Pedalpalooza!

Wow.
Two weeks of cycling events were kicked off yesterday with the Pedalpalooza Parade through downtown Portland. While I have been aware of Pedalpalooza for a few weeks now I had no idea how much fun this would be. If the parade and subsequent Zoobomb are any indication of what is to come, I'm in heaven!

Pedalpalooza is Portland's annual bicycle fest and people in this town really love their bikes. There were probably 300 people at the parade last night. Dressed in all sorts of costumes and on every kind of bike. With a police escort the tour of downtown was a lot of fun. Isaac, a fellow Veloshop rider, went down with me and I met a bunch of great folks. Jonathan Maus of BikePortland fame spotted my Pereira Cycles shirt and said hello. A bunch of bike geeks chatted me up about my touring bike. Bethany, who helped paint a bunch of my frames during her too-short time at Acme Paint, surprised me when she said hello in her disguise. Allan Folz and his family were stylin' on their Santana, flyin' a great flag.

After the parade was over, some suspicious looking freaks were rolling around inviting people to Zoobomb. Since I've been wanting to check this out I was all over it. We rolled over to the MAX train and went up to Washington Park to prepare for the Bomb. It was everything I had hoped. A casual party-time got everyone ready while we watched the moon come up. When the time arrived we headed out for our first bomb. I hopped up front and followed Cupcake on the very high speed descent. It was really cool to see how fast these guys can go on 16" wheel kid's bikes. I can't wait for Sunday's official bomb. Sounds like it's going to be packed.

After two runs we called it a night and I headed home along the riverfront where the Navy has docked a few ships for the end of the Rose Festival.

What a great night. I can't wait to hit up some more of the events. See you there!