The 12th edition of Pedalpalooza doesn’t kick off for another month, but it’s not a moment too soon to pull the calendar out and start marking down events you want to target.
Make sure to sharpen that pencil because, with more than 300 individual events expected to take place between June 6 to June 29, you’re going to be jotting for awhile.
The best-known individual event is the Portland edition of the World Naked Bike Ride, where something on the order of 5,000 or more cyclists will bare as much as they dare on a ride that kicks off at 10 p.m. on Saturday, June 8.
Organizers are always quick to note that while being naked in public is not illegal in Portland, helmets and shoes are recommended — even if nothing else is.
As a fitting set-up to all that revealed flesh, check out the Sunny Nekid Ride, which tours through all five of the city’s quadrants earlier that day. Listed by organizers as “clothing optional,” it gets under way at 1 p.m. at Coe Circle, 3900 N.E. Glisan St.
Beyond that, the calendar is cluttered with decidedly PG-rated events for cyclists of all ages.
Want to try your hand — and feet — at zoo bombing? Meet up at 13th and West Burnside at 8:30 p.m., June 9, and off you go.
Bicycle-repair clinics, tours of the Columbia well fields, unicycle polo and a Star Wars vs. Star Trek ride dot the official calendar.
Keep in mind, also, that individuals or groups still have plenty of time to add their own events to the slate, via the official website’s Wiki page. The deadline for the printed calendar is midnight on Wednesday, May 22. Enter your event before then and you, too, may have the chance to host hundreds for whatever two-wheeled extravaganza you and your friends may dream up.
Last year’s Pedalpalooza featured 298 separate events (or 313 if you count each instance of repeating events). That was up from 270 events in 2011.
At this point, given the area’s torrid love affair with all things two-wheeled, there’s no reason to think that this year’s Pedalpalooza won’t push those numbers even higher.
– Dana Tims