A sign that I am becoming a true Portlandite: last weekend Wes and I took a ten-mile bike ride down to Mount Tabor Park in the southeast and back. His ease at riding in the middle of busy roads and making abrupt left turns was, admittedly, terrifying at first (“If you fuck something up with a motorist, just smile really big and wave, it’ll melt their hearts”). Highlights of the trip included 20 minutes of hail (I swear it has hailed more since I’ve been in Portland than what I’ve seen in the rest of my entire life combined), Trader Joe’s shockingly delicious lager – consumed under a blooming bright pink tree above an empty reservoir, a ten-minute kamikaze hurtling full-speed down Mt Tabor, my grundle going all a-quiver every time I hopped back in the saddle, and the burden of my bike – the two wheel equivalent of a Cadillac. It looks real purty and you feel like a pimp riding it around, but Wes was half a mile ahead of me as I panted pathetically trying to get the heavy, clunky thing up any kind of incline. I needs to get me one of these, which is the bike virtually everyone in Portland owns, especially since I want to ride to work once it’s consistently nice enough. We rode down to the waterfront and up to the bluffs to drink more and enjoy the view of the river and city as well as folks in gold sparkly spandex shorts drinking 40s & playing croquet.
It’s definitely a city full of immigrants and transplants and it’s finally starting to feel kind of like home.
That sounds perfect
Nevermind the bike — I want one of them thick eye-browed, bumblebee pants-optional bike chicks.
That sounded like a good day, Merpes. I can’t wait until the road gets clear enough to justify dragging out my bike. I only got 3 weeks of riding in last year after my bike-nerd brother helped me convert an old, heavy steel mountain bike into a commuter. Thing weighs like 40 pounds. He tried to talk me into buying a lighter frame with all kinds of shiny alloy-this and carbon-fiber-that but I was like, Dude, I weigh three-hundred pounds, how about we just put all that extra money into better brakes so when I need to slow down on a hill it doesn’t feel like I’m going to break up on re-entry, and so my pants don’t always smell like tire-fire? A few extra pounds on the frame isn’t going to change a thing for me.
hmmm i need to get me one of those, as in a sweet ass. a bike would be nice, too.