Along my web wanderings of the past several months I have collected a few Portland bike blogs. They are a fantastic source of insight into life in this bike-crazed town. Here they are in no particular order:
Da Dingo Dizmal Digest – Dingo the Clown
Rantings of a mad Texican clown
The blog of none other than Dingo the Clown of the infamous Alberta Clownhouse troupe. Dingo puts together some nifty poems and drawings and lends a “tall-bike” eyed view of the streets.
Sweet Chocolate Malted – Scout
The story of a girl, her bike, a slice of cake, Wild Cherry Pepsi, and a fist-full of cookies…
“Scout” has a fun blog going. She chimes in on all sorts of topics and regularly posts about food.
Urban Adventure League – Shawn Granton
Creatively exploring the urban environment of Portland, Oregon through fun adventures!
Shawn is currently on a trip back east but when he’s around you can count on him for purveying some high-quality bike fun. In addition to leading great rides, he has also put together a great little zine to the bike scene called the Portland Bicycle Culture Primer available from Microcosm Publishing.
Slow Brave Athena – VJ
This beautiful blog is always an insightful read. VJ bikes and walks all over town, snapping great photos and sharing her commentary along the way. She’s been riding more and more and has some inspiring posts about how great her commute makes her feel. Funny story: after VJ and I had met online, I rode up alongside her during Bridge Pedal. After chatting for a bit, she said, “are you Jonathan?”
CHUNK666 – Silken
The place to go for all the latest about the pending carmageddon, mutant-bike takeover. Kept up by “Silken”, the Chunk blog will have you speaking freak bike in no time. It’s also the place to find a great round-up of photos from the recent Chunkathalon.
Bike Fun at OregonLive.com
Ahem…my old blog. They nuked all the archives (don’t worry I transferred them over) but kept the “Bike Fun” name. Currently it’s a daily journal kept by Jonathan Nicholas during Cycle Oregon but he will move on after the ride. They’ll be looking for another bike blogger to take it over on a permanent basis. Any takers?
Cleverchimp – Todd Fahrner
Todd is a brilliant local entrepreneur and devoted car-free family man. This blog chronicles the journey of his ingeniuous new product, the “Stokemonkey human electric hybrid drive”. It’s a power-assist unit that you use with an Xtracycle conversion. I’ve tried it and it really makes the notion of “car free” much more feasible.
Brian’s Space – Brian Ellin
Brian is a local road and MTB racer and general tech guy. Want proof? He started the next blog on my list too.
Ride Oregon Wiki – Brian Ellin
This “wiki” is a site that allows anyone to register and contribute details about their favorite Oregon bike rides. It’s always growing in content but it relies on the community to contribute. So get in there and add your favorite. Bookmark it, then don’t forget to check back next Spring when you’re planning your big rides.
Molly Cameron
Local racer extraordinaire, Molly also owns VeloShop the little bike shop just off Burnside on the same block as Rocco’s Pizza across from Powell’s. But enough about her shop…her blog is all about her personal trials and tribulations as an elite bike racer.
Portland Transport – Chris Smith
A conversation about access and mobility in the Portland/Vancouver region.
If you’re a transportation geek and like talking about MAX, bikes, and other non single-occupancy-vehicle ways to move around the city, this blog is for you. It features great topics and discussion and the list of contributors is a “who’s who” of the local transportation scene.
My Velocipede and Me
I don’t know much about this blog other than that the author is based in Portland.
The City Bicycle
Oh how I love the Dutch city bikes. So elegant, so purposeful, so perfect. So does James. In fact he loves all city bikes and finds all sorts of them around the web. Great to know I’m not the only one.
Bicycle Eye
Poetic narratives, beautiful images and a ton of helpful links separate this blog from others. It’s only updated a few times a month, but the wait is worth it. The same guy that runs this blog also does the next one.
Bicycle Haikus
An inspiring and fun collection of bike haikus like this one by “paul”:
Adrenaline flows
Bike and body dance as one
See the line, ride it
MemePatch – Michael Rasmussen
Michael keeps a ton of great content on this site. My favorite part are the quotes at the top that changes each time I visit.
I’m sure there are tons more out there and I apologize for missing them. If you know of others that should be on this list, would you be so kind as to leave them in the comments? It’d be great to get a good list going. Thanks.