Rough Cut: Jerry Norquist – Economics of Bicycling

In this Rough Cut, we interview Jerry Norquist, the executive director of CycleOregon. Jerry has been in the bicycling industry for many years and has been involved in bicycle advocacy throughout. In this video, Jerry talks a little about the history of CycleOregon, attending the National Bike Summit and the shift in conversation to promoting bicycles as an economic development tool. It has been enlightening to see how event rides can affect rural communities and can sometimes create long-term positive changes.

On a personal note, we left Portland yesterday and took the Amtrak bus to Albany, OR. We are currently in Corvallis, OR staying with Laura’s mom for a few days while she heals. It looks like we will be in Oregon a while longer, doing short trips involving buses, trains and bikes (thank goodness for the Bromptons!). We’ve found that for a bike tourer in Oregon, there are many transit options to connect with a bicycle. We’re a little sad that we won’t be setting off across the country just yet, but we’re doing our best to turn the lemon into lemonade. Staying in Oregon gives us a chance to really explore deeper into what organizations are making the chances to make Oregon more bicycle friendly and explore some of the rural communities that have embraced cycling.

Part of the irony of our trip was when we first decided to do a tour combining bicycle and trains, the trains were an ancillary part of the experience, meant to augment and extend our bicycling range. Since Laura’s accident, trains and transit have taken a more central role in how we’re getting around. Likewise, having chosen the Brompton and the ease with which you can take it on trains, buses and cars has become key to our mobility. I hesitate to reduce what happened to a simple platitude like “all things happen for a reason,” but it has given us more perspective as to the importance of transit and bicycles.

Progress and an Ainsworth S24O

The healing process is painfully slow, especially when it interferes with larger plans. Laura has been resting her ankle and is progressively becoming more active with it. The whole experience has really shown us how fragile our bodies can be and the tenuousness of our plans and schemes. The good news is that it is healing and we’re expecting a departure date of this Wednesday. Ultimately, it was the right decision for us to have her convalesce in Portland than try to to push off at our appointed launch date.

While she has been resting, I took the opportunity to do an S24O this weekend with my friend Joey. Like most endeavors, it was decided that after a few beers on Friday that we should leave “early” the following morning and go bike camping. Early is relative of course. I was off to a slow start and had to quickly rearrange the bags from “fully loaded touring” mode to “overnighter,” which consisted of leaving most of the electronics at home and carrying pots and food.

We met up around noon (“early” is relative remember) at the Rose Quarter transit stop and took the MAX train to Gresham, an outlying suburb of Portland. I got a chance to try out my new Garmin Vista HCx that I picked up at the REI sale along with the City Navigator SD card. It is admittedly not as easy to use as Google Maps on the iPhone. Once you get past the clunky user interface and invest some time, you realize how robust it is. Some of the absolute no-brainer advantages of the Garmin over the iPhone is its amazing battery life, great reception and weatherproofness of the unit. Running a real-time GPS application on a smartphone will drain its battery life in no time. It is also no secret that AT&T has absolutely terrible reception and because of this it is easy to be left out on a limb if you use a smartphone as your primary navigation. I was able to record the route and post it to Bikely with relative ease.

After some flat riding in Gresham and a quick dip to a tributary, you pick up the Historic Columbia River Highway and pass through the small town of Corbett as you work your way uphill to an overlook near the Portland Women’s Forum. The grades are reasonable and the climbing is extended over several miles. From the overlook, you get an amazing view of the Gorge and catch a glimpse of Vista House.

From Vista House, the road twists and turns, dumping elevation quickly until you are almost level with highway 84. From there the road undulates in gentle rollers and you past several falls. Perhaps the two most popular are Multnomah Falls, the second tallest year-round water fall in the United States and Horsetail Falls, where a scene from The Road was filmed. Caution is needed, especially at Multnomah Falls, because of the high level of tourist traffic coming from the main highway that may not be looking out for bicycles.

Once you are past the falls, it is a short ride to Ainsworth State Park. Ainsworth has several RV sites, but also a few “walk-in” tent sites that are more covered in the woods. Firewood, flush toilets and showers are available, making it a great comfortable place to camp.

The next morning, we got a truly early start and left camp around 8am and climbed the switchbacks up to Vista House and made our way back to the MAX stop in Gresham. We got back into Portland by around 11:30am. The S24O to Ainsworth is a great retreat from Portland and offers the cyclist a good mix of rural roads, scenic byways, a satisfying climb and descent that is only a few hours out of town, making it a perfect bike camping option.

Sailors once again.

It seems like only a few weeks ago that we tumbled off the Amtrak train into Portland and were standing on the esplanade, watching every variety of bicycle whiz by, in awe and wonder at what was going to be our “home” for the next few months. We still remember trying to take a self-portrait of us and the Steel Bridge behind us. We were looking for someone in the crowd of bicycles to take the picture, when almost on cue, our friend Logan from RowdyKittens appeared out of nowhere. Barely twenty minutes in town and we were met with a friendly and familiar face.

Our seven month stay in Portland has been pretty rough weather wise. They are not kidding when they say it rains here. As someone that more or less grew up in Southern California, this winter has literally been the coldest and wettest I’ve ever experienced.

However, we made the most of the rainy season, or the The Big Dark as some call it. We did some rides with CycleWild, a great local group that promotes bike camping. Laura had a table at BikeCraft and still has some Bike Mustaches over at Bikeasauraus. I was able to contribute some multi-media stories to BikePortland, a website that has greatly influenced me over the years. I took part in a photo show with bike pundit Elly Blue and local bike photographer Heidi Swift. I shot a lot of lifestyle imagery for the folks at Klean Kanteen. I got to go fishing for steelhead on the famous Deschutes river. We sampled a fair amount of food carts and local beers. I also became a bit of a coffee nerd, getting into brewing methods and searching for the best cup of coffee in Portland (Coava Coffee Roasters).

Of all the things we did, the most fulfilling was making friends and finding a community. We were fortunate enough to fall into a small group of people that we really enjoyed and spent time with them, doing silly things like riding up steep hills to make Frito Pie. The word friend gets tossed around so casually these days (and has even been transformed into a verb), but we’re distinctly aware of how special the word really is. One of the joys of travel is meeting wonderful people everyday; one of its sorrows is parting ways with those kind souls.

Laura and I had dinner last night and talked a little about the next coming days, but I was distracted and a little melancholic. The reality of moving again was sinking in. I was trying to get myself excited about all the great things we would experience in the coming months, the wide open spaces of Montana, fishing, riding through a part of the country we had never been to. Truth be told, at that moment I was too overcome with the sadness of leaving our friends here in Portland. It was hard to do it in Long Beach two years ago and it hasn’t gotten any easier. It is part of the unspoken cost of travel.

Tonight, we’re sleeping on sleeping pads in the living room. The bikes are readied. The bags are packed. Tomorrow morning we cast off and become sailors once again. We are different people this time, looking at open-ended travel with a different lens. We are a little less giddy perhaps, but far more thankful to have this chance again (we’re doing a once-in-a-life-time trip twice, after all!). Thank you dear readers, old and new, for following us through strange and interesting times of our lives. Thank you to all the people we met on our previous trip who showed us so much kindness. Most of all, thank you to Portland and all the kind souls who graced us with their friendship.

LAST DAY TODAY! If you’re excited for our Big Adventure. Small Wheels. trip and support our goal to invigorate bike and train travel, consider making a donation to allow us to go further and create inspiring videos along the way.

More videos!

If you’re a fan on our Facebook Page or follow us on Twitter, you’ve probably seen these videos already. We’re working hard to make some great new content for our next adventure. Not all of it gets posted right away on the website, so if you want to see things hot off the presses, join the Facebook Page. Check out our latest videos!

Packing Up. Again.
In this video, we go through the strange ritual of putting things in boxes for a second time. It gets easier in some ways, but harder in others.

Visiting Corvallis with Bromptons and the Amtrak Bus
In this video, we take a trip to Corvallis, Laura’s hometown, to do a presentation. It is a small trip down memory lane for her and a small multi-modal adventure with the Bromptons and the Amtrak bus.

If you’re excited for our Big Adventure. Small Wheels. trip and support our goal to invigorate bike and train travel, consider making a donation to allow us to go further and create inspiring videos along the way.

VIDEO: We Love Our Brains

We got a chance to visit Nutcase Helmets HQ yesterday and hear the story of how it all started from the Helmet Guy himself, Mike Morrow. We bought Nutcases when we started our trip almost two years ago from CleverCycles when we first arrived in Portland. We wanted something fun and a little more expressive than our road helmets. Although we were a little concerned about the venting at first, they survived the 2 years and 10,000 miles and one hot and humid summer in The South. It was great to meet the people behind the helmets and pick up a new pair for our next trip!

If you’re excited for our Big Adventure. Small Wheels. trip and support our goal to invigorate bike and train travel, consider making a donation to allow us to go further and create inspiring videos along the way.

Oregon Presentations!

We’re doing a few presentations before we actually push off. The first one will be THIS Friday at our favorite bike shop, Clever Cycles. We’ll be talking about our previous 15-month journey, as well as our next trip using Bromptons and trains, and our vision of redefining the All-American road trip. We have a Facebook Event page for the presentation at Clever and urge you to RSVP so we can figure out how many chairs to commandeer. Below are the Clever Cycles Presentation details. We’ll have the Bromptons there, fully-loaded, so you can check out how we’ve packed and what we’re carrying.

PathLessPedaled Presentation at CleverCycles
When:
Friday, April 29th, 2011
6:00pm to 8:00pm
Where:
908 SE Hawthorne
Portland, OR (map)

On Thursday, May 5th, we’ll be giving another presentation in Laura’s hometown, Corvallis, OR! If you’re in the nearby towns of Salem, Albany or Eugene, it would be great to see you! Here’s the link to the Corvallis Facebook Event page.

PathLessPedaled Presentation at First Alternative Coop (South Branch)
When:
Thursday, May 5th, 2011
7:00pm to 8:30pm
Where:
1007 SE 3rd Street
Corvallis, OR (map)

If you’re excited for our Big Adventure. Small Wheels. trip and support our goal to invigorate bike and train travel, consider making a donation to allow us to go further and create inspiring videos along the way.

VIDEO: Small Wheels to the Coast

Still tired from our short three day tour, but I stayed up to cut a little video montage of our trip. You can see our route on Bikely.com. It was our first fully loaded tour with the Bromptons with everything we would carry for 6 months. It was a great shakedown ride for the bike. The Bromptons handled beautifully despite a lot of climbing. We’re still refining our packing and we’ll do a more detailed post about the trip soon. For now, enjoy the video!

Follow the Pelotini :)

We’re doing a three day tour from Portland to the Oregon coast with our friends Brian and Cynthia, who are in town from Santa Monica. They brought their Dahons, and we’re riding our Bromptons, so it will be quite a sight to see. We’ve since named ourselves Team Pelotini (small peloton)! We’re packing everything that we’re bringing for our next big tour, so it will be a full dress rehearsal. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to keep up with the folding bike craziness.

Getting Ready… Where Should We Go?

Two years ago, we were weeding through piles of dishes, shelves full of books, closets full of forgotten knick-knacks. We were waiting for the official announcement of my layoff and trying to figure out how to actually make the leap to full-time travel. We were preparing ourselves to say goodbye to our friends, to carry our entire lives on our bikes, to make an enormous and unknown leap. Suffice it to say, preparing for this next trip is a completely different experience.

After rambling across the country for 15 months, we feel like we’ve become hardened travelers. The idea of heading back out into nothingness isn’t something we need to steel ourselves against, and the details of life on the road aren’t overwhelming like they were two years ago. Instead of figuring out health insurance or a home for our couch, we can focus on how to structure our work flow on the road so that we can actually accomplish everything we want to do. We feel like we’re able to be much more pro-active in our plans for this next trip, and think about the bigger picture.

View Big Adventure Small Wheels in a larger map

Besides the work we’re doing to combine trains and bikes, we also want to route our journey through lots of unique places. Which is where you come in… On May 15, we leave Portland. Aside from plans to be in Missoula, Montana around the first of June, we have very little of our route planned. So we’re asking for your suggestions. Do you know of some funky little places we should explore or interesting people we should interview? Do you have a favorite burger joint or coffee shop? Send them our way!

For the First Time. Again.

We spent this past weekend with the great group at Cycle Wild, a non-profit organization in Portland whose mission is to reconnect people with nature through bicycle touring. One of the great things about Cycle Wild is that it has become a great organization for getting first timers to tour; people who are a little daunted by the logistics and routing, people who don’t necessarily want to carry camping equipment (there was a yurt option on this last trip), and those that want to tour with a fun group of people. This weekend, we couldn’t help but feel like newbies again taking our Bromptons on their first bike camping trip!

As Laura wrote on her last post, we’re still figuring things out. This is simultaneously fun and exciting as a challenge, but also a little nerve wracking as we try to optimize everything we’re carrying. Our last trip is beginning to look a lot like a Carnival Cruise in retrospect, when comparing it to our more streamlined setup. I’m trying to vastly cut down on the electronics, carrying my most used bits of camera gear from the last time around. My clothing packing list is under constant scrutiny, as I try to figure out what little permutation of clothes I can bring to account for the the big temperature variations we’ll face. Of course, a lot of this is familiar territory, so it is a little funny to get butterflies in the stomach.

In that spirit, it was wonderful to join some newcomers to touring this weekend and have that same sort of I’m-still-figuring-it-out feeling too. We got to respond to lots of questions and quizzical looks during the weekend. One of the first questions that people ask us when they see the Bromptons are if we have to pedal any faster or are we much slower than with our other bikes? We’ve been telling people, “No.” It was good to finally confirm this on our weekend trip. We were able to keep up without a problem and even found ourselves at one point in a funny looking pace line of bikes, bags and Bromptons to Champoeg State Park at a good (for us) 15mph clip.

The 6 widely spaced gears covered most of the bases. It gave us a reasonable high gear of about 88 gear inches and a reasonably low gear of 29 gear inches. What this means in practice is that for 90% of the time you will not have a problem even with a light touring load, though there will 5% of the time where you’ll be grunting up a hill cursing for another gear and another 5% where you may have to walk. We’re still playing with gearing and may try a few mods before we settle on our final setup. But for those that are demanding the specs now, we have 6spd Bromptons with the wide range rear hub and the -12% reduced gearing option. The only other modifications we’ve done so far are replacing the bikes with our old Brooks saddles from the Surlys and changing the grips (Laura is using some Ergon BioKork grips and I’m using Ergon Magnesium race grips – both of them hacksawed down a little).

Aside from the riding, we also were trying out our new tent, a Big Agnes Copper Spur UL2. Many will recall that we traveled with an REI Quarterdome T3, the last time around. We decided to find a tent that was smaller and lighter and would pack well with the Bromptons for our next trip. The Copper Spur UL2 is fairly roomy for a two person tent. It was long enough that we could keep our Brompton front touring bags at our feet, allowing us to park our folded bikes in the vestibule! We can’t speak for its durability yet, but our initial impressions are really positive.

This past weekend was a trip of some firsts. It was good to finally do a real ride with a real touring load over some very real hills. It was both encouraging and sobering. We were constantly amazed at how well the Bromptons handled, but also became more aware of their weight and gearing limitations. We’re still really excited to take them out on tour, but it means we’ve got a bit of fine tuning to do before we push off in a few months!