The Bike Temple crew (L to R):
Josh, Halley, Phil, Kernal, Amos, Ted.
(Photos © J. Maus)

Portland’s place for bicycling believers, the Bike Temple, celebrated its first physical location with a special grand opening event Friday night.

A large crowd of people from varying religions came together at the Lotus Seed Ashram (formerly the First Presbyterian Church) in Northeast Portland to bless their bicycles, profess their belief in them, and to offer themselves in service of anyone with a bike who needs help.[Read more…]

[Editor’s note: Please welcome news intern Halley Weaver! Halley comes to BikePortland from a background in blogging. She jumped head first into the Portland bike scene as lead designer for the 2009 Pedalpalooza Kickoff Party. Her first story for us is a feature on a burgeoning new bike organization in town, the Bike Temple.]

Design for spoke card available
at BikeTemple.org

Oregon isn’t known for spiritual piety (we have the fourth largest percentage of people identifying themselves as “non-religious” in the United States), but here in Portland, a new organization is taking an earnest yet irreverent approach to a new kind of cycle-spirituality: It’s called the Bike Temple.

Why the combination of bicycles and religion? According to the Bike Temple’s pamphlet, which can often be spotted in spokes and on handlebars around town, “Bicycles give us happiness, good health, a closer communication to our communities, lower consumption, self-appreciation, and most of all, fun!”[Read more…]