Friday, September 25, 2015

Spiders

Reasonable people (as well as folks who ride with Point83) can (and do) disagree over whether it’s cool to burn plastic wrap in the campfire.  Now, while I can see how you probably don’t want to inhale the smoke generated by such flames, it’s hard for me to get too exercised about it, especially when nobody minds very much when “boy scout water” is squirted on the fire and, as far as I can tell, plastic is pretty much just a more solid version of the same petroleum product.

Point being: if it burns, you may as well burn it, which could also be words to live by for drunken bike riders if you substitute “rides” for “burns.  And although I’m not quite sure that makes any sense at all, it’s no more illogical than pedaling the whole length of Lake Washington, from Bothell to Seward Park, just to (mostly) sit around a fire with familiar faces for a while on the first Thursday of fall, which is what I did after leaving school following the last few meetings before classes begin next week.

There’s a particular joy associated with appearing halfway (or more) through the ride; it’s like showing up at your own personal “Cheers” bar, where everybody knows your name, even if they, like you, are apt to forget people’s monikers in between the time they relate it to you and the opportunity you have for using it in conversation.  Fortunately, in this instance, I had already pre-functioned with my teaching colleagues and so was able to set such foibles aside and find the goings-on pretty much just as amusing as did those who had left Westlake together and started in on imbibing al fresco earlier in the evening.

Eventually, the beer ran out and people streamed from the park in small groups; I headed back north towards home, with my lucky plastic spider ring—a gift from Stephen—on my pinky, inky winky, doo.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Cables

In contemporary writer Nicholson Baker’s charming novel, The Mezzanine, the narrator ruminates at length about why the shoelaces on both of his shoes break within three days of one another.  I was similarly puzzled when not just the front, but also, within minutes, the rear brake cable snapped on my bike, leaving me momentarily in free-fall mode through the trails of Longfellow Creek in West Seattle.

Fortunately, thanks to the largesse of LWC Kevin, who gifted me with a well-wrapped spare, I was able—with the assertive assistance of tehSchkott—to do a field repair on the front, which enabled me to take it easy-ish to Lincoln Park, where Dravis, who had scaled one of those ridiculous uphill grades in the neighborhood to swing by his house and pick up another replacement, presented me with all I needed to complete the job on the rear, thus rendering my bike once again serviceable in the stopping department, and thereby giving me the confidence to resume indulging in the usual sort of indulgences that make Thursday night out on bikes so memorable, albeit often difficult to fully recall.

I’ve heard it referred to as the “Ben Greening School of Bike Maintenance;” that’s where you don’t do any repairs on your rig until something breaks and while I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it as an ongoing strategy, it certainly works when you’re surrounded by such a large group of generous and well-prepared colleagues. 

I shudder to think what I’d have done had my cables failed when I was all by myself, perhaps even towing the trailer down some steep Seattle hill.

Safety may come third in our shared hierarchy of cycling values, but number one in my heart is being able to behave with some reckless abandon knowing that there are those around who can help break your fall, even if your own ability to slow down is entirely compromised.

As long as there’s some way to stop, off we go!

Friday, September 11, 2015

Shirt


photo by Drain
Of course, it’s more important to accumulate experiences than things, but when you can do both in a single night and be plenty lost and all turned around for most of it, that’s success. 

Familiar routes turned unfamiliar and the map of Seattle spun like spin-art.  There was congregation and consumption and carrying; quaffing and quibbling and qualifying; you had to marvel at the level of organization that made such disorganization possible and then, if you’re lucky, you find, in the morning, a souvenir of the event that you can put in your dresser drawer next to a favorite band shirt for sartorial splendor in the days and weeks to come.

“Victory Heights” sounds to me like the title of an aspiring Great American Novel, something Jonathan Franzen or Richard Powers would write, but according to Wikepedia, it’s named after the Victory Highway, now Lake City Way, that borders its eastern edge.  Whatever the provenance of its moniker, you have to count it as a win when, after a rousing pedal-monium through our region’s most important Research 1 University followed by some sort of unprecedented downhill bush-whacking, you arrive at its namesake recreation area for Christmas morning of a sort, albeit one on which the gift-passer is far trimmer than old St. Nicholas himself.

And along the way, if uphill twists and turns make it possible for you to raise the ire of at least one homeowner who isn’t amused that her own private driveway provides two-wheeled passage from one place to another; then sorry, but on the eve of September 11, isn’t freedom what it’s all about?

The worst route ever is, from another perspective, the best way forward and maybe counts as a kind of self-imposed hazing for which shared outfits are a piece of the prize.

Later, there were wizards of a sort, and while no spells were cast, it’s certain magic was in the air, not to mention on saddles and handlebars, too.

Friday, September 4, 2015

Core

photo by Drain
If it weren’t for the Duwamish River, Seattle probably wouldn’t be here in Seattle. 

The indigenous people of the area depended heavily upon it for fishing, hunting, and transportation and its subsequent exploitation by industrial interests in the 20th century is a big part of why a city grew up in this area.  The river’s sad fate as a Superfund site attests to its vital role as a component in the economic engine of the region and the fact that so little of it is accessible to your average citizen is further evidence of the way in which our home town still depends on the ability of private shipping and manufacturing companies to dominate nature for their own profit by externalizing the costs of pollution and environmental decay.

Nevertheless, it’s a delightful spot to bicycle up upon with more than 33 of your friends and acquaintances on the first evening cool and wet enough in months to prompt a fire in order to enjoy each other’s company against the backdrop of heavy industry carved from an estuary that once meandered along some of the same routes that brought you here.

Relatively short distances can provide plenty of adventure when they wiggle under freeways and are paved with shifting gravel and softball-sized rocks.  Perhaps impressively—and certainly surprisingly—no collarbones were broken, which just goes to show that it’s often less about the riders and more about the route—specifically, one which puts the off-road component before, rather than after, the main beer-drinking part of the evening.

And while there’s much to be said for the festive mood that bicycle-mounted sound systems can induce, it’s nice, on occasion, to be forced to find fun in non-technological ways, like the time-honored old-fashioned handmade thrill of a fire-totter, only this time, doubled-up to make a flaming four-way cross-totter much to the amusement of riders and audience alike—probably not unlike those indigenous elders did it millennia ago at our region’s core.