The Oregon Coast is a perfect place to ride a fat bike. And Cannon Beach — just 80 miles west of Portland on Highway 26 — is the closest place to do it.
I first heard about the Cannon Beach Fat Bike Festival from our friend Daniella Crowder at Oregon Rides & Events — who also happen to be the owners of Bike Newport, a shop that won the Adventure Cycling Bicycle Travel Award in 2010. Wanting to get more people on bikes on the coast, Daniella and her crew worked with the Cannon Beach Tourism & Arts Commission on a three-day event full of rides and activities.
Pedal in the front, party in the back. (Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)
The Ladd’s 500 is a continuation of a proud Portland legacy: Free fun on in the streets that’s open to all — and with bicycles as the thread stitching everyone together.
The “third first annual” relay drew a huge crowd to Ladd Circle Park on Saturday, which was the perfect base camp for the day’s activities. What is usually just a sleepy roundabout in a quiet residential neighborhood was enlivened with picnics, BBQ’s (by bike, of course), music, and Portlanders eager to shed winter, embrace a dry day, and enjoy each others’ company. [Read more…]
This was my favorite tallbike — it has fenders! (Photos: Madi Carlson)
Lessons learned: show up early, bring extra water, snack before riding.
I’ve had the pleasure of participating in quite a few Portland bike events during visits from Seattle — Fiets of Parenthood 2012, 2013, and 2014, Disaster Relief Trials 2013, one and a half TNRs, and a few smaller Pedalpalooza 2017 rides — but my experience at the 3rd 1st Annual Ladd’s 500 was the Portlandiest bikiest thing I’ve done yet! There were so many amazing bikes: tall bikes, swing bikes, cargo bikes, mini bikes, grill bikes, and a lot of skateboards.
The Ladd’s 500 is a biking relay race of 500 laps around Ladd Circle with a bunch of rules I didn’t notice until after I got home (they were pinned as the top post within the Facebook event so they weren’t exactly hidden): [Read more…]
(Photo of last year’s march courtesy March for Science PDX)
Thousands are expected to turn out this Saturday, April 14th, at Pioneer Courthouse Square beginning at 10am for the Portland March for Science. This year’s rally and march has been organized by an all-volunteer crew in support of scientific inquiry, science-informed policymaking, and access for all to science education. Last year, over 15,000 people joined Portland’s March for Science as a direct action in protest of President Trump’s proposed cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The science of cycling has been guaranteed a place on the mainstage this year. Andrea Chiotti, Education Coordinator with the Community Cycling Center and its STEM Bicycle Mechanics program, and Rex Burkholder, co-founder of the organization now known as The Street Trust and a former Metro Councilor, will both be speaking about science in our lives, our region’s policies, and our schools.
We asked Rex and Andrea to share a few thoughts about the March for Science… [Read more…]
Dan Morgan on Smoke Ranch Road, one of his favorites. After riding roads like these for years, he’s now helping make sure they stay unpaved. (Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)
It’s fitting that I first met Dan Morgan on a gravel road.
The 66 year-old former dairy farmer, IBM retiree and Beaverton resident has been riding unpaved country roads his whole life. Now that the activity has become one of the biggest trends in cycling, he’s become an ambassador of sorts. He’s also working to prevent the county from paving over this newly discovered paradise. [Read more…]
“If you had told me at that time that those tracks would one day be a bike path with 250,000 riders annually, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
The Salmonberry Trail is a project that will make use of a derelict rail line from the current end of the Banks-Vernonia Trail all the way to the Oregon coast. The trail has been in the planning stages for a long time, but if Virginia’s experience with the state’s 34-mile Creeper Trail is any indication, Oregon would do well to complete the Salmonberry sooner rather than later.
Back in the 1980s, the Virginia Creeper was itself an abandoned rail line that the US Forest Service decided to make into a recreation trail. Given the very rural nature of the area, this idea was met with some skepticism, but the trail has become wildly successful beyond anyone’s expectations. The trail holds special significance to me, as I once lived in Abingdon just a few blocks from the abandoned rail line. As neighborhood kids, we’d go over to the tracks and walk over the high trestles as a foolish/daring/scary thing to do. The only thing I ever saw on the tracks was a Drasine – a motorized vehicle about the size of an automobile.
If you had told me at that time that those tracks would one day be a bike path with 250,000 riders annually, I wouldn’t have believed it. That figure is over 25 times the combined populations of the two towns along the trail – Abingdon and Damascus. Trail-related tourism is estimated at $25 million per year, and each overnight visitor spends about $700 in the area. [Read more…]
Portland is no stranger to bike shows. We’ve hosted the North American Handmade Bicycle Show, we used to have a show that roped in the design industry, and we have an annual show just for Oregon-based custom builders. But Velo Cirque is different.
Held at Velo Cult on Saturday, the show was open to anyone with a story to tell about their classic or custom bike — whether they built it or not. As I walked the aisles and met the owners of many fine rigs, it reminded me of the classic car shows I spent so many days of my youth walking through with my dad. One of the owners of a 1970s touring bike was proud to show me the original owner’s manual and set of pannier bags that came with it.
Here’s what else I came across at Velo Cirque… [Read more…]
Charioteers attempt to disable battlecars and bikes amid firecrackers and rowdy onlookers. (Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)
This past weekend was the annual Mini Bike Winter hosted by Zoobomb.
One of the many events participants competed in was the Ben Hurt Chariot Wars. The Chariot Wars have a long and glorious legacy and are the showcase event of the three-day Olympics. The winners get an iconic trophy and major bragging rights. They also get to make up the rules.
Speaking of which, here are the official 2018 rules:[Read more…]
