making myself fit everyday.

My son knows I need some forms of photography. Basically Olive is in all our photos by default. 
I'm the pitcher taker. 
On the other side Olive does all the drawings and isn't into photography. 
She does notice when she can't find many photos of us together when she makes event ads. 
So I peeled my 13 year old away from his game and asked him to get some pics from his tallbike. 
The real deal was I wanted him to get more tallbike practice. We took a long ride around SE PDX and I found some steep hills to try him out on. The camera is attached to his bike. He took this one and I'm liking it a lot. 

Getting home we noticed Olive collected three little humans for the day. She is still babysitting for our friends who are working on house moving. 

Turns out his bike has hand and back pedal brakes. He did better than me. Then I took him down Division so he can experience heavier traffic. 

 I also told him a lot of "outs" for the inevitable questions. I suggested that if people ask if he knows us to say "never heard of em" That is a great way to avoid snubbing the person while still not giving an answer that leads to more questions. I guess it's a lesson on keeping his space. Happy Tuesday!

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Most of the folks who see us on the road either give us cheers or indifference.

Most of the folks who see us on the road either give us cheers or indifference. I like both responses. When a lot of people cheer us on it's a "tell" to me that according to the numbers, some haters are due. 
Some folk have immediate angry reactions to seeing us. They call me names, try to pick fights or shock me into falling over by honking. 
One guy cussed me out real good while stopped at a light. I have no idea what he was saying since the windows were up and I was on the sidewalk. 
This last gem was very telling. I guy saw me and yelled "You stupid Mother F****r, you won't last a week on that bike. Get down before you kill someone!". 

I been riding the Behemoth since somewhere around the time of Hurricane Katrina. I'm proud to report there have zero fatalities. :) 
I fell over the handlebars once when the trailer I was carrying wedged between two poles. 
Another time, I fell off (into rose bushes) because I was laughing at a dog and the only other wreck was more of a bike involved masturbation accident (I will tall ya more if I ever get to know you better) than anything else. 
So no real injuries at all in all these years. Thanks for checking in Angry man.
There is this one man on Hawthorne who tries to attack me every time he sees me. He yells and screams. He rides his long board erratically while calling me names. He tries to get real close to me in my blind spot. Olive was getting pretty steamed at this puke the other day. I just smile. She yells at him to get away, he ignores her. I keep hoping he comes in closer. I leave my backdoor open as a trap. I know a little secret that Olive also knows (maybe why she wants him to shove off so bad). Y'see, if I can let the dude get a few licks on me then it's my turn. I can get off my bike, put it out of the way and smash this clod with great speed and ferocity. The guy seems to think I'm a total teetering candyass. lol I hope he doesn't try to throw down with me because I don't want to upset my wife by crushing this Dingleberry

I met a handsome doctor last night ooooh!

LOL ok we already met. He is staying in one of the rooms that rent in our place. Last night Olive was out of town. Steven is a mid-30-something Doc from New Zealand. He was visiting Corvallis tracking down distant relatives and decided to take a few days on Puddletown.
We traded life stories last night as he watched me eat a plate of bacon. He said he has been trying to do at least one ink drawing per day. I asked him if he wanted to do some art with me by way of video taping a bike ride. He was all over it.
There is avid cycling in NZ but nothing to the scale of Portland. I lent him a beach cruser and we took off. I asked him what he wanted to see and he mentioned the big mural by the tracks with plants growing out of it.
He noticed it from the bus and wanted a better look. I was glad that he was narrating into the gopro with that amazing accent.
When we got there we noticed how cool the mural w
as and also noticed I neglected to bring SD cards for both gopros (like a ditz). No footage night, bummer. So we lit out exploring 11pm Portland. We rolled downtown and over the Tillicum bridge twice. He kept looking at the infrastructure and saying "Wow, so fancy."
I enjoyed rolling with him and discovered it's really easy to get medical advice from a doc when you are asking about an ailment you don't have. I got him telling me all about dysentery and child birth. I learned a lot. He had heaps of questions about clowning, our life and of course Patch Adams.
It's a bit of a struggle rolling with folks who aren't conditioned to ride fast for hours like us.
He did well and immediately passed out in his room when we got back.
That''s what's up Doc.

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Recent pics from our trips around town being clowns.

                                        I almost ran over this person sleeping just in the darkness.

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pics of my butt (trucking down the street on a 10' tallbike.

Loud and Lit 2018

Went on the ride as usual. The unusual part was being joined by our daughter. 

She is 20 and fully esconsed in the Portland Bike culture.

Olive Rootbeer was my date as we joined thousands of Portland people for a lit and loud bike ride through town. 

Then just like that, it was time to go.

Two parades in one day.

Two parades in one day. 
Last weekend we put over 30 miles on our tallbikes. 
It was something we are well suited for as we love riding our bikes and navigating to distant places. 
We were on the Kidical Mass bike ride parade at Gateway Green dirtbike park and then did a show/balloons. 

That evening we were in the Starlight parade stunt riding. 

Our parade jobs were escorting a New Orleans group. 
A riverboat float, several dancers and a brass band. 
Olive and Dingo are classic Portland Oregon personalities but Ptown has had a great relationship with the Big Easy for a long time. We fit right in.
Our job was to be sheepdogs. 
Olive and Dingo take a side of the road each, surge forward and then criss-cross in front of the float. 

We ride fast and hard so the crowds on both sides of the road gasp and feel the excitement. Lots of "Oooohhh"s and "AAaaaah"s. 
Then the routine went that we would ride along the sides of our group keeping them together, filling out space between them and separating them from the marching bands before and after us. There ya go, tallbike sheep-dogs ruffruff.
We did it over and over. It was a lot of stunt riding and a lot of fun. 

The announcers had no reason to mention our names but the crowds did. 
It was exhilarating to hear so many people screaming our names with glee at block after block.
 People reacted to us like they were seeing old friends, many of them were. That was touching. We loved watching each other being impressive and we thought about the great people who donated a bunch of hard earned moolah to outfit our lights and gear to help us look sharp.
 Thank you Friends, we can't do it without you. 
At the end we celebrated eachother and watched the marching bands arrive at the end and pile into school buslandia. 

The Mardi Gras  folks gave us lots of love and invited us back to sheepdog for them next year. 
After saying goodbye to our new friends, we turned the lights off, got on our bikes and quietly rode home holding hands and planning our next day's shenanigans...being a 12 year olds parents.

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