The bike is my home

Text: Silje Strømmen
Photos: Mari Oshaug

Picture the following scenario: The Bikevibe crew is sitting inside a café (Velocult, to be precise) and all of a sudden Mari, our editor, jumps to her feet, grabs her camera and runs off. The reason? Bri Gomez.

At that point we didn’t know much about Bri other than her name, that she owned a pretty nice bike and that she had a crew/gang/group. Luckily for us Bri isn’t shy (or intimidated by a camera or crazy Norwegians) and quickly agreed to gather her friends and meet up with us the following day.

So, the day after we met up with her and her crew in Laurelhurst Park to talk about how she got into biking, the first time she put together a bike and her thoughts on Portland as a bicycle city.

(…)And to look at some impressive bikes.

On how she got into biking I learned to ride without training wheels at the age of 11! I could not figure out balance for the life of me. From there, my first “real” bike was a real cheap mountain bike and I loved it. Living in a desert made it that more awesome. I outgrew my bike real fast and haven’t had one until about 6 years ago. My passion for cycling really started with my bike lights being taken off so often. I’d be going through 4-5 head- and taillights being taken off every year. I got fed up with that and decided to invest in some really nice lights. In order to install them I had to take off the wheels, something I had never done before.

At that time I didn’t know the first thing about bicycle. I knew so little, I was scared I wouldn’t be able to put it back together! So I took it apart, installed the lights and tried my best putting it back together correctly. I was so pumped, I had it working just as good as before! That inspired me to build up my own bike. So I started ordering parts online, the frame, the crankset, the wheels, everything. It took me about three months to order all the parts and to get them shipped to me, and then I built my first bike (you can see the bike in the photos on the following pages).

It was the very first bike that I had ever built, and that was three years ago. I had never ridden a fixed before and it was so weird. I wasn’t sure if I liked it and bummed myself out because I had spent so much time and money on it, and then I didn’t even like the bike. So I made myself ride around and a few days later, fell in love. It is the only bike I ever ride now. Then I got really excited, built my second bike and a friend of mine told me “you should go to bike school”. And so I attended United Bicycle Institute of Portland. I eventually would like to open my own shop or maybe a cafe for cyclists. It is hard to explain what it is about bikes that have captured my interest. It’s just the way you feel when you ride a bike; you feel free, you feel invincible, and unstoppable, like you can get away from everybody and everything. It’s just you, your bike, and the road. The fact that I know how to maintenance and build one up from just a frame gets me so excited!. It is so simple, and has so much to it at the same time. It is my life. I see a bike and I go “yes, that is my home!” I look at another cyclist and we have that mutual vibe.

On her bicycle crew We are not really a crew; we’re just a bunch of friends hanging out. I met most of them through Pedalpalooza, a monthly bike event where everybody gets together, dresses up and rides all over Portland. We became friends and decided to do rides outside of the Pedalpalooza (upon first meeting us they were actually preparing to ride the yearly Cranksgiving race in Portland).

We ride after work and message each other throughout the day like “hey, lets ride this, lets ride that”. We are a group of different types of cyclists and different types of bikes. Our group has a little bit of everything: from freak-bikes to fixies. People are not judgemental, they are more like “that is a sweet bike!”

Everybody is super accepting and excited that others like to ride too. We all get together because of bikes. We talk about bikes all the time; it is just constant bike-talk.

On biking and Portland The best thing about biking in Portland is how assessable everything is. Portland is a small city, so it is easy to get everywhere: sometimes you get to where you’re going faster by bike than by car. The bike lanes definitely make it easier, and we have a lot of courteous drivers here, which is awesome.

Biking in Portland is cheaper, easier and faster than driving a car, and you get an awesome cycling community out of it. The worst thing about biking in Portland? There is nothing really too bad about it. A lot of people see weather as a disadvantage, but I say “just wear rain gear!” I always say that if you are riding and you’re cold, you are not riding fast enough. The Portland bicycle scene is different in some ways but very similar to other cities. It is very diverse and people are very welcoming.

The government are definitely doing more on correcting the roads and making them more bike-friendly.

There are a lot of plans being made about where they will be putting in bike lanes. We are hoping for them to put in bike lanes along Powell Boulevard, because that is a pretty dangerous street and there has been a lot of accidents there. There is a little pathway along the river, called Springwater Corridor, which I like to ride at night when it’s quiet. When I ride I like to get out of the city to where it is “woodsy”. Forest Park is really nice. It has a lot of trees and good trails. It is quiet and outside of the city, but still in the city.