The finish line, usually at Holladay Park in northeast Portland, will be wherever you want it to be this year.
(Photo: Cascade Bicycle Club)

One of the largest and most well-known group bike rides in the Pacific Northwest won’t let Covid-19 get in the way of its 41st year.

Cascade Bicycle Club announced today that the 200-mile Seattle-to-Portland (STP) ride will be a “virtual challenge” this year. 2020 will be only the second year the ride has been cancelled, with the other time being the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980.

This year’s STP will begin on July 18th and you’ll have until August 5th to complete the ride. Registered participants will create their own challenge — like 200 miles in 1 day or 10 miles a day for 20 days — and then log miles online and watch a “virtual challenge unfold” as they earn badges for reaching the traditional food stops along the route. The virtual journey will share bits about the history of STP and the places it rolls through.[Read more…]

Climate change activism group Sunrise PDX is hosting an info session tomorrow (6/17) on Metro’s Get Moving 2020 transportation funding bond measure.

It’s been easy to forget with the pandemic and protests dominating the news since March, but Metro still hopes to put this measure on the ballot in November. If all goes according to plan it will raise $3.1 billion for infrastructure projects, including $975 million for the new SW Corridor MAX light rail line.

“Now more than ever the intersectionality of environmental justice, racial justice and transportation justice is a major key in how our city proceeds with its priorities,” reads a description of the event. “Feedback about the anti-oppression and community engagement portions of this bond will be an especially important part of how we move forward.”
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Pedalpalooza will look and feel a lot different this year, but organizers have done an amazing job putting together something that could be every bit as memorable.

Because Covid-19 is still very much a concern and riding in groups is still a bad idea, the name of the game this year is that daily themes and sharing rides digitally will create some of the community connections we so badly crave. The official Pedalpalooza calendar is full with a different theme for each day of the five week, 35-day festival and it all begins this Monday, June 1st.

Lead organizer Meghan Sinnott says only one of the days is Portland-specific, which means people from anywhere around the region (or globe!) can join in the fun. “The theme days are meant to inspire cyclists everywhere. This year, for instance, we’ve had a spike of interest from the west side (Tualatin mostly), Vancouver and Clackamas,” she said. [Read more…]

A Reed College graduate who has gone on to be a leading voice on the intersection of racism and transportation reform advocacy will join Portland-based Microcosm Publishing for a live event on YouTube later today (5/28).

Adonia Lugo earned a degree from Reed in 2005 then went on to earn a Masters Degree and PhD in anthropology from UC Irvine. She spent two years as manager of the equity initiative at the League of American Bicyclists. Her book, Bicycle/Race: Transportation, Culture, & Resistance was published by Microcosm in 2018.

Lugo is also one of the organizers behind Untokening, a group that has risen to prominence in transportation reform circles for work that, “Centers the lived experiences of marginalized communities to address mobility justice and equity.”[Read more…]

A few recent “tags” uploaded to BikeTag.org.

A fun game that encourages people to get out and ride bikes might help cure your cooped-up coronavirus blues. And two Portlanders are leading the charge to introduce it to more players.

Bike Tag is a simple game where one person (who’s “it”) posts an image of their bike at a mystery location. Then another player must find the location, bike there, and take a picture of their own bike in the same spot. The player then rides to a new location, takes a photo and uploads both photos (the location they found, and the new one) to a website and the fun starts all over again. [Read more…]