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Meet Joe Portland. The Joebike Interview.

Joebike is a whole new breed of bicycle store. Not surprisingly, its based in Portland, home of some revolutionary bicycle shop concepts. Joebike is an art gallery, a bicycle repair shop, a retailer of specialty bicycles, and a manufacturer of specialty bicycles. Only in Portland! Yet Portland remains an enigma to the bicycle cultures throughout North America. While its bike lanes and infrastructure are held in envy, the fashionability of the city bike in Portland is hardly the same as it would be, say, in New York. Long regarded as the archetype of city bike culture, Portland is probably more of an anamoly. In fact, Portland embraces the no-nonsense sensibility of the Dutch far more than other American cities. Despite this, Dutch bikes are often considered a ‘luxury purchase’, which most likely has to do with the well-dressed (not fashionable) culture of Amsterdam and come-what-may style of Portland. In Portland, cycling is considered more practical than fashionable (New York blends the two quite nicely), and the various ‘tribes’ of cyclists are neutralized in a city that values mutual safety and an eco-friendly worldview. We ask Joe from Joebike to reveal the Portland enigma.

bespoke. Portland has a unique status in America as a city that ‘gets it’. Zoning laws are fairly absolute, density is maximized, and bike lanes have been installed years ago. What is it about the Portland mindset that allows it to be so enlightened despite being in a country that has often opposes much of these values?

We could go all the way back to some very general differences between the goals of the people who settled Oregon and those who settled California, but then I’d be in over my head and you’d be out of print space. So I’ll fast-forward to the mid-20^th century, when Portlanders saw what freeways were doing to other cities, notably Los Angeles, and rebelled against it while there was still time. In the late 1960s Portland did away with a State of Oregon plan (which first appeared in 1955) to imitate the freeway-based layout of LA. Under Oregon’s plan, no fewer than 14 new highways would rip through the fabric of the city in order to connect the far eastern and western suburbs with downtown and each other. One of those projects, called the Mt. Hood Freeway, would have run right through the house I now own. You can still see evidence of where work on some of these highways was abruptly stopped. For example, across the river from downtown you can see the stub of an exit ramp fifty or sixty feet directly above what is now a bike and pedestrian esplanade. The bridge, the steel, the concrete just suddenly stop in the sky. The funds for those cancelled projects went instead to the construction of lightrail and other forms of public transportation, including bike lanes.

To answer your question a little more philosophically about Portland’s uniqueness in this country: a couple of writers have called us a city of fugitives and refugees. A lot of people move here because that’s how they feel elsewhere in this country, and how they don’t feel when they’re here. This is a city of inverted values, a city that rejects much of what the rest of the country is all about, a city where it’s pretty easy to be happy. Our love of bikes is one manifestation of that. As well as the cheapest and most efficient way to get around.

bespoke. Joebike is certainly not the average shop. Tell us about your vintage museum and the art shows you put on.

Well, we rent this prime space on a prime shopping district, and we decided to make the most of it. One of our mechanics is a walking encyclopedia of bike knowledge, and he’s generously brought in a lot of rare old bike parts, head badges, books and so on for display at the shop. It’s pretty remarkable how similar the old stuff looks to the new. Our art shows—we have local photographers display and sell their art, which tends to involve bikes and cycling, while in other cases our customers display their work too, which often has nothing to do with cycling. One of our first Old Dutch customers, Annaliese Moyer, is scheduled next. [Editors note: the picture below features Annaliese - the photo is by Jake Shivery of Blue Moon Camera]

bespoke. Despite being America’s shining example of bike culture, the Portland mind doesn’t seem to wrap its mind around the whole Dutch bike phenomena as well as cities like NYC, Montreal, and Chicago. We find that strange. Why?

I’d avoid trying to label Portland’s bike culture in the typical ways, just as I’d avoid labeling all motorists as NASCAR drivers, hillbillies, soccer moms, or men openly displaying their midlife crises. Besides, the same people you’ll find racing cyclocross while decked out in Spandex kits probably also ride something with fenders and racks to get to work.

So let’s look at Portland’s relationship with Dutch bikes. One, Portland has hills and for that reason alone it will never be Amsterdam. The kind of people here who like upright riding positions and relaxed yet dignified rides tend not to savor the experience of pumping up a hill. Two, cost. Portland is not the most affluent city out there. The unemployment rate is high. There’s well beyond a critical mass of unemployed or underemployed young people who’ve made an ethos out of living simply and cheaply; if you have money, you tend to underplay it [editors note: sounds like Holland!]. Dutch bikes have been out of reach for most people here, and owning one might make you appear to be showing off. Three, Portland is the most casually dressed big city I’ve ever lived in. There’s not much cache in being able to wear your suit during your bike commute, because not many people wear suits, particularly outside of downtown. And I hate to use the C word, but there’s a built-in resistance to coaster brakes here. I don’t know if that’s an American phenomenon or what, but it’s an obstacle.

Finally, and ironically, Portlanders may be more in tune with the Dutch idea of a bike as a basic, practical object and less in tune with the idea of a bike as some sort of personal statement–and so a Portlander’s reasons for buying a Dutch bike could very well differ from those of a New Yorker and instead resemble those of the Dutch—in which case the bike just needs to be practical, not necessarily Dutch.

bespoke. The other great thing about Portland is you have this absolutely phenomenal group of craftsmen. I don’t know too many shops that spend so much time altering and manufacturing products for the city cyclist on a totally grassroots level. From bags to bikes, Portland definitely has the highest energy of bike friendly cities. There are also several shops that have not only mechanics, but welders on board. You yourself are rather famous for your version of the bakfiets and of course, the JoeBike itself. Tell us a little about your business and how you use that Portland ‘energy’ yet differentiate yourself from other shops. What is the history of the Joebike bicycle and Joebike the bicycle shop?

The bakfiets platform is amazingly versatile, yet I don’t see the Dutch or Danish manufacturers exploiting that or innovating with the form very much. Perhaps for Amsterdam or Copenhagen the bikes are more or less perfectly suited, or maybe since they’ve been around for ninety years there isn’t much interest in reinventing them. But they’re new here, and simply exporting a 100 lb. flatland cargo bike to hilly US cities will get the Dutch, or shall I say has gotten them, only so far, even with an 8-speed hub. And those who’ve imported them have done little to adapt their bikes to the local markets, preferring to rely I guess on a certain boutique appeal or to remain strictly resellers, not innovators. My shop has always wanted not just to sell affordable utility bikes but to develop better ones. Even within a 1-mile radius we have some of the country’s most famous frame builders, some of its most innovative cargotrike and recumbent designers (Stites Design, e.g.), and probably the best e-assist technology out there, Ecospeed. We have several young Midwestern transplants who are doing cutting-edge stuff with carbon fiber and with bike accessories (Ruckus Components and Portland Design Works, respectively). We also have soft-goods designers, boatbuilders, artisans of all types. Some of them have barreled through the recession busier than ever, and others who are just getting started are hungry for work, particularly interesting work like bike and accessory design. So, yes, all this talent is within a five-minute bike ride; go to a party and the same talent will all be in the same room. Connections happen very quickly here. Plus we have a customer base that’s frequently just as knowledgeable, and sometimes more so, than we are, and their input has gone into what we produce.

A little on the history of the Joe Bike—its principles are modularity, versatility, and ease of use, so that a single bike can carry kids, furniture, groceries, gravel, ladders, kayaks, and so on with no tools, minimal weight, maximal loading area, and without the feeling that you’re pushing a cast-iron bathtub around. Joe Bike as an entity is barely a year old, and it’s not clear whether we’re going to be a bike shop that happens to make some of its bikes or a bike manufacturer that happens to retail. I like having one foot in each world—you’d think that might trip us up, but actually it allows us to innovate, test, improve, and grow very quickly.

bespoke. The bicycle industry in North America has been calling city bikes ‘commuter bikes’ – a definition we have some problems with. A commuter bike, as we see it, is a bike that follows the same patterns of suburban to urban driving – in other words, distance oriented cycling. A city bike, on the other hand, multitasks an intense yet finite area of activity. What is the average distance of the daily Portland cyclist? Are they mostly covering distance or are they using bicycles for a variety of tasks, from brunch to formal events?

To be honest, I don’t have much exposure to people who live in the suburbs—there’s a pretty wide gulf here between suburbanites and Portlanders, particularly when there aren’t 14 freeways to choose from–so I don’t know what a typical suburb-to-city commute is like. This is going to skew my perception of what a commuter bike is.

In any case, these labels aren’t very helpful in my mind because they’re not distinct: city bikes, commuting bikes, urban bikes, transportation bikes—they’re all interchangeable to some and very different animals to others. This is maybe another example of where Portlanders stubbornly reject labels in favor of what actually works for them given the means they actually have. And so all these thousands of old mountain bikes already out there from when everybody was buying mountain bikes—you swap out the knobby tires for a set of Schwalbe Marathons, you slap on a pair of fenders and a rack or two, you get a rainproof bag and a set of lights—and there’s your commuter bike. And then there’s the “city bike” label. In Portland the notion of a city bike is quite different from what you described. Here, a city bike somehow is something that’s not ideal for everyday transportation but rather is geared toward putzing around to the coffee shop on a Sunday morning or mounting a Bobike to so that you can take your child to the playground. These labels just don’t have that much value. The newest coinage is “transportation bike”, which at first struck me as an awkward way of suggesting to people what they already know: if you can commute to work, you can also do most of your typical errands on the same bike. It’s obviously an allusion to living without a car, but beyond that, what does it mean? That you have factory-made racks over the front and rear wheels? Okay.

bespoke. Tell us about cash for clunkers and your involvement in the program.

We started our cash for clunkers program, which we’ve since creatively renamed Bikes for Clunkers, partly as a joke and partly as a statement about the federal program. At first we thought, well, we can’t take car donations, as that would put us in a different line of work, but we can take clunker bikes, donate them to cycling-oriented nonprofits in Portland, and give people discounts on new bikes. So that’s how it started. Then it turned out that some nonprofits are already set up to accept car donations, which I kind of already knew but hadn’t put two and two together. When I finally did, we called the American Lung Association, which takes car donations, and they agreed to take part. We called Zipcar to see if they’d give discounts to people who donated their cars and bought a bike, and they came up with a seriously generous package of discounts. Then the Bicycle Transportation Alliance agreed to give donors a free one-year membership, which can be used to get 10% off parts and accessories at most Portland bike shops. We’re now up to about eight nonprofits, including Mercy Corps, the Oregon Humane Society, and others. I’d like other bike shops in Portland to sign on and make it a citywide thing.

bespoke. How have bikes like Batavus fit into the Portland scene? What benefit do they offer that is missing from other bikes? Who is the typical buyer?

A lot of our Batavus customers are European or have lived in Europe. They know and trust the brand, they understand its roots, they appreciate its practicality and durability, and they’ve experienced the joy of slow riding. We don’t have to sell them on Batavus; they seek us out with their minds already made up. Usually they don’t even look at other bikes.

bespoke. Up to now, city biking in North America has not been for everyone. In fact, it may even be described as a rather confrontational culture. In Holland, quite the opposite is true. Bikes are hardly an ideal object like they are here, and they hardly attract a particular tribe – in fact they’re just for everyone. Do you see a shift in ‘the tribe’?  How would you describe the ‘old guard’ versus the ‘new guard’?

There are those who find that less is more and those who find that less is less. Stripped-down fixies with no brakes, fenders, or decals have been very popular here, and there’s beauty in their simplicity. But others are just the opposite–they love their chainguards, skirt guards, racks, fenders, built-in locks and dynamo hubs, because all of this simplifies life—they don’t have to dress down to ride, they don’t have to remember to stick a Kryptonite lock in their rear pocket—they just get on and ride knowing that everything is already in place. Simplicity is in the eye of the beholder. As for old guard vs. new, I’d say that if any local concentration of cyclists gets as sophisticated as Portland’s has, you’re going to see a great diversity not only in bikes but in the mindstate of riding. This could be a function of safety and confidence—as people feel safer biking the streets, some will choose to slow down and relax, others will choose to race with traffic, and still others will vary by the day, by the minute, by whatever mood they’re in or what they happen to be wearing. So I guess I don’t believe in tribes so much in this context.

bespoke. The city bike cultures of NYC, Chicago and Toronto tend to be very serious, even gentrified. The city bike cultures of LA seem multi-demographic, but wild, crazy and quite spontaneous (Joseph at Flying Pigeon ends his group rides by smashing and burning a Pinata, while our Toronto group rides end in a glass of Pinot Noir), what’s the Portland scene like?

It’s all of those things, across a lot of demographics, along with a huge dose of ecological and economic activism–these are the children and grandchildren of the people who put a stop to the 14-freeway plan all those years ago. In fact I think the reason why Critical Mass rides died out in Portland is that the battle had been won. They’d made their point, made people aware, and moved up the chain of activism into policy and politics. As for the Portland “scene”, that’s a notion I wish we could see through. There are too many scenes to say that one or another typifies the Portland rider or the city itself. For example, a lot of people point to, and pick on, the hipster with the skinny jeans and the fixie. God, it’s hard to tell them apart, isn’t it? Especially at night, with no lights front or rear. But come out to a cross race or the Mt. Tabor series—they tend to look and act alike too. Or ride out to the Hawthorne Bridge at morning rush hour—all those commuters in their rain gear on nondescript hybrids. It’s all the same scene. It’s just people. That said, check out this video, shot in our neighborhood last summer. Also check out Pedalpalooza in the summer and Oregon Manifest in the fall. These are weeks-long celebrations of bike riding and bike building.

bespoke. We don’t think of the bicycle as an ideal object at all. We’re kind of like the Dutch that way. However, we do think of a bicycle as a romantic object. What are your thoughts?

I’ve never owned a bike that I didn’t love, no matter its flaws. They’re like friends that way. Friends with benefits.