Michael Embacher’s New World Tourist. photo courtesy of Cyclepedia.

If you love bikes, the Portland [Oregon] Art Museum is a must-see destination this summer with its exhibit: Cyclepedia: Iconic Bicycle Design.

The exhibit is a display from the private collection of Michael Embacher, a bicycle aficionado and designer who wrote the book “Cyclepedia.”

Bike Friday’s New World Tourist is part of Embacher’s collection, and one of the 36 bicycles selected for display in Portland.

“I am not much for art books on the coffee table in the living room, but when I first saw our customer Michael Embacher’s book Cyclopedia I  knew he was an appreciator of bikes in my own sense,” Bike Friday Co-Founder Alan Scholz says.

“He has collected some of the most interesting bikes built in my lifetime, and a few before. When you see the picture of his attic in his house in Switzerland you will know you are not the only one that says the right number of bikes is just one more!

“He has collected a huge range of cool designs that are some quite a ways from ‘common’ bikes. If you like bikes you will really enjoy Michael’s pick of bikes to collect for your bike geek enjoyment.”

Bike Friday will be partnering with the Portland Museum of Art throughout the exhibit’s run to help visitors understand and appreciate what Bike Friday has to offer.

It is a fantastic opportunity to justify a trip to Oregon: Come pick up your new Bike Friday and visit the exhibit.

One of the coolest aspects of Embacher’s work can be enjoyed whether or not you can make it to Portland. It’s the Cyclepedia iPad AP that is available on iTunes and just a blast to play with [especially the Bike Friday display].

As Bike Friday finalizes its appearances in Portland during the exhibit we will announce them here.

It might sound a little far-fetched in these cynical days of focus on the bottom line, but really, at the end of the day, we just want to see people on bikes: American bikes Made in the USA.

With that said, we ran across this most interesting manner in which one can obtain a Bike Friday tikit.

Best of all, it’s free!

You might wonder why we’d be promoting someone giving away a Bike Friday when we could just as easily sell you one.

But it pains us to think there is a Bike Friday out there in need of a wonderful owner who can use its versatility to change his or her life, just as this one did for the previous owner [sorry, you’ll have to read the blog to learn how it did that).

So here goes. Read, enter and GOOD LUCK!

Win a FREE TIKIT

Yet another window decorated with a Bike Friday in Santa Rosa, CA, by our dealer BikePartners.net. This one at 637 4th Street downtown, at Ancient Oak Cellars tasting room.

When the Tour of California bicycle races finishes Sunday in Santa Rosa, race fans will be greeted by a number of Bike Fridays in the windows of various businesses.

BikePartners.net, our Bike Friday Dealer in Santa Rosa, has been busy strategically placing bikes.

If you’re out there for Stage 8, check ‘em out!

Bike Friday’s Pocket Llama [in a large, 60 cm frame] next to a 36er — big brother of the 29er.

While the 29er [that's a 29-inch wheel] has been getting attention for a few years, Raz got a peek at a 36er!!

Wang Yining, manager of Bike Friday dealer AITA CYCLE in Beijing, China, rode in the Vintage ride Beijing.

Getting dressed up in vintage clothes and enjoying a great day of cycling is hardly something Americans have cornered the market on.

In Beijing, China, the Vintage Ride Beijing was recently held. Bike Friday’s dealer in  Beijing, AITA CYCLE, not only had a stylish representative in manager  Wang Yining, It was also a sponsor of the event.

Now that’s a styling helmet.

Carry the laptop in style.

My old friend, going back 6 years.

I have to admit, I had other things on my mind.

A beautiful spring day, sunshine angling with soft morning light…

I just nailed the photo of our Touring Silk that I had been hoping for.

Now it was time to get into work.

I should have known, really, all the signs were there.

When I rolled down to the Bike Path along the Willamette River, another old friend [or maybe blood relative of my old friend] stood like a sentry watching over my entry to my favorite ride.

An osprey, with its bright white breast sandwiched by dark black wings perched atop an ash, just along the Canoe Canal. The sun illuminating its breast like a spotlight.

It’s his spot, one he has returned to time and again in the past three years. It’s only a few hundred yards from the wire tower that held an Osprey nest a few years ago, before a wicked spring storm blew it off to a 100-foot crash in the brush.

Somehow they managed to get the young Ospreys over to a makeshift nest in a small stand of trees, building the new nest around the survivors.

Since then, the ash has been the lookout perch.

The blue heron nests farther up the bike path were quiet. I had seen them building the nests a few weeks ago. I hope to hear the clacking of blue heron chicks snapping their bills together, calling for food, sometime in the near the future.

Yes, I saw those hints. But the photo opportunity had garnered my attention.

I snapped my photos, and began a more spirited ride toward work.

Once again, riding along the banks of the Willamette, where my buddy has returned each spring for most of the past six years.

Last year, I feared the worse since I hadn’t seen him in two years.

But we had a reunion of sorts.

While he didn’t greet me with his usual cackle, I was pretty sure it was him.

Six years ago he first drew my attention by blasting his call to me each time I passed.

I’d stop and watch countless others pass by without a peep from him.

Each year he’d buoy my spirits, catching me off guard with his “HELLO!”

It’s the moment each year when he slaps me awake from my winter doldrums, and helps me become aware again.

Suddenly I see everything. Hear everything.

The woodpecker hammering on a traffic sign, unaware his chance of penetrating the metal are very slim. A true to life Woody Woodpecker, making me laugh as loudly as the cartoon version ever did.

The squirrels who seem to pause a little longer as they dart out in front of me, freeze, curl their tail, then disappear back from where they came.

In any event, thanks to the osprey and herons, I was a little more alert than usual. Still, it’s been three years since he called to me.

Then, he did it. He blasted out his call.

I stopped and saw him, grand as ever, pecking on the same woodpile as last year.

He had a companion. He watched me as she pecked a bit, and disappeared behind a shrub. I snapped a photo or two. Said hi.

See you in the fall.

Graham Smith touring the backroads of Australia on his New World Tourist.

A picture can be worth a thousand sighs.

I don’t know about you, but I could stare at this photo we received from Bike Friday owner Graham Smith, from his recent camping adventure on the backroads of Australia.

You can read about his adventure here.

His note:

Hi Peter, John

Last week I finished a short, hilly, loaded backroads tour on my NWT from Goulburn to Katoomba NSW  Australia.

Weather was superb, countryside was beautiful and the route turned out to be a good one. 

The bike performed superbly.

Graham

Thank you Portland for another successful show this weekend at the Portland Expo Center.

Despite wonderful spring weather luring cyclists outside for some great riding, a strong number of cycling enthusiasts came indoors for the show.

Bike Friday’s showroom host Robbie Dow and marketing dude Raz got the chance to meet a lot of our Bike Friday owners, and show off our bikes including the new Silk to a number of folks.

The highlight of the show, for us, at least, was the Fashion Show, where model Carmen Ruud showed off our two tikits on hand, a Carbon Infinity tikit and future’s tikit.

Carmen Ruud showing off the Selle Anatomica saddle.

Carmen Ruud sowing off the Carbon Infinity tikit with a Selle Anatomica saddle and bags.

Carmen Ruud showing off the bike to longtime Bike Friday owners Lou and Sue Liserani, sitting on the bench.

Carmen Ruud, just looking good.

Daniel van der Weide races his Bike Friday Pocket Rocket Pro in the Hungry Dog Criterium in Mesa, AZ.

Bike Friday owner Daniel van der Weide was a little hesitant at first, but when officials gave him the thumbs up, he pedaled away on his Pocket Rocket Pro in the Masters 50-60 division at the Hungry Dog Criterium in Mesa, AZ.

“I was apprehensive, but the official let me in,” van der Weide said, “and nobody gave me anything but compliments. Helps if you can stay up front and prove your credibility, and it also helps to look well ahead in the corners, since small wheels carry a lot less angular momentum. Sprinting wasn’t as easy, either, but I gave my teammate a decent lead-out and finished in the bunch.”