It’s Bike Town U.S.A. Yeah, we get it. But honestly, who wakes up 10 inches of snow and more piling up by the minute and thinks, “What a great day to ride my bike downtown!” But that’s just what more than a few folks that we ran across on Tuesday, aka Snowpocalypse 2011, were doing – or trying to do. With sidewalks un-shoveled and streets clogged with cement-like snow, anyone could see that there was nowhere to ride – anyone that is except for those foolhardy folks who evidently can’t discern between cyclocross racing and commuting. Yes, this is Bend and we don’t let Mother Nature keep us off our bikes, paddle boards, etc. But sometimes, it’s OK to leave the two-wheeler in the garage. We all know it’s impossible to ride our full-suspension Kona in a swimming pool and we Bendites grudgingly accept that. Maybe it’s time to add blizzards to that short list of do-not bike occasions. WTF?
This article appears in Feb 17-23, 2011.
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Excuse me, but are you also going to berate the considerably more dangerous and numerous drivers banging into each other and getting stuck? I had the luxury of sitting this storm out but many people didn’t, and if a bike is your transportation, as in a rational world it should be for the vast majority of us, you suck it up and get on with life when the weather goes to worms.
“our full-suspension Kona?” oh, you fckng snob. and there’s more to Bend than “downtown”; many of us ride our bikes(is it ok to ride a $150 Scwhinn?) all over town all year for groceries, bank runs, visits to friends, etc. and, actually, you fail to “get it” in the least. i’ve had more threats and actual violence visited upon me in pedaling around here than i ever did in the same amount of time living in Manhattan. regardless of what the official crime stats say, there is more violence per capita here than in NYC. Bend is a shithole, a suburb without a city, and you fckng yuppies can ignore the hoi polloi all you want but your day will come, even though you hypocritically clothe yourselves in self-righteous liberalism, environmentalism, and political correctness. go live in a real city for a few years(that’s within the city limits, rather than the burbs, of a city that at least has major league baseball and football) and get your face adjusted properly
…just kidding, a dramatic enactment of a character i’m developing for a story; personally i just use my bike for twice weekly exercise though i do ride all year round. have enough pages for this session, good night…