Still riding, just not curating much

I enjoyed a nice multi-modal ride to Laurelhurst park this morning for PDXCoffeeOutside. The weather was cool and cloudy, more like the June days I remembered from twenty years ago before Climate Change kicked into high gear.

Laurelhurst is a big, beautiful park in SE Portland that's home to many picnic areas and a pond in the center where ducks and geese like to gather. There was an organized event being set up, but nothing was happening yet. So the park was quiet and leafy-green.

We met at our favorite spot, a line of long picnic tables strung together northwest of the pond. Owing in part to the "No Kings" protest scheduled for later in the morning **, the gathering was on the smaller side, but still fun. We enjoyed one of the regulars showing off his newly-acquired vintage tandem from the late 1930s, and a couple of ducks strolled right up to the picnic tables looking for crumbs.

Since I've stopped carrying an old smartphone with me -- gave up the ghost a few months ago -- I find that I don't miss taking photos, or the expectation of posting them online later. I suppose retirement has reduced some of the expectation, but also it's a lot easier to enjoy an experience when I'm not also trying to document and curate it for others' consumption.

To be fair, though, I'm also not riding nearly as much or as far as I did before the pandemic. Long Covid altered me, and has probably changed me for the longer term. I am very glad I can still ride my bike at all, but I'm more tired than I used to be, and more reliant on public transit to shorten my rides than before. With a reduction riding, I find that I don't make as many technical demands on my bicycle. Ride, brake, shift now and then, carry a small bag of groceries and ride home.

If my bicycle life is less ambitious, it's also simpler, and that's not a bad thing.

(** I skipped the protest. I knew it would be very crowded, and I didn't want to take the risk of running into crowds of keffiyeh-clad youngsters screaming "from the river to the sea..." I just don't have the tolerance for such things anymore. Not sorry, no FOMO, no nothing. Just gratitude for being able to ride my bike along tree-lined streets on a cool June morning, peek into a few "Free" boxes along the way, laugh at the squirrels scampering out of the way as I approached, and then go home for a nap.)

The weather all this week is supposed to be partly sunny, with highs in the 70sF. That's perfect, and if I can I may try to take another ride on Monday.

(Old photo of the All-Rounder)