America's cycling mecca

Saul Bellow once said: "It's as if the country was turned on end, and whatever wasn't screwed down properly rolled into southern California."
I believe those unscrewed down have moved to a more temperate climate. 
What brought this brilliant thought to mind was the absence of any American city among the bike friendly cities of the world.  So, what about Portland?   It's supposed to be a perfect city for cycling culture.  I decided to investigate.  Since I don't have the time,spare money or even the inclination to visit Portland, I decided to research the city using the the most active resource available, Portlandia.
   Apparently it's an attempt to document the only American city where jobs, ambition and coherent behavior is unnecessary.   Some of these "people" ride bikes.  Not very many do, most just hang out at coffee shops, gender biased bookstores or artisan shops like the one where Jeff Goldbloom sells knots.  The mayor, portrayed by Kyle Mclachlan, rides a bike while performing inane and inconsequential stuff.

 But those are the sensible things that happen.  

It's where Bill Walton got rich playing basketball, part-time between Grateful Dead concerts.
The rest of this show appears to be something Hunter S. Thompson was embarrassed to publish.  Portland must be peopled exclusively by children of Woodstock veterans whose chromosome integrity has been severely compromised.
  All in all Portland appears to be totally irrelevant to anything.  Of course I know the show is not real, it hasn't rained in the 10 episodes I've seen, that can't be Portland.  But then, I'm from the midwest where we keep jobs(sometimes for years)and raise children rather than watch them happen.  Carl Sandburg once called Saul Bellow's home town (Chicago) "the city with big shoulders," if it is, then Portland would have to be it's flaccid coattails flapping in the breeze.  I'm probably not cool enough.