Some Time In Portland
Shelagh and I are just back from a quick trip to Portland where we were blown away by, take your pick, the bicycles, the transit system, the proud people, the beer, the coffee-houses, the nighttime rain, the bridges, the avocados, beer at Velo Cult, the Sprocket Podcast guys, Pok Pok, the kind bus drivers. Here's a lookback. We went to Portland to watch films at the Filmed By Bike festival at the Clinton Street Theater. And I had a chance to get up on stage and tell my own bicycle story. Here, along with actual period photos, it is. My first bicycle was a green, CCM Mustang. It was the 1970s, so that bike had everything you needed to turn the heads of the ladies. In second grade. It had a banana seat. Those high-rise handlebars. It had what we called in those days a sissy bar on the back. We would attach baseball cards with clothespins to the back of the frame so the spokes would deliver that motorized sound as we pedalled forward. Chasing sp...