On Saturday morning, over 50 people showed up to Alpenrose Velodrome, but they weren’t there to race or to spectate. And instead of energy gels and sports drinks, they fueled up with precision made pancakes from the skilled hands of Chris King, owner of Chris King Components.
It was the annual track clean-up and repair day and the volunteers needed the carbs to tackle all the scraping, painting, cement patching, and sweeping it takes to get the velodrome ready for the busy track season ahead.
Over 20 years ago, 40 year-old Northeast Portland resident Gary Sansom was a top BMX racer. Like many guys his age (including me), he grew up wanting to be a BMX superstar. Eventually (also like many of us) he grew up, got a “real job”, and got on with his life…but his love for BMX never really went away.
A few years ago, while working at a dot-com in downtown Portland he realized it would cost $100 to park his car. Gary thought, “screw that, I’m going to ride my bike.” He hopped onto eBay to find a bike and instead found an obsession of collecting BMX bikes.
Portland’s bike-loving Congressman, Earl Blumenauer, appeared on the hit Comedy Central show, “The Colbert Report” last week.
Blumenauer was part of the popular “Better Know a District” segment where Stephen Colbert profiles districts and the member of Congress who represents them.
Colbert introduced Blumenauer to a nationwide audience as “Democrat and bicycling enthusiast,” and then went on to tell Blumenauer that his “obsession with bicycling borders on the interesting.”
Here are a few interesting links I’ve come across lately. Some have a Portland connection, some don’t. I’ll try and make this a regular thing from now on, so if you find a neat link feel free to send it my way.
You wouldn’t know it from the outside, but up on MLK Blvd. (at Jessup Street), behind an IT company called Netropole, is an online retailer of bike apparel called Veloclothes.com.
I recently paid them a visit to find out more about the company.
Dave Johnson, a major bike enthusiast, is the owner and founder of Netropole. Two years ago, seeing a downturn in the tech sector, he decided to launch Veloclothes.com as a side business. He figured it was a safe bet because he loves bikes, this city loves bikes, and Netropole just so happens to develop and support e-commerce software.
After a hiatus of nearly a decade, the City of Portland will host an official Bike to Work Day celebration at Pioneer Courthouse Square on May 17th, from 7:30-9:00am. Find out all the details in the official press release.
It should be a great party and continuation of a proud tradition that dates back to the 1970s. I thought it’d be fun to get a sense of this bikey legacy so I got in touch with Jeff Smith at the Office Of Transportation. Jeff started as an intern for the City’s Bike Program back in the ’80s and knows a lot about Portland’s bike history, and what he doesn’t know he’s always willing to find out. He dug up some classic old photos that had been gathering dust in archives at the Portland Building. Click on the thumbnails below for a ride down memory lane.
[See this comment for an update.]
Yesterday I received a phone call from Shawn Karambelas, owner of SK Northwest (I had left a message for him last week). This is the company currently in escrow on a lot just south of OMSI on the Willamette River, smack dab in the middle of a potential trail connection between the Eastbank Esplanade and the Springwater Corridor Trail (for background on this story see this post).
He was clearly frustrated by the community push-back he has received so far and I could sense the anxiety in his voice. I had to re-assure him several times that I wasn’t out to get him and that I just wanted to find out more about his intentions.
Check out this cover photo (below) of the May St. Johns Sentinel. It features Shawntae Wilson and her Britney Bike. According to the Sentinel:
“She also has a DVD player attached to the handle bars so she can listen to Britney and watch her videos while she rides.”
The warm Spring air has beckoned hordes of Portlanders onto their bikes. I’ve heard reports of bike congestion on the bridges and I think its safe to say we’ll see more people than ever on bikes this year. With more bikes on the road, I thought it would be a good time to suggest some good bike safety resources I’ve come across recently.
Joe’s Secrets
My compatriot Joe Travers, from the excellent Biking Toronto blog, recently wrote a great series called “Secrets to Cycling in Traffic”. Here they are:
[Posted by “RamseNiblick”]
My bike can best be described as a blue and black magna A-frame mountain bike with no fenders, grip shifts, handlebars that protrude upwards and strongly resemble horns. The front wheel had shock absorbers. The color scheme also incorporated some yellow and a little white and I blelieve the frame said “electroshock” on it. The brakes were cantilever, the back one was a little worn down, but the front one was tighter than any brake has ever been ever. Also, the bike had a quick-release lever for the seat, and I always took the seat with me whenever I parked the bike. I still have the seat, so if someone tries to resell the thing, there will not be a seat on it, or a weird mismatching one.
The bike was parked next to the campus public health building on the PSU campus (SW 6th/5th & Hall) The bike was locked to a an upside-down U-shaped steel pole embedded in concrete designed for the express purpose of locking up bikes. There was actually a video camera mounted directly above my bike, which I figured would deter criminals. The lock was a gigantic cable-style bike lock made, I believe, by kryptonite running through the frame, front wheel, and around the steel pole, and the lock was the thickest one I could possibly find. It was like a forearm. Whoever stole this bike must have spent about a half an hour with a very sharp dremmel tool or possibly even a blowtorch to get it off. Either that or they simply figured out the combination, which I have long feared would happen.
I’ve had that bike since I was in Jr. High, and back then it only cost about $150, but I would definitely like it back.
if found, my email is gangstatron@gmail.com. thanks.
Some very exciting news announced by Jessica Roberts of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA). A major new bike lane has been striped on Vancouver Ave., from Russell Street down to Broadway. This completes a “missing link” in the bike network that is part of the BTA’s larger goal of gaining bike access through the Rose Quarter Transit Center to the River and the Lloyd District.
As long as Critical Mass exists in Portland it will be controversial and divisive. Recent events have renewed the debate about its merits and purpose within the cycling community and beyond.
Critical Mass is a big, complex idea that has as many definitions as participants. No one person can define Critical Mass and each city has its own, unique set of rules for dealing with it. Given its controversial and emotional past and present, we can debate and argue about it forever.