Stalwarts

A nice photo from Jonathan Maus of BikePortland, taken Wednesday afternoon at Bike Happy Hour.

A pleasant surprise was running into both Shaun Granton and Robert Burchett. 

Shaun is the founder and cheerleader of Urban Adventure League, a local effort promoting the joys of discovery by bicycle.

Robert was a longtime member of Magpie Messenger until that business closed down last year. He was also, for a time, my roommate at a strange, cool house in Northwest Portland about thirty years ago.

Jonathan’s caption is revealing, and a little amazing.

To think that I’ve hung in there long enough to be a holder of history. 

Anyway, it was really nice to run into these stalwarts and I hope we’ll bump into each other again soon.

Riding when I can ride has its rewards

I wrestled momentarily with whether I’d ride to Bike Happy Hour. It was sunny this afternoon, but the high would be 48F. Then I learned that today’s high would be the warmest this whole week, with temperatures reaching only 40F through Sunday. So I decided I’d go for it.

I’m glad I did. The sun made it everything a little easier and I made it a point to ride in the sun as much as possible. Also, now that we’re past the Solstice, the days will grow incrementally longer and each week so I’ll be able to stay a little bit longer. I enjoyed seeing regulars and new folks, and was pleasantly surprised to run into my old friend Robert. When Magpie Messenger closed down last year, he pivoted to gardening full-time. He’s still riding his box bike, and still wearing the Burley jacket and wool cycling cap he’d bought from me at Citybikes. (I love that he’s still wringing every bit of use out of these!)

The ride home was colder as the sun began sinking lower in the sky. But I was rewarded with the sight of a beautiful dusk, as the bottom edge of the sky turned lavender while the sky above my head remained blue. It took my breath away, and made me even more glad that I’d ridden.