Pedal Bike Tours Blog

Time Magazine wants you to take a bike tour!  Given 24 hours in Portland Time list 10 things you should do and number 2 is you should take a bike tour across some of bridges that span the Willamette river through the center of Portland.  Our Historic Downtown tour takes us across 3 of the 4 (5 beginning next week!)  The other 9 must do things are pretty awesome too!

http://www.time.com/time/travel/cityguide/article/0,31489,1975826_1975753_1975578,00.html

The pedal cargo bike is up and ready to go!  Holly is so excited!

Credit goes to Tom at Tom’s Cargo Bikes, Brooker Enterprises for the powder coating and Benn Schonman at Schonman Signs for the decals.  Great job guys!

Here’s a link to see the photos:

Cargo Bike Photos

Art By Bike- First Friday

Free community bike ride to Southeast Portland’s Monthly Art Walk

We had so much fun last month we’re doing it again! Check out highlights on our blog. On April 2nd feed your soul and stretch your legs with Pedal Bike Tours and Art Scout Art Consulting on a free bike tour from Pedal’s shop (2249 N Williams) to First Friday, southeast Portland’s version of Last Thursday where galleries and other businesses throw a street-side party of art, food and community.

Easy riding for everyone, bring spouses, significant others, grandparents, children, even portable pets! We’ll ride on quiet streets through lovely neighborhoods and pause for nourishing art and refreshments at three different galleries.

Date: April 2nd

Time:5:30pm-8:30pm

Where: starting at Pedal Bike Tours, 2249 N. Williams

Stop 1) B. Rogers Gallery

Address: 2415 NE Broadway St.

Telephone: (503) 236-0600

Hours: Wed-Sat 11-6, Sun 12-5 First Friday till 8

Sky, Roads, and Rivers Pastel works by Andrea McFarland.

Stop 2) Grass Hut www.grasshutcorp.blogspot.com

Address: 811 East Burnside St.

Telephone: (503) 445-9924

Hours: W-Su 12-7pm and First Fridays

“Balls Out”, as in give it your all. A group show of 50+ Artist from all over the country who were given a panel of wood, ink, and felt to do what ever they wanted to do with.

Stop 3) New Space www.newspacephoto.org

Address: 1632 SE 10th Ave.
Telephone: (503) 963-1935

Hours: M-Th 10am-10:30pm, F-Su 10am-6pm and First Fridays

Photography show with works by Bryan Wolf and Elizabeth Fleming.

Here it is, the first look at our brand new cargo bike!  Tom’s Cargo Bikes has been working on this baby for a month now and boy does it look good!  It just came back from the powder coater a few days ago and Tom couldn’t wait to put it together and take it for its maiden voyage.  In this picture it doesn’t yet have its kickstand but other than that it’s ready to go!

This bike is almost completely made from recycled materials.  Tom used a recycled frame for the rear, a children’s bike for the front and scrap metal for the box.  It’s going to be useful for lots of hauling jobs, from Holly the 13yr. old dog, to groceries, building supplies and even humans (hence the sweet bench made from recycled pallets).  The seat even has a locking box so you don’t have to haul everything around with you.

The dog can hardly wait!  (Me neither actually!)

Here are a few photos of the work in progress:

Art by Dan McClary at Launch Pad Gallery

Last Friday 10 art loving bike riders took to the streets to go visit First Friday, Southeast Portland’s monthly art walk. First Fridays provide arts patrons and enthusiasts the opportunity to wander from gallery to gallery during extended hours on the first Friday of each month.  The galleries were all suggested by Bridget Larrabee at Art Scout, great choices Bridget!

23 Sandy Gallery

Our group met up at Pedal HQ as the sun was setting at the end of a beautiful 61 degree day. We jumped on our rides and headed the few miles to our first stop, 23 Sandy Gallery. Tucked away off Sandy Boulevard, 23 Sandy has beautiful big windows and was already full of people enjoying the works by artists such as the wonderful paper cuts by Virginia Flynn and hand made books and journals by Karen Hanmer.

After enjoying these works we rolled along the quiet streets of the Buckman neighborhood, through Ladd’s Addition on up Clinton street to Studio 2507 where owner Annie Meyer displays her own work as well as the multimedia work of Rachel Austin. Annie’s little dog was having a birthday so there was plenty of delicious birthday cake and of course no dog’s birthday would be complete without some red wine to toast him with!

On we went to our final destination of the tour. We doubled back the way we came, past the rose gardens and through the industrial area of inner southeast Portland to Launch Pad Gallery. There we found dj Bad Wizard and a bar setup featuring Eugene’s own Ninkasi beer on tap. Launch Pad’s location in a warehouse has a hip edgy atmosphere and was perfect for hanging out with a beer or glass of wine and enjoying the art by Dan McClary, Patsy Blasier, David Lechner, and Jamond Williams and music by The Archers into the wee hours.

Launch Pad

But we weren’t done yet! Biking, even meandering slowly from gallery to gallery is a great way to work up a nice appetite so several of the crew decided to go grab a bite. After finding the line too long at the great Japanese restaurant up the street BIWA, we moved a few extra blocks to Nostrana, with its James Beard award nominated chef Cathy Whims. The secret of Nostrana’s late night happy hour must be out, because the place was packed at 9PM! However, by the time we were halfway through our first Moretti beer in the waiting area our table was ready and we spent the next 2 hours devouring delicious wood-oven fired pizza, Nostrana’s great namesake salad and more Moretti.

As we all got back on our bikes for the ride home everyone declared the night a success and we all promised to meet up again for next month’s First Friday. Come join us on April 2nd!

Socializing at Launch Pad

Here’s a note from one of our riders (and an artist in his own right) John Holley:

“The Art By Bike - First Friday ride was the best group cycling experience I’ve had in 20 years of biking in Portland. It was fun to see a wide range of art at several diverse galleries. The many interesting conversations with friendly fellow bikers made it even better. Thanks Todd for providing a thoroughly enjoyable bike tour at just the right pace. John Holley”

Thanks to you John for coming along, we’ll see you again next month!

Todd

Check out this great photo of baby Kyle from Dallas Texas in his super sporty Pedal Bike Tours Onesie.

Kyle’s grandparents Sue and Larry from Iowa went on our Historic Downtown tour and just couldn’t leave the shop without a few of our American Apparel t-shirts including this onesie.  We’ll be looking for you on a future tour Kyle!

Speaking of babies, while vacationing in Portland from Ship Rock, NM Frannie and her mom and dad, Stewart and Blair rented two bikes and a trailer for a week and took two of our tours!  All the while she rode along behind dad and uttered hardly a peep! 

Here’s a note we received from Myriam who took our Wine Country tour.  As you can see, even the French love Oregon!

Here are a few pictures I took on July 24 when I was biking with Pedal Bike! I keep a very good memory of this tour among the vineyards.

The French people to whom I showed the pictures here were impressed at seeing such nice and orderly vineyards. But I would add that not only the landscape was nice in Oregon but the people very friendly.

Myriam from France

The Pedal Bike Tour T-shirts are here!

The First Batch Of Pedal Tees at Amnesia Brewery During Cirque du Cycling

Last Saturday we did the first ride in our Safe Routes To Work series. Starting at the Little Red Bike Cafe in North Portland a group of intrepid riders headed out into the wilds of Portland’s back streets with one mission in mind, get downtown safely. Now, of course, Portland being the most bike friendly large city in the US, this isn’t difficult. However, even here there are lots of people who are still a little leery of cars and would appreciate a little help figuring out just what is the best way to get where they’re going. With the help of the official city of Portland bike map the Pedal bike gang was able to outline a super quiet and safe way to get to our destination, The Portland Farmer’s Market, mostly on bicycle boulevards or quiet streets marked on the map in green. Although many in the group were accomplished commuters, we still were able to show them some streets and back ways they hadn’t previously known about. Along the way we saw lots of beautiful houses and greeted friendly neighbors and cats. Once we got to the market, it was packed, as usual. Also as usual the line for Cafe Velo was a mile long.

Cafe Velo- so good it

. After buying supplies for a small picnic back at the shop we continued on, leaving downtown by a completely different route than we came. Back at Pedal hq we dined on the season’s first strawberries and apple cider from Wandering Aengus ciderworks before rolling along back to Red Bike Cafe. Thanks to everyone who took part in the first Safe Routes To Work.  Join us tomorrow for the second installment starting from Delphina’s Bakery in Northeast Portland.  Happy Commuting!

Super commuters Stacy and Kristen