Editors note: Portland

Portland is the largest city in Oregon, located on the northwest side of the USA. It’s known for its beautiful surroundings, eco-friendliness, music scene, microbreweries and coffeehouses. But most of all - Portland is known for its strong bicycle culture and the city is slowly growing into becoming the bicycle capital of the USA.

Bikevibe Tokyo, our first issue, came about while I was traveling, with no intentions of making a magazine. This was the first issue where we traveled as a team and after two intense months of planning and researching, we packed our bags and headed over seas to explore the new far north.

The first thing that struck me about Portland is the warm community feeling. The medium sized city is a mix of many small, cozy neighborhoods, where you immediately feel at home. And so we did. In our rented house on the well-known Alberta Street, we spent 10 days making this issue.

The plan was to conduct 10 interviews, four video interviews and still have time for some exploring around town in between. The funny thing is that, like Bikevibe Tokyo, some of the best stories came about while we were just strolling around town with no actual plan. And so, we ended up with hours of tape recordings, 15 interviews and memories for life.

The story on Bri Gomez is a good example. We were having lunch at Velo Cult after walking around town for a couple of hours. Through the window I see this awesome, stylish girl on a green bicycle. I grab my camera and run out to chase her down. After talking for half an hour, we had exchanged numbers with the intention of getting an interview in before we left. The next morning I got a text message from Bri saying she had gathered ten of her crewmembers and where ready to meet up. Talk about efficiency. We met up in the beautiful Laurenhurst Park, did a two-hour photoshoot and had a blast.

Another funny story is Leah Benson, who runs Glays Bikes right around the corner from where we stayed. We met her the first day and ended up doing a story on her and the unique concept of renting out bicycle seats before you buy one, to make sure it fits you. We also got into situations showing how small the world really is. The first guy I photographed on the street turned out to be the son of Portland’s Bicycle director, who we had scheduled an interview with the next day. What are the odds of that?

We also ran into a guy in a store with mutual friends of ours in Oslo. That’s also a pretty unusual scenario when you travel the world.

The total ended up being a great mix of stories, a lot of amazing new friends and we even got the time to celebrate Thanksgiving in the traditional way with the great people of The Athletic Community.

On the plane home, exhausted and happy, I remember thinking that Portland was the perfect choice for this issue.

Mari Oshaug Editor-in-chief