Errands and Explorations

Over the past few days I've been on a mission.  I've been riding around town putting up posters for my Three Speed Ride in various bike shops.

Flyering for my events was something I used to regularly do.  Then a few years ago, I lost interest in it, despite still going through the trouble of making a flyer for an event.  Mostly it was because I didn't have the time to do it anymore.  To really effectively flyer a city like Portland you'll need to at least dedicate a full day or maybe two to doing it.

But the Three Speed Ride is different. It's a brand new ride, and I also spent some serious coinage in making the screenprinted posters, so I forced myself to go through the trouble of doing it.

And it's been fun!  I've forgotten how fun it could be.  You get to ride around, stop in bike shops, chat with the folks there, see what's going on, and all that.  The weather has also been decent, today even pushing 60F (16C) so no complaints about being inside!

If anything, flyering gave me an excuse to check out a lot of the new bike shops that have opened up in the past year or so.  Here's some of the newish ones I went to:

• Up Cycles on NE Dekum in Woodlawn.  Nice little shop that sells used bikes and concentrates on touring bikes.  I have to remind myself that they want some Cycle Touring Primers!
• Abraham Fixes Bikes on NE Fremont at Williams.  Another small shop with used bikes.  And Abraham is nattily dressed!
• Bike Farm off NE MLK.  I've passed by this collectively run joint a number of times, but never managed to go in because it was closed.  It's the classic community bike shop, with piles of bikes and bins of used parts everywhere!
• Bike Commuter in Sellwood (SE 13th at Umatilla). Great shop specializing in city bikes.  They had some beautiful specimens, and really liked the Raleigh!
• Backpedal Cycleworks in Mt Scott/Arleta (SE 72nd and Harold). Nice collection of cruisers, and a good selection of used bikes of all types.

I'm really happy with the selection of shops in Portland.  All of these places mentioned above seemed like decent, helpful, non-pretentious operations. And the shops have been popping up in far flung neighborhoods, which is a good thing.  Soon we'll have as many bike shops as we have coffee shops!