🚨 Please note that BikePortland slows down during this time of year as I have family in town and just need a break! Please don't expect typical volume of news stories and content. I'll be back in regular form after the new year. Thanks. - Jonathan 🙏

Guest post: Where we stand on Portland’s Off-road Cycling Master Plan

Where will we ride in the future? It’s time to weigh-in with your comments.
(Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)

This post was written by the Northwest Trail Allliance, a Portland-based nonprofit and a BikePortland supporter.

Portland’s Off-road Cycling Master Plan (ORCMP) is now in its final stage of development, the Draft Plan Phase. The Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS) is asking the public for feedback on the Draft, which will be incorporated into the Proposed Plan presented to City Council for adoption. As an off-road cyclist in Portland, this is an important opportunity for you to tell the City what you think about the Draft. If you want urban trails, now is the time to elevate your voice.

We encourage you to read the overview or full text of the Draft Plan and then submit your comments by December 31 via the ORCMP comment form, interactive map, or at the upcoming ORCMP open houses.

To assist, we’ve distilled the main elements of the Draft Plan as well as suggested areas of improvement that you may wish to include in your feedback to the City.

Key ORCMP Elements – By the Numbers

5.7 miles of natural surface, narrow to mid-width trails are currently open to cycling across the city.

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Newswire: Historic Columbia River Hwy re-opens from Larch to Bridal Veil

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

This just in… from our friends at ODOT:

Historic Highway opens from Larch Mountain Road to Bridal Veil

A six-mile section of the Historic Columbia River Highway from Larch Mountain Road to Bridal Veil re-opened Wednesday morning 11 weeks after it was closed by the Eagle Creek Fire.

Vista House at Crown Point, one of the most popular attractions the Gorge, is also scheduled to re-open Wednesday.

The road has been closed since Sept. 4, two days after the start of the Eagle Creek Fire. While the eminent hazard trees and rock fall dangers have been mitigated, travelers need to remember that the Gorge is chronically prone to slides and should continue to use caution and respect all closure points and private property boundaries.

The opening of the roadway from Larch Mountain Road to Bridal Veil now provides access to local businesses and the post office, but restrictions remain on recreation. Here is a look at what’s open and what’s closed in the newly-opened area.

– No stopping or parking is allowed on the shoulders.
– Vista House is expected to be open Wednesday. Normal operating hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily.
– Guy Talbot State Park is open. A short trail leads from the parking area to Latourell Falls.
– Bridal Veil State Park and trail is also open. Hikers should expect winter conditions at both locations.
– Angel’s Rest parking lot and trail are closed.
– Shepperd’s Dell Falls trail is closed.
– The Multnomah Falls Lodge is not located in this section of opened roadway and remains closed to all visitors for safety reasons at this time.
– Crews installed no parking signs in places along the highway and put up barricades to keep travelers from using recreation areas that remain closed.

The Historic Columbia River Highway remains closed between just east of Bridal Veil and Ainsworth with no timeline set for re-opening.

The Multnomah Falls Lodge and the Multnomah Falls parking area on I-84 may re-open by the end of the year. A separate announcement will be made when an opening date for the Lodge is set.

Areas along the route are evaluated for hazards on a case-by-case basis. Visitors are reminded to respect private property rights and closures and be aware of the hazards that exist as winter sets in. Fire impacts have heightened these risks.

At Bridal Veil, eastbound travelers on the Historic Columbia River Highway can turn west onto Interstate 84 or turn around and go west back up the Historic Highway. As a reminder, there is no I-84 eastbound access from the Bridal Veil interchange.

Crews from the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Oregon Department of Transportation have all been working in recent weeks to remove immediate roadway hazards from this newly-opened section of the Historic Columbia River Highway.

How Eugene-based Burley built the market for child bicycle trailers

The author Josh Reid (middle) in his family’s Burley trailer in 1999.

This article is by Josh Reid, a journalist from the U.K. who recently toured several Oregon bike companies. This is the first in a series that’s being published in conjunction with BikeBiz.com.

What would become Burley grew from a bike shop founded in 1969 in Fargo, North Dakota, by 17-year-old touring cyclist Alan Scholz.

I’ve been using Burley’s bicycle products since I was a tot. Photographic proof of this was emailed to me when, earlier this year, I visited the company’s HQ in Eugene, Oregon. There I am, seated in a 1997-vintage Burley Lite trailer, pulled by my 1965-vintage dad, editor-at-large of BikeBiz. A few years later I progressed to a Burley Piccolo trailercycle. Today, I often ride my dad’s 2002-vintage Burley Runabout steel-framed commuter bike – he long ago added an Xtracycle attachment, creating a cargobike.

What would become Burley grew from a bike shop founded in 1969 in Fargo, North Dakota, by 17-year-old touring cyclist Alan Scholz. Al’s Bike Shop took over the basement and garage of his parents’ house. This was just before the start of the American “bike boom” of the early 1970s which took almost everybody by surprise, and most especially the bicycle industry, which couldn’t keep up with demand. Thanks to health concerns, cycling had been building in popularity throughout the 1960s, and when baby-boomer ecological concerns merged with a fitness kick the American market for bicycles doubled within a couple of years.

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Sue Stahl, accessibility advocate who pushed for Portland’s adaptive bike program, has died

Suzanne Stahl.
(Photo via Facebook)

One of Portland’s most persistent advocates for the rights of people with disabilities has died. Sue Stahl passed away on November 14th. She was 42 years old.

Stahl was a fixture in the fight to make Portland’s streets work better for all people, not just those in cars and on bikes. Her impressive advocacy resume included: Chair of the Portland Commission on Disability, board member of Oregon Walks, member of the City of Portland Pedestrian Advisory Committee, and much more. She also ran for Portland City Council (against Steve Novick) last year.

BikePortland readers probably recall Stahl’s name in our coverage about the lack of adaptive bikes in Portland’s Biketown bike share system. Stahl began asking the Portland Bureau of Transportation about the accessibility of the system as far back as March 2016 — three months before it was due to launch.

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Job: Frontend Software Engineer – Ride with GPS

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Job Title *
Frontend Software Engineer

Company/Organization *
Ride with GPS

Job Description *
We are a local software company that builds software for cyclists and cycling organizations, with the goal of getting people to go on better rides, more often.

We are looking for a frontend software engineer to work with our existing engineering team, and modern JS codebase. All new web development for ridewithgps.com is centered around React, and we use a modern development workflow. We have a mixture of legacy jQuery and backbone.js that we are slowly replacing, as appropriate.

The right candidate has a strong set of CS fundamentals under their belt, either through a rigorous CS education, years of industry experience, or both. We are looking for mid and senior level engineers, and are not accepting applications from bootcamp graduates at this time.

https://ridewithgps.com/careers/frontend_engineer

How to Apply *
Please send an email and resume to careers@ridewithgps.com, and please include information on your relationship to cycling. Thanks!

Job: Mobile Software Engineer – Ride with GPS

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Job Title *
Mobile Software Engineer

Company/Organization *
Ride with GPS

Job Description *
We are a local company that builds software for cyclists and cycling organizations, with the goal of getting people to go on better rides, more often.

https://ridewithgps.com

We are looking for a software engineer to work with our existing mobile developers. The right engineer has experience with both Android and iOS, and has a strong focus on implementing easy to use, platform specific interfaces and user experiences. We currently have two mobile developers, one on Android and the other iOS. They are both extremely capable engineers, but focus on the difficult, internal problems present in designing a battery efficient mobile app for navigation. We would like to round out our team with a developer that enjoys crafting a beautiful UI, by working closely with our head of product and in-house designer.

The right candidate has a strong set of CS fundamentals, either through a CS education, years of industry experience, or both. We are looking for mid and senior level engineers, and are not accepting applications from bootcamp graduates at this time.

https://ridewithgps.com/careers/mobile_engineer

How to Apply *
Please send an email and resume to careers@ridewithgps.com, and please include information on your relationship to cycling. Thanks!

Job: Backend Software Engineer – Ride with GPS

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Job Title *
Backend Software Engineer

Company/Organization *
Ride with GPS

Job Description *
Ride with GPS is a local company, providing software to cyclists and cycling organizations, with the goal to get people going on better rides, more often. We have a website, iOS app, and Android app, that together provide route planning and discovery, and turn by turn navigation and ride recording.

We are looking for an experienced, skilled, and versatile software engineer to work on our main rails application, various micro-services, and possibly our infrastructure, depending on skills. We are not looking for junior developers at this time, so industry experience or a CS degree is required. In a nutshell: structure & process our data, work on our Rails app, and get to know our whole stack. Special consideration given to someone with extensive devops experience.

https://ridewithgps.com/careers/backend_engineer

How to Apply *
Please send an email and resume to careers@ridewithgps.com, and please include information on your relationship to cycling. Thanks!

The Monday Roundup: Seattle’s secret, Sicily’s stereo cycles, sad satire, and more

Welcome to the week! These are the best stories we came across in the past seven days…

Sponsored by Go To Ortho, a walk-in immediate injury care clinic that treats urgent injuries like breaks, sprains, fractures, dislocations and wounds.

Sad-tire: This Onion article is hits close to home when it quotes a make-believe NHTSA official as saying, “If every cyclist purchased and operated a car like you’re supposed to as an adult, bike fatalities would drop an estimated 40 percent within six months alone.”

Stereo-cycles: Teens in Palermo Sicily are into a hot new trend: Putting as many speakers as possible onto their bicycles.

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Latest Headlines

Video: Good bike infrastructure vs bad drivers

Merry Christmas! Portland’s upgraded automated speed cameras are ticketing drivers once again

Monday Roundup: Golden gravel route, too bad for Rad, Uber is sad, and more

Video: Meet a nursing student who received one of Portland’s first e-bike rebates

From the Archives

Portland’s invisible machine: Behind the scenes at the World Naked Bike Ride