Report (and photos): Portland City Tour

Ride leader Evan Ross goes over
the basics before we started.
– Slideshow below –
(Photos © J. Maus)

Evan Ross, owner of Portland Bicycle Tours, led about 15 of us on an adventure through the streets of downtown Portland… and beyond.

We met at the Vera Katz Statue on the Eastbank Esplanade. Before we got rolling, Evan stood up and gave us a little ride intro. He said the purpose of the ride wasn’t just the tour, but that he wanted each rider to get more comfortable riding on downtown streets.

A stop in the South Park Blocks.

During the ride, Evan mixed in useful downtown riding tips with insights about various points of interest. We rolled over the Hawthorne Bridge into downtown, easily mixing with traffic to our first stop near Pioneer Courthouse Square.

From there, we road up SW Broadway to the South Park Blocks, stopping to learn a bit about the Benson Bubblers (famous drinking fountains installed throughout Portland), right outside Mr. Benson’s mansion.

After rolling back through downtown, we eventually made our way to the Waterfront near the Steel Bridge, which we enjoyed all the way to the Hawthorne. Several people split off at that point, but some folks continued on down the Springwater and to the Sellwood Bridge.

View the slideshow below for the rest of my photos (or view them in the gallery):

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

For a more detailed report on this ride, see Michael Moore’s report posted to the Shift email list.