To the uninitiated, Zoobomb might seem like just a quirky sidebar of Portland’s vaunted bike cultural legacy, but there was a time when it was much more than that. At its peak from around 2007 to 2012, Zoobomb was something of a religion for hundreds of Portlanders who’d gather every Sunday night at the “Pyle” … Read more
For the past 15 years, Hollywood neighborhood resident Lily Karabaic has woken up around 4:00 am on the last Friday of every month. Like you, the first thing she does is make coffee. Unlike you, she makes 42 cups. And then she straps a percolator, a few dozen donuts (a vegan sampler from Doe Donuts), … Read more
The calm on Portland’s marquee open streets event was shattered Sunday when the driver of a large pickup truck yelled at volunteers and participants, drove onto the route while screaming obscenities, and at one point during the heated exchanges, slammed a handgun onto his dashboard. It happened around 11:30 am during the east Portland edition … Read more
Many of you already saw my photos and reflections from Bridge Pedal on Sunday. While out there I was also working on a brand new thing: interviews by bike. It’s a thing I’ve been wanting to do for years, but has taken some time to get the headspace and gear to the point where it … Read more
The two installations of this rare treatment show the city’s willingness to innovate — and to trust everyone will play nice. Photos and video by Jonathan Maus What are city planners to do when they want to give cycling more priority on a street but don’t want to take the space needed for high quality, … Read more
The red paint is still fresh on NE Couch where the Portland Bureau of Transportation has installed their latest ‘Rose Lane’. It’s all part of their ongoing effort to speed up bus service and re-allocate road space away from drivers and toward bike and bus riders. PBOT’s Rose Lane project began in 2019 and the … Read more
Signs of a resurgence in Oregon bike racing are easy to spot these days — a far cry from recent years when the Covid pandemic nearly wiped it out. We got a taste of the action when the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association hosted the 2022 Criterium Championships on the University of Portland campus in north … Read more
A BikePortland reader sent in a video clip that shows what can happen when a bicycle rider and car driver interact with each other out on the road. As you can see above, I’ve taken the clip and added captions to it. The interaction happened in Tigard (southwest of Portland) and was caused when the … Read more
It’s summer, the nights are beautiful, and you live in a house full of messengers with a porch and yard that looks out onto a main street with a 10-foot wide bike lane. What do you do? You throw a weekly cash sprint series and invite as many people as you can. That’s what denizens … Read more
Welcome to the latest episode of our Carfree Portlanders video series! In this episode you’ll meet the Johnson family: Kate, Kiel and Lulu. This trio is a fixture in our community, in large part because Kiel has been pushing Portlander to be a better biking city for well over a decade. I first met him … Read more
In this quick video I share some thoughts about biking on SW Terwilliger Parkway, a street notorious for its bad bike lane conditions. While it’s one of the most beautiful roads in Portland and recently earned National Historic Register status, Terwilliger leaves something to be desired for bicycle users. It’s a precious north-south, not-super-hilly and … Read more
I know there are a lot of new carfree bridges opening up in Portland right now so I’ll excuse you if you’ve fallen behind (haha); but if you haven’t rolled over to the Hillsdale neighborhood in southwest Portland to check out the new Red Electric Trail Bridge, you are missing out on one of the … Read more