It seems like everyone is biking cross country these days. I have two separate pairs of friends who are currently pedaling across the nation and I get emails constantly from people who are biking all the states to raise money for worthy causes. So I'm a little hesitant to post about one person's cross country journey but local artist Nicole Lavelle has turned her summer trip into a really interesting art show that's up at Stumptown Coffee on SE Division right now.

Lavelle (who has done a ton of cool projects in Portland and worked for us for a brief and glorious time) flew to Alabama, built a bike out of bamboo, and biked on it back to PDX. Usually when I talk to people about biking cross country, they're super positive: "It was great! It was empowering! It was hard but I feel awesome!" Lavelle's written responses to the trip are interesting because they're so damn sad. Check 'em out below the cut and over at Stumptown.