Yup...

I rode one of the routes a couple years ago, when it was in my neighborhood. It was painful. How does crawling along at 4mph sound? How does being nearly hit by out-of-control children every twenty seconds tickle your fancy?

Worse are the parents on their brand new multi-thousand-dollar cargo bikes who just fucking stop in the middle of a group of riders and start chatting with a friend headed the opposite direction. Yay, now there are two bottlenecks.

Guess what! You can stop at a park and get swarmed by clipboard nazis and smug politicians pressing flesh for the "green" vote while a few dozen stay-at-home moms think about switching yoga studios. And of course some asshole brought a hula hoop.

So yeah: it's pretty much all the superficial, shallow, me-first annoying shit that I barely tolerate on a day-to-day basis, but done en masse like a rolling shit-slurry wave of upper middle class squares. Yay for bikes indeed.

^this is exactly how I feel about all organized group rides and the Springwater trail.

I actually was going to try the one out today, but events conspired against me...
But for the most part, I don't like the idea of closing streets, bridges, etc for special interest groups of any kind.

Ah, the humanity...

Maybe we should talk about your feelings.

IA, your post reads like a sociopath wrote it, get some professional help.

For all the whiners the streets was closed for a few hours, get the fuck over yourself. The world does not need to revolve around you or your car.

I don't quite understand the attraction. Crawling slowly down a very crowded street in a loop. Why doesn't the family just go for a bike ride?

The attraction is being around other human beings. Doing human being things, like riding a bike and eating a corn dog, watching children act like children, visiting parks, being outside, I dunno, breathing air? being alive?

Sorry to interfere with your "routine". I sure hope someone drank those PBRs in your absence or filled in to wait that table due to your yet again late arrival to work.

You suck.

"The attraction is being around other human beings."

Aaah, that's why I don't get it.

It's very important for insecure folks to surround themselves with people who look and act just as they do. See also: Last Thursday

^ Yes, only the very secure people stay at home during neighborhood events, preferring only to hang with a very carefully chosen ring of individuals at hand-picked locations so as not to ever be mistaken as being part of one of those uncool crowds featured in Last Thursdays or Sunday Parkways.

Because crowds at public events are definitely filled only with people who look and act the same. They probably all live in Beaverton or Gresham, too. All of them.

oh my goodness! I can hardly even imagine people feel this way.

My children are smart and beautiful, so sounds like we're safe.

No, they don't look like they live in Beaverton or Gresham-- they look like every other young white upper-middle-class couple from PORTLAND with 1.5 children and a mortgage on a $400,000 2-bedroom house that happens to be near a food cart pod or a brew pub or whatever.

They identify as ecologically conscious, progressive and open-minded but they're really none of these things. They moved to Portland because they could afford the rising cost of living; they chose their neighborhood because they could afford the skyrocketing property values, and they are "thinking about going car-free" because, once again, they have the money to blow on bike toys and endless hours to spend schlepping kids and groceries around so they can self-congratulate themselves on some dull-ass blog.

They're the "Portland Bubble" in a nutshell, a slick politically correct veneer over a thick pile of white privilege. They whine about a "lack of diversity" in Portland but wouldn't dare hang out in any of the areas that they and their peers have chased the minorities off to. They care about dining and entertainment more than anything else, and of course doing shit like Sunday Parkways, which pretends that it's going to save the world by encouraging cycling-- while really just being another distraction for the entitled. Can't criticize it, because, as always, "yay for bikes!" Or along those same lines, "yay for New Seasons!" or "yay for Portland, it's the best! You should totally move here so we have more people just like us!"

i moved, and don't miss these contrived events. other things I don't miss are people using the word "privilege" all the fucking time, and PDX know-it-alls who overgeneralize but only complain anonymously or with a passive smirk.

Chunty- them is some true colors yer showin; so glad you have it all figured out. i DO miss new seasons. sucked for price, but goddamn it, it was a good grocery store chain. few like it anywhere.

See you droolios on the other side.

Spoolo, gotta know - did the door hit your ass on the way out?

I do hope this IA learns to share his/her feelings instead of keeping them all bottled up. The stress will kill you...