Coffee. Outside. Sublime.

Since coming out from the Long Covid tunnel, it has taken me awhile to resume bicycle riding as a regular part of my life. I still need to shorten my longest rides by tossing my bike on public transit, but I can ride now. After two years when I could ride barely or not at all, each day in the saddle has become a tremendous gift. I no longer take any of my bike rides for granted.

Yesterday, I rode much of the way to Sewellcrest Park for Coffee Outside. The summer is slowly and gently shifting into fall; trees are turning from green to gold and a little bit of orange, and the first leaves are crunching softly under my tires. I took a slightly more circuitous route to my destination, which took me past Lone Fir Cemetery, one of the oldest cemeteries in Portland. I dismounted and slowly walked my bike along the fence line, looking at the grave stones of people who’d been born in the mid to late nineteenth century and had died sometime in the early to mid twentieth. I noted a couple of grave stones marking lives about the same span as mine. In a time of far more limited health care, living into one’s sixties was considered no small feat. 

(Photo from Lone Fir Cemetery web site.)

The early morning quiet was punctuated by the occasional warning of a crow or squirrel, and made the place seem lovely and almost inviting. I made a note to myself to return to Lone Fir again when I had more time to lock up my bike and walk the grounds.

I recognized the park as one where I’d led a Slug Velo ride years before; we’d finished up with a picnic lunch beneath the shade of a large, leafy oak next to the school that shares the park’s name. In the farthest corner, past the pickleball courts and the playground, was a single short picnic table with a few bikes parked nearby. Folks were already firing up tiny camp stoves and hand-grinding beans for the freshest possible cup of brew. (I’d tried making coffee outside at home a few times, decided that hand grinding beans was a bit hard on my arthritic hands, and since then I’d made my coffee at home and brought it in a thermos.)

This was a well-attended gathering, with dozens of bikes and riders showing up to meet, sip and hang out. I enjoyed conversations with regulars and some newer folks as well, including a guy who works at Simworks and appreciated the older retrofitted bikes some of us had ridden. The more I heard about the current state of the bicycle industry, the happier I was to have left when I did. In 2011, I was already arguing with dealer reps about the decreasing sustainability resulting from thinner chains, cogs and chainrings found in 10- and 11- speed drivetrains; I learned that a thirteen-speed cogset was imminent, and I nearly groaned at the news. I looked over at my Peugeot with its cup-and-cone bottom bracket, schrader-valved tires and five-speed freewheel, and smiled. (I have a small box of overhauled freewheels and NOS 6-speed chains at home that should see me out. I freely admit to being a retro-grouch now, and wear it as a badge of honor. I will probably grumble about the unsustainability of the 21st century bicycle industry until I die.)

Coffee Outside has become a favorite bike-oriented activity of mine, and I hope to keep at it for a good long while.

If your city doesn’t yet have a Coffee Outside group, consider creating one. All you need is a park picnic table, some bicycles and coffee, and friends with whom to enjoy convivial conversation.

Happy riding.