Straight out of L.A.

I'm back in Astoria, glory to God. What grade would I give LA? A gentleman's C at best.

Some nice bike racks, though.
I also enjoyed the mural on the Farmer John meat processing plant. Not only is it many stories tall, but it goes all the way around this very large building.






Such happy pigs! Makes me want to eat more bacon.

While taking pictures, we got kicked out of their parking lot by a security man on a nifty tricycle.

A friend for a day in L.A.

I often wonder why I write this blog. It doesn't pay. And I really do have better things to do.

But I love biking and bikes. And now three times, this blog has actually done something for me.

1) I met a bunch good people at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette through this blog and (unrelated to this blog) was able to promote my book.

2) I met P. Lynn Miller in Australia. Who showed my wife and I the best time you could have in pouring rain on two wheels in Sydney.

3) A friend wrote me yesterday saying, "I hate L.A., too. And I'm there right now!" So she biked 12 miles to Santa Monica tonight and we joined friends of hers for a quiz night at a bar. Some might be happy with second place. But we were playing to win. And we had it, too... till the last round. When we lost our narrow lead in that damned music round. Why do they never have songs by Willie Nelson, the Pogues, Vassilis Tsitsanis, or the Andrews Sisters?

My friend mentioned the shame of biking in L.A. You can bike down side streets very well, but then it's almost impossible to cross the major streets if you're not at a light. In the same vain, I was thinking that they could turn some alleys into great bike lanes. But you'd have to give bikes right-of-way when crossing streets. I could be done, but it ain't going to happen. Alas, my potential bike buddy leaves town tomorrow.

Anyway, I extended my stay till Tuesday. I'll try and make the best of it. Check out some places mentioned in a comment in my previous post (thanks!). Maybe have lunch in Thai Town, too. And I could always jump in the ocean.

Bike L.A.

I'm in L.A. It sucks. L.A. sucks. I don't like the city. Never have. I don't like the car culture. I don't have friends here.

But my parents moved to Santa Monica about five years ago so I'm here every so now and then. My father's health is bad and getting worse, so I'll probably be here more and more.

I hate having to drive everywhere. And I hate that Santa Monica is like one big mall (albeit a mall with a beach and a great Farmers Market twice a week).

So I've decided not to drive. I've taken the bus, walked and biked. It does make me much happier.

Yesterday, my brother and I put our bikes on the front of a bus (I've never done that before) and headed out to a drunken game of kickball, actually called Sloshball, which tells you something. We were playing at a big park just north of Dodger Stadium.

After a 50 min express bus ride, we got off to bike the last mile or so. After one block, my brother's rear tire blow. And it blew with a very loud bang. We were fucked.

I asked a Mexican man on a bike if there was a bike store. He didn't speak English. And I couldn't think of the Spanish word for store. But he did offer to fix my bike with his patch kit. Alas, as I already knew from the bang but still had to show him, the tube had a 6-inch rip.

He pointed me yonder, perhaps to a 99-cent store that I scoured for bike tools and a 29-inch(?!) tube. Amazing, they had everything. But this in my mom's built up Dutch bike. Fenders, coaster brake, rear brake, internal shifting hub. I figured it would take me an hour to fix it. We locked the bikes and took a cab to the field.

We played Sloshball (my brother does have friends in L.A.). It's kickball, but you have to be holding a drink at all times, which makes defense a bit of a challenge. And there's booze at second base. And you can have as many runners as you want at 2nd. I liked being on 2nd. So I was lounging about refilling my beer when a guy threw the ball at another runner trying to get back to second. He hit me smack in my beer, shattering my plastic cup and getting me quite soaked.

We played a brief second game of 2-handed kickball. It was much more tiring, because if you're not holding a beer with one hand, you can actually get tired running.

After the game. My brother and I got a ride back to our bikes. I left him to fend for himself, somehow meeting up with friends. And I started biking back home. I knew I wanted to bike the whole way, to get a sense of the distances in L.A. Two hours and 22 miles later (it would have been 15 miles if I had gone in a straight line), I arrived. It's not a bad city for biking. Straight streets, mostly. Good weather, mostly. Flat, mostly. And downhill if you're going toward the ocean. But it's a big city. The roads are wide and ugly. A very few have a line-of-paint bike lane. On the plus side, the al pastor from taco trucks is much better than the al pastor in Astoria.

Still, I'll looking forward to being home.

12 Dutchmen were on a bike...

...on one bike. Check this out:
This and other great old dutch bike pictures can be found on Andre Koopman's photostream.

Bike Balto

Putting the charm back in Charm City, Baltimore is becoming more bike friendly.

Having lived and loved in Baltimore from 1999 to 2001, I can attest that the city is a good biking town that isn't very bike friendly. I lived and commuted by bike and without a car there for the first 6 months. Just 3 miles from Greektown to downtown. Sometimes I took the Number 10 Bus. The bus system is actually not bad. But that Number 10 Bus could pick up quite a motley crew coming from Dundalk (redneck), O'Donnell Heights (ghetto), and the Bayview Methadone clinic (junkie). It was like one big happy grown up Sesame Street, on a good day.

In Baltimore, I noticed and understood why people put "must have car" in personal ads. For the first time, I realized why people think public transportation is for losers. In Baltimore, a lot of losers are riding the bus. And hell, if you're not a loser, why don't you have car? I did end up buying a car, but not because I was afraid of being a loser. But I really did need a car for work (yes... need). It's the only city I've ever lived in and not been car free.

On one hand, Baltimore is a small city without too many big hills. It's fast to bike around. On the other hand, 1) drivers just aren't used to bikes, but that isn't a huge problem; 2) there are these "death grates," horribly designed sewer grates that your tire could fall into; and 3) there's a lot of ghetto in Balto I wouldn't recommend biking through on a regular basis.

Also, there's a not-too-steep but very steady incline in the whole city from South to North. That's one of the reasons I lived in the East.

But I enjoyed biking in Baltimore, as I do everywhere. There's no reason it shouldn't be a great biking city. Here's to Baltimore! And if anyone goes there, bring me back a crab cake.

Bike sharing program in D.C.

The New York Times reports on this.

Seems useful for a place like NYC, where many people don't bike because they have nowhere to keep a bike.

We'll see if it works. I always feel it's best to let another try these things out first, to work out the kinks.

Pete of Dishwasher Fame

And his lovely wife, Amy.

You may know Pete Jordan as author of Dishwasher (and infamous Dave Letterman no-show). I went up to their bike store in the North of Amsterdam to meet them, drop off a copy of my book, and get an Egyptian bike bell put on my bike.

Peter wasn't in. But the bike store is great. And Amy is a gem. Best of all, she let me work on my own bike while she had to attend to other customers (she made clear that this is not their standard operating procedure). I wish I had had more time so that we could have had a few drinks and chat longer, but I had to get back into town for a 4pm meeting.

Amsterdam (3)

Approaching a bike parking barge of the River IJ (pronounced "eye")
The entrance to the bike parking.
Mural on the bike parking barge.
The lighting on this bike path going over a canal and under train tracks is so nice. And it could so easily be so ugly. What could be a scary place, is actually quite beautiful.
The famous multi-level bike parking garage by Centraal Station.
Bike parking on a barge on the Single near the Muntplein.

Insane Japanes bike parking machine

Check this out.

Amsterdam (2)

I'm in Amsterdam, trying to remember to take some pictures. There are so many sights that seem unremarkable to people who live here. But I've been gone for a while so things like this stand out. These pictures are from parts of town you won't see on postcards.

Here's an average Dutch street with an average Dutch bike path. Nice.

When they do construction (and they always do construction here, and it can take years), they set up a "temporary" bike lane. Note that it's still physically separated from car traffic. That's my brother, posing. I have to apologize for his stupid mountain bike. There's nowhere in the world a mountain bike is less appropriate than in the streets of Amsterdam. But it's not his bike. Really. He just wanted to test ride what he thought was a "nice bike." I mocked him.

A typical line of bike racks.
And finally, one of the many pedicabs you see here (or at least in the center). It's not clear if this will become a normal mode of transit for some of just a tourist gimmick. My brother claims they're pricing themselves out of the "normal" market.
They're kind of complicated machines. I haven't figured all the parts out yet.

Amsterdam (1)

I arrived in Amsterdam today. I'm staying on a houseboat where I used to live. Being on the water is good for the soul.

I've been away for more than a year, which is the longest I've ever been away. I was very happy to find my lovely Batavus Barcelona waiting for me. A little dusty, yes. But just a little air in her tires and she was ready to ride. That's always a great feeling.

Yes, it is a beautiful city. Yes, it is in many ways a bikers' paradise. But still, it's amazing how cars (and there aren't that many in the city center) manage to make everything worse.

Bike Sydney

Sydney, city of beachesand beach cricketand the view from our friend's apartment.

We were warned that when it comes to bikes, Sydney is no Melbourne. "Bollocks," exlaimed P. Lynn Miller of CTA fame (Chainlink Transit Authority). Or he said something like that in an accent that perhaps could only come from an Australian immigrant originally from a Mennonite family in Pennsylvania. (Our apologies, Lynn. But by the end of the day, we seemed to have taken years off your Aussie accent.) Lynn came to our biking rescue!

I know Lynn, whom I had never met before, through this blog. We got in touch over 650B wheels. Or some bike trailer. We don’t remember who even wrote whom. In Australia, I wrote him when I remembered, "I do have a bike connection in Australia!"

Very generously, Lynn offered to pick us up, give us bikes, and take us around the city. Uh... OK. Thanks. It probably worked to our advantage that his wife and four kids were away for the week!

Here's an exclusive photo of the inner workings of CTA headquarters:

He delivered. As champion wheel builder and Aussie importer of Phil Wood hubs, he has some nice bikes. Most sport mixte frames, and they all have 650B wheels with fenders and, or course, Phil Wood hubs.

Lynn's got some deal worked out with the bulk item garbage pickup. It results in him getting tons of great Peugeot mixte frames. I swooned. Even though later I declined to take one home with me. French frames, despite making perhaps the ideal city bike, have their own standard for thread size. I'm scared to go there. But who else but the French makes beautiful mixte frames?

Lynn's a rebel and proudly flaunts the repressive helmet law! Rock on! Did I mention the weather was shitty? But the ride was great. It's definitely a good city to have a guide. There's no grid. And while it's not particularly bike friendly, if you know the back streets, you can avoid traffic very well. You also get major props from your local friends who don't realize how quick and easy it is to bike from one side of the city to another.

View from the Anzac bridge:
You see the word Anzac a lot down there. It stands for Australia and New Zealand Artillery Command, or something like that. It's also a tasty cookie. [Thanks to Tom for setting me straight in a comment about a few things. Not the least of which is that Anzac is the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.]

Coat hanger bike rack:

This is the most useful bike rack of all. Because you can attach it to any and all of the city's streetlights.
New York, take notice! I go blue in the face saying it, but we need more on-street bike parking. This is the answer.

Hiding from the rain (though that proved to be futile), we got coffee from a great coffee stand and I chatted with some messengers between runs (they know where the good coffee is). Of course, they all knew Lynn because Lynn builds bikes. I forget this guy's name (sorry), but I loved his "Stemnosaurus Rex" mascot!
The ride was outstanding. Afterward, Lynn gave us some dry clothes and we put our wet wearings into the dryer. “Want to go to pub for a $5 steak?” Lynn proposed. Absolutely. Wearing our ill-fitting shorts and t-shirts, we fit right into the pub dress code. When you hear pub, don't think cozy Irish pubs. These are brightly lit places with many rooms, one for "families," another for gambling machines, a third for off track betting, and a small kitchen with a cafeteria line. It turns out the “$5 steaks” actually cost $6 but taste like they’re $50 steaks. Grass-fed, thick, and perfectly cooked. Evidentially, good food is supported by the gambling proceeds. Everybody wins!

And I got to watch cricket. This is a sport I’ve always expected to like because people criticize it for the same reasons they criticize baseball, which I love. India was in the country for a test match. I was reading all about the controversy without understanding anything about the game. I was still struggling with the rules because my cricket fan friends never seem to understand how a few foreign terms can doom the whole process. Maybe it takes a Yank to teach a Yank, but I feel confident and I’m ready for my next test. Or maybe I’ll join the next sidewalk cricket game I see in Astoria.

Thanks, Lynn! Till we meet again...

Bike Brisbane

Actually, we never made it to Brisbane. We were visiting friends in the suburb of Sandgate. But Bike Sandgate has less of a ring to it than Bike Brisbane. Our friends are nice eco-friendly people with a chicken coop in the backyard. Amazingly, this was second place we stayed with a chicken coop. My wife likes chicken coops. And we both like fresh eggs! Still, I still don't see us getting a coop here in Astoria.

We got on our bikes (ours supplied by some of their family who live nearby). 5-year-old Sofia jumped on the trailer bike hitched to her father's bike. I love that those things give the kid the option to actually peddle and contribute. Even if the help is more psychological than substantial. The sun is brutal there, even in tropical Queensland. Even without the helmet law, headcover is extensive.

This sign makes me think many things. Of course there's the almost obligatory and ignored dismount sign. But the top part? I like to think it's a warning to hold on tight so you don't go flying off on the bumbs! (Actually, it means means pedestrians have right of way over bikes.)

Typical old houses with lots of wood slates:

Bats hanging in trees:

Interesting devices to keep all but the skinniest cars off of bike paths:

I can't decide if it's more or less elegant than simple poles in the road.

And a bike rack of a design I had never seen. At the Sandgate train station:

We spotted this bike with a nice homemade trailer.
The designer and builder was very happy to show it off. There are only five of these brackets in the world, he proudly told us.
The width of the trailer was exactly the same width as his handlebars. Clever. Did I mention he was odd and smelled pretty bad?

Conclusion: Sandgate is built for cars. Despite lots of rain, bikes don't have fenders. But there's a pretty good bike network if you're odd and into that kind of thing. I am.

Tandem Melbourne

Things picked up a bit in Melbourne, bike wise. I couldn't score free bikes (actually I probably could have, but hadn't yet thought of my Australian bike connection), and renting bikes is crazy expensive. $50 per day. It costs more to rent bikes than rent a car. What's up with that?

But we wanted bikes. And *I* wanted to ride a tandem. And the tandem was "only" $70 a day. A veritable bargain, if you don't think too hard.

I've never really ridden a tandem (I actually did once for a short distance, but it was not a good bike). They seem really cool and romantic to me. Then I learned that to most people they just look dorky. But that don't bother me.

It is a little tricky to get used to riding a tandem. But not so bad. A few hours and you're fine. But there are things to think about that you rarely do: which foot is down when you coast? Which way to you lean the bike when stopped at a light. Turns out that Zora and I do things opposite. So one of us (me) has to so it the other way. No big deal. It's also pretty easy to start and coast together. Though you may coast less just to keep a nice rhythm.

Being on the front is relatively easy. When I took over the stoker's seat (rear), I couldn't handle it. Zora said the weight of the bike was very funny with 220 lbs on the rear. I had a horrible posture because the rear handlebars are linked to the front seat. So with the rear seat up and the handlebars down, it just didn't work. It may have been the position, but I couldn't get used to being on the back and not being able to steer. Every bone in my body wanted to adjust for balance and move the handlebars. but things don't help matters. You just have to sit and peddle.

I've always wanted to smoke a big one, blast music on headphones, and completely zone out while riding a bike. The rear of a tandem is the perfect place for that. But it will have to wait.

After an hour or two, Zora got used to the rear seat and could wave her hands around and cabbage-patch or do whatever else seemed appropriate or inappropriate.

The main advantage to riding a tandem in a new city is that you stay together and can talk more easily (though the person on front still has to turn his head). When you don't know where you're going, this comes in handy.

And, in another of my tandem dreams, I was able to drop Zora for a meeting, and bike away (to return the bike).

A few minor notes:
1) the chain for the front rider is on the left.
2) like much of the world but not the US, the front brake handle is on the right and the rear on the left. On the tandem, though, this matters less than a regular bike. You can jam on the front and the bike still isn't going to flip over.
3) they drive on the left.
4) it was hot. This was the only heat of our trip. It hit 106 degrees. That's hot. I've never biked in that kind of heat. It's eyeball melting heat. It one point, I burnt myself trying to get a water fountain to turn on. It was hot. Slow and easy.
5) Melbourne has lots of flies. Sounds petty, but they never mention these things before you go. These aren't your standard flies. These are little African famine-picture flies. They're small and go right for your eyes and mouth to get moisture. They're really persistent. And nasty. They can keep up with you biking until about 10 mph.
6) Australia has a helmet law for all bikers. I don't like that.

Melbourne was surprisingly bike friendly. Lots of bike lanes. Flat city. Easy to get around.

This is our tandem.

That's not us mind, you. But our friends of friends look so much cooler than we do.
We're kind of daggy.


Coming soon, the Melbourne bike map. It ain't Pittsburgh (but what is?), but it's functional and does warn: "Avoid drunk people who may stop in front of you."

Still to come: Bike Brisbane and the pièce de résistance, bike Sydney!

Bike New Zealand

We weren't in New Zealand for long and it was closed. Early January is not, I repeat not a good time to visit cities in New Zealand. They're closed for the holidays. Spooky tumbleweed quiet.

In Wellington, I got a lead to go to the anarchist book store on the Left Bank off Cuba St (I'm not making that up). They told me to go to some bike squat that may have bikes. I was hoping to fix a few bikes for the use of two bikes. Off we went. The squat was closed for holiday. How can that be?

One bike store open. But didn't rent bikes. We failed. It was made worse by looking in this closed building at what may have been an art installation.

So many bikes and not one to ride.

There are no fenders (aka mudguards) on bikes in New Zealand. And people go barefoot an awfully lot. And though it was summer, it was cold. Best coffee in the world, perhaps. And our standards were high, coming from Portland. And the food was fresh. Weak dollar: bad.

Bike Portland

A month abroad and bike stories to share. From Portland, Wellington, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney. I'll start in chronological order.

New Years in Portland, Oregon.

Rumor has it that it's a biking haven. Rumor has it the food is delicious. Rumor has it they drink a lot of coffee. I'm naturally suspicious of any place people loooove so much. For the record, Santa Cruz gives me the creeps and I'm pretty dismissive of the whole states in the U.S.

But I liked Portland. It's true about the food and coffee. And beer flows freely. The utter whiteness of the place is a bit creepy, especially because, like white places everywhere, they seem so utterly unaware that it's not really normal. Especially when they keep calling each other "bro." I'm not your "bro," bro.

But let's talk bikes. At first glance, I was very disappointed. It does not jump out as biking heaven. There aren't bike lanes everywhere, much less bike paths anywhere. It's a car city. People drive. Public transportation is better than most US cities of its size, but simply not adequate.

But when you talk to people who bike, they all say great things about Portland. Because Portland cares about bikes. The city works to make things more bike friendly. This is what New York could learn. It's not just about lines of paint of roads (though that helps). It's about the little things:
On the new and nice if it's going your way streetcar (called "the Maxx"), there are hooks to hang your bike.

You plop your bike up and hang it from the front wheel. Suddenly your large two-wheeled obstruction takes up almost no space and is hassle free for the rider! Simple. Brilliant! Costs almost nothing. Everybody wins!

Bike racks are apleanty. Including ones for which they have (gasp) actually removed parking. How can anyone argue that parking for one car is better than parking for 14 bikes? Why isn't this done more?

(and notice the fancy extended rear carrying rack on the closest bike. Very nice!)

Again, it's the little things. On bridges going over the river, the bike lane is doubled into two bikes lanes going uphill. Because going uphill, it's very likely that you will pass or be passed by another bike. Then at the top of the hill, the lane narrows to its standard width. How considerate.

Portland isn't without faults. But it charmed me. Now if anybody could just explain to me why there are so few fenders in a city with so much rain...

Keep Biking Pgh!

Can I say enough good about the new Pittsburgh bike map? I love bikes. I love maps. The designer was nice enough to chime in on a comment below (confirming the Ware-eskian influence). He has built a better bike map. I only hope the world comes beating a path to his door.This map isn’t just beautiful. It’s practical. It has a nice simple key.
It notes: “With a 36% grade, Canton Ave. is arguably the steepest street in the world!” Well, I’ll be!

I like the guide for novices. “Watch out for the ‘Pittsburgh Left’.” And I like the fact that the bike map was clearly designed by bikers for bikers. “If you are moving slower than traffic, move as far to the right side of the lane as possible.” That first part is important to add and easy to omit. It would be too easy to simply say, “stay to the right.” But from a biking perspective, that would be wrong.
On the actually map part of the map, the streets are easy to follow, with one-way and steep streets noted. The “landmark” circles give another chance for the art to shine. And the boxed warnings and comments are actually useful and not just C.Y.A. legalese.

“This section of E. Ohio St. is very dangerous but is the only to access the town of Millvale and the Park coming from Lawrenceville. Use extreme caution.” Will do. And thanks for telling me that it can’t be avoided. “Caution! To stay on California, head down the ramp and make the first left. Stay alert—cars move quickly here.” Got it.

My only complaint, and this may not even be justified, is that the “green” streets indicate recommended streets but don’t actually have any improved conditions for bikes. No bike lane or anything like that. Still, maybe they are better streets to bike on. Or streets that actually get you from one part of town to another part (a strange problem in Pittsburgh). Given the care put into to the map, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. On the NYC map, the red lines mean absolutely nothing, serving only to give the false illusion that New York actually has a bike “network.”

And no talk about this map would be complete without noting the Neville St. warning: “Neville St. is narrow and has a poor road surface. Also, beware of the wild turkeys often seen here—they are very territorial.” Nobody want to be attacked by wild turkeys.

Thanks, Bike PGH!

Bike Pgh!

I just got back from Pittsburgh, I city I didn't know at all. Thanks to this blog, I was able to meet some of the fine journalists at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and talk about my upcoming book (don't worry, I'll tell you, too, when it's out in May).

I have this thing for rough-around-the-edges (post) industrial cities. I'm much more excited arriving in, say, Pittsburgh, than I would be in say, San Diego. I guess many would find that strange.

I did not bike in Pittsburgh (there was snow and ice and very steep hills) but I applaud those that do. At first glance, Pittsburgh seems like the city with the least potential to be bike friendly. This is just a matter of topography and weather. But of course there are people trying to change that (not the topography or weather... you know what I mean).

Pittsburgh now has what must be the most beautiful bike map in the world. Like most bike maps, it's also the best map to just get around the city. But the map is really a work of art. I checked to see if it was drawn by Chris Ware. It isn't. But it's beautiful. If anybody has a pdf of the art (useful instructions to the novice cyclist), please let me know. Otherwise, I'll try and scan some of it when I have time.


Pittsburgh also features a stellar standard bike rack: Simple and functional and sleek looking. What else do you want in a bike rack?

Bicycle Lift

This is the coolest thing ever! If I lived somewhere with hills. I've always sort of dreamed of a sort of ski lift for bikes. I had no idea my dreams have been realized for over a decade, in Trondheim.

Here's the official PR:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtB8DX70ihM

Here's the renegade action shots:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j1PgmMbug8

Portland, shmortland

I'm sick of reading about how cool Portland, Oregon is. But here's yet another story...

New York Times
November 5, 2007
In Portland, Cultivating a Culture of Two Wheels
By WILLIAM YARDLEY

PORTLAND, Ore. — Susan Peithman did not have a job lined up when she moved here in September to pursue a career in “nonmotorized transportation.” No worries, she figured; the market here is strong.

“In so many ways, it’s the center,” Ms. Peithman, 26, explained. “Bike City, U.S.A.”

Cyclists have long revered Portland for its bicycle-friendly culture and infrastructure, including the network of bike lanes that the city began planning in the early 1970s. Now, riders are helping the city build a cycling economy.

There are, of course, huge national companies like Nike and Columbia Sportswear that have headquarters here and sell some cycling-related products, and there are well-known brands like Team Estrogen, which sells cycling clothing for women online from a Portland suburb.

Yet in a city often uncomfortable with corporate gloss, what is most distinctive about the emerging cycling industry here is the growing number of smaller businesses, whether bike frame builders or clothing makers, that often extol recycling as much as cycling, sustainability as much as success.

Like the local indie rock bands that insist they are apathetic about fame, many of the smaller local companies say craft, not money, is what drives them.

“All the frame builders I know got into this because they love bikes,” said Tony Pereira, a bike builder whose one-man operation has a 10-month waiting list, “not because they wanted to start a business.”

Mia Birk, a former city employee who helped lead Portland’s efforts to expand cycling in the 1990s, said the original goals were rooted in environmental and public health, not the economy.

“That wasn’t our driving force,” Ms. Birk said. “But it has been a result, and we’re comfortable saying it is a positive result.”

Ms. Birk now helps run a consulting firm, Alta Planning and Design, which advises other cities on how to become more bicycle-friendly. In a report for the City of Portland last year, the firm estimated that 600 to 800 people worked in the cycling industry in some form. A decade earlier, Ms. Birk said in an interview, the number would have been more like 200 and made up almost entirely of employees at retail bike stores.

Now, Ms. Birk said, the city is nurturing the cycling industry, and there are about 125 bike-related businesses in Portland, including companies that make bike racks, high-end components for racing bikes and aluminum for bikes mass-produced elsewhere. There are small operations that make cycling hats out of recycled fabric. Track, road and cyclo-cross races are held year-round, and state tourism groups promote cycling packages. There is Ms. Birk’s firm, which had two employees in Portland in 1999 and now has 14. There are nonprofit advocacy groups and Web sites, including www.bikeportland.org, that are devoted to cycling issues and events in Portland.

And then there is the growing, high-end handmade bike industry, which was made up of just one or two businesses a decade ago but now has more than 10. The Portland Development Commission is working with a handful of the bike builders to improve their business and accounting skills and help them network with one another.

This month, the city will be the host of a trade show featuring bike builders from Oregon, which locals say has more makers than any other state. And early next year, the North American Handmade Bicycle Show will bring its fourth annual event to Portland for the first time. It is expected to be the largest national show so far.

Sam Adams, a city commissioner in charge of transportation, joined development officials to help lure the show to Portland. It seemed a natural fit. The city regularly ranks at the top of Bicycling Magazine’s list of the best cycling cities and has the nation’s highest percentage of workers who commute by bike, about 3.5 percent, according to the Census Bureau. Drivers here are largely respectful of riders, and some businesses give up parking spaces to make way for bike racks.

“Our intentions are to be as sustainable a city as possible,” Mr. Adams said. “That means socially, that means environmentally and that means economically. The bike is great on all three of those factors. You just can’t get a better transportation return on your investment than you get with promoting bicycling.”

Although the city has worked to help drivers and riders share roadways, two cyclists were killed in October when they were hit by trucks, and questions persist over whether enough is being done to protect cyclists.

Mr. Adams said he was preparing a budget proposal that would spend $24 million to add 110 miles to the city’s existing 20-mile network of bike boulevards, which are meant to get cyclists away from streets busy with cars. Doing so could “double or triple ridership,” he said.

The streets were not always so crowded with cyclists. Andy Newlands, by most accounts the first person in Portland to start making bikes by hand, got into the business in the 1970s. Back then, he said, young men would come to him for help piecing together racing bikes. Now, he said, “More and more it’s some guy with a wife and kids and a BMW and all that, and he wants a handmade bike.”

Thirty years ago Mr. Newlands sold frames for under $300. Now a new bike might cost the buyer well over $5,000.

“There’s so much mass-produced stuff out there that there’s just kind of a little bit of a backlash,” he said. “People like a handmade product.”

Sacha White, who was a bike messenger before he started Vanilla Bicycles, one of the most prominent bike makers in Portland, said city officials embraced not only cycling but also the niche industry that has grown out of it, something he considered striking given the size of most operations. His company, among the largest of its kind, has six employees including himself.

“I think the biggest thing that’s come from the effort the city has put into this is the vote of confidence,” Mr. White said, speaking of bike riders and bike makers. “They want us here.”

Ms. Peithman, the recent Portland arrival, had lived in Chicago until September, where she worked for the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, a nonprofit advocacy group. She decided to move here on her own without any job prospects based “90 percent on the bike thing,” she said.

“I’m a long-term-thinking, spreadsheet kind of girl,” Ms. Peithman said. “This is the most rash thing I’ve ever done.”