Head Slapper of the Week

Well, the votes are in and the rankings have been announced for America's Best Bike City according to Bicycling magazine.  After a long, difficult year playing second fiddle, Portland, Oregon has regained it's top spot as America's Best Bike City over Minneapolis.  While I would guess that cyclists all over the Twin Cities Metro are simply crushed by yet another Minnesota-type disappointment, at least one individual is quite pleased with the result.

Bill Donahue's column published on the magazine's website, www.bicycling.com, does not hold back in his glee on Portland regaining the top spot.  Here's a highlight from the column:


"Sit down, please, and take a deep belly breath now, for the truth is harsh: When a bicyclist pedals down toward the Willamette River, which divides Portland, Oregon, the waters do not part. The automobile traffic does not cease. Cars honk, and in a city obsessed with green transit, there are train rails—a gleaming cyclist’s nightmare—crisscrossing everywhere. 

And it rains. The sky is a brooding gray between October and May, and in winter the rain, falling as a fine, gentle mist, can be so cold that your gloves almost freeze on your handlebar. And as you near the river, you may find one of Portland’s five drawbridges raised high so a giant steel China-bound cargo ship can come churning through." 


Sounds like mighty committed folks in Portland.  But Mr. Donahue didn't stop there.  He had to talk about Portland's real commitment to cycling in all walks of life:


"Those of us who ride daily in Portland, we know. We know we are the vanguard of American cycling. No other city in the United States has more cyclists per capita, and no other town has a coffee shop like Fresh Pot, which boasts 25 chairs and parking for 26 bicycles. We have trains of elementary-school bike commuters, and we have Move By Bike, a relocation-company that trundles couches across town on overstacked bike trailers. Even our city’s noncycling Lotharios know it is a deal-killer to ask, at the end of a sprightly first date, “Can I throw your bike in my car and give you a lift home?” 


Imagine those cyclists moving those couches down the hills of Portland.  I guess that's real commitment to Mr. Donahue.  Of course, he couldn't write about this distinction without bringing up Minneapolis:


"Minneapolis? Please. Let’s ride—along the Willamette now, on the paved Springwater Corridor, where, off to the east, great blue herons and snowy egrets pick about in the reeds and the mud of Oaks Bottom. Three miles on, amid the grain silos and rail yards of north Portland, you can feel the industrial heft of the city, built a hundred-odd years ago on shipping and logging. In Forest Park—which, at 5,000 acres, is the nation’s largest urban preserve—there is a growing network of singletrack on the slopes of Portland’s west hills. But me, I like to take my road bike higher in those same hills, past gracious manses built by long-ago timber barons, until I am up on Skyline Boulevard with its horse pastures and country-road dips and turns. It is cooler up there—sometimes in winter snow whitens the bows of the evergreens."


I guess this man is being blunt and I guess we should all be happy for him and Portland, Oregon.  But perhaps we could accept these honors will just a tad less pride.    Three Head Slaps.