Eva and I are back for another chat. We had so much fun last time, we decided to run it back in the BikePortland Shed. This episode was recorded just a few hours ago.
Here’s what we talked about:
- Portland city council race and district 3 candidate Angelita Morillo (who I met with this morning).
- What’s better: Fenders or rain pants?
- Why Eva doesn’t ride an e-bike
- Why I stopped raffling off free bikes
- Eva’s latest “nerd overlap” Venn diagram and how it explains why Brompton riders love ponchos
- A pedal-powered pipe organ (ICYMI)
- The Verboort Sausage Fest
- Reflections on my NYC Trip
- Why Portland Trophy Cup is so amazing
- and more!!
Hope you like this format. I will still do other things on the podcast like more formal interviews and reports from the field, but I want to keep “In The Shed” as a regular, informal space where Eva and I can talk about random stuff in a very casual way. Maybe next time we’ll invite a guest in to join us. For now, have a listen and let us know what you think. If you have things you’d like for us to talk about, just let me know.
Really fun listening: Like the relaxed vibe; the banter between you two feels natural and Eva’s voice is quite soothing. Fun to be able to visualize the locations you two discuss and understand the background to the contemporary stories. Really enjoying hearing tidbits about your individual lives. Looking forward to hearing more Portland transportation history too.
I listened to your first conversation and I enjoyed it. I recommend you number your conversations (this would be #2?) so we can keep track of them. Thanks.
Ok Fred. Will number them. But I’m curious… what did you think of the conversation? Did you enjoy listening?
That was fun!
Fenders! Ponchos! Tilley hats!
Eva has a great radio voice!
Glad you liked it 9watts!
That bike organ sounds amazing! I would watch that video if I had seen it.
Fun! I have a rain poncho that I really like, but I have realized that it doesn’t work so well with a semi recumbent trike.
I’m a rain pants AND fenders kinda guy. I think it’s interesting that you brought up how you don’t want to be conspicuous about arriving places on a bike. I definitely feel that – when it’s rainy I park my bike a couple blocks away so I can shove my rain gear in a my bag without it being a whole performance for whoever I’m meeting up with.
I do wonder though, would being more conspicuous about how we get places help with advocacy? You can sure bet that drivers announce that they came there in a car; they’ll tell you (and business owners) how bad traffic is, how hard it was to find parking, how expensive parking was, etc. Those concerns seem to dominate the conversation when it comes to street redesigns and I wonder if part of it is just how top of mind it ends up being for business owners/managers.
I think what can help with advocacy is using our voice and describing our experiences… But given how impressionable Americans are with physical appearance, showing up as a “cyclist” in my experience only makes it harder to connect with others and therefore your ability to influence them diminishes. I just don’t want that baggage when I talk to people and would rather them judge me by what I say and so, instead of how I look.
Drivers aren’t “announcing”, they’re trying to build relationship by looking for points of common or comparative experience. I usually add something like “it’s a nice day, so I rode over”, and that usually serves the purpose. I feel zero desire to “advocate” when I meet up with people.
And sure, no business owner wants to be in a place that has a reputation of being a hassle to get to.