Dust on the Saddle: Giving Up the Bike Commuter Badge

I can no longer claim the identity that I was once so proud of.

This time of year the Portland bike commuter calls upon two things: gear and grit. The gear; carefully chosen jackets, gloves, rain paints, and footwear are proven wards against the airborne water that is the winter medium of the City of Portland.

The grit within oneself is a ward against the urge to just grab the car keys and drive.

Once one gets moving (thanks to the grit), the gear holds the heat of your working heart and muscles. Lab-grown fabrics and double-sealed zippers keep the worldly moisture out. You are warm and moving, waving at other bike-borne citizens, arriving at work hopped up on community, sustainability, and aerobic endorphins.

The Portland bike commuter cocktail.

I was just such a rider for many years. I loved my gear and was pleased with the grit. Particularly when that first real winter rain that would come down, signaling the end of the easy season. Goodbye to hopping on your whip in shorts and a tee, a six pack of beer in the messenger bag, heading for a back yard barbecue.

My main Portland bike is named Regál, pronounced RE-gahl. Regál is a frame from a mid-70s Nishiki Safari with chipped original yellow paint and flop and chop bullhorn handlebars. A single friction-shift bar end lever juts out from one of those horns, operating the 7 gears (how many do you need, really?).¹

Regál has matching yellow fenders. On some summers I would take them off to enjoy less rattle and a more stripped down look.

I always installed them again when the rains came. To bike commuters, full coverage fenders are about community. You care about the other riders who gathered the grit to ride, so you don’t spray the rider behind you with muck and moisture.

The grit was to get out and go that first really bad day of rain, when the drops look like prison bars on the window. The grit gets you out where you can remind yourself how doable riding is. You do not surrender to 7 months of enclosure.

My bikes are dusty now. The chains are dried and the tires need air. I haven’t checked. They are out of the way in the garage. I barely see them.

Now, I live on a country road far from any destination with none of the bike-intense road painting of Portland.

It is a high desert. Clear and cold days are characteristic of winter here. Snow piles up a couple times each winter. Biking here would be different. I could explore gravel and dirt or take off on a long road to see what there is to see. I would not expect friends or a nice beer-deploying establishment on the other end of a ride; it would be riding to ride.

It sounds nice, but I don’t often. It does not occur to me in the winter. I don’t ride enough to find the interest in re-doing the bikes for the conditions here. Heavier lug tires would help on those dirt adventures. More and higher gears would eat up those country roads better.

Being that bike transit self meant a lot to me. I knew my routes and distance. I got great exercise every day. I could perceive risks in traffic. I had a good three-finger-off-the-handlebar wave for other bikes.

In motion, alone, I was a gleeful child swishing S curves for no reason but to feel the bike and me lean back and forth together.

I came inside my destination dripping and rushed from the experience.

I also miss the camaraderie.

The wave of acknowledgement off the handlebars crossing paths with another human motor pushing the mechanical extension of themselves through the mist or night or deluge or summer glory.

All these aspects of Bike Commuter Joel came together as a badge of self I sewed and wore. It is hard to know I can’t wear that badge anymore. That’s not me now.

I can try to soothe the shedding by considering what I have taken on:

Waving with three fingers off a steering wheel as we drive past each other down my country road.

The pause on the trail, rods in hand, to connect with another person out plying the river.

The stranger telling a story on the bar stool next to me leaning against that lacquered juniper wood bar at The Sandbagger.

The joys of community and grit and engagement with my world here crowds out the loss of Bike Commute Joel, but I still miss it. I will always miss it.

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1. I am deeply thankful to my friends Tom & Anne who store Regál in their Portland basement. When I come up I get to have reunion rides with my old friend.