Pedalpalooza is in full swing in Portland, and who better to celebrate with than some of our bike shop friends? We recently joined forces with the crew at
Joe Bike to put on the 2024
Scavenger Hunt Ride!
Located in SE Portland, Joe Bike specializes in custom dream bike builds. From urban commuters to gravel grinders, they've got a little bit of everything, including for kids, which is why we wanted to host a fun event for all ages!
We created a self-paced ride that could be done alone or with a crew to find tokens made from mostly recycled items. Bill from Joe Bike built a digital map on Ride with GPS as well as printed guides. Some of the most fun event prep work ever was riding around Portland to hide the tokens high and low and writing clues to help our intrepid riders find the keys to future swag.
You've gotta have good treasure for your hunt, so we gathered sweet prizes from Surly, Salsa, Kona, Showers Pass, Lazer Helmets,
and of course Joe Bike and PDW!
In addition to our free event, we co-hosted a raffle with larger prizes, with all proceeds from tickets sold at Joe Bike going to local non-profit Bikes for Humanity. They repair used bikes to get them back out on the streets of PDX, host repair hubs in and around Portland, and teach free repair classes. Super cool.
We distributed treasure maps to riders on Saturday morning, and within a few hours that same day all the tokens had been claimed.
Riders met up at Laurelhurst Park early Saturday evening for ice cream, refreshments, tunes, and of course the big prize ceremony.
We had a blast meeting riders and hearing about their routes and finds!
A crowd favorite was our dog winner Gretchen, who sniffed out not one but two prize tokens for her human. Now that's a Very Good Dog.
We're thrilled to share that we raised $430 in the shop raffle for Bikes For Humanity, with our grand prize winner Frank taking home a set of Full Metal Fenders of their choice!
Thanks again to everyone for joining the fun, and we hope you have an excellent Bike Summer!
Words: Kate Echols Moore
Photos: Tim Wesolowski and Erik Olson
