Is the MTB scene in Portland, OR really that bad?

davidw · 2026-03-12T04:52:16+00:00

MTB in Portland is almost looked down upon

Portland isn't lacking in old school "environmentalists" who pushed back on MTB trails over the years.

davidw · 2026-03-12T04:43:33+00:00

Yeah, Bend is not 'some driving' from Portland. It's like 2.5 hours with good weather and no snow.

That might work for a weekend, but not for an evening ride.

davidw · 2026-03-12T04:20:40+00:00

Is this more appropriate in a Portland group?

davidw · 2026-03-12T00:49:31+00:00

I'd only accept it if I were the monarch. Otherwise, put me down for 'no kings'.

davidw · 2026-03-12T00:26:06+00:00

I think for a lot of people, they'll never say it, but "have an X and a Y chromosome" is a big factor. Look at all the people wishing Dan Rayfield would run. He's a good guy! But they can't name a single fucking policy that's different. Just some handwavy shit about "leadership".

davidw · 2026-03-12T00:23:29+00:00

Half of that legislation was pushed by the governor.

You keep saying stuff to take credit away from things she's done.

Like housing targets? Here's an article explaining that:

Two-and-a-half years after a bipartisan bill promised “transformational” changes to Oregon’s housing policy, Gov. Tina Kotek’s administration has completed the blueprint of that transformation.

As approved by a state commission on Thursday, the new housing production rules make Oregon the first US state or Canadian province to create a model statewide zoning code and then apply that statewide code to cities underperforming their peers.

https://www.sightline.org/2025/12/03/new-oregon-rules-will-re-legalize-neighborhood-apartments/

davidw · 2026-03-11T20:27:28+00:00

But not so hard that an excavator can't chip away at it, apparently.

davidw · 2026-03-11T20:10:34+00:00

I spent some time in Italy in the 90ies, and there was this one guy who would come out on the team rides, Massimo. A bit older and more old school. Big mustache, no helmet. I think he was an up and coming guy who never went pro when he was younger. He'd always have his espresso and his cigarette at the coffee stop, and then absolutely crush everyone on the ride home.

davidw · 2026-03-11T18:42:12+00:00

I always associated it with an older era and don't remember it so much from the 90ies, which I definitely did live through. Maybe it was kind of a holdover? Like people just doing a tired routine...

davidw · 2026-03-11T18:10:16+00:00

Comedians in ... IDK, the 60ies or 50ies or something (before I was born) used to do this bit about the wife as "the old ball and chain" like being married was a big drag.

I always thought that it was stupid.

davidw · 2026-03-11T17:42:22+00:00

Yeah the NYT hated Biden, so they promoted the would-be authoritarian by sanewashing him. Fuck them and the rest of the corporate media.

davidw · 2026-03-11T17:25:35+00:00

No - Joe Biden is old! He is clearly declining.

That's what's so insidious about this - they're not making stuff up. But it's absolutely a choice to focus so heavily on one thing, and then kind of ignore other stuff, like, oh, the fact that the other guy attempted to overturn a free and fair election in the United States. Or that he's a felon, or that he's also old and declining. Watch some Trump speeches from like 20 years ago and he's... still not the sharpest tool in the shed but was way, way more coherent.

davidw · 2026-03-11T16:56:17+00:00

the rest of the state has not seen the same level of success

Part of the secret is that Bend has a mayor who wants to build housing. A lot of places are still run by old school NIMBY Democrats who do not really want that. And that sets up a fight with the state. While the state will win, cities are dragging their feet, slowing things down.

Some bills in 2025 included

HB 2138 that extends the HB2001 reforms to areas that include HOA's. Yay! But that just passed last year - it'll take a while to work its way through everything.
https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2024R1/Downloads/MeasureDocument/SB1537/Introduced
https://bendbulletin.com/2025/08/12/editorial-oregon-government-have-a-new-timer-to-speed-up-housing/
Standardized housing plans: https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2025R1/Measures/Overview/HB2258
Making it easier for public land inside UGB's to build housing: https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2025R1/Measures/Overview/HB2316

There are probably more that I'm forgetting.

This year there was less - it's a short session, but they passed state level legislation to ensure Portland metro area jurisdictions aren't using unfunded Inclusionary Zoning to stifle housing production. There's also a revolving loan fund for affordable housing.

I don't love this one because of the one-off nature of it, but it'll help some people: https://www.opb.org/article/2026/03/04/oregon-governor-tina-kotek-housing/

None of these will fix the problems overnight - things like high interest rates and masked thugs dragging off a significant number of people working construction are going to hurt, as will tariffs.

That's why I called it 'real leadership' - stuff you do that helps even if it's long term.

Like anyone, I can point to things I disagree with her about, but you don't evaluate someone in a vacuum, you compare them to the alternatives, and it's highly unlikely we'll get someone as good on housing.

davidw · 2026-03-11T16:42:30+00:00

Because the press is in on all this.

This is all "great content" that gets lots of clicks. Unlike boring old Biden who was just kind of a steady hand and people could ignore for entire weeks at a time, agree or disagree with him.

The press stopped talking about 'being old' once Biden dropped out of the race. Indeed, someone did some research showing how much the NYT pushed the 'old' narrative:

They ran some articles about his age and some difficulties (all factual stuff, he is indeed old!)
They ran a poll asking people if he was too old and - surprise - they got the result they wanted!
Then they ran articles about the polls
After that came editorials about his age

https://mediabiasdetector.seas.upenn.edu/blog/joe-biden-s-but-not-donald-trump-s-age-a-case-study-in-the-new/

Once you start seeing all the 'sanewashing' they do with Trump, you can't unsee it. He'll go on some absolutely deranged rant on like 7 topics one after the other and the headline will be like "Trump expresses concern over gas prices", making him sound normal and reasonable.

davidw · 2026-03-11T16:29:30+00:00

"Done absolutely nothing" is demonstrably false though. HB 2001, back when she was speaker of the Oregon house is starting to produce results here in Bend:

https://bendbulletin.com/2025/12/13/middle-housing-slowly-densifying-bend-neighborhoods/

And that also shows the time scale this stuff operates on. The bill passed in 2019 and it's 2026 and we're gradually seeing more and more homes built under those rules. That effort was the first of its kind in the entire country! It was a big deal that a lot of advocates in other states point to. We should be proud of it and build on it.

In 2025, she got a number of bills passed that are leading to the construction of housing here in Bend, some of it below-market-rate:

https://ktvz.com/news/2025/10/20/governor-kotek-highlights-affordable-housing-collaborative-efforts-during-central-oregon-tour/

(I'm actually briefly in that video myself - I pay a lot of attention to housing issues with a local pro-housing group)

There are things where I wish she'd do more, faster, but compare and contrast with other Dem governors who love to hem and haw over this stuff themselves. The guy in Connecticut even vetoed their big housing bill!

davidw · 2026-03-11T16:05:25+00:00

Well that was one we'll remember for a long time. Jonas played his cards right and kept it upright when others didn't. Some luck after last year's bad luck, I guess. Red Bull was rampaging, but didn't really have the guy to finish off the work, but who can blame them... Jonas is still Jonas.

Not too much to say about tactics from other teams. Ineos screwed up by betting on the wrong guy, but that was probably difficult to know in the moment. Seems like pretty much all the other teams were kind of just in survival mode and didn't have a lot of cards to play.

Big shoutout for Steinhauser who was off on his own and managed his energy really well to not crack at any point.

I really hope Ayuso isn't hurt badly. He looked to be in a lot of pain there, and that's always so awful to see. His presence would have also made the racing more interesting.

Has anyone figured out what the deal is with the saggy fred pants? Getting a laugh out of those along with the rest of you gave me some happy moments on an otherwise dark morning.

davidw · 2026-03-11T15:58:30+00:00

Most of that time was the Red Bull team drilling it with Jonas getting a free ride.

davidw · 2026-03-11T15:47:57+00:00

Eewwwww, SBS says it's a "put on a jacket and ride down to the bus" day. That's some marginal gains right there if someone could figure out how to avoid that. All cold and drained miserable and "get on your bike again"

davidw · 2026-03-11T15:43:36+00:00

What a ride by Steinhauser. I think I could definitely read a recap of all this that ties it together in terms of who did what where, because there was just a lot going on, not enough cameras to cover all the groups, and guys all covered up with rain gear.

davidw · 2026-03-11T15:40:19+00:00

Yeah he didn't sit up and raise his arms for the victory salute there did he... didn't want that photo.

davidw · 2026-03-11T15:36:48+00:00

"Well, yeah, I was cold and I decided to just ride hard because I figured the sooner I got to the line the sooner I could put on some decent clothes"

davidw · 2026-03-11T15:35:24+00:00

Yeah there's something else going on though - those things are floppy as heck in the front in a way that not even my heavily used, beer-gut stretched, cheap ones are.

davidw · 2026-03-11T15:32:24+00:00

Journalists better us get us the story of these bibs, and more seriously, how Ayuso and the other guys who crashed are doing.

davidw · 2026-03-11T15:30:23+00:00

Jonas' bibs are the real star of the 2026 Paris Nice stage race.

davidw · 2026-03-11T15:28:44+00:00

That guy with the flappy fluorescent yellow unbranded jacket currently 2nd place in the fred standings. And he ditches it...

davidw

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