(Photo © J. Maus)
The Portland Mercury, a local independent weekly news source, has just launched their annual Auction Issue. The idea is simple: Let the community bid on a huge slew of fun items and gifts and give all the money to a local non-profit.
This year’s benefactor is the Portland Women’s Crisis Line (you might remember them from the great ride they put on back in April).
One of the gifts to bid on is a ride with me (on a new Specialized bike), followed by lunch at Little Red Bike Cafe with the future mayor of Portland, Sam Adams.
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Here’s the description of auction item from the Mercury:
…You’ll take home a sexy Specialized Globe Vienna 1 commuter bike… You’ll need it to enjoy a ride around town with BikePortland.org’s Jonathan Maus, the best reporter in town on all things bike, if we say so ourselves (and we do). After you and Maus soak up the city’s bike boulevards, the two of you will meet up with Sam Adams at the Little Red Bike Cafe, home of delicious sandwiches (we recommend the Zoobomb!) and amazing Courier Coffee. Over lunch, you can pick Adams’ brain on anything you want—or make your pitch for a personal bike lane right from your home to your office. (Hey, dare to dream!)
I’m blushing. Those are some very kind words from the Mercury. I love the “pitch for a personal bike lane” part.
This should be fun. I wonder if anyone will bid on it and how much we’ll end up raising.
Place your bid and check out more information here.
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I’m down for 50 clams.
Oh, I’m so gonna win this. Anyone know how much that commuter bike is worth? I want to bid enough to cover their costs…
Sorry, it says $420 (coincidence?) right there in the description. Duh.
give em hell, a.O.
I’d just like to announce that I’m currently the high bidder at $1.99
Some other people really should bid. For that price I really should have to buy lunch and return the bike.
$305. Much better.
So it’s already too late for my to buy that for a dollar? Damn…
Wow. The power of Maus and Bike Portland. The lunch with Jonathon and Sam is the only one above $1.99 and its at $305. a.O., when should we expect it to reach $420?
Someone should tell the Merc that Adams will “reign” as mayor after taking the “mayoral ‘reins'”.
Man! Lunch at Little Red Bike Cafe too? Could that package get any better?
This looks like a great opportunity for a savvy green industry CEO/leader to demonstrate genuine depths of low-carbon commitment. This ride with two outstanding community leaders (history-making figures, really!) should be valued at a minimum $1,000, but greater sums would be nice to see for the Portland Women’s Crisis Line ($5,000, anyone?). Rather than blowing thousands of dollars on short-lived, high-waste print advertising, I implore one savvy company to claim this big-picture opportunity to raise awareness about business goals/efforts while supporting a vital nonprofit cause. Better yet, let’s see a bidding war begin amongst several Oregon business leaders!
Just an idea….
Wow, I can’t afford it, but I envy the person who can!
This is obviously a ruse to prove the existence of the all powerful bike lobby
77 cents and not a penny higher.
Put the names of all who responded to this article here at Bikeportland in a hat and let Sam pick a name out of the hat. Or…have a bike a suggestion box for bike centric projects let Sam pick the person who has a creative or unique doable project.
Is it “all you can eat” at LRBC, because then it’d be totally worth it!