Vernonia Campout this weekend

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

If the Bridge Pedal isn’t your cup of tea, perhaps you’d be interested in doing a bike campout to Vernonia. The ride will be led by none other than Jeff Bernards, a local bike camping veteran who recently led a very successful trip out to Oxbow Park. The route will be 45 miles each day (taking the MAX from town out to Hillsboro) and will include stops at 2 taverns along the way. Food can be bought at a farmer’s market on Saturday and Jeff is promising blackberry pancakes on Sunday. This could be the best thing you do on a bike all summer!

Details:
Meet at PGE Park MAX stop, 8:45 Saturday morning.
Email Jeff for more info.

Portlandia goes bikey

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Bridge Pedal - Portlandia sculpture ceremony
Bridge Pedal - Portlandia sculpture ceremony

Yesterday, Mayor Potter officially kicked off the 10th annual Bridge Pedal ride with a ceremony downtown. The press conference was held in front of the Portlandia sculpture across from the Portland Building. I wasn’t able to be there, but thanks to Roger Geller I’ve added a few photos of the festivities to the BikePortland photostream.

The coolest thing is that Ms. Portlandia is now officially bikey. She is adorned with a commemorative Bridge Pedal helmet, she finally got a bike to call her own, and you’ve got to love the special, 10 bridge birthday cake.

Bike safety books and resources

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With all the recent bike safety talk, I thought I’d point out a few books that will make you a more confident and safe cyclist.

  • The Art of Urban Cycling by Robert Hurst (2004). This book is current, not dumbed down and very well done. I highly recommend it. Anyone that says, “Road rash is a precious gift. Road rash is your friend. Bask in it, appreciate it, love it. Above all, learn from it,” obviously knows what they’re talking about. (*This book is also available from the Mult. Co. library).

If you’ve got safe cycling tips or other resources you’d like to share, feel free to leave them as comments so the whole cycling community can benefit from them.

Wanted: your close calls

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We as cyclists risk our lives every day on the streets of Portland. Many of us have had near-misses and other altercations that left us rattled, angry, and feeling vulnerable. Yet the only people that ever hear about these incidents are our friends, families and riding buddies.

The media, the police and our elected officials usually don’t take notice until someone is killed. This needs to change.

If our elected officials and city leaders realized how dangerous our daily rides and commutes were, they would begin to take the needs of the bike community more seriously. Now is your time to speak out. If you have had a near-miss incident, or other dangerous interaction with a vehicle while riding your bike in or around Portland, please share your story below.

In your comment please include:

  • The nearest cross streets of your incident.
  • A short description of what happened.
  • What neighborhood you’re from.

In a few weeks, I will draft a letter with all your comments attached and send it to the appropriate politicians and city leaders. Thank you for taking time to make your voice heard.

[For more close-calls, read this thread on the Portland Bike Forums.]

Boulder to get interactive bike route map

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Boulder Colorado has just made a serious move in the race to be the first Platinum Level Bicycle Friendly City. According to their local newspaper,they have ponied up $140,000 to have MapQuest build them an interactive bike route map.

Boulder is one of only four other Gold Level Bicycle Friendly Cities as designated by the League of American Bicyclists. Portland is also a “Gold Level” city along with Palo Alto, California and Corvallis Oregon. However, our great city still has yet to announce anything publicly about a major interactive bike route mapping effort.

The only one I’ve found locally is done by ByCycle.org and it isn’t quite ready for prime time. Marin County, in California has the “BikeMapper.” And even Los Angeles (car capital of the world!) has one.

Come one, Portland! We’re not going to let those other cities outdo us are we?

[via Cyclelicious]

MTB club vying for bike park

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Timothy Lake MTB RidePUMP (Portland United Mountain Pedalers) is our local mountain bike advocacy group. They work to maintain trails and make sure the interests of mountain bikes are represented in often thorny land access issues.

PUMP was also instrumental in putting together this great (and free) map of Forest Park (PDF).

Now they’re gaining momentum for a very exciting project; The Portland Dirt Experiment (PDX, get it?) Bike Park. This would be a designated mountain biking playground where freeriders and dirt-lovers from all over the country could come and play, without fear of running hikers off the trail, or eroding sensitive habitats.

Read the full proposal online, or show your support of the project by signing their online petition.

BTA unveils 5-part safety plan

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Tomorrow, the BTA will release a statement that outlines their response to the recent rash of bike/car collisions in the Portland metro area. I have received advanced permission to publish this press release to the bike community here on BikePortland.org.

The release of their “Five Part Plan” follows their recent Op-ed that ran in the Oregonian and it reinforces their commitment to cyclist’s rights.

  • (1) Identification of, and advocacy for, site-specific engineering safety improvements.
    They will visit crash scenes and advise city engineers on how to make them safer.
  • (2) Advocacy for appropriate enforcement actions.
    Make sure the guilty party receives a punishment equal to the crime.
  • (3) Expanded driver and cyclist education efforts.
    They will work to add bicycle awarenss to the DMV’s driver’s ed. test.
  • (4) Improved identification of dangerous areas.
    They will ask the city to fund an online, interactive crash reporting system.
  • (5) Advocacy for a fair share of safety funding for bike and pedestrian projects.
    They will lobby for more equal representation for cyclists in transporation funding.

Continue reading for the full release…

Read more

Tour de Fat a big success

Tour de Fat: Portland, OR 8/6/05
Tour de Fat: Portland, OR 8/6/05
Tour de Fat: Portland, OR 8/6/05

Hats off to New Belgium Brewery for throwing a great party on Saturday! Their Tour de Fat is a traveling bike circus, concert, beer garden, fundraiser, and bike love-fest all rolled into one.

It started out with a police-escorted parade through downtown (Portland must be leading the country in bike parades per year!). The New Belgium crew showed up with all manner of Chunk-ified bikes and funky costumes. The coolest thing was an Xtracycle boom-box bike that kept things fun with a great selection of disco party music blaring through the streets as we rode along.

Once back in Waterfront Park, we were greeted with the wonderful announcement of, “the beer garden is now open.” All the beer money went directly to the BTA and PUMP….and let’s just say that I’ve done my part for the Portland bike community!;-).

Beers firmly in hand, we all settled in for a sultry vaudeville/burlesque show from the Yard Dogs Road Show and some good, old-fashioned foot stompin’, Dukes of Hazzard style banjo pickin’ bluegrass from Oakhurst.

Their was also a bike test corral full of quirky, creative and weird bikes. I’ve been wanting to ride a tall bike for months now and I finally got my chance. It was amazing! Now I know why people love their SUVs…I was large and in charge! But besides a tall bike there was a shoe bike, an articulated “swing bike”, a bike with 14″ wide tires!, a pump bike, and many others.

Much credit goes to the event crew at New Belgium. In a town that knows a thing or two about fun bikey events, you guys held your own, and then some. See you next year!

[Click here for all of my Tour de Fat photos]

Cyclecide Bike Rodeo this weekend

Chunk Organ Donor InviteWondering what to do after the Tour de Fat tomorrow?

Take your summer beer-buzz-bike-love over to Acme (SE 8th and Main St) to catch the Cyclecide Bike Rodeo. I haven’t seen them yet, but I think they’re sort of a mix between Chunk 666 and the Alberta Clownhouse crew. Here’s what the SF Weekly had to say about them:

“To get an idea of what, exactly, the Cyclecide folks do, imagine Cirque du Soleil. Now take away the grace and beauty of a hundred seminaked French people and replace it with a bunch of surly, moonshine-swilling, outlaw types wearing monkey boots and moth-eaten clothing.”

Sounds like some Kodak moments for sure. Don’t forget your camera.

The BTA responds to Portland Tribune article

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The Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) has written an op-ed in response to last Friday’s Portland Tribune headline story on bike safety. The headline that ran on the front page was, “Walk, ride at your peril”.

The BTA thinks this alarmist headline “irresponsible journalism” because both walking and riding remain relatively very safe activities. They go on to outline several positive ways our community can react to the recent spate of bike/car incidents that have left 5 cyclists dead since the start of June. Here they are:

  • First, as drivers and cyclists, we have to act responsibly when we’re on the road.
  • Second, law enforcement officials need to respond effectively and send a clear message that our roads must be safe for all.
  • Third, our elected officials must dedicate the required resources to identify the most dangerous roads and bridges and fix them, as well as improving safety during every upgrade.
  • Fourth, community partners such as the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, schools, and Department of Motor Vehicles, must work to educate drivers and bicyclists about safely sharing the road.
  • Fifth, the media should continue to draw attention to the crashes, in a thoughtful and responsible way.

All very good points to keep in mind during this “sad summer.” Much credit due to the BTA for such a well-written piece.

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