Self-righteous cycling

Speaking of King and the cities where I’ve lived or am living (this time regarding Portland):

Oregon. South Dakota. North Dakota. I realized the other day that I’m 51 and I’d never spent appreciable time in any of those states. So I was happy to be in Portland and its suburban neighbor to the north, Scappoose, the other day. Driving through Portland is what it’s like to drive through a European city in some ways, because of all the bikes in such a green-conscious city. So imagine my surprise when I picked up The Oregonian Thursday to read this headline atop page one: “Bike-car clash morphs into melee.”

Seems a driver didn’t like the way a bicyclist was running red lights and driving recklessly in downtown Portland, and he yelled at the guy to stop being so careless. The cyclist got off his bike and told the driver to get out of his car if he wanted to make such a fuss about how he was operating his bike. The driver of the car got out. And the bicyclist started — according to police reports — beating the driver of the car with the bike. Yes, beating the driver of the car with his bike, holding the bike over his head and assaulting the defenseless driver at least five times, leaving the mark of a bike chain on him.

Not sure what the moral of the story is, but it’s not good.

For living here just two months, it seems to me like a fair knock on Portland: people are fairly self-righteous about their cycling. I’m thankful for the decent percentage of Portland cyclists who hop on their bikes while leaving the Lycra get-up at home. God bless ‘em.