velotines day
Community Cycling Center bringing back ‘Velotines’ delivery service
(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.
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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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Community Cycling Center will spread love with ‘Velotines’ cards delivered by bike
(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”.
TriMet will host Breakfast on the Bridges to share transit mall changes
you free breakfast next week.
(Photo © J. Maus)
TriMet, in partnership with bike fun promoting non-profit Shift, will host three Breakfast on the Bridges events at the end of this month.
The purpose of the events is to spread the word about how bikes are expected to navigate safely along with buses, MAX trains, and cars on SW 5th and 6th Avenues along the new Portland Mall. TriMet says they’ll be handing out free breakfast snacks, hot coffee, and “information about the new Portland Mall cycling environment.”
Colin Maher, TriMet’s bike specialist, also passed along a new graphic (below) that shows how bikes are expected to turn right from their left-side travel lane (the right lane is reserved for trains and buses).
Velotines Mocktails on the Bridge
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.]
Finding bike love on Valentines Day
In Portland, Valentines Day should be called Velotines Day.
Sure, we love our bikes year-round, but this time of year an extra-special feeling permeates the bikeways.
Here are a few events to make your Velotines Day memorable.
Shift gets “Light a Fire” award from Portland Monthly
(Photo: Jonathan Maus)
Shift — the bike-fun loving group that bring us Breakfast on the Bridges, Bike Moves, PedalPalooza, and more — has been chosen to receive a “Light a Fire” award from Portland Monthly Magazine.
Editor-in-Chief Ted Katzaukas (who happens to be a daily bike commuter) says Shift won in the “Having Fun” category.
On the phone yesterday he explained why they were chosen,
“They were chosen because they’re an organization that encourages people to get out and enjoy the city on a bike…and most importantly because they encourage us to have fun and make the most of the city.”
PINK "love courier service" coming to Portland
If I told you about a collective of cyclists and artists that started a movement called PINK to spread love by delivering notes around the city while wearing pink jumpsuits and pedaling pink bicycles, you might think it’s a natural fit for Portland.
After all, this city has serious penchant for pink, bikes, and love.
pink, bikes and love.
We’ve got our lovely, pink, mini-bike pedaling Sprockettes, we’ve got Team Veloshop, whose official motto is “Bring on the pink” (and they already wear pink jumpsuits!), we’ve got an ex-messenger framebuilder who builds pink bikes, we’ve got Shift, who promotes bike love events like their Bike Kiss-ins, and so on…
Cyclists smitten on Velotines Day
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:
Celebrate bike love on St. Velo-tine's Day
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: