Bike Snob does Portland

Ever wondered how a cynical bike-obssessed blogger from NY feels about Portland? Below is a list of excerpts from Bikesnob NYC on ole stumpy.

How come my bike lane isn't carpeted in velvet, and how come I'm not escorted by two beautiful women on Colnagos who throw rose pedals in my path as I ride? Well, last time I checked, this was New York City, not Portland.

It’s no wonder then that the PistaDex is so high in cities like New York, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, and LA. As the fixed-gear riding populations move from city to city they discard and replace their Pistas like hermit crabs discard and replace their shells.

Ah yes, alleycat "racing" and cyclocross are now coming together in a succession of bad mud-related puns. What does this mean? Well, certainly it was inevitable that New York’s urban fixed-gear riders’ minds should start wandering off-road. We’ve actually got legal trails in the Five Boroughs now, and running lights and dodging cars just gets boring after awhile. Furthermore, there's certainly nothing new about unsanctioned off-road racing, and I'm sure this sort of thing happens in the godless rain-soaked trend sponge of Portland all the time.

It (the National Hand Built Bike Show) Makes Me Resent Portland

As a New Yorker my image of Portland is that it’s some kind of moist cycling paradise, and this was furthered by the handmade bike show coverage. Apparently, the streets are lined with custom bike builders, and you can get one made while you wait. Just pop in, place an order, go next-door and spend 15 minutes shopping for organic hemp underwear or whatever it is that people wear out there, and then come back and pick up your new frame. Between the emails I get and the articles I read it seems like Portland is a place where cyclists frolic in ample bike lanes, race cyclocross in dresses, and lock their exquisitely-crafted bikes not with chains and u-locks but with trust and love. Of course, I should be happy for them, but instead I catch myself wanting to bring them here so they can choke to death on some reality.

It Makes Me Resent Portland

And what’s with all those townies and commuter bikes? Sure, I’m all for the marriage of craftsmanship and practicality, but is there a city on Earth where you can actually leave a bike like that outside? And if so, is it Portland? I think any city benign enough to ride bikes like that in would eat me alive—with kindness. Here in New York we’ve learned not to grow attached to our bikes in the same way that the gazelles of the African savanna know not to get too attached to their young.

Nonetheless, cycling is still regarded as a fringe activity. Sure, there are places where cycling is part of the mainstream culture, like Belgium, the Netherlands, and Portland, Oregon, but none of those places are in the United States.

On why New York should leave Bike Polo alone:

all it's going to do is get us laughed at by people in Portland who probably play it better, are coddled by ample bike lanes, and race cyclocross in dresses.

The Pacific Northwest

Pros:

--Huge bike culture
--Has actual cities as well as natural beauty
--Thriving cyclocross scene

Cons:

--Wet
--Portland sounds like Williamsburg, Brooklyn if it were exposed to radiation
--I’m haunted by the 1992 Cameron Crowe film “Singles”
--People who obsess over coffee like it’s wine drive me even crazier than people who obsess over wine

Brooklyn is second only to Portland in terms of being a cycling community at war with itself and in need of saving.

Actually, there are more, but I got bored. I'm sure you did too.

Respectful Insolence: Spell-checking is a good thing

Respectful Insolence: Spell-checking is a good thing

Are you a sinner?

BikePortland.org » Blog Archive » Don't bike to the grocery store? Oregonian says you're a sinner

Gotta love this. The Oregonian, which none of us are lacking in reasons to dislike, finally wrote something with a whiff of progressive air to it:

“Not commuting to work, shuttling kids, schlepping groceries or transporting furniture on a bike” is a sin.

Huzzah!

C'mon Barack....

There is a part of my brain that really wants to believe the hype around Obama, and that he represents change and that his briliant oratory is some sort of a representation of deeper substance. I think it is the same part of me that wanted to believe that Santa Claus was real after my sister told me he wasn't.

This time, playing the role of my sister, is Amy Goodman:

Democracy Now! | Headlines for April 07, 2008: "Obama Adviser: Keep 80,000 Troops in Iraq ’Til Late 2010

In other campaign news, the New York Sun reports a key adviser to Senator Barack Obama’s campaign is recommending in a confidential paper that America keep up to 80,000 troops in Iraq as of late 2010. Colin Kahl’s plan is at odds with the public pledge of the Illinois senator to withdraw combat forces from Iraq within sixteen months of taking office. Kahl serves as the day-to-day coordinator of Obama’s working group on Iraq but denied the paper represents the campaign’s Iraq position."

Do the test. Really.

This is the best thing I've seen in a while.

How much do you love Barack Obama?

Because a whole lot of people, particularly, it seems, young folk, love him to death.

Do you love him enough to go to bat for Israel?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Tim, I have some of the strongest support from the Jewish community in my hometown of Chicago and in this presidential campaign. And the reason is because I have been a stalwart friend of Israel’s. I think they are one of our most important allies in the region, and I think that their security is sacrosanct and that the United States is in a special relationship with them, as is true with my relationship with the Jewish community.

(From the debate with Tim Russert, 2/27/08)

It's getting ugly.

FT.com / In depth - Clinton camp under fire for photo

Once considered the denizens of the Republican side of the aisle, race baiting and fear mongering have crashed the Democratic party. Hillary's campaign got nailed for two simply ugly ploys this week. The first, and more well-known of the two, was the discovery that her campaign had dug up a picture of him in traditional Somali garb, as if we should be horrified at his display of cultural appreciation.

The best part of this whole flap is this quote from Clinton's campaign:

Maggie Williams, Mrs Clinton’s campaign manager, said: “If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed. This is nothing more than an obvious and transparent attempt to distract from the serious issues confronting our country.”

As if they were merely circulating that photo in an effort help out his campaign by showing voters how worldly he is.

The other tempest was really the kicker, though. Turns out that horribly stupid email that was widely forwarded across conservative America claiming that Obama was in fact a radical muslim terrorist (I am not making this up) was the brainchild of two Clinton staffers. Hillary Clinton, who voted for two wars of aggression against Muslim countries, had staff people that concluded that the best way to beat Obama was apparently by convincing the American people that we should bomb him too.

Pretty sick.

(Go Nader.)

Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location - New York Times

“The burgeoning of punctuational literacy in unlikely places."

Sure there's a lot going on. Pakistan is deciding its future, McCain had a questionable relationship with a woman who had questionable plastic surgery, Fidel Castro resigned (sorta), and Lindsay Lohan did a nude spread in a magazine.

But this is an entire article, at NYT standard length, about punctuation. You can't beat that.

Happy Valentine's Day

This one's for you, Edgar.

aaaaahh portland....

The only thing I like more than our fair town is the scorn and prejudice it evokes in the rest of the country. While the constant influx of kids from Wisconsin who heard about a liberal mecca with temperatures above freezing gets a little tiresome, the great image we convey to the outside world doesn't.
My previous favorite desription came from a man from Georgia who was in my cab recently. He told me that when he began to consider moving to Portland, his friends would get very concerned, and tell hium in the most serious voice they could muster "Portland! They don't even wear clothes in Portland! The streets are full of naked people!"
But today, I heard some other descriptions that took the organic vegan cake. They were from one of my favorite blogs, Bikesnob. Here's what the snob has to say about good old portland:

As a New Yorker my image of Portland is that it’s some kind of moist cycling paradise, and this was furthered by the handmade bike show coverage. Apparently, the streets are lined with custom bike builders, and you can get one made while you wait. Just pop in, place an order, go next-door and spend 15 minutes shopping for organic hemp underwear or whatever it is that people wear out there, and then come back and pick up your new frame. Between the emails I get and the articles I read it seems like Portland is a place where cyclists frolic in ample bike lanes, race cyclocross in dresses, and lock their exquisitely-crafted bikes not with chains and u-locks but with trust and love. Of course, I should be happy for them, but instead I catch myself wanting to bring them here so they can choke to death on some reality.

And what’s with all those townies and commuter bikes? Sure, I’m all for the marriage of craftsmanship and practicality, but is there a city on Earth where you can actually leave a bike like that outside? And if so, is it Portland? I think any city benign enough to ride bikes like that in would eat me alive—with kindness. Here in New York we’ve learned not to grow attached to our bikes in the same way that the gazelles of the African savanna know not to get too attached to their young.

Also funny was one of the reader's perception of portland:

Portland is like the Rivendale of Middle Earth. Everything moves in slow motion while your Liv Tyler like barista hands you fresh coffee with soft, warm eyes.

Oh, if only...

Remembering Sheldon

Two days ago, Sheldon Brown died as the result of a heart attack that was related (I think) to his MS. If you are not familiar with Sheldon Brown, he was the proprietor of a website by the same name that is undoubtedly the biggest and best resource for cyclists on the web, despite its low-tech appearance. His page represents thousands of hours of work, all of it done not for money, but for the love of bicycles. A quick survey of some bike blogs and forums reveals his importance to the greater cycling community. Between bikesnob NYC, trackosaurus, bikeportland, the fixed gear forum, and bikeforums.net, there are over three hundred comments of fans and admirers. Probably people that never met him, but people like me who have visited his many pages dozens of times every time we ever had any sort of question about bikes.

He will definitely be missed.

Crapping Clorox

They say that smoking is the leading cause of loss of smell among people alive today. And while I'm not going to suggest that cab drivers smoke for this reason, it is at least a fortunate side effect.
Perhaps the first this I noticed, on the first night I drove, was the smell. You, people who ride in my cab, stink. A lot. You reek like cigarettes and nasty perfume and cologne (I won't use the cliche of "cheap perfume" because I have no idea what the difference is), but that's not what gets me. What gets me is the booze smell. At first, it was revolting. That sort of acrid sweet-and-sour smell that I once only associated with the homeless fills my cab every night. I have learned that anyone who is drunk has that smell. I have learned that I have probably had that smell more than I would ever care to know. I have learned that most people, if not all of them, have no idea that's what they smell like.
But on a grosser level, I have learned the intricacies of that smell. My nose is now like a poor man's breathalizer, activated every time someone hops in. I can tell before a fare ever opens their mouth how drunk they are, just by the concentration of that smell that comes weeping out of their pores, filling the small box of air that is my workspace. In my line of work, knowing how drunk someone is is an important thing. You know how much to trust what they tell you their address is, how worth your time it is to argue over how much money they gave you, or if a rolled down window is in order.
There are, of course, other smells, too. Like the frat guy that thought it was the height of humor that he flatulated in the cab, and then let me and his buddy find out the hard way. I rolled down all four windows in the cab, silently cursing him and knowing that I would have been laughing too if it was me that had done it.
And then there was the guy I picked up from his Interstate Ave. motel room at three in the morning and ferried to a prostitute's motel room up the street. He got in wearing stained sweatpants that I originally assumed were filled with his own feces, but then, pondering the stench for the twenty block ride, came to notice a distinct chemical odor to the air. Thus I started to wonder if, in fact, cooking meth smells like crapping Clorox. If anyone out there knows the answer, please let me know. Somehow, I am a little more comforted by the thought of a man cooking meth in his motel room and not changing before his date with his hooker than I am with the thought of a guy riding in my cab with a soiled diaper, sans diaper.
I think I need to start smoking again.

Art of Politics

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i thought not.

david lynch.



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