I’M NOT EVEN close to Mt. Tabor yet when it becomes apparent: This will be unpleasant.
It’s a humid Thursday, threatening rain, and I’ve just gotten leave from Motivate, the City of Portland’s bike-share operator, to have my way with a lumbering, fluorescent orange Biketown bike that—as I ride—won’t be available to Portlanders for more than a week.
Tom at Motivate has taken me through the selling points of the bicycle: the built-in solar-powered computer; the sturdy onboard U-lock; lights that automatically shine while you ride; a shaft drive that takes greasy chains out of the equation; and, most importantly for me, eight speeds.
When I announce my intentions of summiting Mt. Tabor on the Biketown rig, the people at Motivate assure me those eight speeds will make it a breeze—slow but easy.
They are incorrect.
Headed east from the Hawthorne Bridge, ascending the gentle grade that precedes looming Tabor, I feel all 59 pounds of this bike. I am sweating noticeably when a construction flagger calls out appreciatively, “Is that one of those new bikes?” and even harder a very short time later, when her coworker gives me a nod and a “Nice bike!”
It’s true: For all their orange—the hue of which managed to get progressively brighter with each prototype—the swooping Dutch lines and Portland-specific touches make Biketown’s bikes nifty, if corporate. Much of the system was financed by $10 million in sponsorship cash from Nike, and the Great Athletics Monolith to the west doesn’t let you forget it.
Still! Portland’s struggle for bike share has taken nearly a decade and seen plenty of flailing while less-savvy cycling cities around the country seemed to effortlessly set up their own systems. That Portland has finally attained its goal—and with a stout 1,000-bike network, no less—is a big deal, and we’re doing it far more efficiently than most.
Unlike, say, Seattle’s cash-hemorrhaging Pronto system, the “smart bike” you’ll be riding in coming days can be locked up anywhere in town (though there’s a fee if it’s left too far from a designated station, and a steeper charge if it’s parked outside the service area). That gives Portlanders a great deal more flexibility when plotting out the short trips that bike share’s designed for. And it could help the city achieve one of the ambitions of bike share: nudging a skeptical citizenry to better embrace two-wheeled travel.
First, though: the outrage.
Even before Biketown formally launched on July 19, it was taking flak from all sides. Reports emerged of homeowners furious that the public street space in front of their homes had sprouted a bike-share rack, taking up their former parking spot. Some cyclists were incensed that the city removed several bike corrals to plop down Biketown stations. There were concerns over sidewalk access, and corporatization of city neighborhoods.
It has often been like this with bike share in the US. Recall, for instance, the famously rabid screed Wall Street Journal editorial board member Dorothy Rabinowitz unleashed when New York’s Citi Bike launched three years ago (“We now look at a city whose best neighborhoods are absolutely begrimed…” etc.).
Furor has long since died down in NYC. It will here, too. As BikePortland’s Jonathan Maus recently wrote: “Make no mistake about it: Biketown is a new transit system that’s being overlaid onto existing infrastructure. It represents major changes to our city on many levels—both physical and mental.”
But we should return to Mt. Tabor, and me suffering oafishly up its relatively meager face. All of the advantages that Biketown boasts—the on-board computer, U-lock, beefy front basket, and bombproof frame—conspire against swift or nimble movement. The orange bikes are almost certainly the heaviest you’ve ever ridden.
I have to acknowledge that climbing the city’s foremost cinder cone wasn’t any sort of fair test for Biketown. Mt. Tabor isn’t even in the system’s service area. But I had to know how the bike would perform, and as I struggled toward the top, I began to curse its short cranks, and the adjustable seat that doesn’t extend quite high enough for my 6’2” frame.
A group of pot-smoking teens on a picnic table seemed to pity me as I inched past. Hikers pointedly ignored me. And when I got to the top, the statue of former Oregonian Editor Harvey W. Scott gazed sternly down on a sweat-soaked and depleted traveler.
Here’s the theory I came away with: Everyone should climb Mt. Tabor on a Biketown bike, if it’s within their capabilities and they plan on using the system. Because not only was the ride down the volcano a pure delight—each of those 59 pounds building into a furious inertia—but the rest of my ride felt swift by comparison. I had seen how sluggish the orange machine could be on a road it wasn’t designed to tackle, and so the roads it is designed to tackle felt smooth.
Or smoother, at least. I won’t lie—getting back on my own bike after the Biketown excursion felt like a revelation. But that bike is set up specifically for me. Bike share is made for thousands of Portlanders. And what that comes to mean in this bike town could be very exciting.
More on Biketown
Bike Share is Coming July 19! Here's What You Need To Know
Uncle Phil's Buying Portland Upgraded Bike Share Bikes
Nike's Throwing $10 Million At Portland's Bike Share System, And That's A Big Deal