Oregon’s framebuilding heritage on display at Manifest show

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward
Oregon Manifest Bike Show Day 1-92

A display at the Oregon Manifest
show brings Oregon’s framebuilding
history to life.
– Audio slideshow below –

I intended to have reports and photos from the Oregon Manifest show up starting on Friday afternoon, however, due to some serious issues with my server (the site was down for over two days!), I haven’t been able to share…until now.

I’ll have more reports to come, but for now, watch audio slideshow below. The person speaking is Austin Ramsland, co-owner of Sweetpea Bicycles (his wife Natalie does the framebuilding). Austin is one of the people who’s vision for a Portland-style bike show is what lead to the Manifest.

In the slideshow below he describes a very cool exhibit at the show.

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Flying Pigeons and big ideas: Portland’s first bike industry incubator

[Editor’s note: This story was originally posted on Friday 10/10 but has been re-posted after a server outage.]

Joe Doebele - Stumpworks-4.jpg

Joe Doebele in front of the future
home of Portlands first bike industry
incubator.
(Photos J. Maus)

Joe Doebeles big idea is to help other Portlanders with theirs.

The 44-year-old Doebele, who grew up in Chicago and moved to Portland in 2000, has rented a building near the corner of SE 20th and Belmont and is setting up Portlands first-ever bicycle industry incubator Stumpworks.

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Carfree momentum from City Hall?

[Editor’s note: This story was originally posted on Friday 10/10 but has been re-posted after a server outage.]

My ride with Commissioner Randy Leonard

Commissioner Leonard on his ride
home from City Hall in
May 2007.
(Photo ? J. Maus)

According to an article by Amy Ruiz in this week’s Portland Mercury, Commissioner Randy Leonard is intrigued by carfree public spaces something he saw during a recent trip to Copenhagen.

Ruiz reports that during the question and answer session of a forum sponsored by the Oregon Environmental Council on October 1st, Leonard brought up carfree spaces in response to a question about congestion pricing.

From the Mercury:

Joking that his answer was going to get me in trouble, Leonard made a bold announcement: After visiting Copenhagen earlier this year, he has been quietly looking at those cities that have created public spaces by eliminating auto traffic on certain streets. While it’s not a congestion toll, Leonard’s intrigued by cities that have opened up parts of their city to just pedestrians and [I] would like to actually look at doing something toward that end in the next four years.”

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See the best of Filmed by Bike at Manifest Show party

Tomorrow night’s “Opening Night Blowout Party” for the Oregon Manifest Handmade Bike Show (which opens tomorrow morning) will feature a special, six-year retrospective compilation of films from Portland’s very own Filmed by Bike film festival.

Filmed by Bike founder Ayleen Crotty put together the screening with sponsorship from River City Bicycles. Crotty says they’ve put together a free, 45 minute show of all the favorites from Filmed by Bike over the years.

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U O students get free bikes with new ‘Bike Loan Program’

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Bike Loan Program staff: Dave Villalobos,
Briana Orr, and Price Armstrong.
(Photos courtesy U O)

The University of Oregon has found something constructive to do with the many bikes that are abandoned and impounded on their Eugene campus each year — the bikes get refurbished and then loaned out to students through their new Bike Loan Program.

The program was made possible by an $18,000 grant made to the Erb Memorial Union’s (the student union on campus) Outdoor Program and a $5,000 grant from PowerBar.

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BTA releases results of Bike Commute Challenge

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward
Bike to Work Day

(Photo © J. Maus)

Tonight in southeast Portland, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) will toast another successful Bike Commute Challenge.

The event, which has been held every September since 1995, is a friendly competition between workplaces to see who bike to work more. All participants log their commutes online to compete for bragging rights and awards.

This year, the Bike Commute Challenge had its highest rates of participation ever. Records were broken for number of workplaces (1,073), number of participants (10,689 people), and number of miles ridden (1,235,219.03).

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‘Autobikeographical’ posters from the Oregon Manifest Show

The other night I ran into Joe Staples and got another glimpse of the upcoming Oregon Manifest Handmade Bike Show.

Joe works for Wieden + Kennedy (the global ad firm with a headquarters in downtown Portland whose clients include Starbucks and Nike just to name a few) and he is one of the creative minds behind the Oregon Manifest Handmade Bike Show which opens this Friday and runs through Sunday.

With folks like Joe behind an event (he also dreamed up the Teams of Portland project), you can rest assured it will be special. When I saw him the other night, he was delivering some gorgeous posters to promote the show. He just sent me the PDF files…check them out:

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Get ready for ‘Freak Bike Fall’

Freak Bike Fall poster
Larger version here
(Illustrated by Emily O’Connor)

Freak Bike Fall is Portland’s newest bike festival. Slated for October 17-19th, the event is being put together by Emily O’Connor, a Portland transplant who moved here from Michigan about a year ago.

Since coming to Portland, Emily has been active in the community. You might remember her as part of the victorious duo of “Team Dethwish” that won last February’s Ben Hurt Chariot Wars during Zoobomb’s Mini Bike Winter. She was also on the planning team for the recent Cycle Seen photo exhibitions.

For Freak Bike Fall, Emily has planned a slew of fun events including a Freak Bike Beauty Contest (to be judged by framebuilders Neal Fegan and Jordan Hufnagel), a bike building workshop, and lots more.

Below is an email interview I did with Emily for more about the event, freak bikes, and how she got involved in the bike scene:

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PDOT re-kindles Bike Master Plan update efforts

Bike Master Plan Ride #4

Roger Geller is back to leading
the charge on the Bike Master
Plan update.
(Photos © J. Maus)

Last summer, the City of Portland’s effort to update their Bicycle Master Plan was all the rage. Fresh off an attempt by Mayor Potter to cut funding for the plan (he re-instated the funds two weeks later), spirits were high.

There were open house events and a series of well-attended Bike Master Plan Rides (led by PDOT’s bike coordinator Roger Geller).

But it’s been over a year since I reported any news about the effort.

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Portland schools participate in International Walk and Bike to School Day

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Crowded bike racks at
Roseway Heights school this morning.
(Photo: Anne Laufe)

Today is International Walk and Bike to School Day and 44 schools in Portland (and more than 150 throughout Oregon) will celebrate programs that encourage kids to get to school under their own power.

In Portland, the day’s festivities will be centered at Rosa Parks Elementary School. Rosa Parks is one of 25 schools in the Portland area that receive the comprehensive “Safer Routes to Schools” program (which is funded through City of Portland’s Community and Schools Traffic Safety Partnership (thanks to traffic fine revenues)).

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