Big trucks are bad for dense urban areas. They spew toxic exhaust that poisons our bodies and our environment, they take up precious space, and they far too often kill people due to their inherently unsafe design features. We should do whatever we can to limit their presence.

Fortunately there are other options. Like pedal and battery-powered cargo bikes.
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Sky Miles, a rider with Portland Pedal Power, loads up his rig after a delivery in downtown Portland this morning.
(Photos © J. Maus/BikePortland)

Welcome to “Bikes at Work,” our ocassional series that looks into the people and companies that use bicycles to get work done.[Read more…]

Competitor Adam Newman leads a group of riders on North Rosa Parks Way en route to the Oregon Food Bank checkpoint where they had to pick up a box of food before returning to the University of Portland.
(Photos © J. Maus/BikePortland)

With interest in earthquake preparedness at an all-time high, the timing could not have been better for the fourth annual Disaster Relief Trials. The event, which was based at University of Portland, aims to demonstrate that cargo bikes can be an effective way to administer aid and help rebuild our communities after a large quake or other natural disaster.[Read more…]

Participants negotiate a water-carrying checkpoint at last year’s event.
(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)

Portland’s Disaster Relief Trials are back for the fourth year and there are some exciting changes in store. [Read more…]

B-Line founder Franklin Jones in 2010.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)

Portland’s biggest trike-based urban cargo company is about to get bigger.
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Yuba Bikes Founder and CEO Benjamin Sarrazin on his new Spicy Curry e-bike.
(Photos by J. Maus/BikePortland)

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Franklin Jones of B-Line on one of his delivery trikes.
(Photo by NashCO Photography, courtesy New Seasons Market)

Earth Day seems like a fitting day to announce the latest evolution in Portland’s cargo bike delivery ecosystem.
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Rolling Oasis, a Lents-based nonprofit that home-delivers $20 worth of organic produce to its customers each week, is angling to leap from Southeast into Northeast, too.

Proprietor Brandon Rhodes launched the service a year ago and has been delivering since then in his own Lents neighborhood ever since, adding extras like coffee and jam for additional fees.

“We want post-retail grocery innovations to be accessible for all of our neighbors, not just those who can afford it,” Rhodes writes in the description of the new Indiegogo campaign Rolling Oasis has launched to complete the expansion. “Alternative delivery services inflate their prices beyond what you’d find at Fred Meyer — leaving tighter-budget households behind.”

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Oak Cliff Cargo Bicycles (left) and Bike Friday want to take a leap into cargo bikes. And you can help.

Two friends of BikePortland and fellow lovers of cargo bikes have recently launched campaigns that deserve your crowd-funding consideration.

Bike Friday (from Eugene) and Oak Cliff Cargo Bicycles (from Dallas, Texas) might not be from Portland, but our city has a solid place in each of their stories.[Read more…]

The apartment building where the DeLaneys live was designed with lots of parking for small bikes but none for the sort that lets families with children live car-free.
(Photos: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

When their name came up this year on the waiting list for a rare below-market two-bedroom apartment in one of Williams Avenue’s new apartment buildings, the DeLaney family was thrilled.

It had enough room for their growing family — Bijou, their second daughter, is four months old — and was a short walk to the 35 bus that carries Chris DeLaney to his job at the Bike Gallery in Lake Oswego.

But it lacked something else: a place to park the cargo bike that lets them avoid car ownership and thus afford to live where they do. So, after some negotiation, the DeLaneys are paying $40 a month to park their cargo bike in one of the building’s auto parking spaces.

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