Community Cycling Center staffers Lindy Walsh (L), Athena and Yashar Vasef model Velotines cards.
(Photos: Community Cycling Center)

When is the last time you sent someone a hand-written note? Maybe doing that more often was one of your new year’s resolutions that needs a nudge?

For the second year in a row the Community Cycling Center will set up a letter courier system in their retail bike shop on Northeast Alberta to commemorate St. Velotine’s Day — which they call, “an emerging tradition celebrating all-analog affection.” For one day the CCC will buck the growing digitization of our lives and encourage people to send hand-written notes to one another in a bid to boost positive community spirit.

Here’s more from the CCC:

Instead of jotting a quick email thanking a friend or coworker, imagine having that note manually typed on a mid-century Olympia typewriter, then couriered by bike within Portland city limits to surprise and delight its recipient on February 14th. That is precisely what Cycling Center staff and volunteers intend to do for hundreds of messages.

From now through February 14th (which is traditionally Valentine’s Day, if you haven’t realized yet), anyone can stop into the CCC Bike Shop (1700 NE Alberta) and order a velotine for a $10 suggested donation. Once typed up and sealed with a kiss, it will be queued for bike delivery on Valentine’s Day.

This would be a great way to tell your friends and special someones that you appreciate them!

— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org

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Who do you love?
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

Hoping to plant seeds of love throughout the city, the northeast Portland-based Community Cycling Center has launched Velotines.

The concept is simple: Stop by their retail shop at 1700 NE Alberta Street during regular business hours and tell them who you love, why you love them, and where to deliver the message.

Then the CCC’s team of professional love couriers will type up your message on a romantic vintage typewriter and hop on their bikes to deliver the note.

The CCC says the inaugural program is all about spreading “positive community spirit”.
[Read more…]

(Photo © J. Maus)

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St. Velotines Mocktails on the Bridge

Date: Thursday – February, 14 2008
Time: 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM

Location: East end of the Hawthorne
Attire: Something Pink…
[See photos and read about last year’s event.]

[Kirsty Hall woke up at 5am to
brew coffee for bike commuters.]

This morning, commuters were welcomed into downtown Portland with smiles, pastries, patch kits, coffee and, um, condoms.

Yes, it was a special “Bike Love” edition of the monthly Breakfast on the Bridges tradition.

Cyclists were treated to specially baked cookies, bright pink signs with words of gratitude, and even helpful tips on how to show your faithful, two-wheeled steed some love. One sign read:

Velotine Date Ideas:[Read more…]

[Elicia Cardenas shows
the love. 4/29/06]

Portland’s bike-loving Breakfast on the Bridges crew has birthed a new holiday that is sure to become an annual tradition; St. Velo-tine’s Day.

Tomorrow morning (2/13) from 7-9am on the Hawthorne and Broadway Bridges, they’ll be holding the special event where they encourage you to, “Celebrate the day of bike love by showing your bike some love.”

Timo Forsberg — who married his bike back in June 2005 (see photo below) — describes it like this:
[Read more…]