“Bike Tours Portland” was the very first thing I Googled when planning my latest family adventure. Portland, Oregon is progressive on many fronts — including its bicycling efforts. In short, Portland is a bicyclist’s dream with miles of protected bike lanes taking you from neighborhood to neighborhood. But what is it like as a local? And more importantly, is there someone who could show us around its many hidden neighborhoods? Otherwise, I’m not afraid to admit it, I’d totally get us lost!
I’m glad that I’m not in charge! Enjoying our guided biking tour and taking in the beautiful rose city of Portland.
That’s when I came across Around Portland Tours, which offers a wide range of tour options, including bike tours through the Columbia River Gorge to rides through Portland’s east side to visit its famed food carts. We ended up going with their popular “Bike Around Portland Tour” — a 3 hour ride through the neighborhoods Portlanders love the most. Okay, and it also included a doughnut stop. This pretty much convinced me it was the best tour for us. Negative calories I say! Check out our journey below and why you should consider it for your next Portland, Oregon adventure.
Meeting Up: Around Portland Tours
Arriving at Around Portland Tours main office, and meeting the very friendly Bear, the dog.
Around Portland bike tours and their east side walking tours start at their shop at 833 SE Main Street #120. As a LA resident, I’m obsessed with parking. And it couldn’t be any easier here. There is plenty of free street parking. Score! Tour groups are kept small for a personal experience. Sarah, the company’s founder, knew who I was before I checked in. Okay, we were running a LITTLE behind so I guess it was easy to figure out. We were also greeted by the very friendly Bear, the dog. Bear typically joins along the Gorge Tour, but stayed behind today. He seemed to love all of the attention he was getting, including from us!
Sarah, gives us an overview on what we’ll expect today on our tour.
After a brief intro, we were fitted with bikes and helmets. Sarah, who began the tour company 4 years ago, has been a bicycle evangelist for nearly 20 years. She’s a storyteller at heart — honing her skills from a long tradition of writing, from literary essays to a rich blogging career and a strong background in journalism.
Ironically, our originally scheduled guide, Ana, was stuck in traffic due to — of all things — bicyclists blocking the way. Oh yes, you know you’re in Portland! Portland’s annual Bridge Pedal is a community celebration of the city’s iconic bridges and biking culture. Ana would eventually join us halfway through the ride, giving us the opportunity to hear 2 different perspectives of life in Portland.
Stop #1: Stop and Smell The Roses
In total, this ride runs anywhere from 8 to 11 miles. It’s mostly flat and the time truly flies by. The first stop is just a quick ride from the shop and is a place we never knew existed. Ladd’s Addition is a neighborhood that was specifically built as a planned community to keep the street cars out. Think of it as the modern-day efforts to keep mass transit from the fancy neighborhoods, like in LA with Beverly Hills.
The district is best known in Portland for a diagonal street pattern, which is at odds with the grid pattern you’d find in most of the city. What else does it have? Gorgeous roses and gardens at the center of it all.
William S. Ladd was a banker and owned the land that was transformed into the neighborhood today. The story goes that his wife loved roses so he incorporated four small rose gardens and a central traffic circle surrounding a park.
It was at this spot that Sarah also explained Portland’s deep connection to roses, and how it became known internationally as the “City of Roses,” due largely in part to the famed International Rose Test Garden. The city has had a long and deep connection to the flower with The Portland Rose Society, formed in 1889. But this distinction was further cemented in 1905 at the Lewis and Clark Centennial celebration, which included 200 miles of rose-lined streets. Portlanders take their roses very seriously and it shows! Before leaving the neighborhood, my husband noticed a rocking horse tied to the curb across from the rose garden… something you certainly don’t see every day.
Sarah explained there was an effort just a few years back to put rings on curbs in the newly redone Pearl section of Portland so that it mirrored the rings in the older sections that were used to tie horses up in the horse and buggy days. It didn’t take long for an artist to start attaching toy horses, which inspired others around the city to do the same as a joke. It’s the exact quirky thing we’d expect to find in a city known to march to its own beat!
Stop #2: Sampling Portland’s Iconic Doughnuts: Count Us In!
While many people think of Portland as the city of roses, I actually think of it as the city of doughnuts. You can see my true love of food shining through. Voodoo Doughnut, and its bright pink boxes, are on most tourists must-visit lists. But on this tour, you’ll get to experience the doughnut shops that most locals will go to. One of my good friends, who has spent a lot of time in Portland, texted me singing praises of everything at Blue Star Doughnut. So you can only imagine my excitement when Sarah included a stop at their shop.
There were so many options on the menu. We ended up going with Sarah’s recommendation of the chocolate buttermilk old fashion and their signature “O.G.” with house-made Orxata (aka Horchata) glaze. I grabbed a coffee for the perfect pairing.
Oops, Kevin ended up eating half the doughnut before I even got to take a photo.
Continuing Our Journey: Welcoming Our New Guide
We were filled up with doughnuts and hyped up with caffeine ready to take on the rest of the journey. After battling the wild bike-congested traffic jam, our new guide Ana was able to take over the tour. At this point, we went single file to take on some incredible bike trails. I got such a kick out of the built-in channels made for bikes to go up the staircases.
Up and away! The biking friendly city of Portland includes these ramps to easily transport bikes up and down the staircase. How cool is that?
The tour continued along the south waterfront, which include some beautiful artwork and murals. Be sure to keep you eyes open for them.
And once again, you never know what you’ll expect to find in Portland. Say… like a random guy just playing a piano in the middle of the street! Why not?
Bridge Crossings and More: Bike Tours Portland
Tilikum Crossing is a “bridge of the people” — quite literally, translated from the local Native Chinook language. But it’s more than just a name. Aside from its striking design, this cable-stayed bridge spanning the Willamette River is the only bridge in the country dedicated to light rail, buses, bicycles and pedestrians — i.e. no automobile traffic. Completed in 2015, the bridge links the city’s south waterfront, home to the Oregon Health & Science University (including an aerial tram) to the central eastside with the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI). Ana took us to a cool little beach where we could take it all in.
In particular, we got a kick out of the poem by “Amy” who was just in the first grade. Something tells me she has a future in poetry writing!
As we winded our way along the bike pathway, we crossed another bridge and took in the views.
What a spectacular day out in Portland. We ate doughnuts (remember negative calories), saw cute neighborhoods and truly saw Portland like a local. Best of all, I just had to ride along and follow. As we headed out, Ana gave us stickers to recognize all of our hard work pedaling. Something tells me we’ll sleep well tonight!
The low down
- Searching for “Bike Tours Portland” like us? Look no further than Around Portland Tours.
- The company offers a wide range of bike tours as well as walking tours through Portland including Food Carts of Portland Bike Tour, a Cannabis Biking Tour, the Columbia Gorge and several doughnut themed tours.
- Biking isn’t your speed? They also offer small group walking tours in downtown Portland and hiking tours.
- We joined their Bike Around Portland: Bridges, Doughnuts, Parks and Roses Tour. As you can tell, it literally hits all those things and is a pretty 8 to 11 mile ride that takes place daily at either 9 a.m. or 1:30 p.m. This tour is 3 hours in length with no more than 10 travelers.
- Total cost is $49 for each adult and $40 for children up to 12 years old. Each tour includes all of the equipment including bike helmets, bikes, an experienced guide and water.
- To learn more information and to book a tour, go directly to the Around Portland Tours website.
Looking for other ideas while visiting Portland? Be sure to check out our 1 day guide to Portland. Planning to travel further along the west coast? Be sure to check out all of our coverage on California, including our adventures on Catalina Island. And of course, if you are looking for more ideas to do during COVID, here are our top 5 fun ideas to do at home.
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