporarily during a fascinating interview on Thursday, but returning with renewed force on Friday, when her general disposition toward humanity also plummeted to a record low. While the subject has often exhibited higher-than-average levels of misanthropy, regardless of her health, oxygen deprivation and exhaustion combined with academic stress and a disgust with institutional politics to trigger a truly pathological aversion to the human species on Friday. Rather than doing her work, the subject was forced to bike from downtown Portland to St Johns via Sellwood, grinning into the harsh wind on the Springwater Corridor the whole way south.

Discussion:

Despite lingering symptoms of existential crisis, the subject experienced a remarkable amelioration of physical discomfort in her respiratory system over the course of the week. We can only conclude that it was the 90+ miles of road cycling that led to such a rapid recovery. However, we should note that this outcome may have been bolstered by unseasonably sunny weather in the Pacific Northwest, which resulted in elevated Vitamin D levels and a slight diminution of melancholic tendencies.

Conclusion:

All indications support our hypothesis that cycling has miraculous healing powers. In fact, we would go so far as to endorse cycling as a treatment for a range of medical conditions, including restless leg syndrome, tennis elbow, and watery mouth. At least until a future Democratic president institutes comprehensive healthcare reform, we recommend cycling as the primary medical plan for the nation’s uninsured, along with black coffee (for digestive health) and St John’s Wort (for all mental health conditions).

More Trouble at Interstate and Greeley

As I passed through Interstate and Greeley this afternoon, I saw that several orange and white reflective barriers were up along the left edge of the southbound bike lane, effectively blocking any vehicles from turning right across the path of cyclists coming down the hill. A big white Channel 8 news van was parked around the corner. I just figured that the City had already gotten started on some of the safety upgrades they’ve been discussing for that intersection, where a right-turning garbage truck killed a cyclist a few weeks ago.

When I got home, however, I saw that several people had ended up at this blog while searching for information on bike accidents at Interstate and Greeley today (that’s exactly how I found out about the fatal collision at that intersection a few weeks ago). I performed my own Google search, and sure enough, another cyclist was hit by a right-turning vehicle at that exact same spot this morning. Fortunately, it sounds like her injuries weren’t life-threatening, but the City has decided that enough is enough: by early afternoon, they’d set up the barricades I saw, to prevent any vehicles from turning right across the bike lane until they’ve made safety improvements at the intersection.

This is very scary. In class today, a friend told me that just a few hours after she and I had been talking about bike safety last week, her boyfriend, an experienced cyclist, had been hit out in Beaverton in yet another of these failure-to-yield, right-turn-across-the -bike-lane accidents. Fortunately, he was wearing a helmet, which she said got so badly battered that the doctors insisted on performing a CAT scan; aside from a badly scraped shoulder, though, he seems to be okay.

Two hours later, a student in another of my classes was talking about what he called the “car versus bike” debate. “Out where I live, way out east near 163rd,” he said, “they’re all saying, ‘Yeah. People are dying. We need to get those bikes off the road!’”

I really hope that’s not where this conversation is going in the Greater Portland area. Two tragedies seemed to galvanize the city into a commitment to infrastructure at some of the most dangerous intersections, and all the local print media did big stories about the dangers of cycling in “Bike City USA” (here’s the Mercury, here’s Willamette Week, and here’s the Oregonian online). With all this coverage, though, I’m worried about bike accident fatigue among drivers in the city– for those who aren’t committed to cycling as a green mode of transportation, a source of exercise, and a lifestyle, the simplist answer may indeed seem to be, “Get those bike off the road before anyone else gets killed.” If people perceive that “too much” money is being spent on safer infrastructure (even though an improvement like bike boxes would only cost about $200o per intersection), or that drivers are being “unduly” inconvenienced by concessions to cyclists (for instance, having to take the long way to Swan Island when they can’t make the right turn onto Greeley from Interstate), the tide may turn from sympathy to resentment.

I don’t have a solution or a proposal here– I just want to stay safe on the road, and see more investment in off-road options for commuters, like the North Portland Greenway. However, I know how easy it is for us to listen exclusively to our own echo-chambers in the media and on the web, only to be taken by surprise when it turns out that we’ve lost the majority (as you can see, I’m still suffering from PTSD after the 2004 presidential election).

I hope the woman hit at Interstate and Greeley heals quickly. I also hope that the city starts issuing citations for failure to yield! They have yet to give a ticket to any of these right-turners with tunnel vision.

Vote

For the last month, my morning bike route has been festooned with pleasantly alliterative signs, all white with black, all-caps stenciling:

STRIP MALLS OR STRAWBERRY FIELDS?

PUMPKINS OR PARKING LOTS?

CORNFIELDS OR CONCRETE?

LOVE OREGON?

YES ON 49

A few weeks ago, there was one lonely NO ON 49 sign, posted near the top of my evening climb up Greeley.  After a few days, I saw that it had been pulled up from its curbside location and tossed into the blackberry brambles: we liberals are always such a class act.

Tomorrow is the last day for Oregonians to vote on Measure 49.  I’ll spare you yet another rehash of the debate (here’s yes, here’s no, here’s Willamette Week, and here’s BikePortland.org); essentially, Oregon’s progressive anti-sprawl zoning laws were dealt a huge blow when Measure 37 passed in 2004, and Measure 49 is an effort to curb some of the most excessive development that Measure 37 has made possible. 

For those of us who like the city to be the city, so we can live car-free, and the country to be the country, so we can go bike in it, there’s no real controversy.  For those who own undeveloped property that they’d hoped would fund their retirements, and for development companies that have been jumping all over the loopholes in Measure 37 to build sprawling McMansion communities and big box stores, Measure 49 is, as the No on 49 folks like to say, “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”  To me, this is an issue of the greater interests of the community (and the planet) outweighing the potential profits that would fall to a few. 

Right now, though, it’s not looking very good for us wolves.  So vote already.

Tool User

As I attest on my About page, my interest in cycling is decidedly not technical. Many of the Obvious Bike Enthusiasts that I encounter around town are total gearheads: as soon as I mention bicycles, they start spewing numbers and specialist (as opposed to Specialist) brand names, and I have no idea what they’re talking about.

I am not a gear afficionado: the mountain bike with street tires that I commuted with for nearly two years was completely painted over, so I didn’t even know what make it was. Now that I have my sweet “new” bicycle, I’m pretty proud to be able to say, “a Miyata touring bike,” whenever anyone asks what I ride, although I haven’t memorized those numbers painted on the frame (and I’m not even 100% sure how to pronounce “Miyata”). I like biking because it feels good, and I like having a nice enough bike that it feels even better, but beyond that, I’m generally uninterested in, and ignorant about, the details.

Maybe all of that is beginning to change, however, because today I put some new fenders on my bike all by myself. I mean, I had to borrow Ben’s tools, and Andrew had to show me how to operate the socket set, but once I had that figured out, I just read the instructions and did it. Granted, this is the second time I’ve put that same model of fenders on a bicycle– last year, I installed some on my old bike, with a bit more help from Ben. Nonetheless: I used tools (in fact, I opened the socket set box upside down, spilling all fifty sockets, or whatever they’re called, so I had to go through them one by one and put them back in their little labeled compartments).

I also put a rearview mirror on my “new” bike (and by “I,” I mean “Ben”– I couldn’t figure out how to bend the little piece of metal just right). My bike is now a lean, mean, fendered, mirrored commuting machine. After all of that work, I was feeling so handy that I decided to hose the whole bike down with Simple Green and relube the chain.

I realize this is all kind of pathetic: I’m falling into some gender stereotypes in ways that make me deeply ashamed. Still, I’m actually embracing opposite gender roles from the ones with which I was raised. My mom was the mechanic in my family, working on the cars, building the shelves, and fixing the computer. On the other hand, the last time I ever got spanked (1993) was when I made the mistake of bothering my father while he was trying (futilely) to reprogram the VCR.

This mechanical stuff is just another way that my bike is helping me grow as a person. I used to be completely unathletic: now I have quads the size of hams. I used to dislike getting dirty: now I always have chain oil under my fingernails. I used to be terrible with directions: now I have a mental map of this city that rivals Google. Biking has allowed me to join the elite ranks of the highest orders of primates: I am a tool user! I’m evolving!

Shadow of Myself

As I was unlocking my bike to go home yesterday afternoon, I had a very pleasant conversation with another cyclist who was doing the same.

“Can you believe this?” he said. “Biking in the sun in November? I grew up here, and I can remember it snowing at this time of year.”

“Well, there is an upside to global warming,” I said.

We’ve had a two weeks now of almost unbroken dry, sunny weather. Sometimes it’s a little chilly and windy, but that’s a small price to pay to have dry socks all day. The return of the sun and the delayed end of daylight savings time this year has led to a not-very-interesting phenomenon that still delights me in the late afternoon along the southernmost stretches of Mock’s Crest: as I bike, I can see my own shadow, cast long and lean along the asphalt to the east of me.

My “new” bike has beautiful lines– the curving handlebars, the oversized wheels, the slender thread of cables. With my helmeted head, low-slung messenger bag, and rolled up pantlegs, we cut an iconic image on the pavement. The sidelong rays of the setting sun capture a perfect profile silhouette, plus a little extra height that makes me look thinner. I can see the fluid circular motion of my pumping legs, the seamless integration of woman and machine (although, if I don’t check my narcissistic self-hypnosis, I’m likely to integrate myself and my machine into the back of the VW bus that’s always parked on that stretch of Willamette).

If identity is performance, that shadow shows me myself playing the role of cyclist in a very satisfying way. One of the fascinating things about bike culture in Portland is the variety of rider identities, and the degree to which we feel compelled to display that identity to each other, and to those Outsiders who don’t ride (I found this blog post on indie-fixie-messenger identity very entertaining, mostly because I’m hopelessly attracted to these guys, as well).

As a former Future World Famous Anthropologist (that’s how I signed yearbooks my senior year of high school), I’ve been developing elaborate theories about the degree to which urbanism makes it impossible for us to actually get to know (and make ourselves known to) most of the people we share space with every day. This means that we often feel compelled to develop elaborate visual cues to communicate whatever we think is most important about ourselves, and the groups to which we feel we belong, to the strangers around us. There’s a touching urgency to create community (and, in this city, an interesting desire to demonstrate political positioning) in that impulse, and also tremendous room for conflict over perceptions of authenticity (i.e. accusations of “poserism,” as one of my high school students used to put it).

Because seemingly endless years of studying post-structuralism have trained me to break down and analyze identity signifiers, I tend to feel reluctant to participate in the fashion indicators of cycling, even as I feel self-conscious satisfaction walking around campus with chain oil on my clothes and my helmet hanging off the strap of my messenger bag. I guess I’ve been in Portland long enough now that I’m starting to buy into the need to signal to strangers.

Ultimately, though, one of the great privileges of being a bike commuter in this town is the easy sense of affiliation with strangers, like that guy I chatted with about the weather yesterday. We went on to discuss the best northbound routes through downtown from PSU, and the perils of kids on skateboards along the Esplanade, before going our separate ways. That community, which is a big part of the “signified” that corresponds to the pleasing signifier of my bike shadow, is real and important. The desire to belong is a basic cross-cultural human need, and I’m happy when I feel like I belong to the fellowship of the chain ring in Portland.

Bike Mom

I’ve never been the kind of person who calls strangers “honey,” or the kind of person who calls anyone honey, for that matter (I may have been born in the South, but I didn’t stay long enough for it to take).  Still, these last few weeks, every time I bike near someone riding without a helmet, I feel a strange, strong impulse to lean over, put a hand on their handlebars, and say, “Oh, honey, please wear a helmet.”

This morning, as I was pedaling over the Broadway Bridge, I ended up behind a young woman who triggered these protective instincts.  She was wearing a helmet, and she even had a red rear bike light, but the light was mounted on her seat post, and was almost entirely obscured by her bike rack.  It wasn’t increasing her visibility in the early morning hours at all.  I stayed behind her all the way to Burnside, where we both got caught at the stoplight, at which point I pulled up alongside her and said, “I’m sorry, it’s really none of my business, but I just wanted to let you know that your bike rack is blocking your bike light.  You can’t really see it much from behind.”

I was immediately embarrassed that I’d said anything– I’ve definitely done my share of biking in less-than-safe equipment situations (for instance, riding around in the dark without any red rear light for the last three weeks), so I’m not one to talk.  She just smiled, though, and said, “Thanks.  That’s actually really good to know.”

I smiled back and said, “Sorry.  With all those people getting hit lately, I’m starting to feel like a Bike Mom.”

My lesson for the day: it’s a good thing to talk to each other.  It’s a good thing to look out for each other.

If This Were Art Redux

This morning, as I pedaled past the Women Making History in Portland mural and the graffiti that I mentioned in yesterday’s post (the blank wall sprayed with the words “if this were art, you’d be in a gallery right now”), I had a sudden stroke of brilliance. Given Portland’s status as America’s bicycle capital, shouldn’t we have a mural commemorating the city’s bike history, and some of the key figures who have made biking such a part of the region’s culture? I know that the Community Cycling Center has a beautiful mural celebrating bike transit, but it would be great to see something in North Portland highlighting the political will that has invested in, and continues to improve, the city’s bike infrastructure.

Of course, as Ben can attest after juicy, unrecognizable mess I made out of the pumpkin I tried to carve last night, my ability to execute an artistic vision is well below average. So this is really a project (like so many of the projects I come up with) for someone else. Still, the Albina/Mississippi MAX stop area could be a gallery, and what better to showcase with public art than bicycles, a mode of transit that crosses class and cultural lines all across the Portland? We could call it “Going Platinum.”

P.S. Willie, stop fucking with my search terms. “Liederhosen,” indeed.

If This Was Art

I somehow managed to break the memory card in the digital camera, so I’m going to go ahead and report on something I’ve been seeing on my commute, even though I’d been hoping to post pictures. Last week, as I was riding home along the Yellow MAX line near the Albina/Mississippi stop, I saw that someone had spray-painted a message along the blank white wall of a warehouse on Interstate. It said:

if this was art,

you’d be in a gallery right now.

And whoever wrote it was right: that white wall would be much more interesting if it was covered with, for instance, a mural, like the one a few blocks down the street.

I’ve been watching the progress on the “Women Making History in Portland” mural ever since school started again. It’s sponsored by In Other Words, an awesome non-profit feminist bookseller that I’ve had very positive dealings with in the past. The mural is on the wall of a building on the west side of Interstate, and I see it every day as I come around the bend in the road just south of the I-405 overpass.

In September, the mural was just some barely-visible sketches over white paint; in the last six weeks, it has become a vibrant, colorful collection of portraits of a very diverse group of women. I don’t recognize most of the names, but I’ll stop one morning when I’m not running late and jot them down, find out what they’ve done in this city.

The older I get, and the more I encounter the kind of masculine disregard, condescension, and sexual harrassment that I used to think was a thing of the past, the more I connect with the idea of feminist solidarity. When I was younger, I experienced other women as the enforcers of a gender norm with which I didn’t identify, so I blamed women for their own problems, and figured that because I had rejected “girly-ness,” sexism didn’t apply to me. Wrong! It turns out we don’t get to opt out of the structures of oppression. There are definitely times (more and more, as I step into positions of authority) when I want to grab some men (and women) by the neck and demand that they take me seriously.

Equality would be great. Failing that, I’ll take a mural.

Come to think of it, there is one small act that routinely gives me a sense of feminist satisfaction: tooling men (preferably men in spandex) on Mock’s Crest.