February 4, 2008
ORbike Member Profile: Chris McCraw
During the summer of 2007, ORbike member Chris McCraw hopped on his bicycle in Austin, Texas, and didn't stop until he reached Anchorage, Alaska. So it's no surprise this 31-year-old Portlander is a huge fan of local bike events.
So why did he join ORbike? "ORbike seemed like a good gateway into meeting bikey people and doing bikey things," he says. "Plus, I figured I'd get my money's worth via event discounts and supporting the furtherance of the culture I love."
MEMBERSHIP INFO / JOIN NOW
Chris is a 50-mile-a-week kind of a guy who rides his bike for errands and for pleasure. This year he's really looking forward to riding Seattle to Portland and biking to Mt. St. Helens with friends to camp and climb.
Chris is an experienced rider. He once had to tear free his helmet from the underside of a freight truck - thankful that he escaped the accident unharmed. He enjoys riding a bike because it allows him to be present in the environment through which he is traveling - soaking in the sights and sounds. "I feel like I'm participating actively in my travels rather than just having them happen to me."
Join Chris and become an ORbike member today. You'll get discounts on events all season long and membership pays for itself in no time.
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January 8, 2008
Cycle Oregon Kick Off Party
Every year, riders flock to this event where one of Portland's best kept secrets is finally revealed: the new Cycle Oregon route. It's a chance to see cycling friends who have been hibernating through the winter and find out who's going on the ride this year. The party also marks the opening of registration for the ride.
This free gala event is a perfect opportunity to rub elbows with scores of enthusiastic cyclists who are amped up for another great year of experiencing Oregon's bounty. You pedal; they'll take care of everything else. Beautiful campsites, gourmet food, hot showers, massage, cold microbrew, Oregon wine, live entertainment and a fully supported route. Head out to the Tiger Woods Center at Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton on January 31st to see what all the fuss is rightly about.
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September 11, 2006
The Cycle Oregon Reports
Jonathan Maus is on two wheels with his laptop for the next week - blogging from small towns in Oregon. Jonathan, who founded BikePortland.org, has been invited to ride along on Cycle Oregon and share his experience. BikePortland.org is the world's most popular bike blog. That means thousands of people world wide will be reading about some of Oregon's most unique, beautiful and SMALL towns, like Athena, Sumptner, Union and Heppner.
More than just an overview of the route and towns, Jonathan is spending time with the riders, giving blog readers a glimpse at who rides this seven-day ride and why. It's a relatively diverse group of cyclists out there. Not everyone is is a hard core cyclists (even Jonathan admits he can't remember the last time he rode more than 30 miles in one session) and some riders are dealing with physical limitations. One rider had a leg boot strapped to her rack - the result of an injury sustained while dancing in high heels before Cycle Oregon started - but she was determined to ride anyway. But this has got to be my favorite ride highlight so far:
Marilyn “Tweety” Hayward was a breath of fresh air. She was motoring along on a 22lb. carbon and titanium Bachetta recumbent. We chatted for several miles and when the road tilted just slightly upward I noticed she had trouble talking. It turns out that Marilyn is missing a lung due to cancer. Once she got her breath back and we figured out we had some mutual friends, she motored away, slicing through the wind and leaving me in the dust!
[ read Jonathan's Cycle Oregon reports ]
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May 30, 2006
Cycling Across Country for a Cause
In late June, Cheryl Edwards, a patient of OHSU Hematology, will be cycling across the country to promote awareness of fatal clotting conditions, including pulmonary emboli, from which Cheryl has suffered.
Cheryl says "I have been an athlete all my life, but developed a serious pulmonary emboli twice! It is a miracle I survived with only lung damage."
Cheryl's husband Tom will be joining her on the journey to promote education about this highly lethal condition. They will travel from Seattle, WA to D.C., stopping in over 40 cities. NWclotbusters, their newly formed foundation, is collaborating with thrombosis (clot disorders) groups across the country to educate, inform, and empower the public regarding the 400,000 people with pulmonary emboli who are misdiagnosed yearly because of how this condition presents itself.
"PE alone kills more than four times that of Breast Cancer, yet we are so uninformed and over 200,000 of our friends and family die needlessly because of it," said Cheryl.
We'll be staying in touch with Cheryl along her journey, reading her blog and checking in with her.
The Edwards are striving to raise funds for OHSU Cancer Research Center in regard to thrombosis and the complications it brings to virtually every disease.
"The positive treatment of nearly every illness is adversely affected for those with clot disorders," stated Edwards. "New research is desperately needed to develop drugs that give hope to people on lifelong dangerous anticoagulation medicines. These people, like myself, live with the fact that at any time, a fatal clot may form, even while under treatment. This is unacceptable, as no new drugs for this condition have been developed in over half a century. For a disease that kills so many, how can it be that we have done so little?"
During the hours they are not pedaling, Cheryl and Tom will spend time with other cycling and community groups talking about PE.
"I believe our greatest and most urgent gift is our ability to foster inspiration in one another to embrace the best possible quality of life."
Even with this condition, Edwards plans to do just that. Together, they anxiously anticipate the day Clotbusters organizations emerge in every region of our nation to largely impact the minimal progress that has stifled this lethal condition for decades.
For more information and to join their journey, see their website.
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May 9, 2006
Ahhhh... Riding to the Coast
It seems that everyone is talking about riding to the coast these days. They're either telling me about their great adventures of the past or plans to go this summer. I've yet to ride to the coast, but it is of course on my list (and just might happen Memorial Day weekend - fingers crossed).
Russell Cohen, from Long Island, and his 13-year-old daughter are riding out there this summer and they sought the expert advice of the ORbike community. You can read all about their route planning, use the info for your own trip, or chime in with your suggestions.
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April 24, 2006
Best Route: PDX to the Coast
Russell Cohen is from Long Island but this summer he's coming to Oregon and he needs your help. Russell and his 13-year-old daughter Aliyah are riding tandem from Portland to San Francisco. Russell's curious to know what is the best route from Portland to the Coast.
Russell has toured a fair bit, both solo and tandem, but together with Aliyah he's never gone more than 74 miles. Aliyah has done a lot of day rides and is pretty excited for the trip.
Please post your route suggestions here.
[ picture is of the family last summer riding in Tucson ]
Russell got the idea to tour with his daughter after riding from San Francisco to LA three years ago with his son. He calls it "The Bar Mitzah Tour" in honor of his son's Bar Mitzvah.
So what's he looking forward to? Russell says, "I have done San Fran south several times and have always wondered what the coast was like up your way, but most of all, want to share the feeling I get from touring with Aliyah."
We wish the Cohens the best of luck and plan to stay in touch with them along their fun family journey.
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April 2, 2006
Family Touring Report : Part 4
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
Part four in our series on North Portland residents Carie and Allan Folz traveling by bike in Indochina with their two-year-old son Cody:
Cyclists travel on their stomachs so any retrospective must cover the food situation. First the prices are cheap, but to be honest not what one might consider incredibly so. Excepting the one dinner we had at a French restraunt owned and operated and frequented by French ex-pats, we never spent more than $10 for the three of us a meal. Most were $5-7. A very few were sub-$5.
As for our favorite meals, nominations were received, secret balloting was conducted, the votes have been officially tallied by Price-Waterhouse. The results are as follows:
* In the category refreshing drink diring a cycling break: 7-up
* In the category refreshing drink with a meal: Mirinda (like Orange Crush but smoother & less sweet)
* In the category refreshing drink before or after dinner: pineapple shake
* In the category savored elixer to start day: "white" coffee in the Bolaven (see IRR 7)
* In the category deep-fried market snack food (deep-fried being the only kind of market food we trusted): a 4-way tie among all participants -- battered bannanas, waffle-thingies, round balls of batter something on a stick, and tappioca pudding disks (technically the pudding disks were poached, not deep-fried).
* In the category breakfast, ambience: the 'American' (2 eggs, 2 toast, 2 bacon, 2 sausage, juice, & coffee) at Thong Bay guesthouse in Luang Prabang. It rated for serving patio-side to our private bungalow which we could then watch the locals doing their morning chores in the river below while we ate.
* In the category breakfast, to start a long day of riding: bannana pancakes at any of the Indian restraunts found incongruously in all the major destination cities.
* In the category breakfast, maybe we should sell everything and immigrate: the scrambled eggs with real European cheese and crossiant at the Scandanvian Bakery in Vientiane. (This place also gets a special honorable mention for having real soft-serve ice-cream.)
There were not categories for dinner. There were excellent meals that must be savored in their recounting. By far the best, in its own realm was the French restraunt in Vientiane. We had a plate of 8 types of house pate' for appetizer. Entree Allan went with the duck stew while Carie chose the duck raviolis in cream sauce. For Cody there was what the menu listed as "kid's pizza" for $3. After it arrived I suspected there was a translation error and it should have read "Kids' pizza" or maybe even more clearly "pizza for all the kids", it was easily a 10 inch pie. Wine was a 1/2 carafe of house red. Dessert was a rum infused sponge cake with honey drizzle. This meal cost $30.
Among the local's restraunts, easily #1 for the trip was at the Tad Lo waterfalls. There we had this awesome grilled fish and spicey spring rolls. For dessert we had baked bannanas in cream. All were to die for. Finally the Lucky Number 9 in Pakse had the best Laap (Laap is the traditional Lao meat relish dish) in the country, and we tried a bunch. Most often the Laap was under-seasoned. Condiments are supplied on the table and we guess the locals know how to make it suit their tastes, but for us it was a bunch of mystery sauces of unknown bacterial content. We generally erred on the sparse side which made for some boring laap. Except for at Lucky Number 9. The seasoned it wonderfully as part of the cooking process. It was excellent. Made all the so-so laap we had in searching this one out worth it. In fact, after Lucky Number 9 we called it mission accomplished and stopped ordering laap. Finally in Vang Vieng at the Organic Planet Cafe Allan had the best curry stew he swears he has ever had, and now expects ever to have this side of the eternal.
As for some typical prices, bottled water was 20 cents a liter. Soda was 20-40 cents (varied a lot with location) for a 12 oz bottle. For some reason, soda in aluminum cans, which we never bought, usually cost double the bottle price. Baguettes are 20 cents for 6" loaves. Croissants would be 40 cents, when available (mostly just in Luang Prabang and Vientiane plus 1 place in Vang Vieng and 1 place in Pakse had 'em). Jam and butter packets for the bread would be 10-15 cents each (the contrast with the U.S. here is kind of funny... 2 lousey pieces of toast is usually 50 cents to a dollar in the US and the butter/jam packets are all you want). Eggs were 10-20 cents each fried, scrambled, or hard-boiled didn't matter. About a cup of cooked rice was 20 cents. Coffee prices varied the most from 30-50 cents for a small cup. Only one location gave free refills. Dinner entrees were usually 1.50-2.00.
So that's the culinary skinney. Part 2 we hope to have the more useful, "what one taking a trip overseas and considering Laos would want to know."
Lots of Bikey Love,
Indochine Cougars: Allan, Carie, & Cody Lao
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March 28, 2006
Family Touring Report: The Indochine Cougars in Thailand
The wonderful tales of a Portland family traveling by bike continue....
We road 40 km from Pakse to get to the border. After getting through the border we road 15 km more to the first food and drink stand there was. While the outside of the stand was typical to what we had grown to expect in Laos, the inside was shiny and clean and stuffed with packaged goodies like a 7-11 shop. 55 km into the day we were feeling too tired to make it to our planned destination, Ubon Rath, still some 70 km away. One of the workers there spoke enough English to answer our question about bus service. She explained the police stand (it wasn't quite a station) that happened to be across the street (this was a major, albeit rural, intersection on a major thoroughfare) would stop a bus going to our destination for us. She then went to the police stand with us to explain our needs and destination to him in Thai. After a bit, a bus happened along so he put his helmet on walked into the road blew his whistle and motioned for the bus to stop. His partner grabbed a couple of our panniers while I rolled the bike to the bus.
While he explained our destination to the driver, his partner threw our two panniers aboard and went back for the other two. The whole operation took less than 2 minutes. With one very speedy transfer in which everyone seemed to know where we were going and made sure we got on the proper bus (I should clarify these are not govt run busses, but private drivers operating converted trucks in a manner more like mass-taxis) we made it to the train station.
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March 23, 2006
The Indochine Cougars: Coffee + Ice Cream
Friends of mine are traveling by bike with their two-year-old son in Laos, Cambodia and the region. (read more) Today they reported to me that they don't have an itinerary - they're playing it by ear. Here's another report from them:
So before recounting anything of the Bolaven of the past 5 days, we must share yet again what makes Laos such an excellent country. Today we had about 18 km of moderate climbing right in the afternoon heat. (Note, with 60 lbs of gear and 30 lbs of Cody Lao, there's really no such thing as "moderate" climbing). So after a very long strecth of up, the soul-sapping kind where the road seemingly goes up straight as an arrow for 2-3 km where you can always see the top but never get there, we finally did make it. Totally spent we stop and get off the bike for a breather and a little warm water. After a few minutes a fellow on an old trike-motobike pulls up sellling ice-cream cones! I kid you not. We're in the relative middle of nowhere and yet here's a guy with ice cream. Little cones of purple and white sherbert for 20 cents each. We've never had ice cream so refreshing. It cooled us down and let us conintue still tired, but immensely recharged. That's the thing about Laos, whenever we feel at our most spent-out there is some local that comes along to help or inspire us one way or another and keep us going on.
The Bolaven Plateau is a high plateau in southern Laos 3000-6000 feet above the surrounding area which is 300 feet above sea-level. It is home to Laos' coffee growing region, as well as many banana plantations and numerous waterfalls. Didn't know Laos grew coffee? Methinks the secret is no accident. The coffee is excellent, among the best in the world (to which we now can heartily attest) but it is a small region with limited production capability. The French buy around 90% of output. The remainder is consummed internally and increasingly by the Vietnamese. Apparently, event the Vietnamese won't drink their own coffee.
As for the Cougars, in addition to starting our day with two each (except for Cody, some lines simply are not crossed even on extended travel) we went to the local's market and procurred a supply for import. From most of the plantations we passed, it is not shade grown. And we don't know if buying hand-stuffed plastic bags from a local at their market constitutes fair-trade or not, but at 50 cents a pound for the best coffee we've ever had, we were jettisoning garments and equipement to make extra room in are already stuffed panniers.
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March 17, 2006
The Travels of the Indochine Cougars
My friends Carie Weisenbach-Folz and Allan Folz and their two-year-old son Cody have their own bike team they call the Cougars. Somehow they got it in their heads that it would be a good idea to load up the tandem and take a trip as a family to China, Laos and other areas.
To prepare, the had Joseph Aherarne of Ahearne Cycles make them a custom rack (pictured here) to hold their panniers AND their kid seat. And if their tandem isn't enough of a site, they insisted on bringing their tall rear flag. Uh, for safety's sake. Right.
Their trip has been amazing and I've been really fortunte to be on their weekly detailed dispatch list. As soon as they arrived, they hit the ground running. "Yeah, we were quite the attention getters. The taxi and delivery truck drivers were the best. They were grinning ear to ear and waving a big thumbs-up. A number of the folks in private cars were madly honking like at a parade."
So with the Cougars' blessing, I'll be sharing with you some deatils of their journey. So far it has been great. Cody has been a trooper. Here's one of my favorite passages:
"As you might expect, maps of the road less travelled leave much to be desired. So we follow what should be the right road except it quickly deteriorates into something I can't imagine any falang (that's gringo in Indochina) should be traveling on. About 800 yards back there was a Y which we took the left branch. I decide we should have taken the right. Its a rough 800 yards and there is a well warn path cutting through some dry rice patties towards the right. Surely it meets up with the right. Well, in no time at all the well worn path cuts through people's backyards. The next hut it goes right under. For this we respectfully get off and walk the bike. The locals for their part seem impressed a bunch of westerners are coming over for a visit. Well, those that both to wake up from their nap. Some don't. Those that do wave, smile and shout Sabbaidee [hello]. Cody loves it. He starts laughing and squealling. Eventually the path cuts through a Wat with 3 monks doing masonry work. Then we are onto a road. Well kind of. Compared to the path its definitely a road. Soon another cross-roads and a stand selling red drink. I say Champasak and point. They smile and say Champasak. I say Champasak and point to the other direction. They shake their heads no. Whew. From then on everytime I see someone I say Champasak and point everyone smiles and nods. There was more rice paddy hopping and more cutting through folks backyards, but thankfully we never had to ride right under a hut again. Though there was two dry river bed crossings. Cody for his couldn't stop laughing. There was about 4 km of this. I was starting to think we has delirious from heat stroke, but Carie and I were doing all the pedalling. He was sitting in the back in the shade. I tell ya his laughing and the locals laughing an clapping did help us keep going in an otherwise very trying time. This was about 6 hours and 70 km into the ride (we did have some stops) and at the hottest part of the day."
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January 23, 2006
Win a one-week tour - Sustainable Energy in Motion
The Portland Peace and Justice Center is offering a chance to win a free pass to their one-week Sustainable Energy in Motion tours. Organizer Vladislav Davidson reports that riders on last year's tours had a great time and there are even more events planned for this year.
Each tour is different. For example:
Permaculture & Sustainability Tour
"Ride through the lush Willamette River Valley, home to innumerable wineries, fruit orchards, and beautiful scenery. Many, however, are not aware of the presence of the many progressive organizations with truly international repute, with whom we will be working and learning."
To sign up for your chance to win, just visit the The Portland Peace and Justice Center website.
Comments (0) | Posted by orbike at 11:22 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
January 11, 2006
The Big Fix: Riding Across the Country on a Fixie
The Big Fix is an impressive ride across the country on a fixie. The organizer is the father of a young girl named Dakota who has Histiocytosis (histo). This is a condition similar to cancer but since it is very rare, funding for research is severely limited. The vast majority of people diagnosed with histiocytosis are children under 10.
The ride will start in Davis, CA and end in Boston, MA and will be completed in only 28 days. Dakota reports that she's very excited about the ride (though she won't be riding) and she's looking forward to meeting other kids with histo at the finish line party.
For more information on how you can ride shorter legs, the full trip or support the riders, check out The Big Fix website.
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January 5, 2006
Save the Date - Cycle Oregon Kick-Off
Great opportunity to see your cycling friends who have been hibernating through the winter. February 7, 2006 - Cycle Oregon Kick-off Party in downtown Portland. The route for Cycle Oregon 2006 will be announced and registration will open at the Kick-off Party and on their website.
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December 16, 2005
Natural Alternative to Gatorade?
The Shift e-mail list has been having an interesting dicussion on natural alternatives to Gatorade. You can read the original post and follow-up suggestions in the archives.
Comments (1) | Posted by orbike at 7:12 AM | Permalink
December 8, 2005
Coffee and Bikes: Touring in Brazil with Nossa Familia
Augusto Carneiro grew up in Brazil biking around on his family's coffee farm. He lives in Portland now and started a company, Nossa Familia, to import his family's delicious coffee. His coffee was a featured hit on Cycle Oregon where he provided countless iced mochas along the route. Augusto combined his love of coffee and bikes and recently took a crew of friends back to his homeland to cycle the coffee fields. I interviewed Augusto on my radio show a while ago and got wind of this trip, so I'm trying to make sure I'm on the list to go next year if the trip repeats. How great would that be?
Augusto and company just recently returned. You can read all about their trip and see great photos on the Nossa Familia website
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