Yesterday was the kick-off to Portland Carfree Days. The event, which runs through Sunday (9/24) drew a enthusiastic crowd who basked in the carfree atmosphere on SW Ankeny Street between 2nd and 3rd avenues.
There was a lot to check out; Carfree Day t-shirts, free maps and resources from PDOT, Carye Bye’s awesome, limited-edition Shift birthday postcards, the amazingly good food of master chef John that benefitted the Get Lit program, and of course friends old and new.
Timo Forsberg brought the mobile TriMet bus bike rack so riders could try out loading their bikes. We figured out how to load a long-wheelbase Electra Townie, which I previously thought couldn’t be done.
The highlight was the much-anticipated Donut Eating Contest. If my memory serves me correct, the victory went to Team BTA who ate 21 Voodoo donuts in five minutes! There was a tie for second which included my team, The Ragtags. I contributed six (yes six!) donuts to our total of 17. This guy had one in each hand and ate with style.
We also had a nice visit from some bicycle cops. Officer Pickett, who is a regular in the Portland Bike Forums (posting as “PoPo”), was a welcome guest. He’s even got a little squeezy pig on his handlebars; you gotta love that.
Carl Larson, and
Linda Ginenthal]
The fun continues today with more great food from Chef John starting at noon, free bike tune ups from the Community Exchange Cycle Touring Club, and a ton of great live music. Check out all the details at PortlandCarFreeDay.org.
[Check out the rest of my photos here]
Thanks for reading.
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Jonathan;
I want to thank you for posting this so quickly. At the Car-less info booth I spoke with a gentleman who came to the fair from Vancouver specifically because he read about it on BikePortland. This is also a good argument for making Car-Free day a multi-day event.
(is that too many hyphens? 🙂
Did you have to do any special maneuvering to get the Townie on? Inquiring owners of bright orange Townies want to know!
townies: why did no one figure that out before?
i used to work in a recumbent shop. recumbents have all sorts of funky wheelbase lenghts. we sold racks by sportworks (same people who make racks for just about every city bus in the US if i’m not mistaken). often times flipping the wheel/fork around was the only way to get a ‘bent on a rack…
Dang right we out-ate on the donuts! Hooray!
Read the release.
I wonder if this event is in any way collaborated with a similar event in Yokohama : “Yokohama Car Free Day”.
http://yokohama-car-free.com/
A coincedence that it was held on the same day ???
Hi Ats,
Great to hear from you. World Carfree Day was celebrated all over the globe on Sept. 22nd so that’s probably what your Yokohama event was part of.