Pedal Bike Tours Blog

My how cheap gas changes headlines!  Last year it was "SUV's rot on sales lots while millions flock to gas efficient cars."  Yesterday there was a New York Times article entitled Study Says Minicar Buyers Sacrifice Safety.  The implication is that if you want to be safe you should be in the largest vehicle possible.  So if everyone drove M-1Abrams tanks then it would be SUV drivers sacrificing safety.

It's a matter of escalation, if everyone drives a larger car than the last person, then of course the smallest vehicle is going to be the most unsafe.   Anyway haven't SUV's been proven to be a rollover hazard and therefore more dangerous than smaller cars?

So where does that leave bicycles which are a lot smaller than the smallest car?  Here at Pedal, we recognize the dangers of being a defenseless human on 20 lbs. of steel moving at 10-20 miles per hour, but we do it anyway.  Dangerous?  More than an encasing yourself in steel.  Good for you?  Certainly.  The health benefits for ourselves, our neighborhoods, cities, and planet are undeniable.  Here in Portland bicycle use since 2000 has risen 144%, yet traffic fatalities have stayed the same.  It's getting safer to ride a bike here every day.  The answer is not to jump in the largest vehicle possible, but rather the smallest.

Once more people get out of the tanks and into smaller cars, or better yet bicycles, then the world will be safer for everyone.

Pedal Bike Tours is proud to be teaming up with Bikes to Rwanda to do a Cafe Bike Tour at the 2009 US Barista Championship March 3-8.  Baristas from around the US will be competing to see who's the best coffee slinger in the US of A.  On Thurs. March 5th and Fri. March 6th.  we'll be riding to several of Portland's best cafe's to sample their wares before the big parties happening afterwards.  Bikes to Rwanda works to get cargo bikes to coffee farmers in Rwanda, allowing small family farms to get their precious beans to market before they spoil.  Come on down and check it out!

We just got back from a soul-energizing trip abroad. You know how it is, you haven't been away for a while and you finally just do it and as soon as you get that passport stamped you wonder why you didn't do it sooner.

We spent 2 weeks bussing it in a loop from Cancun (skipped it) down the peninsula, through Northern Belize and the Cayes, then out Western Belize into Guatemala, explored Tikal (Indiana Jones style!) then ducked out Guate into Chiapas, and back to Cancun via Palenque and Merida (viva Mexico)!

Why there? Because it's nearly the cheapest flight out of the country and I've been meaning to see Tikal since I missed my chance 15 years ago while traveling in western Guatemala.

I won't bore you with a lot of stories of jungle choked ruins, boat rides up crocodile infested rivers, snorkeling with sharks and sting rays or showering under pristine waterfalls. What I do want to mention is the incredible number of bicycles we saw, particularly three wheeled cargo bikes like this one:

One of hundreds of cargo bikes we saw.

These things were everywhere and carrying everything, from chicken cages, to crates of oranges to mobile food stands:

We saw the same model, same setup everywhere we went. It's single speed and the entire front cargo area pivots on the front wheels.

We even saw them on the side of the road seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

Of course we saw lots of regular bikes too. Everywhere you looked there were people pedaling complacently, on their way to work in the fields or home from the office. Kids, farmers, whole families sometimes; father riding, mother sitting sidesaddle on the rear rack and baby on her lap. They were as common as the stray dogs one sees everywhere.

In the whole two weeks I only once saw a brand I recognized. Of course with this many bicycles, there were also lots of bike shops. In larger cities they seemed to cluster in certain sections of town, there'd be 5 bike shops within a block. In smaller villages it was likely to be a shed, open on three sides, with one guy hammering on a wheel and another reading the paper by flashlight while a customer waited for his sole means of transport to be beaten back into service.

Of course when on the beach they had cruisers, which take on rust and just keep on rolling. If helps when your island is only 5 feet above sea level

I was very encouraged to see so many people riding their bicycles for the short distances they travel to carry out their daily tasks and I hope they continue to do so until the next time I'm able to go back and visit.

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

Holly is unimpressed with being treated as cargo

So I'm walking down the sidewalk when I sense a presence behind me. I turn around and there, like the mythic Yeti, is an apparition much heard of but seldom seen, it's Phil from Metrofiets riding one of his handbuilt in Portland cargo bikes.

Phil is actually coming to the shop to show us what is only the third of their new creations. You can certainly understand why there's only three, the thing is almost 10 feet long and features a wooden box mounted in the middle, big enough to hold almost 2 adults, or 2 kegs. Phil says it will hold 200 pounds while still being easy to maneuver and up to 600 pounds maximum. He let me take it for a spin and it did take a moment to get the balance down (the key is to look where you're going, not at the box!)

Ever since Clever Cycles brought the dutch cargo bike Bakfiets to Portland a couple of years ago, interest in these utilitarian bicycles has been growing. Over the last six months news of new companies and products has been springing up. The Xtracycle is a bolt on rear wheel which creates basically a long bicycle with a long rear rack. It's been around for a while, but now there's the Yuba Mundo, based on the same concept. Surly has also come out with their own version called the Big Dummy.

Cargo bikes have a bin mounted somewhere allowing you to put things in without securing them down like on a rack. In addition to Bakfiets and Metrofiets, which have the box mounted in front of the rider, a company called Madsen just began building their own version. Madsen's bike has the box mounted behind the rider with a well in the middle for the rear wheel.

In Eugene, Oregon, the Center for Appropriate Transport has been making their own cargo bike for years. More recently, another Eugene company, CETMA is about to launch their own version. And last but not least out of Europe is the Long John, possibly the oldest of the cargo bikes.

The point is, while not new, cargo bikes are becoming hot in the US and it will be interesting to see where the interest goes. With a 200 pound cargo capacity they are excellent for much more than just a quick trip to the grocery store. People here in Portland are even using them to move with. Their growing popularity will allow more people to get out of their cars more often and further reduce our dependence on cars, which as you know, I think is great!

It sure is. Bendians (Bendites? Benders? Bendies? Bendos?) People from Bend, Oregon have one more thing to brag about besides skiing, rock climbing, Deschutes brewery, exquisite views of the cascade peaks, high mountain lakes, a lot more sun and a lot less rain than Portland- a great bike path network. We went over for the weekend and the weather was cool, crisp and fragrant with the spicy smell of woodsmoke. Meanwhile on the west side of the mountains the rain fell in dense sheets.

On previous trips I had noted the multitudes of mountain bikes and road bikes alike, all gleefully riding on magnificent paths often separated from the road by a lushly landscaped median. This trip we brought our own city bikes, intent on experiencing the paths for ourselves.

I'm happy, very happy to report we hardly had to ride on a bike pathless or laneless road the entire time. Even the main road right in front of our hotel, which was a mile outside of downtown in the big box store and mini-mall zone had a bike lane. The desk attendant hesitated only a moment when asked how to ride up the Deschutes river, (which I knew you could do at some point for several miles). Although her directions didn't work out, we still had a lovely time getting lost, and she got points for not staring at us for asking what is, in most small towns in America, a flabbergastingly stupid thing, biking being strictly for children and those too poor or witless to buy a car.

Even in Portland, it's not uncommon for a fat, luxurious bike lane to suddenly disappear, casting the hapless cyclist into the teeth of his deadly steel neighbors. Naturally it was the same in Bend, but less so than Portland which is one of only three platinum level bicycle friendly communities in the country! Like Portland, bike lanes ended without warning, but invariably once we turned the corner, hurray, there's another bike lane!

Bend is full of traffic circles. Rich, retired Californian emigres plus tiny cowboy town equals instantaneous and massive town planning, emulating Europe on the scale of the reconstruction of Dresden after WWII. The result is a well thought out master planned town complete with a mall built around an old lumber mill and a river famous for its fly-fishing and world-class rapids meandering through downtown.

City planners didn't forget bicycles when they put in these alternatives to intersections. As the bike lane approaches the traffic circle, it merges onto the sidewalk and the cyclist proceeds around the circle until choosing their direction, whereupon the path reappears. This kind of thought and, more importantly, expense is awfully impressive and almost unheard of. Combine this infrastructure with the restaurants, parks and brewpubs in town and great riding outside of town and you have bicycle nirvana. Good for you Bend!

Very exciting stuff! The numbers are out and, yet again, a lot more people are riding bikes in Portland than ever before. Some highlights:

• Compared to 2007, overall bicycle use in Portland increased 28%.
• Bicycles represent 13% of all vehicles on the four bicycle friendly Willamette River bridges.
• Bicycle traffic in Portland has nearly tripled since 2001.
• Bicycle counts conducted in March 2008 were approximately half those of the summer, but are
nearly identical to the summer counts recorded in 2002.

The people are speaking and city government is listening; people want it to be easier to get around by bike and the city is providing programs and infrastructure to match.

It's really stirring to stand in any one of the highest traffic spots and watch the swirl of bikes zip past, each one carrying someone with, if not a smile, at least the look of satisfaction which comes from getting some fresh air, exercise and moving yourself somewhere without the use of an engine.

This, along with the knowledge that the more people who ride, the more will join, gives me spasms of joy. This town is increasingly bicycle crazy. Have we hit critical mass? I think that's an arguable point, double digit increases for the last 4 years is awfully impressive but can it continue, or even increase? Maybe, either way it's very exciting to watch and wonder.

In other news, I saw an article in today's Oregonian about redeveloping inner city strip malls into mixed use retail and residential communities. The article claims the combination of the large flat lots on main arterial streets on public transportation and the preexisting utilities make older strip malls, which at a certain age need to be redeveloped anyway, the perfect place to accomodate the more than 1 million people expected to move to Portland over the next twenty years.
Their placement on public transport routes would allow developers to put in less parking and more shops and apartments and bring in more residents, many of whom would surely ride bicycles! I myself have been watching a set of apartments being built on top of a row of elegant older shops with brick facades, a strip mall is just the next logical step.

Hats off to my lady, the lovely Lota the commuter.

Yesterday morning the wind was howling, the rain driving and yet despite my repeated offers to drive her to work, she persevered and rode her bike to work. I sent her an encouraging note to find once she had gotten to the office, changed into dry clothes and finally logged into the computer. Here's what she wrote back:

"I was definitely the toughest of the tough today!
It was one of the stormiest rides I've ever done - wind gusts that almost pushed me over, car spray, leaves flying, rain coming in sideways and head-on. It was intense. So much so, that I was laughing out loud at one point when I almost had to walk the bike up and over the broadway bridge because the wind against me was so strong.
It was kind of fun.... kind of."

That, ladies and gentlemen, is bike commuting at its most challenging, and I salute all the hardy souls who pull it off even on days like that.

It makes me realize that no matter how much we love our bicycles and are committed to riding as much as possible, there is still a place for public transportation and the shelter they provide!

I noticed in the paper yesterday Trimet bus ridership is up 8.8% this September over last. It warms my heart to see people moving to public transportation. There are so many advantages to getting people on the bus. First, full buses help offset the cost of running buses. The more people that ride, the less money Trimet loses, which takes away the argument anti-public transport people make that it just eats up ridiculous sums to haul the homeless around. And Trimet might take a break from the constant fare increases.

Also, the more people that ride the more people will be willing to ride. Have you ever been on a bus with nothing but scary teens and scary crazy people? (I have nothing against the mentally ill, it's just solving that problem lies outside the scope of my comments). Does that make you want to ride the bus? Probably not. However, as more "normal" people (at least not possibly carrying a weapon or all their belongings in a trashbag) ride, the bus will begin to police itself, the scary teens will be less likely to act scary and you'll be less likely to be assaulted by someone who hasn't bathed in weeks arguing with their dead uncle.

My theory is that public transport actually helps the biking movement. Once people make the decision to get out of their cars and ride the bus they realize two things; 1 The bus is not that fast. It stops every couple blocks, takes time to load and unload people and it doesn't go directly where you're going. 2 If you're willing to take the bus instead of the car, why not ride a bike? It's a lot faster than the bus, makes no stops for passengers, doesn't cost almost $2, goes when you want and goes straight to where you want. Once you overcome the obstacles of equipment, fear of getting run over, and not knowing how to get where you're going, it's the obvious alternative to driving.

Unless it's raining, in which case it's just the toughest of the tough out there.

Everyone comes out to ride Portland's bridges once a year.

It has been an interesting year a watershed in fact. Oil prices rising, the housing crisis deepening and widening, eventually overtaking the nation's and the world's banking system, talk of the country's aging infrastructure collapsing. As unfortunate as these developments are for many individuals and families throughout the nation and the world, I can't help but think how good it will ultimately be for our communities.

For a long time now, as I watch football on tv and therefore commercials for big trucks, I've wondered (usually out loud) when the big three are going to wake up and realize they're betting very heavily on the wrong horse. I knew the era of everyone buying trucks would end sooner or later and to my utter amazement it came to pass over one week in May. As gas prices approached, and quickly broke through the $4 mark, US auto companies changed their tune on a dime, crowing on Monday about the F150 being the world's most popular vehicle to announcing on Friday they were radically cutting back on truck manufacturing and turning to small cars; of course, this move was going to take them several years and hundreds of millions of dollars. Better late than never, except that it looks like it might actually be too late for them, with GM possibly running out of cash in a year. Time will tell, serves them right. Of course the Japanese were feeding at the same trough, but only enough to get some of the sweet, fat profits. Their real bread and butter is the small energy-efficient cars Ford and GM now have to spend years figuring out how to build.

As a fan of city density, public transportation, walkable cities and bicycles, its hard not to gloat and rejoice, so I give in and do it anyway. On that week in May I made a conscious effort to mark this turning point in history and the myriad of changes it will bring.

Sure enough, news came just in time for summer here in Portland, and our already red hot bike environment got hotter. There are just so many issues and events in Portland, I just can't name them all here, however that is the point of this column, to bring issues up and maybe have a little to say about them.

Pedalpalooza fired people up with its dozens of bike-oriented events, then the International Car Free conference came to town. It was capped off by the first Sunday Parkways event in North America: a 6 mile neighborhood loop was closed to vehicles, allowing people to ride, walk, skate and skip car-free. It's modeled after Bogota Columbia where they close several streets to cars once a month. It was a smashing success, the street was jammed with happy crowds of people, from couples and families with kids to older people, all not driving. I could feel the excitement, everyone wanted to know when it was going to happen again. It was at that moment I knew Portland had a chance to really increase its active biking population.

It all depends on getting people to feel comfortable riding around the city amongst the cars and trucks. Portland has made great strides in that direction and I am thrilled to be able to be here to help it move forward in the future.