Bike movers find ways to haul it all
Pedal power and volunteer cyclists replace moving trucks
Christopher Onstott / The Portland Tribune
Move by Bike volunteer Lisa Argersinger tows a load to Portland Central America Solidarity Committee’s new office in North Portland.
A convoy of bicycles pulling heavily loaded trailers rolls through Portland with spirited riders cheerily sounding their bells.
The bike trailers’ cargo is the stuff you’d see on somebody’s moving day — large packing boxes, framed posters and the odd appliance strapped to the top.
It is somebody’s moving day, somebody who’s chosen to move by bike. It’s another way bike enthusiasts have found to free themselves from the internal combustion engine.
“It’s attractive to people who have abandoned car culture,” said Wes Kempfer, who’s taken part in half a dozen bike moves, including his own.
“I’ve always wanted to be part of a caravan,” Steve Rousseau explained on a recent Saturday morning when he showed up with a bike trailer to help a nonprofit group, the Portland Central America Solidarity Committee, move from East Burnside Street to North Portland.
The new office on North Ivy Street is about a half-mile from the Mississippi Avenue Cooperative where he lives. “It’s to be in solidarity, it’s good to form those connections,” Rousseau added.
Fellow cooperative resident Neil Robinson brought the large bike trailer he uses to deliver groceries for People’s Food Co-op.
One of the move’s co-organizers, PCASC volunteer Lisa Argersinger, says it made sense for an organization with grass-roots connections to the developing world, where a car is a luxury, to move by bike.
“Most people live without cars. I really see bicycles as an expression of freedom — freedom from war and the constraints of a car,” Argersinger said.
Wanted: strong legs
Fliers, Web site bulletins and word of mouth are common means of getting the word out to volunteers, but an organized effort has grown out of the interest in bike moves.
Move by Bike organizes via a list serve, which can round up as many as two dozen pedaling helpers to move the belongings of a person or business.
“We make it a parade,” said Brian Scrivner, who helps with a bicycling advocacy and organizing group, Shift, and serves, fittingly, as a spokesman for Move by Bike. “We cork traffic,” which means the group sticks together, even if stoplights say otherwise, “we stay close together … from the start to the destination.”
He claims the clusters of cyclists rarely have conflicts with motorists.
“They’re so shocked, they find it so unusual, it makes them more tolerant,” he said.
Scrivner has been with Move by Bike from its start in 2003, when like-minded people began asking if such a project was possible. It’s not so much an organization as it is a phenomenon, “an idea that catches on and takes on a life of its own,” he said.
The first try was Emily Wilson’s move from one Northeast Portland residence to another, with a dozen game bicyclists launching the effort. Wilson said she’s pitched in with other people’s bike moves.
“They’re continually amazing. It’s easier if you have less stuff, but it’s possible to move the majority of your things by bike,” Wilson said.
Groceries easier than sofas
Stultifying late-afternoon heat during a recent blast of hot weather didn’t stop four bicyclists from participating in a four-mile ride through Northeast Portland carting 20 boxes, a potted plant and a wayward watermelon they were determined would be their reward.
“It was heroic,” Rachel Freifelder, the movee, said, noting that all four volunteers were doing their first bike moves on a day that was hotter than 100 degrees.
She hopes the moves allow people to see how much a pedal-powered two-wheeler can do.
“People who think they can’t use their bikes for grocery shopping — this is pushing the limit for really large things.”
A bike move doesn’t necessarily mean a total break from cars. Kempfer said his own move last October entailed a car to take things to the dump and to give a washer and dryer to some friends.
But bike trailers did manage to transport large furniture — a dining-room set, a sofa, a love seat and bookcases — about seven miles, from Northeast 73rd Avenue and Fremont Street to Goose Hollow.
A truck or van can move longer distances faster than a bike, Kempfer admitted. But he figures that in some ways a bike move is faster, because lots of people are doing a little bit.
“It was awesome,” he said. “I was kind of overwhelmed at all the help and how great it turned out.”
nevilleschen@portlandtribune.com