JAN 4 –Only two riders were available this overcast first-ride-of-2021morning. Their route headed first south to Holgate, then west to the east side of the Willamette before returning back to NE.

Not all homeless tenting is unsightly

With Tuesday’s upcoming election in Georgia on everyone’s minds, chat topics included: Pres. Trump’s continuing claims about election fraud; a recommendation for Anne Applebaum’s The Twilight of Democracy on Poland’s move toward authoritarianism; Republican lessons learned from taking down Hillary C via never letting go of Benghazi exaggerations; and thoughts on what to do about white privilege.

JAN 11– This morning’s five riders like last week’s two also headed south from NE, but this time followed 53rd mostly southward to SE Clinton, then came back mostly along 28th.

Chat topics included: Scary poll results after last weds’s DC’s insurrection with Republican voters maintaining their support for Trump and rioters; why security was such a failure; Trump+Giuliani’s primary goal was to stop the counting of electoral votes; the mechanics of Twitter’s decision to shut down Trump’s account; how unnerving it is see guns and rifles at a demonstration; and the origin/meaning of the term “cancel culture.”

JAN 17–Today was a cool dry morning after a rainy night. We five riders started riding north to Holman and then west via Rosa Parks toward to Denver, and then north again to Kenton.

Chat topics included why so many Americans are still distrustful of the Nov election results, and whether there may be a cause-effect relationship due to increased television viewing during this COVID time; Marshall McLuhan’s theory on TV being a cold medium; how cults and alt right organizations can be welcoming havens for loners who are susceptible to mis-truths, like the election being stolen; and our consensus that Biden is wise in tying the need for COVID safety to re-growing the economy.

JAN 24- Today’s cold light drizzle didn’t stop two of our group from heading out to Willamette Blvd before our 9:30 chat.

Chat topics included how relieved and/or teary-eyed several of us became from certain Inauguration Day activities, i.e., Amanda Gorman’s Inaugural poem, the Dancing Across America segment, and many of the evening performances; how the Zoom Shiva services for DS’s last surviving aunt were impactful and put him at the “front of his family line;” how two of our members had parents born 110 years ago; and conjecture on the flimsy rationales for the Desert Storm, Granada, and Falklands wars.

JAN. 31 — The new pedestrian/bike bridge on NW Flanders over I-405, was today’s destination for three riders. The route included the Hawthorne Bridge and Eastside Esplanade.

Today’s chat roamed far and wide, starting with current fake celebrities vs yesteryear’s wrestlers (Killer Kowalski) and roller derby stars (Charlie O’Connell & Annis “Big Red” Jensen of the Bay Area Bombers,) to Governors Jesse “The Body” Ventura and Arnold Schwarzneggar; to some of our first cars like the Morris Minor that DS bought for under $200, to hitchhiking adventures going cross country that went smoothly vs M’s hitchhike which went awry with a mentally ill driver with a gun; to frustrations with outdated audio equipment due to technology changes: (radios, tape cassettes, CDs, streaming;) to what we were expecting this week in DC re Marjorie Taylor Greene, Trump’s new legal team, and the Dems $1.9 billion COVID/economic recovery bill.

FEB. 7th– Some outings result in more surprising discoveries than others, and today’s trip to Overlook Park is a prime example. The five of us were familiar with the lovely Park that overlooks the River and downtown from N. Portland, but we were also reminded of the stately Community Building nearby in which many of us had attended work retreats, then were introduced to the public triangle where three mature London Planes impressively reign, and finally the hidden Mocks Crest Park that overlooks the United Pacific rail yard where seeing the switching of cars among multiple tracks proved hypnotic.

Chat topics started with T’s ailing back, probably the consequence of awkward positions he had to assume to fix two non-compliant appliances; moved next to the vaccine and DM’s experience at the Convention Ctr; then switched to praise for Biden for a more systematic roll out of the vaccine, and the reminder that without the efforts of Sen. Clyburn and Black women Biden wouldn’t be our President; moved to Republicans legislatures now wanting to make it more difficult for their low-income communities to vote; revisited why low-income whites resent governmental programs they see as benefiting minorities and not them; and ended with our pondering whether Steve Jobs had Dick Tracey watches in mind when he crafted Apple watches.

FEB 14– SNOW DAY

Chat topics today started with the impeachment acquittal and how various bodies – juries, the military, the Senate, City commissions – vary in their standards; moved to Senator McConnell’s surprising vehement condemnation of Trump; praised the piece “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign,” which highlights the behind-the-scenes actions of and funding by labor, management, non-profits, left, right, philanthropics, social media, minorities, and more, working together to keep the election from being usurped; the realization that every future federal election is going to need as much citizen activism as last November’s; the need to pass voting rights legislature as soon as possible, and how to massage the filibuster for that; agreement that being a progressive does not automatically mean someone isn’t a racist; and how did many of us come to our progressive values.

FEB 21– Today’s outing – which took place amidst challenging winds/drizzle – was delayed at first due to H first needing to catch his daughter’s family’s runaway dog, Stew. That delay led us to shorten our ride to a route along the often gusty Esplanade, Tilikum Bridge, and Steel Bridge.

Chat topics included W’s satisfying cross-country ski experiences outside his back door in Mosier, vs B’s experiences on slick roadways in NE PDX; the fact that our members in the 70-75 age group in PDX have to wait until Mon. at exactly 9:00 a.m. in order to schedule a COVID vaccination even though Kaiser had notified them last Thursday they were eligible to do so; the coincidence that B+M in PDX and W in Mosier are both tracking Oregon legislative initiatives as representatives of two different Indivisible groups; DM’s recommendation for Ezra Klein’s Why we Are Polarized; and Texas’s electricity and water woes, which highlights the need for a massive national infrastructure project focusing on neglected maintenance.

FEB. 28– Today’s N. Portland destination for three riders on an overcast morning was the affordable housing development on Lombard at Fiske. Developed by Home First, T is one of the leads on the project.

Discussion topics started with questioning what the parking requirements were, if any, for the Lombard/Fiske project; there being no spaces required led to conjecture re why the City used to give so much deference to neighborhood associations and developers, which led to the discussion how forty years ago the City was overwhelmed by significant disinvestment and flight, in part due to gangs, drugs, and violence, which energized City efforts to stimulate citizen involvement and new investment; which let our discussion segue to the current morass and dysfunctional coordination amongst ODOT and local jurisdictions around I-5 proposals adjacent to the Rose Quarter and interstate bridge.

MARCH 7– Today’s destination was a revisit to Cully Park, then south on 72nd to the Rose City Golf Course.

Chat topics started with Oregon recording its first cases of the British and Brazilian COVID mutations, and how booster shots will probably be part of our new normal; how coordinated the volunteers at the Convention Ctr appeared for vaccinations, vs the seeming dysfunction for anyone wanting to volunteer for doing tracing in PDX or the Gorge; our being reminded how essential – and yet poorly funded – is the public health system in America; how we can’t relax and let our guards down in terms of our own personal health/safety, future public health funding, and voting rights; and our optimism that the provisions and effectiveness of the COVID Relief legislation will persuade some opponents that government programs can work.

MARCH 14 — Today’s outing was to the river side of N. Willamette Blvd. past the RR Bridge, to view a fallen mature white oak on the former Open Meadow site.

We noted the miniscule root system and how it did not entwine itself to other tree roots to give it extra support during windstorms. We personified it to strong communities that build a safety net vs tose that go it alone.

Chat topics today included: DS’s frustration/stress at being shut out at 6 a.m. from registering 6 months in advance for a campsite at Capital Reef National Park in Utah; DM’s upcoming procedure that’ll include a stress test to learn what’s causing the chest pains he sometimes feels when he bikes up hills; The circuitous educational paths that were taken by those of us in the fields of community development, epidemiology, economics and planning; M’s scary month in the early 80s doing epidemiology research in El Salvador – being observed non-stop by the military – while his wife felt she was being watched back in the U.S; and the morass of immigration politics.

MARCH 21– On today’s chilly dry bikeride three of us rode up to Mt. Tabor to see the statue of York.

Chat topics today included: wedding ceremonies at which members had officiated, and the images that they sought to convey in their remarks; DM’s surprise at the awkwardness of hugs at his first post-vaccine indoor gathering with old friends; how careful T should be when he chaperones his overly enthusiastic 95 year-old friend to his post-vaccine gatherings; how much T related to the descriptions of subservient and observer behaviors that Isabel Wilkerson captured in her book Caste; and whether the Republican Party will go the way of the Whigs.

MARCH 29–