(Photos © J. Maus)
Our story about bike tourer/author Willie Weir reminded me of another example of how Portland is luring tourists thanks to its urban biking offerings.
“We come down often to ride. We find a place to stay and just bike around, do some shopping and see the city.”
— Dave Carter
Back in July, I walked up to our office and noticed a family of four enjoying drinks and snacks at the bakery next door with four folding bikes next to them. My curiosity sufficiently piqued, I introduced myself and struck up a conversation.
Turns out it was the Carter Family — Dave, Jan, their son Paul (age 9) and daughter Val (age 12) — visiting from south King County up in Washington. They came specifically to experience our city on bikes.
Dave Carter said he finds the roads here “much more bike friendly” and the people who drive to be “much more courteous” than around their hometown. I thought it was pretty neat that a family would load their bikes into a van and drive to Portland, just to experience our city by bike.
“We come down often to ride. We find a place to stay and just bike around, do some shopping and see the city,” Dave explained (the highlight of their trip was the Waterfront Blues Festival). “The city would be very wise to market this type of thing to more people.”
In the past year or so, two companies have done just that. Portland Bicycle Tours and Pedal Bike Tours have both found success in leading out-of-towners on rides around Portland. Pedal Bike Tours owner Todd Roll recently celebrated the first anniversary of his business and said it exceeded his expectations.
Portland could be at the forefront of urban bike tourism; which is another growing facet of our local bike economy. And, if the Carter Family is any indicator of this growing market, it’s yet another compelling reason for the City to invest more in our bikeway network. After all, we want the Carter Family (and others like them) to feel safe and welcome on our streets.
We offer lots of different routes at Portland Bicycle Tours, but the most interesting to me is the number of people who are interested in our Portland Bike-ability Ride. People have heard about our wonderful infrastructure and want to experience it first hand. Participants request to be taken to a bike specific traffic signal or to see the new cycle-track on Broadway. They want to park at a bike corral and roll around in our green bike boxes. This is just one reason that I am such a strong supporter of the Bicycle Master Plan Update for 2030 and we will be having a ride of community support on Jan 20th – the day that City Council will vote on the plan. Come and join us! details posted on the Shift calender soon.
Cool, but boo for the kid for wearing a Sounders jersey. 🙂
After going on the Tour de Builders ride (during the Portland Manifest) with Pedal Bike Tours, it occurred to me that it might be super cool to use these folks for out-of-town guests who want to get to know Portland better. And/or it might be a good way to keep the relatives occupied with something cool are rewarding.
I have to admit that it took me actually doing a guided tour for me to realize this. Obviously riding a bike is a great way to see a city but this obviousness, connected with the idea of guided bike tours, didn’t sink in until I actual was on a tour myself.
I suggest those of us who are lucky enough to live in Portland go to Vancouver BC for a bike vacation. My wife and I drove up and parked the car for three days while we rode our bikes. They have some great bike infrastructure that we enjoyed and feel could make a huge difference in Portland.
JayS, Related to Elly’s recent “Traveling for the Holidays” article, how about taking the train? It goes straight to Vancouver now and it’s pretty easy to check bikes as baggage. This is what I’d like to do sometime soon.
That family is so cute! Great story.
Jay,
I’ve done that. Vancouver, B.C. was the most fun city I’ve biked besides my home town of Portland, except that the rain arrives a bit earlier up there so best to make the trip in the summer before September. (BTW, San Francisco comes in third despite the hills and the amount of traffic..I enjoyed the challenge and it’s such a great city anyway.)
More praise for Vancouver, BC. My wife and I were there during the week of Thanksgiving. DEFINITELY take a bike. We did get wet and cold though…..
At Pedal Bike Tours we get a mix of people who’ve taken bike tours in other places and have discovered the bike is the best way to explore a city and people who have heard of Portland’s rep. as THE bike city and want to give it a try.
Many of the latter group are people who haven’t ridden a bike for DECADES (our record is 40 years!) This is the really fun part of the job; they are often astounded at how easy and rewarding it is to explore by bike.
Without exception they all leave entertained, informed and lightly exercised!
PS Please do send us your friends and relatives, 99% of our guests are from elsewhere.
As a Seattleite who *likes* riding up here in the city, I gotta agree that riding in Portland is *even* more fun. I definitely make a lot more touristy trips down to Portland than I would if wasn’t for the bike-friendly aspect of the city. I don’t think I’m alone – I see a lot of bikey folk on the train going back and forth.
With luck our NW cities will soon will realize that being good to cyclists is the *real* way to draw tourists and focus on that rather than wasting their money on sports stadiums and convention centers 🙂
We’re a Vancouver BC couple and we’re planning on coming down to Portland on the train with our bikes in March. Looking forward to it! Any suggestions?