Ouvroir de Urban Improvisation #48 - Friday, August 9

[The Passage Announcements]

OUVROIR DE URBAN IMPROVISATION
#48

It's a bike ride.
Friday, August 9, 2024
Departing California Donuts #21 at 9pm

Rating: 2 donuts

Direction: NW

The city gives. And gives and gives and gives. Never a shortage of a places to go, things to see and explore. And cities are, of course, dynamic: you never visit the exact same place twice. All this is well-known.

And so, in a way, this could all continue indefinitely.

And yet, we all also have lives. Lives that have their own dynamics. And that transpire within the context of broader trajectories as well. What was fun and convenient and motivating at one time may become less so as time progresses.

If I'm being really honest, leading a ride once a week, by myself, has never been super convenient — though it has been (mostly) fun and motivating. If The Passage was a self-consciously conceptual "project," the Urban Improvisation ride has hewed closer to the descriptor it inherited: "it's a bike ride." In all the simplicity and fullness that implies. And I have enjoyed that.

It is a little crazy to think that the weekly Passage ride ended over 5 years ago at this point. And that the onset of the Covid pandemic was more than 4 years ago. And I've been doing the OUI ride for about a year and half now. Not sure if I feel more or less stabilized than I did at its start, but I do know that the initial impetus to just go out and do something feels far less urgent. Like, I am not too worried anymore that, absent some regularly-scheduled event, I will simply remain on my couch. Conversely, the impulse to get back to other interests and occupations that have also to far too a large degree fallen away in the last few years (due to avoidance of groups, dispersal of various friends and colleagues, etc., etc.) has become increasingly heightened. There are photos to be taken, videos to be made, books to be published, music to be played, etc., etc.

Which is all my extremely — and perhaps typically — roundabout way of saying that I think it is time again to stop doing a weekly ride.

Nathan and I will still do the monthly Completism rides (until we complete the list, sometime next year!). And I plan to still lead occasional other rides; indeed, I've got a bunch of ideas for different formats/concepts of rides — that will likely be more one-off or occasional — which never really fit with the OUI idea. But the weekly Urban Improvisation rides just don't feel necessary any more like they did (to me, at least) at the start.

A big THANK YOU to everyone who has come out!

-

So, here's how it is looking, moving forward in the immediate future:

This week, Friday, 8/9: OUI #48, two-donut ride (I don't have any particular route in mind yet, but am envisioning something a bit climb-y but on the shorter side)

Next week, Friday, 8/16: Completism (note that this indeed on Friday, not Saturday)

Friday, 8/23: OUI #49, three-donut ride (unless I change my mind, I am thinking this will head sort of SE and be a bit more long and flat)

And then the following week (either on Friday or possibly Saturday) will be the final weekly OUI ride. #50: a nice round number. I am not going to say it is necessarily the last Urban Improvisation ride; I may still do one now and again. But it won't be every(-ish) Friday any more from that point forward. And though that should be a four-donut ride, per the ratings rubric, we'll see what feels most appropriate as the date approaches.