Oregon Cycling Magazine

Unmassing and unpacking in Bike World

by Mark Lansing

Pretend they can’t see you.  Best bicycle safety advice I ever got.  Play the cards you’re dealt.  Best advice ever about coping with injuries after a serious accident.  Top tip about meddling in other people’s business (courtesy of Voltaire):  tend your own garden.

My list goes on.  But the best advice three cyclists from Mississippi found was this:  Move to Portland.  More on them later.

Critical Unmassing

One primary impetus for my recent trip to Portland was the Critical Mass ride.  A couple years back these monthly events were the talk of the town.  A combination of bicycle celebration and opposition to motorized dominance of public roads, they drew the attention of law enforcement officers, who began following the riders and issuing them citations at every opportunity.

What ever happened to those guys?  They still have a website, but if the last Friday of August 2008 was any indication, the answer is:  Critical Mass dispersed to group rides that police don’t stalk.

When I showed up that evening at Couch Street and Park Avenue in Northwest Portland, the only group of cyclists I could see were all cops.  Six of them.  I rolled up, asking what time it was (and wondering if I had missed the Massers).

“They’re over there,” one officer said. On a park bench a couple people sat.  Two more lay in the grass with bikes propped against a gazebo nearby.

“Maybe we shouldn’t follow them when there are less than 20,” one officer speculated.  But riding bikes is fun, I pointed out, and you can get paid to do it.  Yeah, he said, we don’t want them to get the idea that we’ll stop watching if not many people show.  I took off:  who wants to ride with six cops trailing, looking for reasons to pull you over?

Carworld and Bikeworld

No where are the worlds of bicycles and cars more dramatically contrasted than in Portland.  Driving to its South Waterfront District on I-5, motorized traffic suddenly ground to a standstill.  Then it started moving, slowly at first, 20 m.p.h., 30, 40… uh-oh, slam on the brakes.  Vehicles switched lanes trying to find the fastest moving one.  Where did all these cars come from?  It’s like they’re breeding out here on the freeway.  Plenty of car sex, that’s for sure.

After parking my car in the recently constructed area just south of downtown, I jumped on the bicycle and began to decompress from my unpleasant four miles of clusterbleeping.  Up the west side of the Willamette River to the Steel Bridge, then over to the east bank trail, all the way south to Sellwood, then east to the new bridges where the Springwater Corridor begins, then out to 82nd and back, but enjoying myself so much I had to continue down the trail on the west side of the Willamette until it peters out on the other end of the Sellwood Bridge.  With a couple of minor exceptions, the bicycle traffic was moving noiselessly and in perfect unison.  On the east bank in particular, everyone rode to the right, with little wobbling, leaving a passing lane in the middle of the path.

I am being teleportlanded.  To and in a beautiful mental and physical place.

But all is not perfect.  Over on the west bank, there is a lot more pedestrian traffic moving in every direction, so riders need to be more careful—and yet here comes one knucklehead, blowing through at 20 m.p.h.  Farther south the trail gets windier, and I overtake a mother and her two small children.  The lead kid is riding on the left side of the trail, and as I pass the mother, she calls to her youngster, “Move over to the right.”

“Why?”  says the kid.  “Because someone wants to get by,” mom replies.

Not only that, I think to myself, all of the people coming from the other direction are in that same left lane, and some of them are going 20 miles per.  Note to parents:  teach your children to ride on the right all of the time, and don’t conduct that lesson when you are actually out riding on the bike path.

Note to Carworld:  the people in Bikeworld are in better moods, having a better time, and getting a nice workout in the process.  And a bike will get you where you are going faster than traffic-jammed speed on the freeway.

Three Guys From Mississippi

Later that night I happen upon three guys from Mississippi, who explain that they had just arrived in Portland three days earlier.  I ask if they had jobs to relocate for and they said no.  I got to thinking about it for a couple of minutes, and then it hit me:  why would anyone just up and move to Portland, if not for the bike culture.  “You guys ride bicycles?” I ask.

Oh yes, they certainly do, and that was indeed the primary motivation behind their move.  I give them a couple bicycle maps and a recent edition of Oregon Cycling Magazine.

They explain that Mississippi is not exactly “bike friendly.”  Apparently it has one decent bicycle path called the Natchez Trace, but motorists routinely harass bicyclists even there.

We don’t put up with that crap here, I explain.  We have active lobbies and advocates that oppose motorist abuse, and as the streets became friendlier and more bicycle facilities came into existence, the motorists actually started to change their attitudes.  Driving around bicycles all the time, they started to get used to them and—get this—the overwhelming majority give them space and courtesy.  The boys of Mississippi are wide-eyed at this prospect.  I predict they will like it here.

Possibly Related