🚨 Please note: BikePortland is currently on hiatus and only publishing guest articles. Learn more here. Thank you. - Jonathan 🙏

The tree and bike connection grows in Portland

A ‘Rider of Yule’ sets off on a delivery.
(Photo: Trees By Bike)

Like coffee, beer, food, and fashion, you can now add trees to the list of things with a strong connection to bicycling in Portland. This holiday season, a local non-profit that plants trees and a budding business that delivers them will both put the power of bicycles to work.

Trees By Bike is a local company that delivers “pedal-powered holiday cheer”. Powered by a collective of bike riders, the service allows you to order a tree online and then have it delivered to your door. The service was started last year by Portlander Max Kirchoff and he now has four other “Riders of Yule” working with him. Each rider donates 10% of the sale to a charity of their choice. New this year, Trees By Bike is also offering delivery of Hanukkah candles (until December 1st) for just $5 per box.

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Job of the Week

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Our featured job opening this week is with Bike Gallery. The family owned, multi-store operation is seeking a retail store manager who will bring their skill and experience to this key position. Click the link for full details and be sure to tell them you read about it here. Good luck!

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Lazer Blue Mongoose Mountain Bike 2007

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Year: 2007
Brand: Mongoose
Model: Mountain Bike
Color:Lazer Blue
Size:26″
Stolen in Portland, OR 97212
Stolen:2010-11-24
Stolen From: Matt Dishman Community Center
Neighborhood: North East
Owner: Timothy Caputo
OwnerEmail: timothy.w.caputo@gmail.com
Reward: Yes
Description: Basic Mongoose Mountain Bike purchased from Fred Meyers.
Police record with: Portland
Police reference#: T10008022
This registrant has documented proof of ownership of this bike

E-bike retailer Kalkhoff to celebrate one year anniversary

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Our friends at the Kalkhoff USA retail store in Northwest Portland will celebrate a successful first year in business this Friday. The announcement is below (RSVP is requested, see below for details):

1 Year Anniversary Party at the Kalkhoff Showroom!

Please come help us celebrate our showroom’s 1 Year Anniversary on Friday, November 26th from 4:00-8:00 at our Pearl District showroom. Koi Fusion will provide some delicious eats and we will have German beer on tap. Since it’s our birthday there will be birthday cupcakes, too!

Thinking about buying a Kalkhoff for yourself or someone special on your holiday shopping list? In addition to our current $500 off promotion on select models, there will be some HOT anniversary specials on the biggest shopping day of the year! Plus you’ll also have a chance to win some cool door prizes. Feel free to invite a friend or two! Please RSVP by responding to this message or by phone 503-220-2300.

Friday, November 26th from 4:00-8:00 at the Kalkhoff Showroom.

Do all-ages helmet laws work? An update from Vancouver, WA

What happens in places that have a mandatory, all-ages helmet law on the books? Do injury rates decline? Does bike ridership go down? That’s the conventional wisdom; but is it true? Nearly three years after passing such an ordinance, the effect of Vancouver’s helmet law is difficult to ascertain. Our Vancouver correspondent Marcus Griffith took a closer look and found some surprising results.

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Repairs to Esplanade (including bump fix) begin Monday

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Eastbank esplanade ramp-2

Portland Parks will test a smoother ramp
nose (black piece) as part of routine
maintenance on the Esplanade.
(Photos © J. Maus)

Routine repairs to the guardrails of the ramps that lead to the floating portion of the Eastbank Esplanade are set to begin this monday (11/29). Also, according to Portland Parks and Recreation, the work will include the installation of a new “ramp nose” with a shallower slope than the existing ones. This test installation of a shallower transition piece comes in response to a crash back in July and concerns that the existing bumps are too severe and are unneccessarily jarring to bike riders.

This past summer, Ron Richings was riding on the Esplanade when the bumps on the ramps jarred his bike and led to a crash that damaged his bike and required shoulder surgery to repair his rotator cuff (which severed in three places). After that crash (which, along with others I’d heard about, validated concerns I’d had about those bumps for a long time), I met with Bob Downing, the Central Services and Asset Systems Manager the Portland Parks and Recreation bureau.

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Bike Science: Machismo and your ‘gain ratio’

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Tony Pereira's new singlespeeds-15.jpg

(Photo © J. Maus)

[This is our latest Bike Science column by Shawn Small. Read previous entries here.]

In the world of singlespeeds and fixed gears you often hear people talking about each other’s “gear-inches”. This is an easy way to prove your machismo and is also a way to get useful data about your riding style. Today on Bike Science, I’ll take a closer look at gear-inches and explain why I prefer to use the concept of “gain ratio” to out-macho my friends.

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Weekend Event Guide – Updated

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A cold commute-12

Bundle up and ride!.
(Photo © J. Maus)

This cornucopia of bike events starts on Thanksgiving day with a chance to work off that turkey (or turkey flavored product) before you even sit down at the table, followed by plenty of opportunity for calorie burning and a chance to rest on Sunday.

Thursday, November 25th

8:00am-10:00am: Thanksgiving Mellow Morning Ride
The first of two stomach preparedness-themed events, this leisurely off-road ride hosted by local bike builders, Stop Cycles winds down the Leif Erikson trail through Forest Park for a few hours early in the morning. Group meets at the trail entrance at the end of NW Thurman St. More information and RSVP contact available on the Shift website.

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Clark County passes bike plan; but it’ll take different path than Portland’s

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Kent Meyer, 78, of Hazel Dell,
testified that “Our transportation system in this
country is focused on the automobile,
and we’re paying a price for it.”
(Photo: Michael Andersen)

More and more, the suburbs are making big-city bike values their own.

The latest sign: Clark County, Portland’s more auto-oriented neighbor to the north, passed a 20-year, $91 million* bike plan today with votes from two conservative rural Republicans and full-throated support from the chamber of commerce. (*Note: Like Portland’s bike plan, Clark County’s plan is almost completely unfunded at this time.)

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How two leaders respond to thorny bike issues

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“Together, let’s say, ‘I solemnly pledge to behave as considerately as possible no matter how I get around.’”
— Part of a crowd exercise led by Mia Birk in response to a fired up citizen

One of the many things that keeps my fire burning here at BikePortland is a sense that knowledge is power. I know it’s almost trite, but from where I sit, it’s something that proves itself almost every day. Bottom line is that when you know the context of an issue and you know how to respectfully convey your opinion, you can have a huge influence.

On that note, I wanted to bring to your attention two very smart people who have recently shared how they responded to two issues that have a long and storied history of thorniness in the bike world — helmet use and the ‘all-cyclists-are-scofflaws-and-we-need-to-start-enforcing-laws-against-them’ thing.

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Latest Headlines

‘Better Sheridan’ project brings safer street to South Waterfront 

Your guide to finding the ‘Wildwood’ crows by bike

My journey to that ‘Hard Rock glow’

Off-Road Cycling Master Plan: A decade later, what has changed?

From the Archives

The 10 busiest bicycling spots in Portland