Hi Folks,
I’m headed up to Portland, OR for a job interview next week and possibly much longer. Naturally I couldn’t move anywhere where my wheel wouldn’t be happy, so can anyone tell me about (or hook me up with) the big wheel community there?
Thanks,
Mike (Austin, TX)
madison (ducttape) does a lot of cokering. i’ll send him to this thread.
Howdy, Portland is a VERY cycle friendly city. I and one other forum user on here(do NOT associate with his uni friends they aren’t very people friendly) coker pretty much everywhere. there are lots of very nice places to ride. I’ll Pm you my cell number and I can shoot you my cell number. Give me a call when you get into portland and I’ll make time to ride.
Thanks for the connection Catinabag1.
Madison - That sounds like great news. I’ve been concerned the city would be void of cokers… but then again, if Texas can breed unicyclists, who cant?!
I did get your phone number. Also, I fly into Portland for an interview next Wed through Friday (Oct 15-17). My only free day is Thursday, but I won’t have a wheel… I’d be thrilled with a loaner but don’t expect anything. For now, I’m just happy to make the connection and hope to catch up wheels at some point (assuming I get the job of course! :D)
Mike
There were a few local riders here who did a 100 mile ride to the beach in one day. Unfortunately I am busy wednesday through friday this next week. I wont be using my coker if you want I can let you borrow it for your stay here. Let me know if you would like to swing by my house and borrow it and I’ll pm you my adress. Good luck getting the job!
Whooah there Madison, on the Portland scene, I think you are talking about this group: http://www.unicyclebastards.com/
Yes, those are bare asses on the home page - and despite what Madison claims, think you will find that Portland is one of the most uni-friendly places in the USA. Lots of friendly, social and fun-loving uni riders here that formed up in a loosely organized unicycle . . . gang?? called the Unicycle Bastards.
Yes, our mouths may be filled with potty and we love a good debate, but you won’t be bored . . .
We: Unicycle polo, distance ride (doing this on Sunday: http://www.harvestcentury.org/ , day and night off-road rides, 36"er commute, trials and unicross race on 29ers http://www.crosscrusade.com/
silliness like uni-jousting and tons of other freak-bike action.
Not sure when you are coming to Portland, but there is a great on-line calendar of coming local rides on the Unicycle Bastards calendar at: http://www.unicyclebastards.com/
and here is a fun (but distrubing/bloody/violent) video that we shot for a local film festival:
Hope this helps clarify.
Brycer1968
I’m going to agree with brycer on this one. I moved to Portland just last year and have found an unheard-of variety of unicycling opportunities.
I do like to take sides and in Portland I’ve sided with the UnicycleBastards. Sure, you could ride with ducttape on his epic journeys to and from high school. Or, you could come play uni-polo, ride in CycloCross races, explore the various scenic highways, etc. with the bastards. The group is far from ‘not people friendly’. We just don’t seem to mesh well with the interests/ideologies of one particular teenager.
Sorry ducttape, some offense.
People friendly
Hey, we LOOOVE people!
It’s just that some people are less people-like than others.
also, we prefer to have human to human contact rather than virtual poofter-whiny-bitchy-unicyclist.com forum interactions.
also also, we looove big fonts and different colors (poofterbitchywhinyuncyclist. com readers tend to hate this. go figure)
-Love your mother
Those Bastards!
I’m with Jack and brycer.
Polo in the sun,
Polo in the rain,
Polo in the snow,
Polo, polo, polo!
And that other stuff (trails, trials, pedalpalooza, multnomah county bike fair jousting, unicross, security patrols, dead baby downhill, zombie rides, movie making, etc…) was fun too!
See you on the court!
Saying “I like to choose sides” here, or “I choose the Bastards” is a false choice - there’s no reason not to hang out with more than one unicyclist. I like unicycling with Madison. I also like playing uni polo with Brycer, Jack, and Bokchoi. But there are a couple of the Unicycle Bastards who are downright mean online, and often in person too. So when one says the Bastards aren’t “people friendly,” that makes sense to me because the UBs include bastards, and the rest do nothing to discourage or disavow any of it. Labeling unfriendly behavior as such doesn’t excuse it either. One could be a UB without crossing the line from funny/creative into vicious/destructive. There’s a lot more detail I can get into, but I have a unicycling/juggling festival I’m trying to get to.
So if some of you “Bastards” want to invite the public to ride, and have fun, and play polo, that’s great. I’ll be there for polo, and I often tell others about it. But if you want to “choose sides,” belittle someone much younger than you, and turn a blind eye to the bullying, cheating, and disdain for others and what’s socially acceptable, then you’re going to have to accept it when someone calls a spade a spade (or a Bastard a bastard).
-Ben Schoenberg
Hey, we LOOOVE people!
It’s just that some people are less people-like than others.
also, we prefer to have human to human contact rather than virtual poofter-whiny-bitchy-unicyclist.com forum interactions.
also also, we looove big fonts and different colors (poofterbitchywhinyuncyclist. com readers tend to hate this. go figure)
-Love your mother
I’ll appoligize for completely putting the UB’s out there as a group who is not to be ridden with but I just never really meshed with them. I prefer to ride with my group of friends and yes I ride to and from school mostly but I do get out there and ride a lot on my own that isn’t just to and from school. I realize you guys(the UB’s that have posted so far) are being fairly civil here today and I apreciate it. I sometimes wish I COULD ride with you all on a lot of the stuff you do because you guys do a lot more than I do most of the time as far as variety goes but my schedule usually doesn’t mesh with yours. I never said anything about portland not being uni friendly, it is VERY uni friendly just some of the people aren’t all that friendly(to me, and a few other people in portland). Ya’ll just seem like you should be more mature seeing as how some of you are about 2-3 times my age. Thanks for not ‘Going Bastard’ on me though guys, once again I’ll say I appreciate it.
Yeah, Bastards, dont be an ass. ha!
You all know Madison does a lot more than ride to highschool. If you want to ride some sweet trials and street spots, Madison knows them. If you want to coker some great trails, Madison knows them as well. Dont be like highschool, where one person doesnt like someone, all of that persons friends dont like that person, and hold a stupid grudge back and forth, and really dont drag it into the public to ruin a unicyclist experiences with riders and really dont make it where we have to choose sides with who we want to ride with. Lets all be better than elementary and middle schoolers.
Next time im in Portland ill have to come to some of your guys’ rides. The last two times I completely forgot about The Bastard group, and the alst time I was in Portland and ran into a guy on his coker, we were already heading to a really ace skatepark.
EDIT: Madison and the UBs should definetly settle whatever smallc rap is between them. Youll add to the ammount of people who will ride with you both, and, you will be able to fill out that calender. It looks pretty bare.
Also, I thought Madison said this already, but that must of been another thread recently, but there is now PUS. Portland Unicycle Social. Which is memorial weekend, I think. Its right around there. Very fun. We do a fun ride through the city stopping at where ever to ride, will head to the skatepark for some pure street action. When mroe people start coming, we will have more people wanting to do more styles of riding, so finding a sweet muni place is an option, or a coker ride somewhere could happen. Weve only done this once, but plan to do it annually, and each time it will get better.
Me, Madison, Phil and Jackie here have been thinking of doing a Northwest Uni con. Each time in a different city. Portland, Seattle, Spokane, N. Cal., venture into Montana. That is still just a thought, but if you stay around youll definitely hear about it if it takes off.
Like Madison, and Brycer (was it brycer? I already forgot) said, Portland is one of the top cycling towns ever. Very artistic town and filled with anything for everything you want to do.
Hum, not sure the Unicycle Bastards made the case here for being a friendly bunch of bastards, but it is a unicycle gang par none. Some are more bastardly than others, and hanging with them requires enjoying a bastardly good time, but I can hardly imagine a better crew to hook up with for some one wheeled fun.
Hey, I’m from Southern Oregon and now living in Eugene for college. Post any upcoming unicycle events that will be occuring in Portland so that I may come up and partisipate (since I’m 3 hours closer to Portland than i used to be:)
Madison FTW.
Portland = unicycle “Beirut”
So Mike from Austin posts here saying he wants to move to Portland and looks forward to some new job and uni-riding opportunities. An innocent and very wholesome question.
The response: He gets a big dose of Portland uni-dirt on how folks can’t get along here.
Anyway, Mike, wow . . . . at this point I’m sorry I even tried to correct Madison’s less-than-cheery note about other Portland riders. Yes, I guess this whole post has gotten really stupid. . . I guess maybe in the same category of a NASCAR cook book, a colostomy bag cleaning service or a mental midget of a president that uses words like “gooderer” and “evil doers”.
Cheers,
Brycer1968
well put Bryce… I think… haha. Can we move polo to friday in 3 weeks? I have night school at the same time as polo on thursdays.
Not my fault. Its obvious there is some middle-school teenage warfare between some of the UBs and Maddy. What I said was towards both groups, and wasnt really bad at all. In short I should of said “Grow up, and get over it.”
I didnt say either group of people would be bad to ride with, I didnt do anything that would make the OP be weary of the riders in Portland, how Portland is for unicycling, and I let him know that there are great rides planned that happen in and around Portland.
I have two trips to Seattle to make first, but after that Ill try to get down to Portland again. How bad are your guys’ winters? If everything just gets wet, thats perfect, cause I can still come down and do all styles of riding, but if you guys get dumped in snow I may just wait till that clears up to make my trip down.