Adj. So precious that its value cannot be determined.

Were I an eccentric millionaire itching to throw money at bizarre flights of fancy, I’d seriously consider dropping $3.75 million or so on Portland’s currently cash-poor bike share project.

Not only would a logo of my choosing (probably a miniature pastoral scene with me, smoking and obscured, Waldo-like, by a distant haystack) be spangled throughout the city but, at least according to the folks selling the opportunity, I’d be getting an amazing deal.

The city, citing a study [PDF] released earlier this year and given to the Mercury yesterday, anticipates a “title sponsorship” in Portland’s bike share system will be worth almost $3 million a year, what with the bikes acting as rolling billboards and the branded docking stations and the breathless media coverage planners anticipate.

“Portland is known for biking, it is what people look for what Portland is,” reads my favorite incomprehensible sentence in the report.

But is Portland asking for $3 million? It is not. A title sponsorship will run $1.25 million a year (for a minimum three-year contract). If I’m rich and ennui-addled, I’m Portland bike share’s “title sponsor” yesterday. Problematically, I’m neither, and those types are seemingly in short supply around here.

Alta Bicycle Share, tapped last year to run the program, is still looking about for money to get the project up and running next spring. The city’s hoping for 750 bikes at 75 docking stations in and around downtown, though that will obviously depend on how much sponsorship cash emerges by then.

All you millionaires reading this: Just think about it. And think, too, about the priceless added exposure the project carries with it, which was tallied helpfully in the report:

Adj. So precious that its value cannot be determined.
  • Adj. So precious that its value cannot be determined.

I'm a news reporter for the Mercury. I've spent a lot of the last decade in journalism — covering tragedy and chicanery in the hills of southwest Missouri, politics in Washington, D.C., and other matters...

9 replies on “Here’s a Look Inside the Bike Share Sales Pitch”

  2. BIKES! A.B.T.A.B.!

    Keep it coming Dirk! You do not shirk your Dirk work for the Merc! Bikes used to be the purview of Mirk, so you could say that this is really Merc Dirk’s Mirk work.

  3. If I was a kajillionare, I’d sponsor them and put nothing but robots and cats on the bicycles. Picture of cats on bicycles on the bicycles.

  4. I hate to break it to you Portland, but you are not the most awesome biking city in the US. It is a false identity. I’ve lived here 12 years and I refuse to ride my bike in the rain. I am like most Oregonians, I wait for the sun to come out to enjoy pedaling around town. I don’t want to get a streak of mud up my backside. There are towns in American where the sun shines year round. Where the bike enthusiasts don’t have to wait for a break in the clouds. Where it doesn’t take head to toe rain gear to get a little exercise. I biked Sonoma last week. Unlike the Willamette Valley, Sonoma offers year round sun. I spend a lot of time in Sacramento for work and have noticed the hundreds of people recreating on their bikes every day — because every day is sunny. Portland, you have so many better uses for $3.75 million. Plus, Denver only charge $30,000 per year to sponsor one bike station, so a millionaire getting high in the mile high city, gets a better bang for his buck. And sunshine is guaranteed to encourage bikes usage that is necessary for spreading the power of the logo. Long live the logo!

  8. Why the hell doesn’t Alta sponsor it? I bet they’d give themselves a better deal.

    Also, Lola: the fact that it rains here doesn’t make it a less awesome bike city than say, Minneapolis – there are many other good reasons for that. No, your unwillingness to bike in the rain just means you are a wuss.

  9. Any woman unwilling to get a streak of mud up her backside won’t get a second look from me.

    Have fun with the also-rans, Lola.

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