Portland's Bridge Pedal Debacle

On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 10:08:01 -0700, lein
wrote:

On Aug 15, 8:57 am, Don Homuth dhomuthoneatcomcast.net wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 08:29:39 -0700, lein
wrote:

Couldn't afford a Corvette, could you?

Well, my Corvette got sold after I got married the first time -- the
usual fate of Corvettes for young men in their mid 20's at the time.
Corvettes are useful to Get Girls. Mine certainly was. When I
married one of the girls it got, it occurred to her that its purpose
was entirely fulfilled, and thereafter We Need A More Practical Car.

Why? Corvettes have two seats and I don't recall you ever having
children.

Ask her. That's how Wives talk about Corvettes, more often than not.
Especially the young ones.

Your Memory, however, doesn't include many things that you don't
actually know about. Nor will it.

The first replacement I bought several years later was a 1975 280Z,
and then I bought this one.

So as it turns out, the Corvette wasn't so unpractical afterall.

Not my call, at the time. When I bought the Datsun, we already had
another Practical Car. And then, interestingly enough, my wife bought
her own -- a 1976. So there we were with three cars.

It was all Very strange.

I could have purchased Corvettes through the years, but to be quite
frank about it, precisely None of the Corvettes from 1968 to about
1987 or thereabouts seemed worth the money.

Your wife wouldn't let you, fess up.

Those who know Corvettes are fully aware that the version from 1968
onward was inferior to the Sting Rays from 1963 - 1967. And the
version that came out in 1984 was a stiff-riding SOB in pretty much
all iterations.

But my biggest preference in that series was always for a convertible.
The early ones only came in coupes. Now having a coupe is OK (though
I greatly dislike sunroofs) but if one is to have a Corvette, then a
convertible is, seems to me, about the Only way to go if one wishes to
drive on the street.

And after 1987, I determined that the Datsun was quite sufficient. It
was comfortable, had about 90% of Corvette highway performance, better
mileage overall for less than half the money. Seemed better, to my
way of thinking.

And you loved the unibody construction.

It has held together rather well across thirty years, but other than
that I never really gave it all that much thought at all.

I've been looking lustfully at one of the C6 variants recently. Could
get one -- just can't see where it would be a superior choice to what
I'm doing now, though. At the $50-$60k the things cost new, they are
now a better choice for drug dealers and middle-aged insurance
salesmen trying to impress their trophy wives.

Better to spend the money on an RV and enjoy the camping experience.

Nope. If I'm actually Camping, I'll not need to pull an apartment
around with me.

Besides -- there's something pretty Cool about owning the same sports
car for thirty years.

Especially one that doesn't hold the resale value that your former
vette would have about now.

As I've said, I have regretted selling it ever since. Even now there
is a picture of it on the bulletin board above my desk that I look at
an remember -- right down to the side exhausts and Kelsey-Hayes
knockoff wheels.

But the Hand of History writes, and earlier decisions are oftimes
regretted later.

Besides -- if I still had the Corvette now, I'd almost be afraid to
drive it in Salem. Last time I checked, they were going for about
$50k or so -- maybe a tad higher.

Not worth the risk.

I have a car I can actually Drive if I need to. I won't drive it as
much as I used to, but it'll still be sorta fun.

On Aug 15, 5:54 am, "Ted Mittelstaedt" wrote:
"Paul Berg" wrote in message

...

~

News article from The (Portland) Oregonian - August 14, 2007

Officially, it's called the Providence Bridge Pedal. But the annual bike
ride over Portland's bridges earned a new name Sunday -- Providence
Bridge Ped-debacle.

This was just a stupid article. My wife did this ride and had no problems.
(I personally am not "in" to riding a bicycle) The problem wasn't the ride,
the problem was too many people on this ride shouldn't have been there.

The dedicated bicyclists all registered early, showed up early, and did
their ride without stopping. Portable toilets? The dedicated riders wern't
stopping to take a dump every 2 miles because they were too fat to do the
ride.

Really??? Now how did you come upon this interesting tidbit of
information about the riders toilet habits. Maybe you were surveying
the porta-potties on race day?

They wern't using the toilets except possibly at the end of the ride.

The problem with this ride was all the wannabe whiner riders that didn't
do any training for it and registered late and got late start times.

So according to you the solution to the congestion problem must be for
everyone to register early and get early start times.

Don't forget that this is not a road race. Bike clubs provide plenty
of that kind of competition. It is first a benefit ride and second a
fun ride for all comers. It was not well planned however.



Then
they
poked along the route way too slow.

How fast is fast enough for cyclists of all ages and abilities.


I would have never thought in my wildest dreams that there would ever
be such a thing as a wanna be bicyclist.

What specifically is a wanna be cyclist.


But, come to Portland and you
can see tons of them. Sheesh.

There's plenty of other rides that are organized in Portland that are a lot
shorter for the newbie and wannabe bicyclists to participate in. The
bridge pedal isn't as hardcore as the Portland to Seattle run, but it is
definitely not for someone who doesen't ride a bike 5 miles every other
day.

New York has successfully run the much bigger and longer 5 Borough
Bike Ride for decades so it can be done. And it is indeed possible to
run a very large ride so that the riders have fun. The riders in 5BBB
span a very wide range of ages and abilities and yet they are all able
to enjoy a ride with 32,000 fellow cyclists. Portland could do the
same if they were willing to plan the ride properly.

On Aug 15, 10:33 am, Don Homuth dhomuthoneatcomcast.net wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 10:08:01 -0700, lein
wrote:

On Aug 15, 8:57 am, Don Homuth dhomuthoneatcomcast.net wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 08:29:39 -0700, lein
wrote:

Couldn't afford a Corvette, could you?

Well, my Corvette got sold after I got married the first time -- the
usual fate of Corvettes for young men in their mid 20's at the time.
Corvettes are useful to Get Girls. Mine certainly was. When I
married one of the girls it got, it occurred to her that its purpose
was entirely fulfilled, and thereafter We Need A More Practical Car.

Why? Corvettes have two seats and I don't recall you ever having
children.

Ask her. That's how Wives talk about Corvettes, more often than not.
Especially the young ones.

Your Memory, however, doesn't include many things that you don't
actually know about. Nor will it.

The first replacement I bought several years later was a 1975 280Z,
and then I bought this one.

So as it turns out, the Corvette wasn't so unpractical afterall.

Not my call, at the time. When I bought the Datsun, we already had
another Practical Car. And then, interestingly enough, my wife bought
her own -- a 1976. So there we were with three cars.

It was all Very strange.

I could have purchased Corvettes through the years, but to be quite
frank about it, precisely None of the Corvettes from 1968 to about
1987 or thereabouts seemed worth the money.

Your wife wouldn't let you, fess up.

Those who know Corvettes are fully aware that the version from 1968
onward was inferior to the Sting Rays from 1963 - 1967. And the
version that came out in 1984 was a stiff-riding SOB in pretty much
all iterations.

But my biggest preference in that series was always for a convertible.
The early ones only came in coupes. Now having a coupe is OK (though
I greatly dislike sunroofs) but if one is to have a Corvette, then a
convertible is, seems to me, about the Only way to go if one wishes to
drive on the street.

And after 1987, I determined that the Datsun was quite sufficient. It
was comfortable, had about 90% of Corvette highway performance, better
mileage overall for less than half the money. Seemed better, to my
way of thinking.

And you loved the unibody construction.

It has held together rather well across thirty years, but other than
that I never really gave it all that much thought at all.

I've been looking lustfully at one of the C6 variants recently. Could
get one -- just can't see where it would be a superior choice to what
I'm doing now, though. At the $50-$60k the things cost new, they are
now a better choice for drug dealers and middle-aged insurance
salesmen trying to impress their trophy wives.

Better to spend the money on an RV and enjoy the camping experience.

Nope. If I'm actually Camping, I'll not need to pull an apartment
around with me.

Besides -- there's something pretty Cool about owning the same sports
car for thirty years.

Especially one that doesn't hold the resale value that your former
vette would have about now.

As I've said, I have regretted selling it ever since. Even now there
is a picture of it on the bulletin board above my desk that I look at
an remember -- right down to the side exhausts and Kelsey-Hayes
knockoff wheels.



Okay, this might clear up the big picture. She made you sell your
vette and you, in turn, take it out on her today by tossing her
finches in zip lock bags in the freezer.

Don Homuth dhomuthoneatcomcast.net wrote:

Besides -- there's something pretty Cool about owning the same sports
car for thirty years.

I've got a knife I've had for more than fifty.

Don Homuth dhomuthoneatcomcast.net wrote:

Not my call, at the time. When I bought the Datsun, we already had
another Practical Car. And then, interestingly enough, my wife bought
her own -- a 1976. So there we were with three cars.

It was all Very strange.



Not at all. There's even a name for it: 'Conspicuous Consumption'.

Don Homuth dhomuthoneatcomcast.net wrote:

As I've said, I have regretted selling it ever since. Even now there
is a picture of it on the bulletin board above my desk that I look at
an remember -- right down to the side exhausts and Kelsey-Hayes
knockoff wheels.

Sad. Very sad.

lein wrote:

On Aug 15, 1:04 am, Lobby Dosser
wrote:
Royal Dalton wrote:
Don Homuth wrote:
On Tue, 14 Aug 2007 20:04:39 GMT, Royal Dalton
wrote:

Don Homuth wrote:
On Tue, 14 Aug 2007 19:44:21 GMT, Royal Dalton
wrote:

Don Homuth wrote:
On Tue, 14 Aug 2007 18:57:05 GMT, Lobby Dosser
wrote:

Don Homuth dhomuthoneatcomcast.net wrote:

On Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:48:42 GMT, "steve"
wrote:

What is the point of these mass rides, anyway? It cant be
good riding, and it obviously screws up traffic.
Just for the sheer fun of doing it, apparently.

My Datsun club does the same thing when it does a cruise or
a tour.

They disrupt regular traffic?
Sometimes they have done exactly that, so I hear. A long
column of a couple dozen Datsuns of various vintages can be
pretty noticeable.

Mine has been in the restoration shop long enough that I
haven't gone on one of those, since I only actually Joined the
club several months back.

But if you check, you can even see pictures of the car
pre-restoration.
I like the blue one better.
http://www.northwestz.org/members/ha...MemberProfileV
ie
wChanged&userId=3503C8E7-3048-2906-B43387A57222B78B&vehicleId=4B4
176 05-3048-2906-B4AB17E14285BEF6

De gustibus, and all.

Mine is still a work in progress.

When it's done, I will like it. Whether or not someone else does
will be immaterial.

I still like the blue one.

They're all Crap.

indeed, my wife brought one home for me (a friend gave it to her, he
wanted the pickup it came with). She thought I might like a project
car to fix up.

Needless to say, I flipped it over for $50. Found somebody like Don
who likes those things and wanted parts. I forgot if it was a 260 or
280 (they are all pretty crappy) but it was the 2+2 model.



Friend of mine - the Real variety, not an Expert - was rebuilding an old
Ford (T?) from thye ground up. By himself in his garage. Nice hobby when
you're doing it all yourself. Same friend got an Earl Scheib paint job on
his first car. THAT was a Lesson!

"Steven" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Aug 15, 4:02 am, "Ted Mittelstaedt" wrote:
"David L. Johnson" wrote in
et...





steve wrote:
On 14-Aug-2007, smacked up and reeling, (Paul Berg)
blindly
formulated
the following incoherence:

Bottlenecks not only forced cyclists to walk their bikes along
parts of
the course, but also meant as many as 1,500 of the estimated record
19,000 cyclists in the event were unable to complete the ride.
Organizers barred them from crossing the Fremont Bridge and other
spans
as authorities sought to reopen them to vehicle traffic. Other
cyclists,
frustrated, left the course on their own.

What is the point of these mass rides, anyway? It cant be good
riding,
and
it obviously screws up traffic.

I was going to ask just that question. No one I've talked to who rode
the 5-Borough tour of New York would do it again, but still they have
thousands and thousands of people riding it. They've started one in
Philadelphia as well this year.

I just don't get the appeal.

If you are in shape and have trained it is a very nice ride, early in
the
morning with blue sky and the crisp air. The views from the bridges
are spectacular and when you drive over them in a car you go so fast
you really don't see or pay attention much. The rises on the entrances
to the bridges are gentle enough that a rider in shape would hardly
break
a sweat going up them. And the architecture of the bridges that they
go over is facinating. If you were to see pictures taken along the
route
you would understand why it is popular.

Ted

I've been there. I wouldn't assess it at biking air.


It depends. This last bridge pedal occurred after a few days of not very
hot
temps. In Portland, when the temp goes above 90 an air inversion effect is
created that traps all the smog - in that case, yes, your right, the air is
definitely
not biking air. Of course, it's not biking air anywhere else in the city
either.

But this year the inversion hasn't happened just about all summer, and I can
assure you, the air in that morning was definitely crisp biking air, and my
wife
has the pictures that show the clarity of the views to prove it.

Ted

On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 10:57:50 -0700, lein
wrote:

On Aug 15, 10:33 am, Don Homuth dhomuthoneatcomcast.net wrote:

As I've said, I have regretted selling it ever since. Even now there
is a picture of it on the bulletin board above my desk that I look at
an remember -- right down to the side exhausts and Kelsey-Hayes
knockoff wheels.

Okay, this might clear up the big picture. She made you sell your
vette and you, in turn, take it out on her today by tossing her
finches in zip lock bags in the freezer.

You, lein, are one Very Confused Person!

Consider deeply the inherent meaning of the first two Ordinal Numbers,
when you can connect a second neuron.

On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 20:36:54 GMT, Lobby Dosser
wrote:

Don Homuth dhomuthoneatcomcast.net wrote:

Not my call, at the time. When I bought the Datsun, we already had
another Practical Car. And then, interestingly enough, my wife bought
her own -- a 1976. So there we were with three cars.

It was all Very strange.

Not at all. There's even a name for it: 'Conspicuous Consumption'.

Anything can fit a definition, if you wish it to do so and want to
force it hard enough.

But it seems that my First wife rather liked driving my '75, and when
a '76 came up at a Really good price, she decided to buy it for her
own use.