In Portland, bikes rule...

It is fair to say that Portland is a bike friendly (some may say obsessed) city. There are numerous bike lanes all around the city and surrounding towns. Now, these bike lanes aren't just a sign saying "Bike Route" with barely enough space for a car and a cycle to share the road. No, at times these bike lanes are almost as wide as a lane for cars (and out-of-towners may mistake these as lanes, so watch out!). To prove my point about the bike coverage, please see this link. This shows you one of the bike path maps for just the north downtown area. There are bike lanes, off-street paths, and lower traffic streets. To help bikers at traffic lights, they have added green areas where only bikes can stop. There are even some intersections with a special bike signal. They have event shut down some streets to cars - a bikers only zone. Portland goes all out for bicycles.

The way Portland has gone all out for bicycles has caused some tension between cyclists and their automobile counterparts. I have noticed that most people on bike obey the rules of the road. However, there are a hand full of bikers that feel that all traffic, even pedestrians, must yield to them. A few of the spandex wearing, people powered riders feel they own the road and forget this arithmetic as they blow through intersections: car + bike = car wins.

Just this past week a biker used HIS OWN BIKE as a weapon against a guy driving a car. You can read more about the altercation here. The short of it was the person driving the car was a long time biker and riding advocate. He did not appreciate they way the biker was conducting himself on the road, so the car driver followed him for a few blocks and tried to correct the cyclist. The cyclist, who was allegedly drunk, gave his response in the form of using his bike as a wheeled sledge hammer - he started bashing the bike against the driver's car. At some point the driver got out of the car (you never get out of the car!) and the cyclist started hitting the driver with the bike. When the cops got to the scene, most people were saying the guy in the car was at fault (how could a biker be at fault in Portland)! But the police worked it out.

Please check out this article from The Oregonian about sharing the road in Portland. And if you're in Portland, please watch out for bikes!