Last night at the drizzly corner of SE 7th and Ankeny, the bicyclist behind me pulled up close and said, "excuse me," in a British accent.  She had just pulled into town on the train and was looking for the Hawthorne Hostel.  Seeing the Burley-bedecked bike commuting trio in which I was riding, she followed us over the Burnside Bridge assuming that we knew where we were going.  She got more than she was bargaining for, I'm sure.  She'd pulled up alongside a British-born 3-speed expert, an outgoing bike policy advocate, and me.  We talked her ear off about traffic calming fantasies, post-war car/bike/media relations, and bike routes out to the coast.  We even gave her a pocket-sized folding bike map.  I'm so glad we met up with her.  She joined our pack thinking:

• Seattle is more bike-friendly than Portland
• There's a war between cars and bikes in Portland and that she's risking her life by riding on our streets
• Burnside to 30th is the way to get to Hawthorne Hostel from downtown

She got the first notion because she had a friend in Seattle who showed her around–an ambassador.  The second notion came from a TV news-casualty who bent her ear at the train station when he saw her heavy-laden touring bike.  The last idea was a result of the fact that Portland's most important/obvious routes are among our least bike-friendly and you can only have so many maps and signs to make up for that.

Here at the BTA, we're doing the patience-testing work of getting more people comfortable on and around bikes and making this a better place for riding.  Our British visitor's misperceptions prove that we have plenty of work to do but it sure is nice to get the rare chance to, through a pleasant rainy evening bike ride, improve one person's biking experience here in Portland.

Anybody can be an ambassador to biking.  Wave to people.  Be approachable.  Carry maps (Stop by the office.  We have plenty of them.)

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