(Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)
Flowers are blooming, the rain feels a bit warmer, and bike shops are off their winter schedules. That means Kidical Mass PDX is back, too! Our “season” typically starts on Easter Sunday with our annual Kidical Mass PDX Easter Ride and Egg Hunt:
Sunday, April 21, 2019
11:00 a.m.
Start: Overlook Park (1599 N Fremont St, Portland, OR 97227)
End: Arbor Lodge Park (N Delaware Ave & N Bryant St, Portland, OR 97217)
➤ The three-mile route
➤ Facebook event page
Like all Kidical Mass PDX rides, this one is for kids of all ages and their families. Three miles is probably best tackled with 16-inch wheels and larger, but fast balance bikers, kids on 12-inch-wheeled bikes, and kids (well one particular awesome kid) on unicycles have been known to keep pace and enjoy themselves.
This year feels very different than last year’s April Fools’ Day/Easter ride, both coming on the heels of the Youth Climate Strike and falling the day before Earth Day. Kidical Mass is lots of things, from a parade on bikes simply for the sake of having fun to a first step towards non-polluting transportation and ditching one’s car for good. Earth Day is a wonderful reason to showcase the environmentally friendly aspects of bicycling for transportation and encourage our peers to bike more and drive less.
Earth Day is a wonderful reason to showcase the environmentally friendly aspects of bicycling for transportation and encourage our peers to bike more and drive less.
Our Easter ride is always a big one, with lots of families driving their bikes over — a perfect audience to talk to about shifting travel modes. Overlook Park is right on the MAX Light Rail Yellow Line so even if it’s too far or tricky to reach by bike, one can get there multimodally (check out my tips for taking taking kids and bikes on MAX light rail).
On Sunday, we’ll take the Green Line MAX to the Yellow Line, rather than bike 10 miles. This will take about an hour, as would biking the whole way.
Beyond transportation, changes we’ve made to this year’s Easter ride include making a bigger effort to collect our plastic eggs at the end of the event. We’ll do this by announcing at the beginning of the ride and the beginning of the egg hunt that we’ll collect and reuse the plastic eggs, and I’ll have my kids help me make a fancy egg collection receptacle. My kids are used to using their bike helmets as egg collecting baskets so they’ll do that and I’ll encourage other kids to do the same.
I’d love to hear any sustainable Easter and general Earth Day tips you’ve got in the comments below. Thanks for reading!
Remember, we’re always looking for people to profile. Get in touch if it sounds like fun to you. I’d especially like to feature families of color so please get in touch or ask friends of color who bike with their kids if they’re interested in sharing their stories. And as always, feel free ask questions in the comments below or email me your story ideas and insights at madidotcom [at] gmail [dot] com.
— Madi Carlson, @familyride on Instagram and Twitter
Browse past Family Biking posts here.
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