Portland is well known for its bicycle culture. Bicycling.com rates Portland as the United States’ #2 Bike-Friendly City while Travel & Leisure ranks it among the world’s best. At 5pm on a weekday there’s as likely to be bike traffic as car traffic crossing the bridges. Bikes lined up 30 thick waiting for their turn to take space along the rails. There are stoplights especially for bikes. A search for “bicycle repair, Portland OR” shows a large chunk of bike repair shops in Portland.
Of these shops I’ve already tried “Citybikes Workers’ Cooperative” and “Bike Gallery” – both local shops that came with recommendations. Citybikes has all the traits of a hippy cooperative and if you’ve never seen a good Oregon hippy cooperative with creative wall paintings, repurposed attic space, faded ironic t-shirts, and custom bikes then it’s worth the trip. Bike Gallery has new carpeting, rain forest print spandex, brand name everything, and trendy bikes imported from Denmark. Both required appointments in advance and when I left my bike was fully tuned but I had that funny dread of not being a good cyclist. The job I paid for was presented as both mysterious and something I should/could do myself.
I’ve always been one to ride a bike because it is fun. I had a bike about three years ago that I really enjoyed riding but was too heavy to carry up and down stairs. I got this new bike used because it was lighter yet still sturdy and had it repaired first at Citybikes then a year later at Bike Gallery. I rode less and less until my bike spent over a year tied to a post. I knew from my previous experiences that I really didn’t want to face the bike experts at either shop I’d been to before. With spring on its way I wasn’t going to let elitist repairmen get between me and another attempt at riding my bike more regularly preferably to and from work.
shadow of my bike atop my car
I did a search for a new bike shop, something local, something comfortable looking, something with convenient hours. After some delay I had a free day, threw my bike on my car’s bike rack and drove out to A Better Cycle. I remembered part way there that the previous shops required appointments but at that point I was not going to turn around, I had momentum. I also had a bit of hope. I would get this done. And if I didn’t then my bike would sit atop my car until I did.
Outside A Better Cycle
When I pulled up to A Better Cycle the guy was helping a man and his son work on his son’s new bike, something involving gears. The bike guy had me bring my bike over, looked it over, told me that there was hope and proceeded to talk me through my bike. There was something involving the torque being off on my brake handles which sounded like “—- torque —- brake [thing] — you’d need superman’s strength to pull these.” He was right! I always thought it was just me (here’s to avoiding the conversation about the boyfriend who helped me get the bike who had no trouble pulling those brakes with his huge hands). Then we discussed my tires and he pulled down some alternatives which required my attention to note the quality.
The end result was three days later I paid the same as I had at the other two shops but I got a bike that was a joy to ride. The brakes responded as they should, the tires were perfect, I could peddle and GO and next year I’ll pay a quarter as much for a normal sort of tune-up. The guys at A Better Cycle saw me, saw my needs, took my bike and made it suit, comfortably, casually, loving what they do but not requiring me to do anything more than squeeze a tire to see how durable it would be. I’m looking forward to next year’s Spring time repair.
