Pedal Bike Tours Blog

Gathered For The Ride

Woo hoo!  Last Saturday approximately 15 pinball/bike riding fans rolled out of the shop and hit the streets to go in search of some fun.  Led by our staff pinball wizard Miles, we hit the road en-masse on our way to four stops around the city.

Outside Red Flag

We left the shop and headed east, through the quiet streets and mansions of Irvington, our longest ride of the tour.  On the edge of the Laurelhurst neighborhood we found our first stop, Red Flag.  The fact that’s it’s a relatively new bar with four pinball machines goes to show how popular pinball still is.

Keeping right on schedule we hopped back on our steel steeds and shot the short distance to our next stop, The Standard.  Another newish bar, The Standard is tucked cozily away off the main drag of Burnside.  Once you pass through the patio into the bar you’re greeted by five gleaming machines of pinball beautaceausness!

Working It

After several quarters worth of ‘balling we tackled the deepening gloom with one thought in our heads, donuts!  Past the former headquarters of Jantzen swimwear we pedaled at top speed to reach the second incarnation of that purveyor of deep fried delights, Voodoo II.  The line was so long we had to take turns standing in line and playing games.  A few pinheads even decided to try their skills at the bubble hockey table.  Lucky, lucky Laura (she of the “Bile” t-shirt) actually got the VERY LAST Bacon Maple Bar!  Now that’s some good ju-ju!

mmm, Bile

Stomachs fortified by dough and heads buzzing from sugar we rode through the Lloyd district back to our own dear neighborhood and into our last stop Billy Ray’s Neighborhood Dive.  When was the last time you visited a bar set in an old house with the entire second floor devoted to pinball?  That’s right, we moved in, took over and ‘balled until we were spent.  (Bonus, the Blazers beat the Mavericks on the tv behind us).

In time, some pinners moved reluctantly on to other pursuits while others were still pounding the flippers way into the wee hours.

Great tour everyone thanks for coming!

See more photos here.

You Must Concentrate, Grasshopper

I just saw a great little article applauding Portland’s bicycle friendliness in the January issue of National Geographic.

It’s a short article in the “Technology” section but it highly praises Portland’s bicycle infrastructure and how tolerant people are towards bicyclists here. The article cites our 171 miles of bike lanes, bike boxes (which allows bikes to be visible to cars at stop lights) and bike-only traffic signals.

A bar graph on the side shows the increase in bikes being put on bus racks in various US cities, with Houston increasing 235%!

The article concludes other cities could become as bike friendly as Portland simply by repainting street to include bike lanes. As interior decorators say, paint is cheap! It’s a little more complicated than that, many bicyclists in Portland prefer to ride on low traffic streets. This is an ever cheaper solution, since it costs nothing to simply choose to ride on quiet streets with few cars. However, it’s Portland’s conscious effort to promote bicycling as an alternative to cars and commitment to improving bikes’ access to streets which has given so many people the confidence to ride around the city.

Thanks for the recognition National Geographic!

MMM bike paths.  They make me salivate with happiness.  I used to live in Seattle, steps from the Burke Gilman trail, which runs for many miles almost from the Puget Sound all the way out to the Redhook brewery in the countryside.  Along the way it passes the Gasworks park on Lake Union,  UW, Soundgarden’s Soundgarden, and Lake Washington.  It’s one of the greatest places and experiences in Seattle.

Portland has the Springwater Corridor running approximately 30 miles along the Willamette river and east toward Mt. Hood and the pathway running several miles along Marine Drive.  We also have the 2.5 mile loop of Tom McCall Waterfront park and the Eastbank Esplanade, connected by two bridges, and it is a fantastic way to see the city and get in a ride or a walk.  Until these paths went in, Portland’s rivers were mostly taken over by industry or freeways.  All these paths are part of the 40 mile loop, envisioned to provide access to green space for city-dwellers almost a century ago and all but forgotten until recently.

Now that we have public non-motorized access to some of the river, people are hungry for more; that’s where npGREENWAY comes in.

From their website:

“npGREENWAY envisions a trail system providing access to and along the Willamette River enveloping the north riverfront from the Steel Bridge in downtown Portland to Cathedral Park near the St. Johns Bridge and extending through Baltimore Woods to Kelley Point Park.

Our goal is to link North Portland neighborhoods with the Willamette River for recreation and access to jobs. This expansion of the Willamette River Greenway will include a network of trails used for activities such as walking, running, cycling, skating, skateboarding, fishing, boating and wildlife viewing. The North Portland Greenway trails will connect with the existing Willamette River trail system serving residents and visitors throughout the region.”

It’s already been a long road and probably has years or possibly decades to go, but you have to start somewhere and the citizens of npGREENWAY are in it for the long haul.

It’s great to see Portlanders are continuing to realize the Willamette river’s importance to the overall health of our natural surroundings and by extension to our own health, not to mention the benefits of exercise and the public’s right to access to our common spaces.

I look forward to the day you can ride from the Sellwood bridge to the St. Johns bridge along the river without vying for space with a car.  Dare to dream…

npgreenway.org