(Photo © J. Maus)
It’s way too dark too early in Portland these days, and it happens to be the holiday season, so what better time to light up your bike and then spread the cheer by riding around to light displays throughout the city?
If you’re looking to festive-ize your bike, Aaron Tarfman recently shared a few sources via the Shift email list. Tarfman says he’s already gotten “a lot of compliments’ for the lights on his frame and now plans to wrap his wheels in them too. He recommends the LED variety which you can order online here, here or here for about $7 to $15. I’ve also found them at Sunlan Lighting on North Mississippi Ave.
Once you’ve got your bike fully adorned, you’ve got two great options this Monday to join a group ride and see the local light displays. For the second year in a row, North Portland-based Pedal Bike Tours will lead their Pedal Past the Lights ride. They plan to start off this family-friendly ride with hot (non-alcoholic) drinks and a decoration contest then head out to Winter Wonderland at PIR, which, as some of you may recall, will have a special bike-only night this year!
Perennial ride leaders and bike fun promoters Carye Bye and Esther Harlow will also lead a ride on Monday night. Their ride — which starts at a bar — will loop through residential light displays in North Portland and will also end up out at PIR’s Winter Wonderland.
See the Shift Calendar for full details on both rides, and we hope to see you out there!
Thanks for reading.
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Dutch light campaign from the national bicycle awareness campaign:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsCWt1tBUzk&feature=player_embedded
The tagline at the end is: If you want to get noticed, just turn your light on 🙂
For the Neon Night, Holiday Light Ride Pre-ride warming at Moloko Plus, a bar on Mississippi (a couple doors down from No Po Bike Works) instead of a name on the building has some interesting Neon lights.
We’ll gather down the street in front of Sunlan Lighting at 6:15 which also has fabulous nighttime lights (and in the day time as noted above a place to get festive lights for ones’ bike).
Kids are welcome on this adventure, but it will be a longish non loop ride.
Last year Ikea also offered 10-light strings about 6′ long, powered by two AAs. Only $2-3 each, if I recall.
Sunlan’s not still on Mississippi?
Sorry folks, my mistake. Sunlan is still on Mississippi. I’ve made the edit. — Jonathan
I got some battery-powered orange LED lights at Fred’s for 3 or 5 bucks.
Mark, I move we elect you Portland’s dark winter evening Bike Visibility Emperor for Life! 😉
Walgreens has led light strings that use 2 AA’s for $3.99, I used them all last winter and I’m about to decorate ole Betsy right now!
Light up your bike, dress in your favorite xmas costume, santa, elf, reindeer…
Christmas Day Santa Bike ride Dec 25th Starts North Park Blocks at 2PM
Bring goodies for those without a place to go. Make someone feel less alone this day!
And, Monkey Electric is still way too expensive for dis por Chinaman.
Take a picture! Bikejuju.com and GoMeansGo.org are sponsoring a “Dark Days” bikes-in-the-dark photo contest, with prizes of bike lights from Planet Bike and Bikeglow.
Details at Bikejuju.com
Don’t know what you’ve got in Portland, but at the local Rite Aid Pharmacy branch I got a small string of battery powered lights for about 1.99. Takes two AA’s, and, last year at least, it lasted all season, although it took two strings to cover the whole frame.