Day Seven (Commute Day Five)

I don't know me anymore.

But this may be the most constructive midlife crisis anyone's ever endeavored.

First came the cruiser bike--or rather the giving-away-of-the-minivan for a cruiser. I never would have envisioned myself on a cruiser bike (but I've always had an appreciation for different bike styles, so I can understand in some ways coming around on that one). But bike bells? Who am I? Two days ago, I hated bike bells. I'd always considered them a saccharine coating to a personality disorder. A worm in a caramel dipped apple. It's how certain bikers can non-verbally signal their superiority from the passing lane in utterly gratuitous fashion. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're probably one of those people. I love you anyway for riding your bike.

Or so went my old mode of thinking (and if anyone actually read this blog--hi, mom--I'm sure I'd get dissenters). Over the course of the last week though, I've turned a complete 180 on bike bells. And I'm not even running for office.

It started at the Tour de Fat parade on Saturday. I'd never been among a triumphal cacophony of bike bells such as that. You can't imagine my pride as hundreds of human curios filled the closed-down corridors coursing through Portland's swanky Northwest neighborhoods inviting gapes and gasps from the doorways and street fronts of franchised boutiques. Those little bells rang out like angels lifting our collective from the asphalt and delivering us to an alternative reality where R. Crumb's Mr. Natural sits with a wicker basket of free kazoos. Did I imagine it, or did everyone there sense it too?

I might have easily dismissed the occurrence and never given it a second thought, but then a funny thing happened yesterday on the Hawthorne Bridge. Bike advocates, as they're wont to do, gathered on the west side of the bridge giving away stuff to folks on two wheels. As much as I like free stuff, as anyone at the non-profit where I work whose seen me shovel in hummus from the break room that's been sitting out for three days can attest (maybe that explains my vision), I tend to keep going, taking the off ramp from the bridge to the waterfront, even with the lure of muffins or coffee as is typically the case.

But yesterday I stopped. They were giving away bike bells.