Thursday, November 10, 2016

Riding No-Hands

As a life-long cyclist, and dedicated rain-or-shine bike commuter in Portland, I’ve noticed a pretty baffling trend emerging along Going Street over the past few months.

For those who don’t know, Portland is a city crisscrossed by dedicated bike lanes, as well as shared greenway streets where cycling is expected, if not prioritized in order to facilitate getting around the city safely and quickly on two wheels. It’s a big part of why we live here.

Each of these greenway streets, including Going Street, sees hundreds, if not thousands of riders every day – riding bikes to and from work and school, which, as a cyclist and a fan of sustainable transit, makes me incredibly happy.

Lately, though, I’ve been seeing more and more riders sitting straight upright, unable to ride a straight line because they’ve decided that using both hands for texting, putting them in their jacket pockets, or just thinking they look cool riding no-hands is a completely reasonable way to get around.

Having logged thousands and thousands of hours and miles over the years - racing at a national level, riding with my family, commuting to work, and just being in the woods for fun - there is one thing I have learned, no matter what kind of bike you’re on: stuff happens, and you need to be prepared for all of it.

Your bike needs to be safe, you need to have brakes that work, and your hands ALWAYS need to be on the handlebars to maneuver and be able to grab the brakes and steer in case you’re surprised by something.

Riding to work this morning, I passed a couple of these no-hands aficionados, and it got me thinking about our new political reality in America – not where it’ll take us; I’m not ready for that yet – but how we got here, and how we didn’t see it coming. ESPECIALLY those of us who exist in Liberal, Progressive-leaning areas of the country – places like Portland.

Has our desire to surround ourselves with like-minded people, in like-minded communities, building like-minded infrastructures enabled us to exist exclusively in a Facebook-like segmented existence, where we only see and hear what we want to every day? Only speaking with specific people about ideas and subjects that we’re comfortable talking about? Arriving at like-minded conclusions, convinced that there is no other reasonable opinion or perspective because we’ve created a protected space around ourselves that supports the life we want to live?

Have we created greenways for our daily existence? Are we riding no-hands through our Left-Leaning, Progressive lives in the safe infrastructure that we’ve surrounded, and inadvertently blinded ourselves with?

It’s been easy to navigate in our greenway for nearly a decade behind a President who supports our way of thinking – almost dream-like in its comfort – so comfortable that we took our hands of the bars.

Tuesday night, though, with hands firmly in our pockets – a president-elect and his supporters who exist in opposition to our like-minded space drove into the road and threw us off balance, leaving us shaking a fist, swearing at the side of the road.

But, when you think about it maybe, just maybe the fact that we took our hands of the bars in the first place is the reason we never saw him coming; The reason had no way to react.

So, I say we need to get back on the bike, and get those hands firmly back on the bars.

Somehow, having witnessed thousands of blocks of city streets ridden by no-hands cyclists over the past 18 months or so, I’ve yet to see any of them fall, or even have a close-call – which is surprising – astonishing, even.

Astonishing because, long ago, we all learned that keeping both hands firmly on the bars is the only way to be ready and react if something unexpected happens. It’s time to get our hands back on the bars, Portland - no matter how safe we feel our space is! The road ahead could be bumpy – and we need to see everything coming our way, and be prepared for it.

And for you dummies actually riding your bikes through the city with no-hands – stop it. You’re freaking me out!

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