Credit: Illustration by Ryan Alexander-Tanner

THE VAST CAVALRY of Portland’s bicycling citizens are the enlightened ones. I’m not saying this sarcastically, I’m not saying this so some girl with total beef-castle thighs will read this and kiss me in public (wink), I’m not even saying it because I’m happy about it—I just think it’s true. It has to be true. Bikes are so much better for the city, the world, the bank account, and the health of the populace than cars, that it’s scarcely a debate. As long as Portland isn’t Jacksonville, bicycles are the future. Do you want Portland to be Jacksonville? Do you want to eat Walmart bananas, listen to the Zac Brown Band, and pretend that teal isn’t a stupid color for a football team? Me neither. Bikes are the future.

So what do we do about it? There’s an uneasy peace between bicyclists and motorists. (“Motorist” makes it sounds like you’re wearing goggles and a scarf and your eldest son, Randolph, recently took ill with consumption. “Motorist.”) However, there are a lot of cyclists who act like their moral superiority will protect them from the dangers of a crowded road. They slam the back of your car and shout about being entitled to a whole lane, all while ignoring the fact that cars should also be entitled to a whole lane. They death-clock you like Ice Cube if you creep six inches past a stop sign, then blow through stop signs with impunity. And you fucking hate them, or you’re jealous… like when some dude with a nose ring tells you he’s in an open relationship.

They break laws all over the place and couldn’t be more carefree, because they’re on a bike! As though using a canvas shopping bag gives you free rein to shoplift at the greengrocer (where you’re picking up ingredients to make a poultice for Randolph.) They bike up Burnside even though ANKENY IS RIGHT THERE. IT’S RIGHT THERE. IT’S RIGHT FUCKING THERE. I CAN FUCKING SEE IT. I CAN FUCKING SEE ANKENY. GET ON ANKENY, YOU FUCK. I get it. I very get it.

But of course they roll through stop signs! Because you know what sucks? Stopping and starting a bike every other block. Unlike motorists, they can’t summon dinosaur ghosts to reestablish momentum. Yeah, bicyclists glare and huff and act like the road belongs to them, but so do we. Plus, wouldn’t you glare? Bicyclists are naked out there, protected only by a helmet (hopefully) and some kind of microbrewery apparel (probably). What’s the reward? Big calves… superiority? You’re all dry and comfortable and get to sing along REAL loud to some Melissa Etheridge and nobody is the wiser—isn’t that enough? Do we need to play lane sheriff and bully bikers off the road? Do motorists need to exact revenge for every injustice they’ve ever experienced? Naw, dawg.

Instead, let’s try to empathize. Are you cycling 10 MPH on a major street? Maybe that lady behind you had a lousy day, and all our good radio stations keep getting fucked up so there isn’t anything decent to help her pass the time. Let her by… feel good about your generosity. Did that cyclist just slam your Subaru’s hood? It’s metal—it’ll be fine (plus you kind of drifted into their lane with your 3,000-pound block of screaming machinery). Just give him that “Hey, sorry pal!” wave. Wow, what a levelheaded person you are! You deserve oral sex.

Listen, we’re all going to end up at the same bars on Friday night, anyway. We’re neighbors! Let’s act like it, cheer our civility, and then get on/in our bikes and cars and head home… way too drunk to drive ANY kind of vehicle.

32 replies on “Portland as Fuck”

  4. You’re missing the most important point – one cyclist isn’t every cyclist and one motorist isn’t every motorist. Don’t drift uncomfortably close to every cyclist just because you saw one run a red light three months ago. Don’t ride down the middle of single-lane streets knowing that there are cars behind you in retaliation for the friend of a friend that got hit last year. Remember that there are dumbasses using every mode of transportation and more importantly that not everyone using a particular mode of transportation is a self-entitled asshole.

    Or maybe we all are.

  7. WHAT THE SHITFUCKS ARE BEEF-CASTLE THIGHS? ALSO CYCLISTS AND MOTORISTIZERS ARE BOTH FUCKTARDS, I’M TOTES TAKING THE BOTH LANES WITH MY SEGWAY.

  10. @Aestro – Good point, they only give me so many words to work with, but “don’t be a self-entitled asshole” is kind of what I was getting at, except it feels better to me to just remind yourself to be a good empathetic person than it does to say “don’t be a self-entitled asshole.”

  12. IME cars don’t just creep 6 inches over the stop line. Cars break the law all the time. Rolling right through stops. Here in CA holding a cell phone while operating a motor vehicle is illegal, but you let that slide right cause you do it too? As long as the motor is running you are operating a motor vehicle, its still illegal even if youre at a stop sign. Stop focusing on bikes and focus on the thousands and thousands of motorists breaking the law all the time.

  15. @I walk OKAY…I hope so, seriously! It is getting pretty bad. Heed my advice and avoid the following areas to increase your odds: Malls (in general), large parts of Beaverton, the “Pearl” (many reasons for this really), 102nd and Burnside. As far as this alleged “war” between cars and bikes, unfortunately this state gives virtually anyone a liscense, and some cyclists act like fuckbags to protect their “rights”. Easy solution; watch out for cyclists, stay out of bike lanes and give right of way where appropriate. You DID read the drivers manual, right? Cyclists: bike defensively, don’t be a dickhead and GET ON ANKENY! That was easy.

  16. The insipid comments, while Blogtown as Fuck are not on par with the incredible awesomeness of the Mercury’s finest addition for some time, Portland as Fuck. Step it up, dickweeds! (not all of you are bad but some of you… jeeebus. just. stop. or… copy and paste from smarter, funnier people. thank you.)

  17. All true but one thing.. if someone pounded on the hood of my (yes I drive one) Subaru, I would probably go into a blind rage, get out of my car and insert the persons helmet into their rear derailleur… if you catch my drift. I paid $20k for my car, I spend many hours maintaining it and keeping the paint looking brand new. I’d rather not have someone punching it because they think I’m too close to them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a cyclist as well but there’s no reason unless you’re being run down to pound on someones car. Just as I don’t get out and pound on someones helmet if they do something wrong. Share the road, it isn’t difficult!

  18. What I’ve learned about Ian from this article:
    Cyclist interrupt Ian’s ability to use his inside voice, and Ian’s held down shift key, might be the very same reason “Caps Lock” was invented! “I very get it.”

  19. You write this as if you are from Jacksonville. Ironically, I grew up for many years in J’Ville. Anyone that knows anything about J’Ville music knows that MOFRO rules, not Zac Brown.

    Bicyclists are not the enlightened ones. Not when they play chicken with 3000+ pounds of metal. You can’t be enlightened when you end up dead because of stupidity. Even if you were in the right, is being right worth being dead? Same goes for pedestrians that just walk out in front of cars because they have “the right of way”. Right may be right, but dead isn’t right.

    My point – be smart and stay alive.

    And by the way, I can attest there are more 4×4 pickups with Confederate flags flying than there are bikes in Jacksonville. Sad, but so true.

  23. that’s ‘scarcely’, not ‘slavery’…..looks like someone’s hunting for a fight.

    (from now on, ian, just to be safe and considerate, use ‘barely’ or ‘hardly’.)

    (fucking duh…..that shit is journalism 101, man…..D-up!!)

  24. I’m OK with bikes. Most bikers are OK. Some are jerks and they know who they are. I almost killed a jerk not too long ago. I’m out west of Beaverton on a back way home. 55 miles per hour posted and that’s how fast I was going. I’m on a back road without a bike lane and no shoulder either. I came up over a rise and low and behold a bicyclist doing 10 miles an hour in the middle of the road. I slammed my brakes hard enough to engage the anti-lock and barely missed him. I honked which of course automaticly brought out the middle finger of the guy I almost killed. I’ll tell you this, if there was someone coming from the other direction I would have killed him. Why do bicyclist insist on riding thier bike where they can’t get off the road? After all most of them are biking for pleasure/exercise so why not pick roads that have a shoulder or bike lane? Get out of our way. After all we don’t drive our cars in their bike lane. There ought to be a law but they tend to ignore those anyway…

  25. Oh, hi Ian. It was on the main site, before clicking on the article.
    Reads “Ian Karmel solves the bikes vs. car wars. Because he’s like Lincoln, or something.”

    Anyway.

  28. Look if you are only of Pro-Car mentality [meaning you don’t embrace and encourage other means of transport on any and all LOCs (lines of communication, “roads”)], Then essentially you are Socialist Commie Pig that supports sending Hard earned American dollars to other countries that don’t much like us. Or money to huge corporations that could care less about quality of life, are really own concerned with Profit for shareholders.

    How can a society force a populace into only one form of transport ? How can you force everyone to conform to driving an auto ? How can a society essentially outlaw transport by your own human power? Most parts of the USA have successfully pulled this off. Does this mean we need to supply everyone an Automobile. Make it right, kind of like a Utility ?

    Look I drive a car also, rarely, but I do; it’s conveniant and nice. But I sure as hell won’t do anything to discourage a cyclist, skateboarder, walker, etc, etc, because , they aren’t polluting the kids, ruining the expensive roadways, they can’t crash into me and kill me, and as long they can get around that way, I won’t have to worry about buying them a car.

  29. CLINTON IS RIGHT THERE. IT’S RIGHT THERE. IT’S RIGHT FUCKING THERE. I CAN FUCKING SEE IT. I CAN FUCKING SEE CLINTON. GET ON CLINTON, YOU FUCK.

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