Riding the latest e-bike system from Bosch

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Bosch e-bike system test ride-4.jpg

Murdered out e-cargo bike.
(Photos © J. Maus/BikePortland)

Electric bikes have a very bright future in Portland. There are many reasons why: Many Portlanders love cycling and our city encourages it, we have hills and steep bridges to pedal up, our expensive housing is forcing longer bike commutes, and e-bike technology — as technology tends to do — is always getting better/lighter/cheaper.

On that note, I had the opportunity to test ride the Bosch eBike System last week. From what I’ve heard around the industry, their new mid-drive system is the best on the market. As the largest automotive parts supplier in the world and with over a century of experience, it’s not hard to fathom that Bosch could jump into this market and deliver a solid product.

I also noticed that Xtracycle decided to spec the Bosch system on their Edgerunner cargo bike. That alone is a good sign that the Bosch system is worth paying attention to.

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Learn more about Portland’s new bi-weekly ‘Rush Hour Alleycat’

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alleycatposterdates

The bike scene in Portland is a wonderfully dynamic thing. It never stops evolving and there are always new people, ideas, and events coming into it. As they do, they keep the scene healthy by forcing it to re-invent itself and absorb new perspectives.

Part of my job is to monitor this ecosystem and understand the role that each piece has on the greater whole. One such piece that I’ve recently heard about is the Rush Hour Alleycat.

Like many new things that appear on the Portland bike scene horizon, it starts with some tweets or maybe at text and email or two from the organizer. Then it might gain a Facebook page or website. The event might fizzle out. Or, if enough people link into it, it might sustain itself and build into something special.

(Side note: Have you noticed how big the weekly Thursday Night Ride has gotten? Organizer Nathan Jones (proprietor of Ride Yr Bike bike shop) started it as a way to keep the Pedalpalooza spirit strong. Now it attracts well over 100 people every week. It meets at 7:30 tonight at Salmon Street Fountain if you’re curious.)

Now, back to this Rush Hour Alleycat…

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Talk of a disastrous earthquake got you down? Just keep on biking

together

People who bike together, stick together.
(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)

Bikes won’t save you after the Big One, but the community built up around them just might.

There’s been a lot of unease in Portland since the publication of a fascinating yet gut-wrenching article in The New Yorker that laid out the impending Cascadia earthquake in excruciating detail.

After I read the piece, I was sort of numb for a while. Then my mind wondered (as if often does) and I started to ask the default question I ask myself around any seemingly intractable issue or policy, “How can bikes fix this?”

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Industry Ticker: Ti Cycles marks 25 years with series of videos

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ticycleslead

Ti Cycles is celebrating 25 years in business. Davy Levy’s small company based in Portland’s northwest hills above Highway 30 is known for pushing the envelope in bike design. Levy is a legendary titanium specialist whose creations are perennial favorites at events like the North American Handmade Bicycle Show (NAHBS), the Oregon Manifest, and others.

To mark their silver anniversary, the crew at Ti Cycles plans to release a series of promotional videos, “highlighting the exciting and innovative history of Ti Cycles and heightening the brand’s image on the The Internet. Thus far, results are questionable, but the videos are pretty fun.”

Check the videos out below.

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Track bikes stolen from Alpenrose: Let’s get them back!

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Stephen McLaughry on his carbon fiber rig
that was stolen Monday night

About 1:30 am on Monday night thieves broke into a storage room at Alpenrose Velodrome and stole three high-end bikes.

The bikes were resting after one of their biggest events of the year — the Alpenrose Velodrome Challenge — which took place over the weekend.

KPTV covered the story and shared comments from the bikes’ owners who desperately need something to ride for important upcoming races. Here’s the video segment they aired last night:

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Reader Mail: New rider disappointed by ‘rude and dangerous other cyclists’

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Blue light bike signal NE Oregon and Lloyd-2

How can we promote polite pedaling?
(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)

It’s been a long time since we reached into the mailbag and pulled one out to highlight here on the Front Page.

Today’s email comes from Rachel J. She got in touch with us last week to share her impressions as a new rider:

Subject: New to biking, disappointed….

So I just started commuting to work. Its a 20 mile round trip commute, and I have never biked in a city before. I’m still getting used to the signs and routes. I read up on the laws, visited this site, got gear, maps and books. I consider myself as prepared as I could be for a new cyclist. I was worried about other cars, but I was not prepared for how rude and dangerous other cyclists would be.

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Cully advocates focus on Latinos through families and community

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(Rosaisela Portugal (L) and Lucia Llanos (R) during a presentation
at City Hall last week. Lale Santelices with the Community Cycling
Center (center) acted as interpreter.
(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)

Para leer esta historia en español, traducio por Google, haga clic aquí.

At the Bureau of Transportation’s monthly “Lunch and Learn” sessions last week, I heard from Rosaisela Portugal and Lucia Llanos — two women working to get more people on bikes in the Cully neighborhood.

Portugal and Llanos are part of Andando en Bicicletas en Cully (ABC), a relatively new group that first came to life in 2009 but really got their feet beneath them in 2012.

Now, with several years of successful programs and rides under their belts, ABC seems to be hitting their stride. So much so, that leaders from the group like Portugal and Llanos are eager to spread the word and share what they’ve learned.

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The secret history of Portland’s weirdest neighborhood

(Image: Oregon Historical Society)

This is the second in a three-part series. Read the first installment here.

For most of Portland’s history, the land we know today as the Lloyd District was best known for failure.

Holladay Park: named for a scoundrel who planted its trees and then gambled away his fortune. The state and federal buildings along Lloyd Boulevard: advance outposts of a government center that never arrived. And Lloyd himself: an oil multimillionaire who died all but cursing the city he’d fallen in love with 40 years before.

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Portland firefighters saw through lock to rescue bike from would-be thief

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Still from video. Watch it below.

The “jaws of death” have given a Portland woman’s bike new life.

Last week Erin Goldwater noticed someone had put a U-lock around her bike while she was at work — and she says it was done intentionally by a thief who planned to steal her bike. The incident occurred at NW 18th and Irving.

Here’s what happened, according to an email we got from Erin this morning:

Someone had locked their bike to the pole and to my bike. As I got closer, it was very obvious this was no accident. The other guy (I saw him while he was struggling to lock up his bike, but I was busy working so I couldn’t to go out and check on him) used a brand new tiny Kryptonite lock to secure his old, rusty, beat-up bike to mine. His bike was jammed up to mine yet there was an open bike rack 10 yards away. It was completely intentional.

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From the Archives

With six kids and no car, this mom does it all by bike