Pedalpalooza is nearly here! Get your rides listed by Sunday

Hammercising in Waterfront Park during Pedalpalooza in 2010.
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

Portland’s legendary lead-it-yourself festival of bike fun kicks off in one month, and that means it’s time for you to write a line or two of its legend.

This year’s Pedalpalooza festival will run from June 9 to July 4, and so far it’s got 173 rides listed. But there’s still room for lots more, and the print calendar (which is distributed in the Portland Mercury) goes to press after this Sunday, May 15.

I’ll be leading two rides this year, personally: one where people will trade their one-handed glove sets to make new pairs and one to check out some of the amazing new art murals that have been popping up around town. But rides can be about anything: zombies, titanium bike frames, the prom you always wanted, or “sex, drugs and magic.”

Chris “Fool” McCraw, a local bike fun veteran, posted this helpful advice earlier today to the email listserv of Shift, the volunteer group that coordinates Pedalpalooza on behalf of the city:

Pedalpalooza print calendar deadline is rapidly approaching – MAY THE 15TH! I see that we currently have 165 events which is a good number…but it could be a better number! I see that nobody has yet been brave enough to post a 4th of July Ride – like, say, a ride to the top of the hill in Wash park to watch the fireworks in Portland AND HillsBeavertron or a ride out to a swimmin’ hole on the Willamette.

Don’t leave the last day of our festival naked, and don’t post rides with details “TBA” unless you plan to update it before May the 15th – we don’t print rides without starting points unless we’ve talked to you first (don’t worry, the June MMR is covered).

Not feeling confident enough to be a ride leader? Fear not – we’ve got you covered with one more “Ride Leadership Ride” which is on the FIRST SATURDAY of pedalpalooza – so sign up to lead your first ride (rolling later in the festival of course) and come on the leadership ride to get tips and brainstorm about making your ride one of the awesomest! I promise you will leave with enough info that your ride will be better than probably half of the ones already listed (no shit).

If you have questions about print deadline or logistics, please reply to me off-list. If you have a poorly specified ride, expect to hear from the editors of the print calendar soon as we work to massage a couple hundred events into shape to be put down in history 😉

If you just aren’t a leader type and still want to embrace the pedalpalooza spirit, you do have some other options!

1) If you want to help make pennants, you can contact Lori (loriasills@gmail.com), goddess of pennants, to get in on the pennant-making action, happening in the next couple of weeks. Makers get free pennants and tons of good karma!

2) we’re gonna need poster distributors in the next few days! Like riding around and sticking our gorgeous art (thanks Carla Bartow!) in community spaces and bike shops? We need your help! I’ll post a separate call out as soon as we have the posters (in the next couple of days), but feel free to get in touch with me now (off-list) to get signed up to help!

3) See your favorite ride on the calendar? Offer to help with it! Every ride has a contact method for the leader, be it email or that tiny ‘forum’ link next to the event on pedalpalooza.org. Nobody hates a helper, though some may not need one 🙂

get ready to get BIKEFUN’D TO THE MAX (note: MAX not running downtown right now).

We’ve got nothing to add to that. Let’s make it happen, and see you in a few weeks — at which point I’ll hopefully have figured out what else to do at that glove ride.

— Jonathan Maus, (503) 706-8804 – jonathan@bikeportland.org

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