Summer Touring Season

Tue, 11 May 2010 16:04:14 -0700

The summer touring season is upon us. Hooray! Inquiries and reservations have been coming in for a few weeks now. If you’ve been sitting on the fence over busting out of your rut and seeing a bit of Oregon from your saddle, as they say, there’s no better time than the present.

And don’t let a busy job or other commitments stand in your way. As I’ve said many times, little rides can be just as fulfilling and refreshing. Last month a group from Seattle drove down for a three day weekend. They stayed at a hostel here in the city Thursday night, caught breakfast at Marathon’s morning happy hour Friday, then rode from Hillsboro to Tillamook to Newport. I picked them up in Newport and returned them to Hillsboro where they had parked their vehicle. (Drew, Jessica, and Katrina if you read this, thanks for the yummy breakfast!) They had a wonderful time, no less because it was a relatively spontaneous trip that allowed them to break outside their normal routine and do something totally new for a few days.

Of course epic rides are cool too. In fact, next week I’ll be shuttling a trans-am rider to Astoria for the start of his summer of cycling. Wish him luck.

New in 2010

Wed, 6 Jan 2010 13:08:41 -0800

Happy New Year to all my readers and fans. I have some nice changes to report for the new year.

First, and most exciting is a cross-marketing agreement with the folks at Wend Magazine. Chris Schwind, cool dude and marketing guy at Wend, is going to outfit the Sag Wagon with issues of Wend. That’s right, Portland Sag Wagon now has it’s own in-flight magazine, just like the big-boy, commercial airlines.

OK, technically the magazine is not my own, if by “my own” you mean it in the western capitalist paradigm. But if by “my own” you mean it in the shared community resources and gift-culture of the Pacific Islander and Northwest native tribes paradigm, Wend indeed is “my own.” They’ve also added Portland Sag Wagon to their outfitters directory. I’m there under the North America listings alongside Alaskan mountain guides and Bajan sea kayakers. Oh, and if you need a ride from Alaska to Baja, look me up. I probably won’t be as cheap as flying, but I can promise a pretty cool road-trip.

Also new for 2010 is an increase in the mileage rate. The first hundred miles now cost $1.25 a mile. After a hundred, the rate drops down to the old rate of $1. (Note a surcharge for international border crossings may apply.) The two-tier rate is to lessen the hit to folks needing a long-haul to Bend or the southern coast, but still earn myself a little more scratch to keep the wheels turnin’ true.

I thought about taking it to $1.50, but I’m doing this gig largely for fun and riders have been great tippers anyway, so it’s cool.

Well, that’s the news. Best wishes to one and all for an exciting and memorable 2010. Life is short and work will always be with us. My advice: make a resolution this year to do one big thing you will remember fondly 10 years from now.

Mrs. SagWagon in the News

Mon, 7 Dec 2009 15:38:13 -0800

NPR Morning Edition did a spot on family biking today. It was about families that have eschewed the minivan for the cargo bike. In addition to the interview questions, the audio piece has some intro and closing sound from Carie picking up Cody from school. I might be more than a little biased, but it is super-cute; everyone should give it a listen.

Unfortunately, while Carie was able to deftly slip-in Portland SagWagon to the conversation it edited out. At least that’s what she tells me.

Portland Buzz

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:35:13 -0800

Did I say next week? Oops, I meant next month.

So what's Portland's buzz about? The immediate answer from a lot of folks no doubt would be bikes and biking. Cyclists are newsmakers and set the zeitgeist in Portland. Cycling is so prevalent in Portland that, like the hackneyed cliché about eskimos and snow, we make dozens of distinctions in the category. Anymore, it's not enough to tell someone you ride bikes. Today in Portland you say how you ride. Racers, commuters, recreational road, recreational mountain, and “fun” are all unique self-identified types of cyclist here. Further, “fun” is sub-divided into several different clubs and cliques: Shift, Zoo Bomb, Chunk DCLXVI, Axles of Evil (bike polo), and the Sprockettes are but a few of them. Even saying your job is with cycling is not going to be specific enough in Portland. In any other town a job in cycling would mean working at a bike shop, or maybe in a big city being a messenger.. However, in Portland retail bike shops are but one part of a much larger whole. We also have jobs in manufacturing, from artisan frame builders to mass volume manufacturers; jobs in product design from clothing to soft and hard accessories; jobs in infrastructure planning; jobs in tourism and event promotion; and more.

Yet, all the last paragraph notwithstanding, and as with every interesting question, the immediate answer is usually wrong.

Portland's buzz is not about cycling. Many of us may hear “we could be doing more cycling, we should be trying harder to ride our bikes,” but that's just a manifestation of our chosen activity.

Portland's buzz is about having fun, however you chose to personally indulge it. Certainly for a lot of people, bikes are how they indulge their fun. It should be obvious I am one of those, as are most of my friends. But not all of them. So one has to think a bit broader and consider the whole city. There are a lot of hiking, camping, climbing, and boating types in Portland. Portland is also a notable foodie town. Progressives railing and rallying against one injustice after another come out every spring like robins and bees.

So what do cyclists, outdoor types, foodies, progressives, and all of the other esoteric sub-cultures rampant in Portland have in common? (In fact, Portlanders identify themselves to each other invariably in one of two ways, either by their neighborhood or by their sub-culture activity.) They are all doing their thing for fun. They do a lot of it. They wish they could do more of it. And they feel guilty that they don't do more of it.

That my fellow reader is buzz. “You could be doing more fun, you should try harder having fun.” Of course you can hear it! It is unmistakable in “a hundred subtle ways”, from the casual dress codes wherever you go to the endless fests, festivals, and expos that dot the calendar all year long.

Indeed, the fests, festivals, and expos have gone completely over the top in Portland. We have festivals for beer, movies, music, and food. To be precise, we have multiple festivals for each, and more than a few hybrid festivals combining two themes into one fest. It has now gotten such that if there is something fun happening anywhere else, Portland will soon ape it and put one on ourselves.

Cycling is typical. In 2002 Portland hosted Bike Summer, the biggest and best Bike Summer ever. But Bike Summer is necessarily a traveling show. So Portland, not content to be potentially out-funned by some other city, put on a Mini-Bike-Summer the following year and every year since (now Pedalpalooza). When the North American Handmade Bike Show came to town, and then left as fast as it arrived, Portland decided to organize the Oregon Handmade Bike Show the following fall and every year since (now Oregon Manifest). Oh, and each year these events grow and out-do themselves from the year before. The World Naked Bike Ride that was started in Portland by a bunch of visiting Canadians is bigger here than the whole rest of the world combined. This ride has had exponential growth for 6 years. If it continues such growth a seventh year it will have some 10,000 riders! How amazing is that, I ask you?

Finally, lest anyone still think Portland, Great City, buzzes merely over bikes instead of fun, consider how the various bike sub-cultures themselves rate in the zero-sum game that is status mongering, the inescapable aspect of the human condition. Zoo Bomb, Shift, and Sprockettes rate above commuters which rate above racers. Among racers, cycle-cross rates above track which rates above road. And why does the status hierarchy measure this way? Because the buzz is driven by “fun”. If it were something like sustainability or eco-friendliness commuters would be above the goof-balls only having fun and racers would not get a mention at all.

So did you get the answer right? Tell us what you think.

Great Cities

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:14:52 -0700

It has been on my to do list to write about Paul Graham's essay on Cities and Ambition. Paul Graham is a great thinker on topics of concern to makers and inventors. The Cities essay is one of my favorites of his. His thesis is great cities attract ambitious people of a similar kind which results in the whole town having a unique and unmistakeable buzz. In hundreds of subtle ways the buzz is saying “you could do more, you should try harder.” He expands on New York, Boston, and Silicon Valley as exemplars of Great Cities, each with its unique buzz. There are two somewhat open questions to the essay. 1) Do all cities have a buzz? 2) What is my city's buzz about?

The answer to the first question is easiest, only Great Cities have a buzz. Having lived in a number of lesser cities and towns I will grant almost every place has a tone. But a tone should not be confused with a buzz. Only Great Cities with their self-selecting immigration by ambitious people have a buzz, a relentless reminder that “you could be doing more, you should be trying harder.”

I'll take a short-cut here, Portland is a Great City. Indisputably. As such, I'll save us the effort of arguing why it is.

Thus the more interesting question is, what is Portland's buzz about? It's probably NOT what you may first think. Give it some thought. I'll have my thoughts on the answer next week.