July has been another hectic month with lots of community events. I had a great game of Bike Polo on the 1st and the shop was open for rentals and tours leading up to and all over the 4th of July weekend. Hot times and lots of phone calls, I finished working on a new green road coaster. The frame was an old french steel garage sale score that sat in my workshop for about eight months. I’m still adding to the fleet steadily though because I want more options for people and more bikes on the road.
I experimented with leaving my advertising trike locked up on the esplenade this week, seeing if I could pick up any business with having address cards located on a sign in the trike. It’s a sweet model that I have used for hands off advertising at local bike events (like the filmed by bike film festival)
I had a great fireworks experience with some other cyclists while crossing the Broadway Bridge and made my way downtown to get let on to the roof of the Backspace Building for a little dance party. . OH, yeah – good times and incredible views. I’ve always enjoyed roof-tops for some reason.
During the next week I had a good Zoobomb and productive Monday funday and did things like make copies of fliers and give complementary sunset bike tours to a concierge from one of my favorite local hotels – The Mark Spencer. We took the ariel tram up to OHSU and had a nice winding ride down back in to the heart of the city.
On the 8th I met with the Bicycle Transportation Alliance about my participation in the Safe Routes to School Conference. We discussed details like how many bikes I would be responsible for and how we were going to transport them to the downtown site. I’m excited to be a part of this conference and It will be one of the larger contracts I have facilitated so far. I had a great ride with Timo and the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s Smart Trips Program in the evening and was back at the shop early the next morning for a rental appointment.
Bought my first TANDEM BICYCLE!
I was very excited when I casually asked the girl behind the City Bikes counter if they had any tandem bicycle for sale and she said “well yes, I think so – let me look in back” and wheeled out an old tandem cruiser with fat white walls and a blue and white frame. I threw down the bacon and rode the front seat with no stoker back to the shop. I have had a few requests for a tandem rental and it will be nice to add it to the fleet. I celebrated at a car-free happy hour put on by Bikeportland.org and met up with some bike buddies at the pub.
on July 10th I attended a Bicycle Business League meeting in the moring and resitered as a vendor with the city in the afternoon to be able to vend or table at different city events. Then – I went to something that can only be described as “salad slaughterfest” an all out salad potluck competition with three categories and five judges. There must have been at least 25 or 30 different salads there and my mouth exploded in to glory. Thank you Team Woodlawn.
After a sweet Dead Prez show downtown I awoke to offer a Stumptown Market Tour.
We started up the Park Blocks in downtown Portland and cruised across Burnside before using 9th ave to approach the Portland State University Farmers Market. What a show, dozens of local vendors of craft and fresh food in a vibrant and beautiful setting. Then we headed down the Park Blocks and Peeled off towards the waterfront to check out the Salmon St. Fountain. After a little bridge history and local information we headed north on the esplanade to visit the craft fair. The air smelled sweet of local coffee roasters and we hopped over to visit the Stumptown Coffee Shop before heading back to the Pedalworks shop.
The following week 11th – 17th – Was packed with BBQ’s and visiting friends. I had lots of rentals and tours and kept a consistent schedule at the shop, catching up on maintenance and building more and more bikes. Another couple days of rentals and shop prep and the 19th brought us another Sunday Parkways. I set up the mobile bike shop next to Bike Farm again and had lots of bike service drop ins. There were steady rentals and a good flow of friendly faces rolling past. I offered service for tips only and still made it worth the time. I got to meet some more contacts with the Bureau of Transportation and we talked about the upcoming bike share events and garage sale bike rides. Oh, yeah – and the upcoming Portland Bicycle Music Festival. This place is non-stop.
I rolled to the Polo court and said my hellos to the Rev and J-Maus. Back to the shop to unload mobile bike station and return rental bikes. Still with the nonstop phone calls about bike rentals and tours – a good sign.
For the rest of the week I had the shop open everyday and got to do a pre- conference walk through of the Hilton Hotel downtown to see where I would set up bike rental station for the participants. We had another Bicycle Business League meeting and formed a website and some goals about showing appreciation to the construction workers who are building the new bike lanes across the river. I had a South East Portland Parks Tour that went great, with a couple of fun girls from Canada. I attended the Clinton/ Division Street Perade
with the Mayor’s Office and lots of my bike business community friends. I rode the trike in the perade and made it back to the shop just in time for another afternoon bike tour. The tour went well and we had great whether and saw lots of really random events not related to us. May have been “that tour where we saw the guy projectile vomiting out the side of a passing car”. Exiting times I tell you.
In the evening i had an interview with Bikeportland.org about the shop and my rental bikes. Then I packed for a six day/ overnight trip to go back country mountain biking in the Gifford Picot National Forest near Mt. St. Helens. (look for the next post)
