If you’ve ever struggled up Cornell/Thompson or Germantown to Skyline, you might enjoy these. Local cyclist Shawn Kolitch has created a list of elevation profiles of many popular, local climbs including my personal favorites, Logie Trail and Newberry.
Local transportation advocate Linda Ginenthal (left), is featured in a just-released AP newswire story that details how Portland is a shining example of how bike-friendly cities keep people healthy. The story is a follow-up to a recent story about how Oregon is the only state to not show a rise in obesity rates.
Excerpt:
“What makes Oregon different is its emphasis on urban design, which encourages outdoor activities like biking to work, the study’s authors said….For Ginenthal, Portland’s layout has made it convenient for her to ride to work following a familiar path of arching trees. Moreover, her employer, the City of Portland, provides financial incentives, such as a $25 bonus each month for riding her bike to work at least 80 percent of the time.”
The story will now spread across the globe in a matter of hours. Congratulations and a big thank you to everyone at the City of Portland Transportation Options division…this is a nice feather in your cap for all the hard work you do.
Thanks to everyone for the kind emails and comments on the birth of my daughter. Several folks have asked for photos and more details…so here goes:
Danica Agnes Maus (we call her Dani)
9lbs. 5oz. and 21" long
It was by far the most intense experience of my life. The only thing I can even compare it to is the final laps of a long, hard crit…with a lap counter that seemed to never budge.
… and like bike racing, the reward far outweighs the effort…don’t you think?
The City of Portland Office of Transportation has just announced a series of Bike Safety Leadership Workshops coming directly to your neighborhood. The Workshops will include:
The idea is to build a bicycle safety group in each neighborhood that has a common understanding of bike safety issues and to enable a bicycle liaison in the Police precincts.
The schedule for the Workshops is:
If you have any questions contact Greg Raisman at the Portland Office of Transportation, (503) 823-1052 or email Greg.Raisman [@] pdxtrans.org
Just reported on Wired.com is a new program in Lyon, France that may be of interest here in Portland (photo on left). This well-designed and high tech rent-a-bike system seems to be a major improvement on the old “Yellow Bike” program. It simply requires a credit card to “check out” a bike. The fee is $1.20 per hour and the first :30 minutes are free.
So far the system is doing quite well:
In just three months, the program has signed up 15,000 subscribers who take 4,000 trips a day and travel over 24,800 miles a week on 2,000 public bikes at 150 bike stations.
Several other cities (including Amsterdam) are interested in this new system and have already sent delegations to check it out. So…which lucky city employee is going to fly to Lyon?
Been a ton of bike-related articles in the news lately so I thought I’d just put them all in one post.
The August 19th issue of the Portland Business Journal did an in-depth piece called, A passion for pedaling: Commuters switch gears, turn to bikes for transportation. The article focused on everything from Molly Cameron, owner of Veloshop to the Bike Commute Challenge and quotes from all the usual suspects. Great to see a Biz Journal devote so much space to the bike scene. The headline alone will make people think.
This week’s Portland Mercury noticed BikePortland.org and your “close call” submissions in their “In Other News…” section (scroll down).
The Willamette Week printed a few more bike-related letters in their current issue, including one from the ever-vigilant and hard-working Jessica Roberts of the BTA (Bicycle Transportation Alliance).
And of course, I can’t leave out the Oregonian’s Metro section front page story on bike safety. Staff writer Harry Esteve, did a solid job presenting the facts behind the bike safety issue. He also took the time to talk to a bunch of folks in the bike community to make sure he got the full story.
And finally, this interesting story from today’s San Francisco Chronicle. It covers the parallel rise of SF’s creative bike culture crowd with the more formal advocacy crowd. What really struck me were the similarities between their bike scene and ours here in Portland. Just substitute “San Francisco” for “Portland” and “the San Francisco Bike Coalition” with “the BTA”. I especially like the headline: Wheels of revolution turning toward cheap, friendly transit.
Local cyclist and BikePortland.org reader Dat Nguyen snapped this great photo with George Hincapie at the recent MS150 Bike Tour. George is one of the best cyclists in the world and Lance’s loyal teammate on all 7 of his Tour de France victories. And Dat?…well, he’s a really nice guy, a regular volunteer for Breakfast on the Bridges, and active in Shift. For more of his photos from the MS150, check out his gallery here.
As you may remember from a comment to a previous post, Trek Bicycles is planning on a new bike model for 2006 called the “Portland”. This last weekend, Trek held its annual dealer-only show and photos of this new bike are just now starting to show up on web forums.
I was hoping for more of a city/urban warrior type of bike, but it looks like Trek decided to make the Portland a winter training bike for racing enthusiasts. It also looks like it would easily double as a cyclocross bike just by adding some knobby tires.
Either way, it’s pretty cool that the largest bike brand in the world has been duly inspired to name a bike after us.
In other news, I have recently heard that some movers and shakers in the local bicycle industry are meeting to discuss the feasibility of a home-grown bike brand. This potential new bike company would specialize in commuter and city bikes and would leverage Portland’s bike-friendly reputation in its marketing plan.
[Thanks for the tip David! Photo taken from a post to the forums at RoadBikeReview.com by “unclefuzzy_ss”]
I recently posted about the City of Portland’s work on an exciting mapping project that combines our bike routes with an interactive, web-based map. I have also heard from many of you about your close calls with motorists.
The next step will be to integrate the close-call data with an interactive map. This map would instruct the city on where to focus their bicycle infrastructure budget, it would be a useful tool to highlight problem areas for advocacy groups and the police and it would also help cyclists choose the safest routes through the city.
To get an idea of how this “crash reporting map” might look, I just came across this nifty map reporting bike crashes in Sussex County Delaware.
New York City transportation advocacy group, Transportation Alternatives also has a cool bike crash mapping system called CrashStat that offers loads of valuable information like the top 10 crash locations and an injury/fatality trend map.
Besides being a useful tool for our community, an online bike crash map would encourage more cyclists to report incidents that currently go unreported. Stay tuned for more details and your chance to get involved with this effort.
A few days ago I received an email from a trucker named Jim. He has been making local deliveries in his 34,000 pound truck around N and NE Portland for 13 years. He brought up some constructive points about the bike safety issue and I think his comments are worth sharing.
“I sense a feeling within the bike community that the typical motorist doesn’t show enough concern for the safety of bicyclists. I occasionally see this first hand…I have noticed more and more friction between motorists and bicyclists lately. This friction has been progressively building up for the past 10 or so years and I’m concerned that it has reached it’s boiling point.
I think a big part of the problem is the angry or impatient motorist but I also think a small part of the problem is with the very few arrogant bicyclists. One example is a pair of bicyclist riding side by side in a bike lane, taking up part of the car lane. When this is done on a narrow street, (such as N Willamette Blvd. near the University of Portland), it creates a hazard not only for the bikers but also the motorists. It appears to me that these bike lanes are designed for groups of bikers to ride single file rather than side by side. Another example I see is bike riders who are riding in the middle of the car lane and do not move to the side so faster moving car traffic can get by. To me that is just a lack of common courtesy.
My intentions of are not to criticize the bicycle community. My intentions are to ease some of the tensions between bicyclists and motorists. This friction is causing people to get hurt or even killed and it deeply saddens me. Motorists have the responsibility to drive in a safe manner and be aware of their surroundings. Bicycles must also abide by those same rules. Two cars should not drive side by side down a one lane road and neither should 2 bikes. If a car is going considerably slower than the flow of traffic he should pull over and let the flow of traffic go by, bicycles should do the same.”
I agree with Jim that common courtesy is the only way cars and bikes will ever be able to “share the road.” Bike lanes and signs are absolutely necessary, but it is consideration and respect for other road users that will do the most good. What do you think?
Local racers claimed a whopping 13 medals at this year’s U.S. Track National Championships in Los Angeles. Here’s the rundown:
Silver
U23 Pursuit; Walker Starr
Bronze
Sprints; Heather Vanvalkenburg
Pursuit; Walker Starr
U23 Kilo ; Dean Tracy
Team Sprint; Jen Featheringill
4th
Team Sprint; Dean Tracy, Steven Beardsley, Carl Boucher
Team Pursuit; Walker Starr & Recycle Cycles
500; Miranda Duff
U23 Kilo; Steven Beardsley
5th
Scratch Race; Walker Starr
Team Sprint; Miranda Duff, Heather Vanvalkenburg
For more track racing action don’t miss the Oregon State Track Championships this weekend out at Alpenrose Velodrome.
[Thanks for the tip Norrene!]