"It's SUMMER! Can't we go outside?"
Don't you love lists? It seems to be an American obsession.
For example -- I read today that Seattle is the sixth most bike-friendly city in North America. Forbes Magazine says so. Good news, with gas costing $4.45 per gallon. Surrounded by six billion people, all trying to burn up oil as fast as possible, oil that took millions of years to accumulate.
And which city comes in first, according to Forbes? Our friendly rival down I-5, Portland, Oregon. (Sandwiched between the two of us are Boulder, CO; San Diego; Montréal; and Davis, CA.)
So, what's so great about Portland? Free bikes for hotel guests, for one, Forbes notes. Converting auto parking spaces into bike "corrals." The good fortune of having a dense, non-sprawling city that's easy to bike, and the good foresight to have created a system of bike trails.
The first American city to receive a Platinum Bike Rating from the League of American Bicyclists, this metropolis of 500,000 remains by consensus #1 among North America's bike friendly cities. Portland is not resting on its two-wheeled laurels however, having recently initiated a Pilot "Green Box" program that directs cars away from bikers at busy intersections. Visitors will find 164 miles of bike lanes, 66 miles of bike paths, 30 miles of bike boulevards and great access to mountain bike trails.
A Seattle bike shop owner claims that Portland is ten years ahead of the rest of the country in its encouragement of bicycling. But Seattle also has an excellent trail system of its own. The Burke-Gilman trail can be accessed just a few blocks from my house, and runs 18 miles out into the suburbs. Eventually, it will join other trails to form a 55-mile loop circling Lake Washington.
Biking is "green" transportation, but it's also recreation.
Jim B. (whom I introduced in my last post) has challenged me to ride in the "Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa" (RAGBRAI), perhaps next summer. Across Iowa?!! Four hundred seventy-one miles of corn stalks waving in the breeze for scenery? He's got to be kidding! At least it would be flat, I think to myself. Isn't Iowa flat? Uh oh! According to the sponsors, riders will ascend a total of 22,500 feet during the course of the race. That's like biking up Aconcagua in the Andes! Of course, that means coasting down 22,500 feet as well. And then there's the temperature. Iowa in July? Doesn't it tend to be a bit ... warm?
But the idea's tempting, in its madness. I'd have to train, of course. Ride my bike a lot. Where is my bike, by the way? You mean, like, right now? Um, it's sitting quietly in the basement, where it spent the winter. And why, you may ask? "It's too cold out," I whine. "It might rain. It's awfully breezy." What a revolting specimen of an outdoorsman I prove to be! It's humbling to read that the sturdy citizens of No. 9 Minneapolis routinely bike to work in the winter. The Minnesota winter!
Ok, I'll dust my little friend off this weekend, fill his tires up (I see they've gone flat) and oil his chain, haul him upstairs, and take him out for a spin. So what if it never warms up all summer? I don't need no stinking summer. I'm part Norwegian, right? I've got family roots in Minnesota. We Norsemen laugh at the weather. We bikers laugh at the fat scowling motorists.
Just me and my bike! The open trail!
2 comments:
As I passed by the Ashland Food Co-op in Ashland, Oregon on my way to the Post Office, a young and energetic Greenpeace standing on the sidewalk approached me and asked, “Would you like to save the Polar Bear?”
Unable to resists such direct question about my concern for the environment, I stopped to dialogue with the volunteer about Polar Bear and several other environmental issues. I found her to be a well informed and dedicated volunteer. We didn’t see eye-to-eye on every issue, but the conversation was cordial. She did ask if I want support Greenpeace by becoming a member, but when I declined to join, she was pushy or insistent. During the interaction she mentioned that they had run into a problem standing in front of the Ashland Food Co-op and soliciting memberships. In fact she indicated that someone from the Ashland Food Co-op told them they could not stand on the sidewalk out in front of the Ashland Food Co-op and if they continued to they would contact the police.
I was a bit amazed, I assumed an institution like the Ashland Food Co-op would support the efforts of an organization like Greenpeace. The Greenpeace volunteer was a taken back by their response as well.
In spite of the objections of the Ashland Food Co-op, they remained there and continued to speak with the people coming and going about the Polar Bear and other environmental issue. Apparently Greenpeace had acquired a state wide permit to canvas for membership, and as long where not engaging in this activity on Ashland Food Co-op property and remain on the public sidewalk, there was nothing the Ashland, Oregon police or the Ashland Food Co-op could do to remove them.
I had things to do and places to go, but this chance encounter stuck with me through the rest of the day. Know that there a two side of every store, I call the Ashland Food Co-op when I got home in late afternoon. I spoke with the floor manager, since the manager had gone home for the night. She said that they had received complaints from there cliental about the aggressive way that they where approached by the Greenpeace people out in front of their business. That is why they where asked to leave and the Ashland Food Co-op had consider call the police on them.
Greenpeace can be aggressive in their efforts to save the environment, that they are famous for confronting, for confronting those logging old-growth timber, confronting those that govern us about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and confronting corporations and government whose practices are destroying the planet we live on. These are the people who where willing to put the selves between the whaling ship and the whales, risk life and life in the process.
The Ashland Food Co-op is a place of business and I can only assume from the floor managers comments, that the last thing that their customers want is someone bothering them on their way into the their co-op. From the perspective of the Ashland Food Co-op this is not the way to work for the environment and way Greenpeace approached their customers could not be tolerated.
I am only left to wonder if the Ashland Food Co-op and Greenpeace are unable to find a way to get resolve such differences when they arise, how can one expect the rest of the planet to muster the kind of co-operation that is require to hopefully resolve the environmental, political and economic problems our world now faces.
Um, ok. And, uh, and who are you again?
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