Biketown

Portland Oregon’s city bike program features bright orange 8-speed cruisers emblazoned with Nike logos.  Stations and bikes are plentiful, at least on the beautiful June Saturday when I paid a visit to the Rose city.  I’ve had the distinct pleasure to enjoy city bike share programs in several North American cities, including New York, Toronto, Los Angeles, Nashville, Chicago, Washington DC, and Denver.  All are somewhat similar, yet unique.  Portland’s 8-speed bikes are a bit lighter then most, and better able to climb the steep hills around the city, with both front and rear brakes for those rapid and sometimes slick descents.

Portland is on my way to the start of a Coast-to-Coast journey, and I’ll be back through the city in a couple days.  But that will be a story for another blog…

Have a great ride.

~Dan

 

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Greetings from Montana City

Sunny and 60s makes for a great biking day in February, albeit a bit windy with a pending snowstorm (which dutifully arrived Monday). 22 mile loop to downtown on Saturday. 42 Mile loop through Highlands Ranch on Sunday. And 2 inches of snow on Monday.

This pic is from a newly and nicely reconstructed park along the South Platte river commemorating an early gold rush settlement named Montana City:

Montana City was the first settlement in what was later to become Denver, Colorado. It was established during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush on the east bank of the South Platte River, just north of the confluence with Little Dry Creek, in 1858. At the time, the site was in the Kansas Territory.

The site selected because it was adjacent to placer gold diggings along the South Platte River. However, the gold diggings at Montana City proved disappointing, and the site was soon abandoned in favor of the settlement of Auraria, a few miles downstream.

Interesting bit of history, and a nice rest stop.

~Dan

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Yellow Bike

Is it abandoned? Maybe someone is hiking nearby. Perhaps it’s a “bait bike”, set to snare a would-be thief? Turns out it’s part of a bike share program from a company called Ofo.

Ofo is a dockless bike-sharing program. If you find one (I’ve seen two so far), you can unlock it with an app, ride it anywhere you like (for $1 an hour), and leave it anywhere (safely and legally). Each bike has a QR code, and a wheel lock that prevents rolling until unlocked with the Ofo app. You can also use the app to find nearby bikes.

According to @ofo_bicycle (ofo.com), there are 10 million of these yellow bikes around the world. The program was just introduced in the U.S. in August 2017, in 20 cities. And Ofo plans to rapidly expand across North America. So keep an eye out for all these yellow bikes!

Happy riding!

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