Welcome to June, Portland!
We won’t lie—it can be a wet, demeaning, carrot-dangling-from-a-stick kind of month, where every day feels maddeningly like we might be about to round the corner on summer’s sunny bounty. (We can never be sure until sometime in July.)
But for all the dampness June can bring, it’s a time for rejoicing for anyone with a bike in this city. It is the best month on Portland’s stellar bicycle calendar—a dizzying bout of celebration and ridiculousness.
Sure, we’ve got bike lanes and “greenways,” and a higher proportion of bicycle commuters than any large city in the country, and that’s all great. But the upcoming month is what truly elevates Portland’s bike culture. It transforms the city from a landscape of individuals going about their own bikey business to a single, rolling, bizarrely dressed mass.
We look forward to June every year, and for this year’s annual Bike Issue, we’re helping you look forward, too—not just to the treats the next three weeks have in store, but to the amazing potential of a cycling paradise that Portland’s only begun to fulfill.
In the following pages, we examine what the city has to do to retain its crown as America’s best bike town, and why there’s reason to fear. We check out what a shoddy budget year and a new mayor might mean for Portland’s bike culture. We give you a sneak preview of what you can expect from the upcoming bike-share program, straight from people who’ve lived it. And we get personal with a few of the city’s up-and-coming riders.
So read up, everybody. Then lube the hell out of that chain and check your tire pressure.
It’s going to be an awesome month.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
More Bike Issue Articles
Bikes!! There I beat Blabby to it.
In Honor of this weekend’s World Naked Bike Ride
( — to the tune of Leroy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride”
Just hear those bike bells jingle-ing
Ring! Ring! Ting-a-ling, too!
Come on it’s lovely weather to be bike riding naked with you!
Outside a crowd is gathering
Friends are calling “Yoo Hoo!”
Come on it’s lovely weather to be bike riding naked with you!
Giddy-up! Giddy-up! Giddy-up! Let’s go!
Let’s put on a show!
See everything swaying to and fro
Giddy-up! Giddy-up! Giddy-up! It’s cool!
Just pedaling through
We’re gliding along on the song
Of a throng all biking nude
Our cheeks are nice and rosy
And comfy cozy are we
All huddled up together like
Birds without feathers are we
Let’s take the road before us
And moon a tourist or two
Come on it’s lovely weather to be bike riding naked with you!
There’s an after party on the lawn of Charlie Hales
It’ll be the perfect ending to a perfect day
We’ll being singing the songs we love to sing without a single stitch
While we’re scratching in places with a burning itch
(Scratch Scratch Scritch )
There’s a happy feeling nothing in the world can claim
When they pass around the aloe and the benzocaine
It’ll nearly be like those picture prints from naughty magazines
These wonderful things are the things
That we do when we live our dreams
Just hear those bike bells jingle-ing
Ring! Ring! Ting-a-ling, too!
Come on it’s lovely weather, biking naked together with you!
oh shit megas? this is like it doesnt’ say bikinis/ whoa/ dog, I totally forgot about all that ankle action, the 2 inches of the brake and the centimeter for the gas pedal, praising god for a steering wheel. and bumpin Blue October! if justin and anthony can do it, ANYONE can or should be able to do it!
I’m like all reinvigorated now!