The Get Lit program organized by Jeff Bernards and Shift to Bikes has been a great success. This year they’ve given away over 500 pairs of high-quality Planet Bike lights…for free! Jeff’s innovative program has inspired a similar program by the Portland Police and the City of Portland.
Our bikes were stolen from our locked shed in the Irvington neighborhood of NE Portland. The first one was a 2004 Trek Navigator, 16.5, red with grey, serial # ITK4C03907. The second one was a 2005 Trek Navigator, 18.5, blue with gold, serial #ITK4D05020. If you happen to come across either one of these bikes (or both!), please email me (robyn_griffiths@hotmail.com) with any information. Thanks.
Portland has seen a bit of snow in the past few days. Of course I’m missing all the fun down here in California, but through the wonders of the Internet I have come across a few photos and reports of intrepid Portland cyclists braving the conditions.
Check out Shawn Granton’s tale of his unexpectedly adventurous trip home. His advice for riding in the snow: “load up your saddlebags and keep a low center-of-gravity!”
And I just had this photo sent in to the BikePortland.org sticker gallery. It was taken in a backyard in the NE Alberta neighborhood.
What are your snow stories? I’d love to hear about your experiences biking around snowy Portland…
Holidaze got you down? Sick of the same old Christmas songs? These bikey carols will have you grinning with yuletide vibes in no time. They were written by esteemed Portland bike fun pioneers Amy Stork, Jim Waigand and Jeff Bernards. There’s a PDF of these lyrics on the Shift website for easy printing. There are 8 of them so scroll down to see them all…
Climate Change is Coming to Town
(To the tune of Santa Claus is coming to town)
You better watch out, you better not drive
You better ride bikes I’m telling you why
Climate change is coming to town
We’re making it hot, we’re raising the sea
Gonna feel life at a hundred degrees
Climate change is coming to town
If people keep on driving
The poles will soon be lakes
The air will stink like petrol fumes
Ride your bike for goodness sake
We’re making a list, we’re checking it twice
We’re gonna find out who drove and who biked!
Climate change is coming to town
I can’t get to everything…
The Cross Crusade might be over but that’s not the only cross series in town. Veloshop kicked off the season back in September and they’ll bring it to an official close this Sunday (Dec. 18th) at Blue Lake Park.
This is the last of three Veloshop races this year and they’ve all been great successes due to the hard work and panache of Molly Cameron and her Veloshop groupies teammates.
Portland bikers, consider yourselves spoiled with bike fun. Here is a round-up of rides happening on the first day of 2006 (if you know of others, feel free to add them to the comments):
At approx 7pm tonight my bicycle was stolen.
It was parked outside my editing studio at The Hall Gallery on SE 3rd
and Alder for 20 min. 18 more than necessary to get though the cable
lock, which was not found.
The bike is a 2004 black Surly Cross Check. There is a zoobomb sticker
on the left down tube, part of a deadbaby bikes sticker on the badge,
the Surly bike stickers are covered with electrical tape. The front
right fork has yellow reflective tape, the seat has a red reflective
strip, and there is a red reflector above the black aluminum rack
holding a single black Orlieb pannier on the right side.
The wheels are black anodized aluminum, the tires are cyclecross-style
with a reflective band.
There are Shamano drop bar-end shifters and components and a Crane Creek
headset.
My “Get Lit” headlight was on it at the time.
Thank you for your vigilance.
revphil +at+ freegeek.org
503.232.9350 – freegeek phone number. leave a msg, only answered 11am-7pm tue-sat
Peter Loewi is a regular BikePortland.org reader, PDOT intern, and dedicated Veloshop Team member (he once had his mouth wired in pink to show his team colors!).
When he noticed a recent NY Times Travel article on Portland made no mention of bikes he decided to give them a piece of his mind…and they printed it!
The LDTMA (Lloyd District Transportation Management Association) recently held an open forum to discuss bike issues in the Lloyd District area. They invited several NE Precinct police officers and traffic division commander Bill Sinnott. During the Q&A session, someone asked to see a list of the most common bicycle infractions and the cost for each of them.
I followed up with Bill and he took the time to compile this nice list. While you read it, keep in mind that cops actually write very few tickets to cyclists each year (this will be changing in the future), but I wanted to publish this just so we’re all on the same page.
I’m down in Orange County visiting family and I won’t be back until Dec. 29th. I’ve only been here about 5 days now, but I already miss Portland. We’ve rented a mini-van and I’ve done more driving in the past few days than I have for the past 6 months. Everywhere I look there are rivers of cars…
Sam Adams has just posted a survey that allows you to weigh in on how you think the city’s transportation money should be spent. This is an exciting opportunity to cast your vote and let the folks at City Hall know how strongly you feel about the key role of bicycle access in the future of our city.
Read more over at Sam’s blog.