Pedal Bike Tours Blog

Check out this new video by the people at Streetfilms. They've done a great job of showcasing and summarizing the work the City of Portland has done to make us America's Bicycle Capital:

Portland’s Bike Boulevards Become Neighborhood Greenways

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

Hi Todd,

Thank you again for the great tour on Saturday!  I included a review (below) and post-tour photo (attached), both of which you can use if you'd like!
We miss Portland!
Lindsay & Sean

The best way to see Portland is on a bicycle.  During our first visit to Oregon, we decided to take a tour of downtown Portland with Pedal Bike Tours.  It was the absolute highlight of our trip.  Having not been on a bike in about 15 years, I was a little anxious at first.  Our guides Miles and Todd quickly put me at ease, and the comfortable bikes made the ride a pleasure.  We learned so much from Miles and Todd, all while riding through Portland’s neighborhoods, parks and even across a few bridges.  We got some great tips about restaurants and brewpubs and saw some regions of the city we would have missed had it not been for this tour.  It was a fantastic experience!

Wow, had a great day riding on the Banks-Vernonia State Trail on Friday.  It's a project of the Rails to Trails Conservancy, a truly awesome non-profit organization dedicated to turning our nation's unused railroad tracks to non-motorized multi-use paths.  The Banks-Vernonia trail is only 30 miles outside of Portland and over its 21 miles goes from the farmland of the valley to the thick undergrowth of the coastal mountains.  The highlight is definitely the 600' long Buxton trestle, 80 feet above the valley floor.  It's sheer joy to roll across this bridge, marveling at the wide open views of the thick forest all around and the grassy valley beneath.

We stayed the night in a cute little one room cabin in Stub Stewart State Park which the trail runs right through.  This placed us perfectly for hitting the trail first thing the next morning (after driving to the nearest town for a serious logger's breakfast of course!)

One thing I didn't realize was that the trail runs almost exclusively downhill in one direction.  We hardly pedaled all one direction.  Thankfully, it was a gentle grade, which is exactly why railroads make great bike trails. 

Another Happy Biker

Yesterday we had a great Create A Commuter class at Pedal Headquarters.  16 eager pedestrians walked in at 10AM and they all emerged five hours later with a newly refurbished bicycle.

"The Community Cycling Center’s Create a Commuter Program provides low-income adults with fully outfitted commuter bicycles and five hours of training on safe bicycle commuting. Federally funded initially through the Job Access Initiative, it is the first program of its kind in the nation. The program provides a flexible option to meet the transportation needs of low-income adults."

These bikes allow many in our community to get around, to work, the store, medical appointments and everywhere else quickly and at low cost.  These people don't take access to a car for granted, many of them have no access to one.  In addition, the bicycle is cheaper than public transportation and in many cases is far faster.

The Community Cycling Center aims to get 230 new riders on the streets every year.  With their distinctive yellow fenders, it's easy to spot a Create A Commuter bike around town, which gives me a little thrill of victory.  Let's hope we fill the streets with them!

This Couple Each Got A Bike!

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!

I rode into downtown today in the early morning fog. It was pretty cold, with the wind I stirred up as I pedaled downhill trying to cut through my clothes. Good morning for a heavy coat, scarf and long johns. The fog hung in the air like gray silt, translucent yet giving the same city as yesterday a new dimension. Riding into the fog felt like riding into a wall of blankets, but which gave no resistance as I battered it. On my cheeks was that same chilly sting of cold air, so bracing and energizing in the winter. As I passed over the Broadway bridge the reflection of the grain merchants building in the river was just obscured enough to look like a phantom level under the water. The sky above was the slightest tint of blue in the slowly dawning light, presaging another brilliantly sunny day.

By the time I had come out of my appointment in a windowless room, the sun was up, the fog was gone. But I remembered my ride and cherished the fog all the more for its fragile nature.

Going by car wouldn't have been the same.

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!