Weekend Open Thread

Butterfly Beach in Santa Barbara, CA.

What’s everyone up to this weekend?

I’ve been in California visiting family. We took a few days to venture to my old stomping grounds of Santa Barbara. The photo at right is the bike parking at Butterfly Beach, a gorgeous stretch of sand in front of the famous Biltmore Hotel.

I’d love to hear what bike adventures you’re up to. This is one of the craziest, busiest bike weekends of the year! There’s Seattle-to-Portland, Mountain Bike Oregon, Cycle Oregon Weekend, the Alpenrose Velodrome Challenge, and more.

I’ll be home tomorrow in time for Sunday Parkways in East Portland. I’m looking forward to seeing how folks in those parts react to 4 1/2 miles of carfree streets. I hope everyone has a great weekend. I’ll be back on Monday to more stories and photos.

Share your bike fun in the comments below…

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Founder of BikePortland (in 2005). Father of three. North Portlander. Basketball lover. Car owner and driver. If you have questions or feedback about this site or my work, feel free to contact me at @jonathan_maus on Twitter, via email at maus.jonathan@gmail.com, or phone/text at 503-706-8804. Also, if you read and appreciate this site, please become a supporter.

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Carol McCreary
13 years ago

Was just clearing mail before hopping on my bike and found this new “Guide for Reviewing Public Road Design and Bicycling Accommodations” sent by bike advocate friend in the greater Washington area. http://www.fabb-bikes.org/guide/FABBGuide-HighRes.pdf

Shane
13 years ago

In Eugene we’re Biking to Baseball for Kidical Mass!

Only $5 for tickets, dinner, retro Mike Schmidt jersey, prizes and more… plus Sluggo will be riding with us!

http://eugenesrts.org/events/biketobaseball

Paul Johnson
Paul Johnson
13 years ago

In Oklahoma, validating map data for openstreetmap.org. Couldn’t find any good bicycle maps of Tulsa and not sure where to begin riding it myself, so haven’t gotten any GPS traces from the Tulsa cycleway system. I fly back to Portland on Tuesday.

Andrew
Andrew
13 years ago

Cool, did you bike to there? I’m thinking of doing an Oregon to California bike ride!

Paul Johnson
Paul Johnson
13 years ago

I didn’t, it would have been a 13 day ride before the Rocky Mountain passes were free of ice, followed immediately by near-100⁰ heat.

Mike Conway
Mike Conway
13 years ago

Hi Jonathan,

I used to live in Santa Barbara. I saw your post and thought how I used to bike to Butterfly Beach with my surfboard attached to my bike trailer. It is about a 8 mile ride each way. I would surf for about three hours and come back. Pretty off the charts.

Did you visit WheelHouse bike shop? They are the coolest guys.

Anonymous
Anonymous
13 years ago

J-
Did you fly, drive or ride to California?
Only ask because the first thing I see when I open your website is the question (Still Driving?)
So much of the website is devoted to bashing cars, making it a car free society, monday round-up is basically cars vs bikes. It seems like you do quite a bit of travel that is not bike. How hypocritical is that? I say quit bashing cars if you are still driving.

Hart
13 years ago

There were definitely the irate old white men who had to be threatened with arrest by the police at Sunday Parkways today.

Daniel F
Daniel F
13 years ago

I had fun at the Sunday Parkway in East Portland, even if the sun didn’t show much. It seemed a little more low key than the earlier Parkway events, but still festive overall. The free bagels and peanut butter at the end just hit the spot. My only regret was the shortness of the route.

RE: #8 I didn’t see anyone fighting with the police. What happened?

Hart
13 years ago

There was an elderly man who told a volunteer attempting to direct him and his van through the route, “Get the f*ck out of my way, I live on this f*cking street!” As he tried to ram through the barricades other volunteers shouted for the police. The man floored it and almost ran over a volunteer trying to move the barricade for him. Police pursued pulled him over, though out of view from where I was.

About an hour later across the street from the Bob Stacey for Metro President table a very angry older man parked his pickup and immediately began cursing at anyone passing in front of his property as he unloaded several cases of beer. He then got into a different, much larger pickup in his driveway, backed it into the street very fast, then floored it in reverse so hard he skidded out. He parked it several feet from the curb as to make as much of an obstacle as possible. He repeatedly made thinly veiled threats to passersby, and at one point confronted Bob Stacey and demanded he remove the sidewalk chalk in the street.

Eventually the police were notified and told the man to knock it off, then told us that if he caused any more problems to call him to arrest the man.

Hart
13 years ago

Also saw some homemade signs made by the locals that read: “No bikes, cars only.”

Paul Johnson
Paul Johnson
13 years ago

Sounds like a few people need to go find someplace else to live if they don’t like the way we roll…

mh
mh
13 years ago

Well, come to the SE one next month. We’re really quite civilized, but don’t expect to roll fast or in a straight line.

As someone who is used to those streets with their limited and purposeful weekday traffic, I felt very out of my element last year. You know, swarms of people, little kids riding like little kids do, no standard of riding on the right, stopping wherever and whenever. I’m not used to being out on my bike unless I need to get somewhere.

Red Five
Red Five
13 years ago

The trash being thrown in their yards and people stopping to urinate could not have had anything to do with this.

Kevin
13 years ago

I joined the 10,000 plus who rode Seattle to Portland and was part of the 3000+ who did the 204 miles in one day. (my sixth consecutive 1 day ride)

A.K.
A.K.
13 years ago

Kevin:

Good job! I’m planning to do the STP next year for the first time, I’m not sure if I want to attempt to train for the one day or just stick with the two day and have it be a bit more leisurely.

What was your average MPH for the ride?

david....no! the other one
david....no! the other one
13 years ago

To bad no one was able to invite the “Old Drunk WHITE Man” to the party. Im sure this is part of his “We’ve never done this before” experience. All of us have different experiences, and abilities to join into a event or party/fiesta. Not saying he was right, just did not have a cycling experience, or ability in this instance to cope with them.
Portland used to be seperated into areas for different backgrounds, German, Polish, Swedish, each with thier own traditions.
This area seems to be pretty unhappy about their interactions with bicyclists. Maybe there could have been an outreach to NON-BICYCLISTS and homeowners in the immediate area. Door to door? just wondering?

Spiffy
Spiffy
13 years ago

I did the Joe-Bike parade to Cafe Au Play on Saturday morning… that was pretty cool and my little one had LOTS of fun and didn’t want to leave for his nap… and I got to drive a bakfiets cargo bike for the first time… I may need to buy one now…

I also did the Sunday Parkways and didn’t see any grumpy old men of any color although I did see one of those “no bikes, cars only” signs in front of somebody’s driveway… I also didn’t see any excessive trash or anybody urinating since there were plenty of trash cans and bathrooms… I did see a lot of smiles, and a couple kids crash at low speed…

we had a yard sale Sunday so I didn’t get to spend all 5 hours on the Sunday Parkways route like I had wanted…

but I did manage to go check out the Ramona Street Fair that was left off the revised route but since it was late at that point I didn’t get to hang out…

Jade
Jade
13 years ago

I went to undergrad at UCSB. I managed only one collision on my bike…I came out okay but I’m pretty sure the guy that ran into me broke his clavicle – ouch!

The campus at UCSB had tons of bike parking – I remember first visiting and seeing the seas of bicycles – I knew that was the place for me. Cruisers galore. And perfect weather for most of the year!

Paul Johnson
Paul Johnson
13 years ago

@#17: Too much work, when sending them packing to someplace else reduces unemployment and demand on a still-overheated and ridiculously overpriced housing market.

Argentius
13 years ago

STP was entertaining. Nice weather and reasonably calm to favorable winds helped, that interminable section along hwy 30 towards the end is brutal in a rainy headwind — Saturday it was nice.

When I arrived at the finish festival, they were still setting up, but I stayed downtown for the day and watched many of the riders rolling in on Sunday.

I did not have quite the sense of just how MANY people were there. One can read about 10,000 bikes, but to see it is even more impressive.

Mostly pleasant response to the 2-day riders’ arrival by random pedestrians, lots of spontaneous applause.

Many riders wished the Beerfest was also the finish…

The final section through downtown had some interesting opportunities for interaction, but was definitely less than idea.

I am sure it added 10-20 minutes to folks’ times, instead of taking the St John’s bridge as planned — hopefully next year they can do that.

bikieboy
bikieboy
13 years ago

David, the other one (#17) – “Maybe there could have been an outreach to NON-BICYCLISTS and homeowners in the immediate area. Door to door? just wondering?”

the PBoT Sunday Parkways organizers do an advance mailing to everyone who lives on a SP route streets & nearby to alert them to the event. There have been doorhangers on the route in the past, not sure if they’re using them again this year.

Moses lake,Wa
Moses lake,Wa
13 years ago

We did the Sunday parkway and had a great time!The Volunteers and Portland officers did an excellent job.We brought our vintage bikes and had alot of nice comments and met alot of nice people.
We also went to the Ramona street fair.Had some really good pizza and beer while listening to live music.
Look forward to the next one!

Andrew Plambeck
13 years ago

I was there at the Bob Stacey setup with Hart (#10) and that guy was certainly off his hinge. Other than hearing the report of the barricade-running, he seemed to be the only perturbed resident I encountered.

Police ascertained that he was drunk, but his neighbors were all very nice (even if they weren’t aware of what Sunday Parkways meant).

And yes, after yelling at Bob Stacey about the sidewalk chalk, I definitely thought he was coming back with a hose. Instead he needlessly ran his leafblower around his front yardfor a while.

Everyone else seemed to be having a great time, though!

Andrew Plambeck
13 years ago

#17, I understand that they do two mailers and a door-hanger for all residents in advance of the event.

Hart
13 years ago

“To bad no one was able to invite the “Old Drunk WHITE Man” to the party.”

Two mailers and a door hanger for a party that’s on YOUR very street. If you need more of an invitation than that, you obviously don’t want to party.

Nick Christensen
Nick Christensen
13 years ago

@PaulJohnson I am amazed that you would suggest people need “to find another place to live if they don’t like the way we roll.” Many denizens of East Portland are longtime residents, many were forcibly annexed into the city, and many just want to be left alone. The fact that there were only a couple of incidents like this is a positive note for a community that has a decidedly different attitude from the rest of Portland.

These communities can exist in harmony. But it’s incumbent on *you* to remember you’re in *their* neighborhood, not vice-versa.

Hart
13 years ago

” I am amazed that you would suggest people need “to find another place to live if they don’t like the way we roll.”

Regardless of where somebody lives, they do not own the streets, they are a public space. Threatening people in a public space is a crime, and the police were more than happy to give those individuals “another place to live” for a while if they couldn’t handle cyclists in their neighborhood.

matt picio
13 years ago

Nick (#27) – Ditto what Hart said. I appreciate that it’s their neighborhood, and cyclists (not just cyclists, but everyone) should be respectful to the people who live there, but if they want to be left alone, they shouldn’t be living in the city. Some of these folk moved in long before the city grew out to their house, and it’s not fair to them, but life isn’t fair – things change, and you have to adapt to changes in some form, whether it’s learning to live with them or moving to avoid them. I have no sympathy for those who choose neither, but seem to only want to complain about the changes and make life miserable for others.

Paul Johnson
Paul Johnson
13 years ago

@#27: US Census and uHaul rental stats strongly suggest that if it weren’t for people moving to Portland from outside the state, the entire metro region would still be trying to break 1,000,000 in population. I stand by what I said: The negative reactions really do seem like people ignorantly fucking with the locals rather than assimilating or going back where they came from.

Nick Christensen
Nick Christensen
13 years ago

Come on back to the eastside on a non-parkway day and I’ll introduce you to the “outsiders” who moved here in the 50s and 60s and like things the way they are.

Not saying the guy was right. But I am saying you have to acknowledge his frustration if you’re going to convince him — and he probably can be convinced — things like Parkways are better for him and his family.

throwtheslinky
throwtheslinky
13 years ago

Hi Jonathan,
I did the Cycle Oregon weekend and had a terrific time. I wonder if you had someone covering that event? It was my first experience with Cycle Oregon and it completely exceeded expectations. Extremely well supported and a good value, I think it’s be a great way for newbie cyclists to tackle longer rides. It was also very family-friendly and a lot of kids were both in tow and under their own power. They even had a kids bike camp with a parade and scavenger hunt. I’m not sure where they’re advertising – I wouldn’t have been aware of it if a friend hadn’t invited me. But I will definitely do the ride again.

Laura
Laura
13 years ago

I heard a rumor there was a car/rider collision on STP and the rider is not doing well. True?