“Our enormously productive economy… demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfactions, in consumption.... We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever-increasing rate. ”
— Vance Packard, The Waste Makers, 1960
After two weeks of feeling awful, achy and creaky, and not really into riding my bike, the weather mellowed out and gave my body and mind a break. I woke up yesterday morning and felt an absence of arthritis pain. I walked across the living room and didn’t bump into anything. And I decided that it was a sign that I ought to go for a ride.
Coffee Outside PDX was meeting at Willamette Park, quite a distance from where I live. However, I could ride the two miles to the !AX satiation, take MAX to OHSU at South Waterfront, and ride the rest of the way to the park, on the winding MUP that runs alongside the river. So I made a thermos of coffee, dressed and hopped on my bike.
The morning was cloudy but warm for November. It hadn’t gotten below 50F the night before, and by the time I got to the MAX station it was in the mid 50s. The train ride was mostly uneventful, except for a half dozen homeless folks with all their worldly goods in tow — sleeping bags, shopping bags, a couple of dogs — that sometimes blocked the aisles of the train car. I stuck to one end, hung my bike on the hook and stood with my bike. (If you don’t stand right next to your bike, chances are someone might try to make off with it at the next stop. That’s an ugly side effect of the spike in Portland’s homeless population over the last seven years. Don’t ask for my opinion on where and how city government has gotten it wrong so many times.)
The train arrived at OHSU — the medical center where I go at least once a week for physical and speech therapy — and I threaded my way through the network of one-way streets to the beginning of the Multi-Use Path of the Willamette Greenway. The water was calm, and I enjoyed the sights and sounds of waterfowl on the docks and the riverbank below. This MUP is a combination of public and private property, with the private sections allowing public access by way of an agreed upon easement. The private parts of the path have lots of bumps and holes in the ashphalt, marked with wide stripes of yellow paint. The paint was obscured by all the fallen leaves, making it hard to see some of them until I was right on top of them. I took my time and rang my bell to warn folks on foot of my approach. The air was balmy, and I ended up not needing my vest about halfway to the park.
I pulled into the covered picnic area at the park and found lots of Coffee Outside regulars. It was lovely to hang out with them and catch up on the two weeks I’d missed, while sipping coffee and snacking on whatever treats had been brought to share. A young couple at one of the picnic tables had brought a miniature, tabletop camp stove, basically a tiny version of the drum from a washing machine on little feet. They fed newspaper and then small pieces of wood into the top, and soon there was an impressively warm fire that we could gather around.
They’d also made up a bunch of spoke cards to give away. Some featured the frog suits that have recently made the news, being worn by protestors at the ICE facility. Others commemorated the recent anniversary of Oregon’s famous exploding whale. I found these especially funny, since the couple who’d made them hadn’t been born yet when it happened. I giggled at the sweet absurdity and helped myself to a couple of whale spoke cards. I’ll probably gift one to a friend, and stick the other on my Peugeot.
I was starting to feel my energy fall off a bit, and I still had to get home. So after a lovely ninety minutes of bike-fueled socializing I said my goodbyes and headed home. The sun was beginning to peek out a little bit between the clouds as I retraced my route, and I was thrilled to spot a great blue heron atop a pole at one of the little boat piers, near a flock of cormorants showing off their wings. I heard a bird cry I couldn’t identify, but which sounded high and piercing like a raptor.
Once on the MAX train, I saw that every bike hook was in use, but I managed to find a spot where I could park my bike in a wheelchair space and sit next to it in one of the fold-down seats. I didn’t have to move the whole way back to NE Portland, which was good because the fatigue was really beginning to set in. Two miles back to the house, and a much-needed afternoon nap marked the end of the journey.
Total ridden, about 8 miles.
Premier Tech, the second title sponsor of the team formerly known as Israel Premier Tech, has dropped its sponsorship of the team, following in the footsteps of the other major sponsor, Factor Bikes (which pulled out last week).
Although the team had dropped the word “Israel” from its name and the majority owner of the team, Canadian-Israeli Sylvain Adams, agreed to step back from day-to-day operations, the damage had already been done and showed no signs of slowing down. Organizers of next year’s Tour de France Grand Depart (opening stage) in Barecelona, Spain made it clear that an Israeli team would not be welcome in Spain unless the team moved its base of operations and registry outside of Israel. Other race organizers have said that they do not want any Israeli team racing in their events because the mere presence of such a team would spark more violent protests similar to those that halted the Vuelta de Espana in September.
I add to that the news that Premier Tech’s star rider has been trying to end his contract early and leave the team for weeks, and clearly the writing is on the wall. There is no word of anyone stepping forward with an offer to buy and move the team, and it’s strong Israel-identified history may be too much for another prospective owner to take on.
If you read the comments at the various cycling news websites, you’ll find that the commentators are running five to one in favor of disbanding the team entirely. A few even suggest that no new elite pro cycling team be allowed to take out a UCI racing license if they are based in Israel or majority-owned by an Israeli.
All of this effectively spells the end of the team that began as Israel Cycling Academy over a decade ago.
(If you click on the Google link for Israel Premier Tech, you’ll discover that the link now goes nowhere. The team’s Facebook page is still up, but has not been updated since November 5.)
Interestingly, another country, United Arab Emirates, serves as a home base for another pro cycling team and also hosts a stage race each year. Color me cynical, but I suspect that nothing will be done or even said about this parallel reality. After all, the UAE team is profitable and so is the UAE Tour. Plus, they’re oil-rich. Plus, they’re not Jewish.
..::ducks to avoid flying debris::..
For the foreseeable future, people will find any number of ways and reasons to make non-political things selectively political, and it will continue to be hard to be openly Jewish in many, many places around the world. And there is not a thing I can do about that.
This just in from Cycling News:
https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/it-has-become-untenable-for-us-to-continue-as-a-sponsor-premier-tech-terminate-israel-premier-tech-sponsorship-despite-name-change/
After the name change, sponsors decided that wasn't enough. They want to see the team dissolve entirely. For the sin of running a professional cycling team in Israel.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/sports/article-869743
This disturbed some people so much that they shut down a Grand Tour, preventing it from finishing.
Israel Premier-Tech, or IPT, has also been excluded from start lists of several Classics races because of their name and flag.
Factor cycles, the team's bike sponsor, has also withdrawn unless the team changes both its name and its country of operations:
https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/its-not-a-matter-of-right-or-wrong-anymore-its-become-too-controversial-around-our-brand-factor-meets-israel-premier-tech-to-discuss-team-name-and-flag-change/
Rob Gitelis, president of Factor, said this: "It's no longer a personal thing of I support this or I support that.
There's just a certain level of controversy we just can't have
surrounding the brand."
That smells like crap to me. It took a lot longer for sponsors to drop teams over doping (see: USPS and Discovery) than it has taken for this team to lose its sponsorship.
The team's web site hasn't been updated in over a week, though it is still accessible:
https://israelpremiertech.com/
And so far, there hasn't been a peep from the UCI, the international governing body of cycle sport.
(Of course, they bent over backwards to protect Lance Armstrong for years before finally kicking him to the curb, because the guy was simply making too many cycling sponsors rich by association. All that IPT has done is aroused the ire of violent protestors who've turned out in droves to disrupt races and endanger riders and fans.)
I'm not shocked, just disgusted.
Bicycle racing should have no room for any of this behavior.
Fuck all of them.
And #yallaAcademy.
I have had a very tough time getting in my Coffeeneuring reps this year.
Because of lingering effects of Long Covid that include recurring waves of fatigue, poor sleep and balance issues, riding a bike isn’t always advisable. If I push myself too much, I can pay for it the next day by being too wiped out to even take a shower. The bummer is that there is no way to predict how much energy I’ll have or when I’ll have it.
So today, I slept through the morning, skipped Coffee Outside and was going to call it a day.
I couldn’t walk in a straight line. So I knew it would be stupid to try and ride my bike.
By lunchtime, I felt a little steadier and the sun had come out. I decided I’d walk somewhere and back, even if it wore me out the next day.
I plotted a course and took the bus to Petite Provence, where I knew I’d find something I could enjoy on a budget, even it was just a croissant and some coffee.
I’ve been going here for years, and it has always been lovely.
The weather forecast said we were in for an atmospheric River, a massive water dump that would net us up to 2 inches of rain in the first twelve hours.
No matter. Coffee Outside was being held at Irving Park, a park with several covered areas and within riding distance of home. I hadn’t been in a couple of weeks due to health issues, and decided I’d go. It was pouring when I left, and pouring the whole way there. I was glad to find a small group already collected at a couple of picnic tables, camp stoves running and water being heated, coffee beans being hand-cranked.
(Photo: Portland Parks & Rec. — taken on a much warmer, sunnier day.)
I pulled in and enjoyed seeing familiar friends and a couple of new faces I hadn’t seen before. We talked, laughed, shared stories, sipped coffee and helped ourselves to a bowl of leftover Halloween candy. (Sour Patch Kids doesn’t pair well with hot coffee.) Meanwhile, the wind picked up, the rain got heavier, and leaves were ripped from trees to swirl and fall to the ground to make a thick carpet of red and gold. I was enjoying myself, but could feel my energy dropping. After an hour or so, I knew it was time to head home.
My rain gear, some of it over thirty years old, held off the worst of the rain and damp, but I could feel leakage through some of the front-facing seams after being pelted with huge, heavy raindrops for half an hour. My hat and gloves kept me warm enough to avoid the worst wet chills. By the time I got home, I was soaked and tired, glad to be home and happy I’d gone.
Proud to be a member of the Tarik Saleh Bike Club.
Ride Bikes.
Try not to be an ass.
