27 Hours in Portland

Inside on of Seattle's many coffee shops, waiting to catch the Bolt Bus to Portland.

My days off are mid-week, and this week I spent much of Tuesday and part of Wednesday in Portland, Oregon. I brought my SwiftyONE scooter and camera with me. Like most of my adventures, this was done on a low budget but I had a lot of fun and I took a bunch of pictures.

Swifty and the BoltBus in beautiful downtown Portland.

The BoltBus is a quick (3 hour), inexpensive ($16 each way) to travel between Seattle and Portland. Swifty folds to a compact package that fits easily into the lower cargo compartments on the bus. Bolt is very accommodating to bikes, you don't have to box them up and there is enough space to handle loaded touring bikes. A friend of mine has even taken her cargo bike several times on the Bolt. I also had a working electrical outlet at my bus seat and a strong WiFi connection all the way to Portland and back.

The BoltBus left Seattle at 8:00 AM and I was in downtown Portland by 11:00 AM.  

A small black scooter and BIG PINK office building.

My friend Michael works in Big Pink, a gigantic office tower in downtown Portland. He took me to lunch at a place a few blocks away that had terrific tacos and we we caught up on various details of each other's lives.

After Michael went back to work, I scootered across one of Portland's many bridges to go check out was was new at Clever Cycles. Along the way, I had a couple of different people spontaneously ask me about Swifty. And when I rolled into Clever Cycles, Todd said "I had a guy in here this morning asking what kinds of kick scooters we had here. I asked him if you'd sent him, but he claimed he didn't know you. I showed him the Nimble."

This is the Nimble Cargo Scooter.

I knew Todd had Nimble Cargo Scooters in stock at Clever, on of my goals on this trip was to test ride one. It took a little bit for me to get used to the linkage steering and the little, hard wheels are probably much better suited to warehouse floor than lumpy pavement but it was still fun to ride. It's a kind of bulky machine I don't need, but I can envision different kinds of workshops where it would come in handy.

Todd test rides Swifty

I'd told the folks at Swifty I'd take their scooter around to various shops that might be interested in carrying them in the US. Right now, the only way to get a Swifty in the US is to order it straight from Swifty in the UK, but it's a big leap of faith to order something you've never ridden. Right now, I'm kind of a Swifty evangelist spreading the good news of scootering to the new world.

Todd appreciates the smooth ride you get from 16" pneumatic tires.

 Todd has something really cool to show me, a tiny electrical assist for a Brompton. I got to ride it and it is amazing.

This is the motor and the drive wheel.

The rectangular pouch is the battery.

The little rotating knob is the throttle. There's also a tiny switch (not visible here) to activate the system.

The battery is the single most visible change to the entire bike.

The little motor is surprisingly peppy. This is still real new and if you want details, call up and talk to Todd but he told me the total weight of the system is 2.6 Kg (under 6 pounds). The capacity of the battery and the draw of the motor should give a range of nearly 40 miles on a charge. Price of the system will probably be around $1200 (on top of the cost of the Brompton).

One of the windows at Clever is prismatic and the afternoon light makes the whole place kind of trippy.

After my time at Clever I spend the rest of the sunny afternoon scootering along both sides of the river in Portland. The afternoon and evening light was lovely.

I didn't see any of these. Maybe it was too late in the day or maybe it's just a summer thing.

At 7:00 PM I worked my way back downtown to join the #NOKXL protest rally. This was one of hundreds of protests taking place against the extraction of tar sands oil and the building of the Keystone XL pipeline.

I brought my own NO KXL sign but the protest organizers also provided the NO PIPELINE banners.

This was the niftiest bit of protest art, towed to the site by bike because this is Portland.

Michael and I met back up at the rally. There was chanting and most of the cars going by were honking in support. There were probably around a hundred of us in the crowd.

Michael and I got to talking with Jen because she had this really bright, glowing vest. It's a NOX Tracer 360 Visibility Vest and it glows and pulses.

After the rally Michael and I made our way over to Velo Cult. Velo Cult is both a bar and bike shop. This is Portland. Of course they have a bar that is also a bike shop or maybe it's a bike shop that is also a bar. By the way, if you want to learn more about Portland, I highly recommend a documentary series on IFC called Portlandia. Some people claim it's a comedy, but as near as I can tell, it's 100% true.

Of course there's a bluegrass band playing tonight. Because this is Portland.

See, not just bikes. Also beer and cider and tea and...

Every blog post is improved by adding cute animal pictures

Michael is a generous guy so I spent the night in his guest bedroom and in the morning I got a nice home-made breakfast and got to meet Michael's sister-in-law's dog.

It's another pretty day in Portland and on my way to my next destination, I stopped by a Little Free Library. I love these things and Portland has a lot of them.

Portland also has plenty of random art. This caught my eye.

I had an appointment to check out Rose City Recumbents. In a few months they'll have a regular retail storefront, but for now they're working out a warehouse/shop space.

This is a CRUZBIKE Front-wheel drive recumbent.

I'd ridden FWD years ago and was happy to learn I hadn't lost the skill.

Jonathan checks out Swifty. I think we have a new scooter fan.

After an hour of riding bikes, chatting about recumbents, trikes, the bike business, scooters and all kinds of other groovy things it was time for me to roll back toward downtown.

Of course I went by another Little Free Library. I got a nice book of  Ogden Nash poems from this one.

In downtown Portland I folded up Swifty and got back on the Bolt Bus. Three hours later, this was my view as we rolled into Seattle.

And that, my friends, was my little mini-vacation to Portland, Oregon. I had a lot of fun and I'm sure I'll get back there again some time soon.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

Pictures From A Seattle Scoot

Swifty folds into a compact package, great for bus travel.

Yesterday was a fine day for roaming around Seattle on my SwiftyONE. Swifty and I rode the bus from Issaquah to downtown Seattle. I had lunch plans to meet up with my friend Dave in Ballard but I had plenty of time to poke around along the way.

This is art.

The southern most edge of Lake Union.

Still a bit foggy this morning.

If you like getting up close to funky old watercraft, Seattle is your kind of city.

There are so many great vessels at the Center for Wooden Boats.

This dinosaurs are right next to the Burke-Gilman Trail in Fremont.

I love big, funky murals.

I can't fit this one into a single picture.

This is on the side of a tavern in Ballard.

The Man loves putting up signs at the Ballard Locks.

This sign is 15 feet away from the last sign.

Illiterate geese are notorious scofflaws.

You're still in Seattle but the Feds have jurisdiction here.

At least they thank you for not messing with the Man.

The no biking rule makes total sense. The walkways are narrow and often crowded and slippery.

Now that the fog has burned off, Seattle is really shining.

Swifty in the foreground, an idling coal train in the background.

Working my way back toward Elliott Bay.

My dad back in Minnesota (where it's currently about 70 degrees colder than it is here) is amazed that I can cope with the depressing weather in Seattle.

Actually, these blue skies are not the norm for January.

But when you do get a great day, it's best to take advantage of it.

Chief Seattle in the foreground with the monorail track soaring above him.

Seattle recently reworked Bell to be more pedestrian, bike and scooter friendly.

I don't think these were designed as scooter racks, but they work fine for that purpose.

Over the years I've become convinced that the best way to know a city is to explore it under your own power. Walking, running, cycling or scootering all reveal the things that are too easily passed by if a motor is urging you forward. With muscle power, as Hemingway noted "you learn the contours of a country best." Places reveal themselves in time and travelling at a human pace is a way of using that time to discover the humanity we've built into our communities.

No Driver's Licence, No Problem!

We cater to customers of all ages at The Bicycle Center. I've assembled and serviced hundreds of kid's bikes over the years. But today I got to build up something a bit different. We have this customer whose at that point in his life where his kids kids have kids and he's realized he's at the point where he shouldn't be driving any more. But he still likes to get out to the grocery store or the coffee shop or the library. He doesn't have to go very far or fast, but he wanted something comfortable and stable, with good carrying capacity.

This is a Sun Trike with a Sturmey-Archer 5-speed internal hub. The basic trike sells for $450 and the 5-speed upgrade is another $210. The trike comes stock with the rear basket and we added a $30 front basket and $50 worth of fenders because it rains a heck of a lot around here.

The trike has 24" wheels and a coaster brake. The front hand brake has a push button locking feature so it doubles as a parking brake.

I'm still at the point in my life where two feet and two wheels work just fine for me getting around, but I'm glad to see there are some nice three wheeled solutions out in the world. There's more than one way to keep 'em rolling.

Scooter Talk: The Deal With Deck Height

There's a basic premise in kick scooter design that says that a lower deck is a better deck. This is because in the act of kicking to propel the scooter, the rider must bend the knee of the leg standing on the deck to allow the foot of the kicking leg to contact the ground. The higher the deck, the more the knee must bend and the quicker the rider fatigues. New scooter riders quickly learn that it's not the kicking leg that tires, it's the standing leg. This is why switching off which leg is kicking and which is standing is such an essential skill for a scooter rider, but that is a subject for another post.

A rider tends not to kick off flat-footed but rather points the kicking toe downward. Taller riders tend to have longer feet and this means in general that they are less sensitive to deck height than shorter riders. Also, riders with more leg strength, such as those with backgrounds in cycling or running, might not be as sensitive to deck height issues as some others, but in general a wise scooter designer will opt for the lowest deck possible.

This limit of how low you can go is determined by ground clearance and material strength. If we all scootered on perfectly smooth, glass-like surfaces we'd only need a few millimetres of ground clearance. And if our scooters were made of NASA-level titanium and carbon fibre they might be equipped with wonderfully thin frames and decks. Alas, we live and scooter in a world with root-heaved paths and sidewalks and our budgets tend to dictate that our machines be made of rubber, steel and aluminium.

My SwiftyONE has a deck height of 105 millimetres and a ground clearance of 63 millimetres. At 5'6" (1.68 metres), I'm not a particularly tall man (my Euro shoe size is 43) I find the Swifty's deck height to be "just right" for me. I find it less tiring to ride than my other scooters that have lower decks, but that is probably due in large part to the Swifty's efficient 16" wheels. And the ground clearance is most welcome because I tend to scoot on some far from perfect surfaces.

I recently let a much taller fellow borrow my scooter as he was looking for a replacement for a scooter he found too low for his Seattle commute. We were able to set the Swifty's handlebars high enough for him. The test ride convinced him and now he's saving up for a Swifty.

Deck height certainly matters, but just as a deck can be too high, it can also be too low. Scooter designers, builders and buyers all have to find out what works for them.