2014 Archives

Weekend Event Guide: BMX, century, Milwaukie, and more

Discover the hidden bike path gems of southern Clark County Washington at the Portland Century on Saturday).
(Photo J. Maus/BikePortland)

Welcome to your menu of weekend rides and events, lovingly brought to you by our friends at Hopworks Urban Brewery.

How’s your summer riding been going so far? Are you ready for a century ride — or as our friends at OR Bike like to say, a “Hundo“?

Hopefully you’ve done a bit of training because the Portland Century is our marquee event of the weekend. While most of the route isn’t actually in Portland this year, the support and food and drinks you’ll encounter at the rest stops and the finish line party will be decidedly local.

There’s nothing but warm and sunny blue skies in the forecast. Enjoy!

Saturday, August 16th

Dew Tour – All Weekend downtown on SW Broadway between Jefferson and Salmon
This event will feature some cool BMX action. The best riders in the world will show off their skills in “streetstyle” and dirt jump competitions. And the best part is the whole thing is free to watch! If you’re not a BMX fan, consider this a great chance to hang out on a carfree SW Broadway! More info here.

Attendees of the BTA’s annual member meeting Thursday evening had plenty to talk about.
(Photos by Michael Andersen)

With “The Revolution will Not Be Televised” playing from portable speakers above them, almost 100 Bicycle Transportation Alliance members and staff gathered in the Portland Art Museum courtyard Thursday to drink Hopworks beer, eat food-cart tacos, recognize key volunteers and (most intriguingly) learn about the five major advocacy campaigns the organization had just launched.

Gabe Klein, right, speaks to a panel of local transportation experts at the Multnomah Athletic Club Thursday.
(Photo: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

The author of the transportation reinventions in Washington DC and Chicago offered some advice to Portland-area developers Thursday: start building for parking-free cities.

Self-driving cars will be available in a few years, predicted Gabe Klein, the former transportation director of both those cities, and they’ll mean “the end of parking as we know it.”

Klein, now a fellow at the Urban Land Institute, an organization for real-estate and land-use professionals, spoke to a room of local ULI members and other guests Thursday morning at the Multnomah Athletic Club in southwest Portland.

Bikabout.com founder Megan Ramey, left, with her family.
(Photo courtesy Ramey)

Partly inspired by a visit to Portland last year, a Massachusetts woman has launched “a free travel agency for bike travel” across the United States.

Bikabout.com founder Megan Ramey will host a party at Velo Cult in Portland next week to gather information on the city and invite contributors.

Ramey said in a phone interview Monday that she started referring to Portland as “Graceland” after a 2013 visit with her family. She, her beer-loving husband and their young daughter traveled the city with a copy of Hop in the Saddle, a locally written guide to enjoying Portland breweries by bicycle.

Screenshot of an email promoting a local bike event.

One of the Portland area’s biggest bike event companies apologized Wednesday for sending a promotional email dominated by a big photo of a weathercaster in a bikini.

“Frightening Poll,” said the email from Good Sport Promotion (screenshot at right). “47% of Romanians did not expect today’s heatwave despite having watched the weather last night.”

“Remember Nadia Comaneci?” the email’s text began, referring to a Romanian athlete (but not the woman pictured). “She got the first perfect 10 in the Olympics. (Montreal 1976) This weekend we have a perfect 10 on the weather forecast.”

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

The current forecast for Wednesday morning.
(Photo: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

Update 2:20 pm: PBOT reports that the lower deck will reopen by 5 p.m. The original post follows.

—

If you usually bike or walk across the Steel Bridge’s lower deck in the morning rush hour, try another route on Wednesday.

It’s being closed at 7 a.m. for an inspection, according to the Portland Bureau of Transportation. PBOT added that it’ll announce the reopening, whenever that might happen, in a follow-up tweet from its @PBOTinfo account.

When a camera failure closed the lower deck one year ago this week, the bridge remained closed for four days.

Elizabeth Quiroz, one of the BTA’s 16-person staff and four-person advocacy team, fits a helmet at a Southeast Portland bike skills class.
(Photo: M.Andersen and J.Maus/BikePortland)

For a moment this spring in the community room of the apartment building at SE 122nd and Halsey, the most important thing the Bicycle Transportation Alliance was doing was asking nine children a question.

Kickstand included.
(Photo: City of Portland Archives)

Tall bikes look great in sepia, too.

(Screen capture from Uber’s Vancouver website)

The ride-hailing service Uber has hired contract drivers and is providing rides in Vancouver, Wash., illegally, according to a July 25 memo from the city attorney’s office.

“Essentially,” assistant city attorney Brent Boger wrote in the memo to city council and staff, transportation network companies such as UberX and Lyft “are taxi services operated out of personal vehicles.”

UberX costs about 35 percent less than a traditional taxi ride. Last month, Uber’s CEO said he hopes “to get UberX pricing below the cost of owning a car.”

Update 8/12: The bike shop in question has shared a brief statement about their response. See below.

Here’s a brief online exchange from Saturday afternoon that shows what it looks like when people come together to marginalize a sexist comment from a bike shop employee.

This week’s news roundup is sponsored by the Barlow Road Ride, the scenic 100-mile tour along the Oregon Trail Aug. 23-24.

Here are the great bike links from around the world that caught our eyes this week:

Cleveland bikeways: Cleveland has some beautiful plans for its former on-street streetcar routes.

Left Bank renaissance: One year after Paris closed an expressway along the Seine to cars, it’s a space for soccer lessons, backgammon games and an impromptu Michael Jackson dance party.

Civic action in its own way.
(Photo by J. Maus/BikePortland)

If any new phrase about biking I’ve seen in the last few months deserves to become a cliche, it’s this one.

Reacting to our post about what would happen if all of Portland’s bike commuters switched to cars, reader Champs took another tack.

Weekend Event Guide: BMX, century, Milwaukie, and more

Saturday, August 16th

BTA launches five new campaigns at annual members’ meeting

Tech will make central-city parking spaces pointless, Gabe Klein tells Portland crowd

Virtual ‘bike travel agency’ hosts Portland party and seeks local bike wisdom

Bikini-themed promo for local bike tour deepens criticism of industry’s gender issues

Steel Bridge lower deck will close for inspection at 7 am Wednesday

With biking sidelined at Portland City Hall, BTA strategy shifts to long term

From the Portland city archives: A tall bike on Union Avenue in 1980

Uber’s operations in Vancouver are illegal, city attorney says

Quick complaint, quick action: Bike shop and customer show how to fight everyday sexism

The Monday Roundup: Beauty from Cleveland, dancing by the Seine and more

Comment of the week: ‘The stream carves its own bed’

Latest Headlines

‘Better Sheridan’ project brings safer street to South Waterfront

Your guide to finding the ‘Wildwood’ crows by bike

My journey to that ‘Hard Rock glow’

Off-Road Cycling Master Plan: A decade later, what has changed?

From the Archives

The 10 busiest bicycling spots in Portland