You Should Ride a Bike

I could tell you all the reasons not to drive a car. I could tell you about noise, air, and water. I could tell you about environmental justice. I could tell you about oil wars, about fracking, about the existential threat of climate change. I could tell you about the squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, song birds, cats, and crows I pass daily, flattened on the road. Or the coyote, the beaver, the deer, and the fox laid out dead in the ditch. I could tell you about the barred owl I found yesterday on my way to work, about her soft, curled toes, her unruffled feathers, her pale face, her eyes, one closed to the sky, the other open to the pavement, unseeing.

But you know those stories. And besides, a bicycle isn’t an anti-car. It needs no negative justification. You should ride a bike* because it’s a delight; because your quads are strong, or will be, and feeling their power is a power in itself; because you can go so fast!; because the air above the creek is cool and wet; because on a warm night the scents bloom around you; because the sky is more beautiful than any ceiling. Riding your bike on a blue summer day is easy and sweet, but riding through a winter afternoon can be its own, uncomfortable kind of pleasure, your headlight cutting a wedge of raindrops into the dark, the wind in your face, the wet trickling cold down your collar. The comfort of the indoors is seductive, but does it make you feel alive? Does it make you laugh with wonder at the beauty of the day and your body moving through it?

You should ride a bike because you live here, in this place, in this weather, and you cannot love it from a distance, behind walls and windows. You should ride a bike just the joy of it.

* This imperative comes with qualifications: bicycles aren't accessible to everyone; good public transit is also essential.

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TODAY AT MARKET and NEXT WEEK FOR MARKET PREORDER
10am – 2pm, 1100 Railroad Ave

BREAD:
Red Wheat ($7.50 / 720g)
Elwha River Spelt ($8 / 750g)
Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g)
Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g)
Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g)

SWEETS:
The Most Apple Cake ($5) made with rye and buckwheat and more apple than batter.
Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2)
Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2)
Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies ($5 / 2)
Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz)

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FALL BREAD SUBSCRIPTION / WEEKLY PREORDERS
Every Wednesday Sept 2 - Dec 16
10 weeks remaining
Pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, Happy Valley/Fairhaven

RED WHEAT Subscription - whole wheat table bread
MOUNTAIN RYE Subscription - seedy rye & wheat
TOAST Subscription - a new tinned loaf every week
10/14 - Rosemary Cornmeal
10/21 - Multicereal
10/28 - Baked Apple
Nov - Dec TBD

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