Bike camps teach riding skills, bike maintenance, safety, and friendship. (Photo: Nat Shreffler for Community Cycling Center)
Portland has a wide variety of summer bike camps: Everything from learn-to-ride camps that ease kids onto two wheels to camps that teach advanced riding and repair skills. You might think it’s late in the game to find a spot in one of them, but most area bike camps still have spaces in some sessions.
My son attended his favorite bike camp back when he was five. He decided he wanted “bike racing camp” instead of “regular bike camp” and I found a new camp offered at a bike coaching facility. They started each morning of the week watching Danny MacAskill bike trick videos before pedaling off via multi-use path to a park where the instructor had stashed an obstacle course in the bushes. In addition to the emphasis on riding and tricks, he came home with more art projects from this camp (we still have a precious old bike cranks and duct tape creation) than from the larger, more traditional bike camps he’s attended. [Read more…]
My kids on the Pedalpalooza Kickoff Ride. (Photos: Madi Carlson)
Happy Pedalpalooza! My kids and I joined over a thousand others on the Pedalpalooza Kickoff Ride on Saturday and we’re excited for more bike fun! Hundreds of rides with all sorts of themes for all sorts of people will take place this month and a lot of them are kid friendly. [Read more…]
Other than getting confused by Fortnite references, I love riding side by side. (Photos: Madi Carlson)
Front, back, side by side — these are all good ways to ride with kids! Different circumstances might call for different positioning during each ride, but I’m curious which configuration is your favorite and why. Non-family bikers, you can play, too, and share your preference(s) for riding with another adult. [Read more…]
Staged photo of a bike crash. (Photos: Madi Carlson)
Last week I took the corner into my backyard too slowly, caught my front wheel on a flagstone, and slowly tipped sideways against the side of my house. As time slowed down and/or my brain sped up in the heat of the moment, I thought about my crashes of years past. [Read more…]
Biking with kids in the Columbia River Gorge. (Photos: Madi Carlson)
As much as I love Portland proper and could happily spend all my days right here, I adore visiting the Columbia River Gorge — the waterfalls, the mighty Columbia, the trees, the flowers, the expansive views! [Read more…]
With the Easter bunny hopping onto the scene so has arrived biking season! Like myself, you may feel that biking season never closed to begin with, but I still like celebrating the first big Kidical Mass PDX kids-of-all-ages family bike ride of the year on Easter. Also, with Pedalpalooza rides appearing hourly and Sunday Parkways details filtering in, bikey things really are picking up all of a sudden.
Our “season opener” was the biggest one yet with about 300 participants. We enjoyed cool but dry weather and had a wonderful egg hunt at the end. We even made the local TV news! Scroll down for some fun photos and the video coverage from KOIN… [Read more…]
We had such a great time last year! Let’s do it again. (Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)
Flowers are blooming, the rain feels a bit warmer, and bike shops are off their winter schedules. That means Kidical Mass PDX is back, too! Our “season” typically starts on Easter Sunday with our annual Kidical Mass PDX Easter Ride and Egg Hunt: [Read more…]
Visiting the cherry blossoms by bike on Sunday. (Photos: Madi Carlson)
On Sunday, my boys and I had the same idea as a lot of other Portlanders: visit the cherry blossoms in the Japanese American Historical Plaza. Then while biking home I realized Waterfront Park is incredibly family-friendly to reach by bike from the deepish southeast these days. [Read more…]
Visiting the cherry blossoms by bike on Sunday.
