🚨 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 🙏
I’m not sure how I stumbled onto the work of Aixe Djelal (pronounced “eye-SHAY ja-LAL”), but now I find myself checking her latest images several times per week. I think it’s the randomness of them, or maybe it’s how she captures the ephemeral vignettes I often see myself but rarely capture.
Portland is about to get its first “creative crosswalk.”
Are mobile bike shops that come to your door the next big thing? Beeline Bikes, a company that has found success in the San Francisco Bay Area thinks so. With two years under their belts, Beeline is now offering franchises and they’re testing the concept in the Portland market.
Learn more in the press release below:
This week’s Monday Roundup is brought to you Mountain Shop (NE 37th and Sandy), Portland’s oldest camping and outdoor gear store. If you’re curious about bikepacking, check out their full studio of new bikes, gear and rentals.
Here are the bike-related links from around the world that caught our eyes this week:
Truck safety: A new trucking product could circle rigs with downward-pointing lights that tell people biking where they’ll be invisible to the driver.
Marketing biking: A Vancouver bike lover who describes herself as “fat” has some “free tips” for active transportation advocates: “Stop using the ‘obesity’ scare word. It makes you look like smug a-holes.”
This just in from the Portland Police Bureau:
Central Precinct officers received a call of an accident with the driver attempting to leave the scene, driving the wrong way on S.W. Stark Street from S.W. 3rd Avenue. During the attempted flight from the scene the driver struck several parked vehicles, at least one bicyclist and some construction scaffolding.
Portland is, thankfully, a relatively safe city to get around. Even the United States in general, with our 30,000 road deaths every year, is full of hundreds of millions of people who aren’t getting physically hurt.
But the real cost of Vision 30,000 (as I saw a local transportation planner put it the other day) isn’t broken bodies. And it doesn’t have anything to do with biking in particular. It’s the fact that almost all of us spend our entire lives in a constant, low-level fear of losing our daughter, our son, our spouse, our best friend, to traffic.
How does that perfectly reasonable fear shape our lives? How does it lead us to shape theirs?
If the four-mile stretch of Powell Boulevard east of Interstate 205 is completely rebuilt in a few years, it could get some of Portland’s highest-quality bike lanes.
Some advocates say a meeting this Monday evening is the best chance yet to support Dutch-style raised bike lanes on outer Southeast Portland’s most important east-west arterial.
Today is the last day — at least for now — to experience a ‘Better Naito’.
Sam Adams might have left Portland for a job in Washington DC back in January; but it looks like the biking bug he caught while serving as our city’s mayor between 2008 to 2012 traveled with him.
Adams, who — for better or for worse — was a champion for bicycling throughout his political tenure in Portland, is now the newest member of League of American Bicyclist’s board of directors. In an announcement by the League yesterday they described Adams as “a strong advocate for safe bicycling and pedestrian options” who “helped expand Portland bikeways system by 75 miles, and focused new investments.”
We’ve had four great job opportunities listed this week. Learn more about them via the links below…
Job Title *
Electric Bike Sales and Bike Builder (Part time)
Company/Organization *
Cynergy E-Bikes
Job Description *
Are you interested in becoming a part of the fast growing, rapidly changing, electric bicycle industry? We are an e-bike specialty store carrying some of the most established electric bike lines in the U.S.
We are looking for someone with a desire to engage customers, encouraging them to adopt alternative transportation. You also must have an attention to detail to make sure that bikes are assembled properly. The ideal candidate will get charged up for delivering a great customer experience.
Responsibilities:
• Greet customers.
• Ask questions to understand their needs, answer their questions, assist with test rides and sell bikes and accessories.
• Ring up orders.
• Take service orders.
• Assemble e-bikes and perform adjustments. Perform inspections.
• Install components and accessories such as fenders, rear racks, integrated lighting, saddles and tires.
• Deliver e-bikes to customers and provide overview of controls and features.
Requirements:
• Strong interpersonal skills. Sales experience a plus.
• Enthusiasm for learning rapid technical change and innovation.
• A strong desire to deliver a fantastic customer experience.
• Attention to detail.
• Strong mechanical ability. Experience assembling bikes a plus, but will train.
• Valid driver’s license with good driving record.
• Knowledge of electronic technology a plus.
• Part-time – available Saturdays, Sundays, 1-2 weekdays.
• A fondness for really good pizza. Gluten free counts.
Location: Southeast Portland, OR
How to Apply *
Forward resume and an explanation of your qualifications to rich@cynergyebikes.com.
Pedalpalooza 2015 rolled into Portland Thursday evening with a swarm full of smiles as something approaching 1,000 people took over East Burnside for the city’s first big ride of the summer.
The route (led by Nathan Jones of Ride Yr Bike‘s regular Thursday night rides) snaked through central east Portland and through Lone Fir Cemetery before a stopover at Basecamp Brewery, where some peeled off and others continued toward festivities into the evening.