Barb Grover soon after her double
mastectomy last year.
(Photo: Barbara Hart)

Barb Grover doesn’t have breasts any more, and doesn’t mind who knows it.

As part of her cancer treatment, the Portland woman had a double mastectomy one year ago next week. On Saturday, to celebrate, she’ll be joining thousands of other people to ride through the streets of Portland with nothing on.

She’s invited other post-mastectomy women and their supporters to join her at whatever level of clothing they wish. She’s dubbed it “Critical Mastectomy.”

“Once the treatment is over, we go about our lives and look like we’re assuming a normal day to day,” Grover, 54, said in an interview Thursday. “And most of us have scars. That doesn’t get talked about a lot in public. We see Angelina Jolie and she looks like her old self again. But that’s not the path that a lot of women choose, or can choose. … This is what it really looks like, people; this is what it’s really like. It’s not awful. It’s just different. We just need to be a little more open about it.”

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This year’s massive kickoff ride was the first sign that something was up.
(Photo: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

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Technically you would only need one time travel
ride. Apparently it’s this Thursday.
(Photo via Shift)

It’s that time of the summer: the solstice has slipped past, the afternoons are getting seriously hot, and that “do I really want to go to a bike ride tonight” feeling is giving way to the realization that Pedalpalooza comes but once a year.

As Portland’s inimitable bike festival heads into its third and final week, we thought we’d help you suck the marrow out of June 2015 by highlighting a few of the most interesting weekday rides. Check back later this week for our usual Weekend Event Guide to bring you into Pedalpalooza’s big finish, including what’s looking like an 80-degree World Naked Bike Ride…

Jesus on a Bike Ride music video shoot – Monday, 5:45-8:45pm, 4629 SE 64th Ave
“A ride of biblical proportions. Put on your holiest attire and ride with Jesus on a Bike. We’re shooting a music video for youtube … It’s a punk rock interpretation highlighting Jesus as a radical who wanted to bring down the corrupt systems he saw around him. More storytelling, less dogma! Appropriate for all ages.”

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A scene from the “Build It” rally at City Hall back in February 2010.
(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)

Saying Portland already knows how to increase safety on its streets and can get to work immediately without further study, the advocacy group BikeLoudPDX is organizing what looks like Portland City Hall’s first rally in five years on behalf of bicycling improvements.

So far, more than 100 people say they’re planning to attend the Wednesday morning event.

“There’s a real danger that Vision Zero can just be prolonged indefinitely if they keep on studying it,” BikeLoud organizer Ted Buehler said Friday. “But really, they have the tools in their toolbox to do it now. And it doesn’t take money, it just takes political will. And the rally is to give them the political will to do it now.”

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Last night’s Kickoff Ride was one of the largest ever.
(Photos by M Andersen/BikePortland)

Pedalpalooza 2015 rolled into Portland Thursday evening with a swarm full of smiles as something approaching 1,000 people took over East Burnside for the city’s first big ride of the summer.

The route (led by Nathan Jones of Ride Yr Bike‘s regular Thursday night rides) snaked through central east Portland and through Lone Fir Cemetery before a stopover at Basecamp Brewery, where some peeled off and others continued toward festivities into the evening.

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Yeah! Gimme five!
(Photos J Maus/BikePortland)

Pedalpalooza is here! Today marks the start of Portland’s beloved annual bike festival with hundreds of events lined up over the next three weeks.
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Gearing up in Normandale Park in 2014.
(Photo by J. Maus/BikePortland)

Portland’s annual Pedalpalooza festival starts on Thursday and will wrap up June 27 with Oregon’s biggest pay-what-you-will bike ride of the year, which also happens to be the largest clothing-optional bike ride in the world.

The 2015 edition of Portland’s World Naked Bike Ride will begin gathering in Colonel Summers Park, at Southeast 17th Avenue and Taylor Street, at 8 p.m. The roll-out will start at 9 p.m. and the ride is so big it usually takes an hour or more before all of the participants are moving.

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It’s coming!

Portland’s annual bike fun festival Pedalpalooza begins three weeks from today, and that means this: The deadline for getting a Pedalpalooza ride into the Portland Mercury’s printed ride calendar is one week from today.

Anyone can create a ride, and 87 have been created so far for the 24-day festival. To get into the Merc (as well as the definitive online calendar on shift2bikes.org) you can use the simple event form linked from the top of the calendar.

Here are a few highlights from the schedule so far:

GOAT-A-PALOOZA – Saturday, June 6, 1-5 p.m.
Bike tour of goats in the city! Are you goat-curious? We’ll visit a few different goat “ranches/farms” and see what it’s like to own goats in Portland. Meet at Unthank Park in N Portland, ride will end in SE, near Foster and 205.
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