Guest post: A Swede’s view on cycling in Portland

The author, still smiling after an “ice rain”.
(Photos by Anders Hedlund)

Note: This post is from 34-year-old Anders Hedlund from Linköping, Sweden. I planned to publish this piece today before I decided to run this morning’s post about Mikael Colville-Andersen’s view of Portland. At first I thought it would be strange to post them one after another, but then figured they’d work nicely as a productive comparison. Thanks to Kiel Johnson for making this happen. – Jonathan

One year ago my wife and I left our home, two cats and all of our bikes in Sweden to move to North America ́s premier bike city for a year. Here ́s an attempt to sort out my experiences and thoughts about the PDX bike culture, and compare it to the way cycling is known in Scandinavia.

My wife Elin is a medical researcher and during the years there have been many suggestions and offers for different places to go for an exchange year. When Portland was mentioned she caught my attention – even in Europe Portland is known as a progressive hub for biking. To me, the deal was perfect: her boosting her career and me riding and working with bikes for a year.
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