Spring is here and with it comes hordes of Portland cyclists, eager to ride without gloves and rain jackets. Saturday’s Earth Day Celebration at Sellwood Park was overrun with bikes. Luckily, volunteers from Shift to Bikes were on hand to offer free, attended bike parking.
The bike parking area was part of the Better Transportation Fair which featured lots of bikey fun. Get Lit’s Jeff Bernards was on hand giving away free bike helmets, Citybikes’ Tim Calvert was showing people how to make bike buckets, volunteer Carl Larson was manning the Shift table, and there was a place to test-ride utility and cargo bikes.
One family rolled up in this crazy, four-wheeled pedal-powered vehicle. It was made by Swiss company Z.E.M. that, according to the owner, went belly-up. Originally they sold for $10,000 but he picked this up at a “fire sale” price of $2,500. I like how they even attached a trailer to the back!.
Making an appearance astride Segways were our friends over at SK Northwest, the company that doesn’t want a bike trail on their property along the Springwater Corridor. Community bike advocate Ethan Jewett engaged their representative in a civil conversation, expressing his concern over their misguided intentions (more on those later).
Also on hand was this magical bike fully-adorned in astroturf. I first saw this at the Bunny on a Bike Ride and I talked to the man behind the design, Dumpster Dave. He said the inspiration came from an old bike he used to have called the “Astro-glide”.
It was a great day to be on a bike, especially rolling along the Springwater Corridor Trail with hundreds of other cyclists, watching Osprey fly overhead and ringing in Spring on two wheels.
To see more from Earth Day check out my photo gallery. And don’t miss Dat’s photos either.