The first time I rode a bike through downtown Portland – or any other downtown for that matter – was in May of 1995. Though it quickly became a way of life, I never considered myself a bike activist or a competitive cyclist. I never bought any “gear.” Once, I did load my bike onto a rack and went off to some trail somewhere south of Portland with a group of people whose main priority seemed to be standing around sizing up one another as they noisily gulped water from logo-ridden water bottles, and it struck me as so out of synch – putting the bike on a car and then driving somewhere to ride it – that I never did it again.
I simply used my bicycle for what I believe it was intended: I rode it from where I was to where I wanted or needed to be. And along the way I found something that I believe was in the realm of religion. Riding across the river on the Hawthorne Bridge was, for me, a cathedral on wheels. There was a measure of mystery on that bridge, and in the river below, and in the mountains off to the east. I saw things on my rides, I felt things that were not accessible anywhere else, particularly behind the wheel of a car slogging down the interstate toward an office park on a dead-end street so scrubbed of what I consider life that, even though you are nowhere when you’re there, you could, at the same time, be anywhere.
Thus far, that move was the most damaging thing I’ve been through, which I believe puts me into the lucky category, because here I am, eight years beyond (or behind?) the days that I regularly rode the bike I bought in 1995, and I can still get on one, nervous at first about riding in such close proximity to traffic (as I was so many years ago) but quickly find myself woven into the sky and the traffic and sounds as I pedal my way toward the entrance to the Hawthorne Bridge. What a day I had.
