Out Portland Way

(With apologies to SC (T-Shirt #13). I don’t like stomping all over a guest essay by putting one my posts first on the page - but this is so timely.)

First off, the Prudhoe Bay pipeline closure has caused the Wheel Revolution blogger to get her crazy talk on. She lives in Portland, OR (so you know she’s wacked already), she’s a single mom trying to limit her car use (so you know she’s wacked already), and she refers to her son as The Boy (so you know she’s really wacked already). She’s my kind of people.

(Mom - wacked kinda means crazy. Hi mom!)

Last March she got hit by a car and lived to tell about it. But that’s not the story here.

The story is: she has the audacity to ask, given the 2% reduction of oil the Prudhoe Bay pipeline closure represents, “What if we were to rise to the occasion and live within our means, as it were, by reducing our oil consumption accordingly?”

In her next post on the same day she describes a Portland event that included an appearance of the Portland Mayor, where citizens were invited to drop off their car keys in a lock box and commit to using alternative forms of transportation. Apparently people did.

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Second, in late July Portland bike messenger Ayla Holland was stopped by police for riding a bike without a brake. Ayla was actually riding a fixie. If you know enough to know what a fixie is you know enough to know that it has a brake and if you know enough to ride a fixie you know enough to know how to apply the brake. The judge failed to see the argument and gave Ayla 30 days to install a hand brake.

Part of the judges ruling included this line, “If your client had a stick she could rub against her tire, you’d have a case.”

Now Portland bike messengers are behaving accordingly. They are carrying sticks labeled as brakes. Even better than that, Saturday a group calling themselves the Horizontal Dropouts will be holding the first ever “Stick Stopping Competition” which will include “stick stands” and “backward sticking” events. GOLDEN.

Thanks to the Misanthrope Cyclist for the tip.