Portland’s 1st Annual Tweed Ride
Portland 1st Annual Tweed Ride 2010 from Peaker on Vimeo.
Portland’s 1st Anual Tweed Ride took place January 30th, 2010 was well attended with over 100 cyclists clad in their finest tweed and wool knickers, skirts, vests and caps. The pack caravanned through most of the Northwest, Northeast and Southeast neighborhoods, stopping for tea at Overlook Park, cheering for a fashion show and finally settling down for a picnic.
The best part for me was watching peoples faces as they idled at stoplights or scurried down their front steps to the street. There were lots of smiles, gawking, pointing of fingers, and one woman even happily yelled while carrying a cardboard box to her car, “Who are you? Why are you doing this?” It was a most curious sight I’m sure, but one that made people smile. One gentlemen jumped out of his idling car with camcorder in hand and started filming while waiting for the mob of cyclists to pass. (See video above :30 second mark.)
Overall the ride was really fun and a great promotional tool for encouraging bicycle advocacy within the city. There we’re a few people talking about Portland’s 2030 Bicycle Plan, which was unanimously voted into action by Portland’s City Council on February 11th, 2010.
I hope that Olympia will consider a similar bicycle plan for our little city.