Wheels Of Fortune

The “biggest” columnist in Oregon at the time was Jonathan Nicholas.  I didn’t like his face or his voice or his writing.  But I did understand I was also green with envy.  Maybe more purple.  

Jonathan is almost single-handedly responsible for making Portland streets unsuitable for automobiles.

“…In the halls of political power, bikes long were regarded as little more than toys used by Portland’s income-challenged creative class to get back and forth between Pabst and tattoo parlor. That was then. Now is politicians, planners and, yes, developers, looking to bikes to be key components of tomorrow’s more energy-efficient economy…“

When I finally got a column, albeit for a grocery shopper who grudgingly paid me peanuts, I mocked the man by mimicking his author’s photo.  Which is pretty damn sad. 

From October 4, 1989. – JDW

Please continue reading after this first sentence.  Do not adjust your This Week magazine.  You may be experiencing momentary confusion.

I know, at first glance, you may be saying to yourself: “Your First Name Here, didn’t I just see this someplace?  Local columnist writes self-congratulatory piece promoting a multi-day bicycle tour through beautiful Oregon countryside.”

This is different.  This is me.

I just got back from the seventh annual Oregon Trails Bicycle Trek, sponsored by the American Lung Association of Oregon – “We Care About Every Breath You Take.”   It’s the organization’s biggest fund-raising event of the year.

Despite an unfortunate lack of publicity.

I found out about this undiscovered gem in the Northwest Cyclist.  Once again I fell victim to the sultry persuasion of advertising.

“Scenic countryside, covered bridges and new friendships await you on this three-day Willamette Valley cycling experience.  Hearty meals, lodging and entertainment provided.  Sag wagons and experienced leaders enroute.  Sporting adventure for all bicycling levels.”

All that for a mere $25 and $250 of pledged contributions to a worthy cause.  What I couldn’t expense, I could deduct from my taxes.  Such a deal.

If only I was a cyclist.Some couple of months ago, I did buy “Bob The Mountain Bike.”  And I had started, a few times weekly, pedaling up Northwest Thurman and up Leif Erickson and up into Forest Park.

This proved to be much more fun than running the same route.  Besides, I’ve reached the age where I’m beginning to see the merit in exercise that can be done while seated.  Especially with four thousand and twelve gears.

And, of course, when you finally do reach the top, you get to point the bike downhill.  With the wind whistling and bones jarring and trees whizzing and a bare-teethed grin spread across your face, you can pretend you’re an eleven-year-old again.

Except that now you’re afraid to die.

Using the same mathematical aptitude that saw me repeat plane geometry twice – that totals three – I decided if I could bike uphill six-and-a-half miles twelve times a month for two months, then I could probably survive a three-day, one-hundred-and-seventy-five-mile tour.

If you’re using this column for college credit, that’s a 6.5M x 12 divided by 30 x 2 is 3D divided by 150M.  Or, maybe it’s not.

It made so much sense my buddy Super Dave decided he’d come along.  I didn’t have the heart to tell him I thought he might be getting in over his head.  Besides, I enjoy his company.

He offered to buy the beer and he raised a lot of money for the Lung Association.  So, we were at the Abbey in Mt. Angel at 9 a.m. Saturday.  Ready to roll.

We are prepared.  We are wearing the mandatory helmet and padded gloves for safety, and padded Lycra tights and padded undershorts with the seams on the outside for reasons which will become all too apparent later in the day.

“This isn’t so tough!,” a smiling Super Dave hollers.  We’ve gone about a half-mile and it was all downhill.  With a tailwind.

Some seventeen miles later, we pull into our first checkpoint, the Silver Falls Winery.  Story of my life – too early for drinking, too late to turn around.

For some reason, this first leg of our journey proved to be the most difficult.

When you’re doing something you don’t know you can do, it’s tough to start getting it done.

It was hot.  It was hilly.  My tires were forty pounds too low and my knees twenty years too old.

That blond kid kept pulling away.

And my butt aches.  If Eskimos have thirty-seven words for snow, cyclists have fifty-four for rear end pain.  It’s the kind of hurt that would make G. Gordon Liddy confess.

To anything.

We stopped again maybe seven miles later at Pioneer Park in Stayton.  Here it suddenly dawned on us… “Hey, there’s no need to push it.  This ain’t a job.”  And it all became easier after that.  We just kept pedaling and coasting, pedaling and resting.

That first night, after sixty-three-plus miles of bun pounding, we threw our sleeping bags on the gym floor of the Scio Middle School.

The “Home of the Savages” is a block away from Rocky’s Tavern, home of buck-and-a-quarter gizzards and social gambling.  I beat some septuagenarian widow out of thirty dollars at the blackjack table and felt no remorse.

I was actually able to move the next morning.  Both Super Dave and I looked forward – truly – to another sixty-three miles of biking.  No problem.  We felt good.  Me, I could do this for a living.

The second day was easier than the first.  I made more new friends, enjoyed hours of pleasant exercise, saw parts of the state I’d never seen before, saw other parts in a new way.  I learned a lot about riding this two-wheeled thing called Bob, and a little about myself.

The third – and, unfortunately, final – day was more of the same.  A good time.  A real good time.

Epilogue.  Seems the address has changed since 1989.

American Lung Association in Oregon, 16037 SW Upper Boones Ferry Road, Ste 165, Tigard, OR 97224.

It’s okay if you want to send them money.  I can imagine I couldn’t come up with my promised two-fifty.

Thank you.  Mean it.