A very meaningful bicycle has been stolen and its owner is pleading for help to get it back.
Portland artist Matt Hall posted to his Instagram page on Sunday that someone broke into his studio in St. Johns and stole a bicycle that once belonged to Brett Jarolimek. Jarolimek was just 31 years old when he was riding on North Interstate Avenue and was killed in a collision with a truck driver on October 22nd, 2007. He was very well-known and loved in our community as a friend, a bike racer, and an employee at Bike Gallery. Jarolimek’s death, came less than two weeks after another young bicycle rider was killed in a right-hook collision just a few miles away. It was a watershed moment in Portland bike history that led to an emergency meeting in city hall, the right-turn ban at Interstate and Greeley and the implementation of bike boxes citywide.
Jarolimek was a dedicated bike racer who participated in a cyclocross race just weeks before his death. Matt Hall raced alongside Jarolimek and has kept his friend’s old bike on a shelf in his studio as a memorial. The bike is a red frame with the name “Cardinal” on the down tube and seat tube (it was hand made by former Portland framebuilder and close friend of Hall and Jarolimek, Matt Cardinal). “Jarolimez” is written in white letters across the top tube.
“The most precious object was stolen,” Hall wrote on Instagram. “My dear departed friend, Brett’s bike. I am utterly heartbroken. Please, please, please keep your eyes out for around town. I don’t care about possessions but this is an irreplaceable totem, and I’m crushed that it’s gone.”
Portland has a strong community that has recovered thousands of bikes over the years. Please keep your eyes open for this one.
Or perhaps word will spread to the thieves that this bike has tremendous sentimental value. That’s what happened in February 2008 when a thief stole Jarolimek’s ghost bike. In that case, the bike was returned with a letter written by the thief: “I sincerely apologize for what I have done- I did not realize what it was until after the fact.”
I’ll brave a trip through the Cut tomorrow on my run. It’s so sad that something so priceless was stolen to almost certainly feed a junkies addiction.
As a resident of St. Johns, I’d love it if we were able to vote to leave the City of Portland. None of the politicians live here. None of the bureaucrats who run the city live here, we’re not a tourist destination that can be posted on Travel Portland, and the result is that the city doesn’t even provide basic services. St. Johns businesses are victimized on a weekly basis.
Ted Wheeler is killing this city.
Ironically, a strong secessionist push, even absent a clear legal mechanism, might help right some of the wrongs you feel. Similarly, the inevitable Greater Idaho movement is inevitably going to fail, but it might actually succeed in a larger sense by giving clarity to the frustrations our neglected eastern neighbors are feeling, perhaps motivating change.
>l. Similarly, the inevitable Greater Idaho movement is inevitably going to fail, but it might actually succeed in a larger sense by giving clarity to the frustrations our neglected eastern neighbors are feeling, perhaps motivating change.
I mean, I’ve read a dozen articles on ‘Greater Idaho’ and still don’t kow what their stated grievances against us are. I don’t think we can really address the real reason for the Greater Idaho movement, which is that they want to live in a Christian nationalist theocracy.
On the other hand, there are clear and actionable steps the city could take in St. Johns including funding private security for the downtown core and eliminating the drug encampment in the cut. It’s pretty clear what we want. A whole bunch of community members and small-business owners dressed down the failures who are our elected representatives and asked for those very things.
We just are simply too collectively working class for Mingus or Rene to care. I don’t think Ted could find his way up here without GPS, so at least to Mingus’s and Rene’s credit they showed up to give the allusion of caring.
You want a private security force to clear out campers? I suppose if they’re accountable to your people, it’s better than using a public security force that’s accountable to the public. (Yeah, I know, you think the cops are unaccountable, but even less so would be a private for-hire security force capable of and empowered to clear folks off public and railroad property.)
No?
Security folks don’t have a license to murder at will and can fired when they mess up.
I think that just having people moving around at night/early morning would do a ton to discourage crime.
“Murder at will?” Let’s rein in the hyperbolic police hate. It’s not helpful to improving our community. It’s time to work on reconciliation,not further division
>“Murder at will?” Let’s rein in the hyperbolic police hate.
The thugs who murdered Breonna Taylor are all walking free. It’s not hyperbole. It’s the truth that cops get away with it almost all the time when they commit murder.
>It’s time to work on reconciliation,not further division
I’d love for that to happen! I’m extremely critical of police but I’m not a police abolitionist. When the Portland Police Bureau are ready to acknowledge their violent history and their culture of white supremacy that they have fostered, we can start to heal that relationship.
Unfortunately, the PPB have dug their heals in, refuse to acknowledge they’ve done anything wrong, and continue violate the terms of their probation. Hell, the latest stuff to come out of PPB showing that many if not most of them are homophobic, transphobic, bigots who parrot far-right talking points about ‘wokeness’. One called PPB leadership marxist. These people are dangerously unstable.
What you call ‘reconciliation’ is really surrender. You want us to drop all efforts to reign in their violent tendencies, apologize for even thinking about holding them accountable, and tell them what good boys and girls they are. That’s not reconciliation, that’s surrender.
PPB is the equivalent of an abusive partner, submitting to them isn’t going to make them better, it’s just going to make things worse for us.
I’m guessing you must think Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and those involved in the Northern Ireland peace process were failed “surrenderers”. Love conquers all Cc rider.
“Security folks don’t have a license to murder at will and can fired when they mess up.”
That sounds great! Simple, clean, easy, unlike the messiness of real life.
Who would do the determining if people messed up? Would there be written standards, and a formal process to see if they had been violated? Would there be an appeal process in case the initial decision was wrong? Who would run that? What if your security people joined (or were already in) a union? And what if your security force for a little too vigorous when trying to get someone out of the cut who really didn’t want to go, and the person they were trying to move got hurt? Would you call in the real police to clean up the mess? What if the person who was hurt wanted to sue, who would they target? Would your cut clearers have any sort of immunity against bogus claims? Would they be armed? I’m sure many of the folks they’d be clearing out are. Could they compel folks to leave (or would they just be asking nicely)? What if your security folks found stolen property or other evidence of a crime, perhaps a serious one? What if the person who had committed the crime didn’t want the security folks to report it?
There’s a lot to think through.
Any other article topic I’d love to have a secession debate, as it is, good luck going through the Cut tomorrow! Hope you see it!
Thank you for this Jonathan. Grateful for our community, and hopeful for the bikes recovery.
Oh sadness. Hopefully this thief discards this bike where it can be found safely vs dumping it where it will be damaged. Hope it gets ridden again.
In hindsight of this collision of a commercial truck, I wonder if it would have been dealt with better now as a moving violation etc. My memory: the right side truck mirror(s) were broken (held together with a bungee) and not adjusted (safety check) prior to this trip, thus one large blind zone on Brett’s side per a right hook in a very narrow unprotected bike lane. (Was there ever a civil suit outcome?)
The truck owner: AGG Enterprises was bought by Recology in 2010. This same truck driver may still be on the streets of Portland. A warning to all.
And in memory of Brett (and other cyclists injured) its time that PBoT revisit the 20 year old design of Interstate and update the bike design treatments, intersections, AND removed (in design) sections without bike lanes. This is a key bi-state bike highway and one that will be critical to a future IBR project.
Time to check the open-air bike repair shops.
More like an out of state craigslist or eBay sale. Beautiful handmade bicycle, remove Brett’s name and it’s worth a pretty good price.
He was a great guy, I knew him from cyclocross and the bike shop.
A real tragedy. a real loss.
You and I both know that, but a thief doesn’t.
From what I’ve seen, it will be rattlecanned and / or stripped bare with a hunting knife and eventually discarded or sent to the scrap yard.
Such is the state of Portland today.
I can’t think what is a better metaphor of Portland right now, the mauling of the owner of Pix by a pitbull that the county lost track of, or someone stealing a dead man’s bike from an art space.
And yet we have people here defending the evil-doers. Portland really is weird.
They just need housing.
The sad thing is many readers of bike portland won’t get your sarcasm.
Thanks for posting Jonathan