Bikes just might be the perfect mural-viewing vehicle. (Photos by Eric Thornburg/No.Lens.Cap)

Sunday’s Mural Ride had a great turnout with about 100 people showing up to see a few of Portland’s many intriguing public paintings.[Read more…]

Public street murals are more than just pretty paintings on walls, they’re signs of a healthy city. By that measure, Montréal is full of life. The city is teeming with such a variety and volume of murals my head was literally spinning nearly as fast as my wheels as I cycled through its streets for the past four days.
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The new mural on the south side of Multnomah Street in the Lloyd District, one in a string of investments in the streetscape that have been made since the installation of a protected bike lane on the street.
(Photo: Craig Harlow)

Both Jonathan and I are out of town until tonight, so your regularly scheduled news roundup will be published on Tuesday this week.

For now, take a moment to celebrate a gift workers at the Doubletree Hotel gave the city last Thursday. It’s a beautiful celebration of Portlanders’ love of physical activity.

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A bike rental shop put the mural up without city approval. Now that the city has enforced its code, the shop has received permission to convert the bike icon to an ad and remove the current lettering.
(Photos by M.Andersen/BikePortland)

Update 5/9: Pedal Bike Tours spokeswoman Lota LaMontagne writes in an email that the letters won’t be painted over until late morning on Monday. “There has been no change in the decision by the city for the mural to come down,” she writes. “This is only related to timing on the logistics of painting such a large space in a public parking lot.” The story has been updated to reflect this.

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(Photo: Zack Lee)

A city code enforcement decision that a mural declaring Portland to be “America’s Bicycle Capital” is an unpermitted billboard, and must be removed, is attracting attention from around the city and the country.

Since we reported on the story Tuesday afternoon, the Portland Mercury, KOIN-TV and The Oregonian have chimed in. At the Mercury, Dirk Vanderhart quotes the mural’s creator, Pedal Bike Tours owner Todd Roll, as saying the decision went all the way to the top of the Bureau of Development Services, to Director Paul Scarlett.

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Pedal Bike Tours owner Todd Roll and two tourists with the mural his company created in 2012. The lettering is due to be taken down Thursday due to a city code enforcement decision.
(Photo by M.Andersen/BikePortland)

A city whose sign code is intended to prevent advertising eyesores and a local shop owner who’s developed “mixed feelings” about his project have settled on the removal, this Thursday, of one of downtown Portland’s newest icons.

That’s when workers are scheduled to remove the two-year-old, 45-foot-tall declaration that the city is “America’s bicycle capital.” Pedal Bike Tours, the local rental and tour company that painted the mural in 2012 based on one of their T-shirt designs, hired them after conceding a compromise in a long negotiation with the city’s code enforcement office.

“Photograph it while you can,” Pedal Bike Tours owner Todd Roll said in an interview Tuesday. “It’s out of here.”

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From bicycle culture tour flyer.
(Illustration by Shawn Granton)

If you are in love with bicycles, there’s simply no better city in the world to live in than Portland. Case in point are three upcoming bicycle tours — all happening on August 24th — that will showcase three things that many bike lovers cherish: our rich and diverse culture around bicycling, urban parks, and public art murals.

A tour developed by the non-profit Know Your City and held in conjunction with the Portland Art Museum’s Cyclepedia Exhibition, will introduce you to our vaunted bike culture. Dubbed, America’s Bicycle Capital: A tour of Portland’s Many Bike Cultures, the ride will leave from PAM at 10:00 am and visit sites and personalities that, “define our city’s bike culture — from bike advocacy to Zoobombers.” Guest speakers on the ride include: PBOT staffer Timo Forsberg (also a veteran volunteer with Shift); Ayleen Crotty, who edits ORBike.com and organizes many well-known bike events; Dingo Dizmal, the man who made the (now defunct) Alberta Clown House famous; and Rex Burkholder, a former Metro councilor who helped start the Bicycle Transportation Alliance. The tour is free and everyone is welcome.[Read more…]

New mural between SW 2nd and 3rd south of Ankeny.
(Photo: Matt Haughey/Flickr)

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Detail of new mural. See it below.
(Photo: Cyclone Bicycle Supply)

One measure of a great bike city that you won’t find in academic research papers or on various “Best Of” lists is the extent to which bicycles are represented in public art. Here in Portland, bikes are everywhere. Not just in racks and on the streets; but in murals, paintings, and sculptures throughout the city.

Some of the more well-known examples are the Community Cycling Center mural at NE Alberta and 17th, the Zoobomb Pyle at W Burnside and Stark, the “Share the Road” mural on the side of Hawthorne Auto Clinic.

The newest, large-scale bike mural in town is in northwest Portland, on the west side of the Cyclone Bicycle Supply headquarters at 2050 NW Vaughn. Cyclone’s Director of Sales John Byfield got in touch with us recently with a photo of it and a bit more…[Read more…]