Short

Short ride.  Short beers.  Short report.  

Not quite the eponymous .83 miles, but close.  

A full night's worth of wet, in any case.

New rain booties FTW.

Bridge

American statesman and civil rights activist John Lewis, for whom Seattle’s impressive new piece of cycling and pedestrian infrastructure is named, was famous for advocating “good trouble, necessary trouble” in order to achieve positive social change.

And while the aims and purposes of Thursday night bike rides have little in common with the admirable ends that Congressman Lewis devoted his life to, those words of admonition are quite apt and have served as a lodestar to many, if not all, of the bicycling and bicycling-related activities undertaken out on two wheels en masse for the last decade and a half or so.

The word “trouble,” I’ve learned from the internet, has the same root as the word “turbid,” from Latin turbidus "muddy, full of confusion," from turbare "to confuse, bewilder;” it’s all about stirring things up, which seems about right in light of the sorts of behaviors that typically comprise a night out on two wheels with many of the usual suspects and a heartwarming handful of relatively new blood.

None of us, though, no matter how long we’ve been manifesting such good trouble, have ever before had the opportunity to pack into a light rail car going north like that.

Moreover, the magic flyover of I-5, seen for the first time is mind-boggling and—while not nearly as iconic and culturally significant as the Edmund Pettis Bridge (which also, ought to be re-named for John Lewis, don’t you think?) over which Lewis made real “good trouble” on “Bloody Sunday” in March of 1965—is nevertheless a quite remarkable instance of forward-looking civic infrastructure to be celebrated, as well.

During the nearly three decades I’ve made Seattle home, there have been some notable civic improvements, including the aforementioned light rail, a new bridge across Lake Washington, and, of course, the legalization of recreational cannabis.  Most have occurred in the fifteen plus years in which I’ve regularly pedaled with my preferred gang of good troublemakers.  

Coincidence? No trouble.

Succour

 

It’s not unprecedented for pizza to be delivered to a bike ride.  

The various permutations of Joetown, for instance, have typically included the arrival of boxes of America’s favorite Italian import and I seem to recall tehJobie’s largesse resulting in the consumption of baked slabs of wheat with cheese and tomato toppings out in the woods somewhere, although maybe I’m mixing that up with the time Chinese food appeared as if by magic in Frink Park.

However.

I’m pretty sure that never before have the slices been handed out by a man in full business casual with a sweet sportcoat to boot, and I’m absolutely certain that this is the first time the delivery included a perfectly serendipitous portion of cruelty-free ‘za as if ordered up specially to carry by e-Dadbike to the home of a vegan comrade still recovering from that testosterone-fueled crash of last summer.

It’s nice when the Universe takes care of you this way, so you can so easily extend a bit of succour to a friend; all too often, as they say, “shit flows downhill;” so it’s quite delightful when, by contrast, it’s reasonably tasty victuals that roll from the higher-up spots to the lower-down ones, and to the extent that such sustenance might contribute to the aforementioned friend’s full recovery, so much the better.

Good deeds done, one earns the right (apparently), to misbehave a little bit, out-hoboing the hoboes in their own backyard with guerilla flames and public intoxicating.  

And if once is just too much, then twice is doubly justifiable, in another spot that lends itself to precisely this sort of appreciation for the natural world and our old buddy Prometheus, who, legend has it, made it all possible in the first place.

Bless his eyes.

Surely, human beings’ main purpose on the planet is to care for each other, (and, by extension, the natural world), when, in doing so, one also cares for oneself, that’s outta this world.