Review: Pedal Bike Tours

What’s the big picture here?
From its easy online booking process to its carefully plotted routes, this bike tour company is all pro, without sacrificing the laid back, keep-Portland-weird vibe the city is so proud of. You’ll meet your guide and fellow riders at Pedal’s Oldtown office, set in a grand brick-walled historic building (you can street park, but if you don’t want to worry about plugging your virtual Parking Kitty meter if you run over, opt for the SmartPark lot at SW 3rd and Alder). Bikes are in great shape, although if you're particular you can bring your own, and everything’s included with the tour—helmets, locks, lights, pant leg straps, even raincoats if the famously fickle weather is proving temperamental.

How tough are these rides?
Company founder and native Oregonian Todd Roll (yes, that’s really his name)—an avid rider who fell in love with biking as a means of sightseeing while living in Europe, and authored Pedal Portland: 25 Easy Rides To Explore The City—promises that “no spandex is required” on the tours. Routes, all designated as beginner-level and spanning roughly three hours and around ten miles, are gentle and perfectly-paced and guides are conscious of each rider’s skill level, so whether you’re a bit wobbly on your wheels or a retired Tour de France rider, you're in for a good time. Street clothes are perfectly suitable attire, although of course, if you really want to, you can wear your spandex.

How are the guides?
Guides are clearly hired for their people skills as well as their easy-flowing knowledge of the Rose City, so the overall vibe is that of taking an informal city tour with a fun and confident friend who knows just about everything; the best breweries, restaurants, coffeehouses and landmarks both famous and little known. They even how to cut the omnipresent line at Voodoo Doughnut. If you think your guide is the bees knees and want to keep riding after the tour’s over, an extension is usually possible for a fee. As always, show your appreciation for their expertise, advice, and jokes (good or bad) with a generous tip.

Anything you’ll be remembering weeks or months or years from now?
If you are one of the stoic (or absurd, opinions are deeply divided on this subject) souls who’ve waited an hour in the seemingly endless Voodoo Doughnut line at its pink-fenced peak, you will never ever forget cutting to the front with your bike guide, and having the shop’s chocolate-frosted, raspberry jelly-filled, pretzel-stick-impaled namesake in your hands minutes later.

So: money, time—how can we make the most of both?
When you factor in Portland’s extremely bike-friendly geography and infrastructure—i.e., the nearly 400 miles of bikeways, 6500 public bike racks, and ever-expanding Nike Biketown bike share program—a two-wheeled tour is the most bang for your Portland sightseeing buck, especially if you want to cover a lot of ground in limited time, and explore nooks and crannies not accessible by car. If you don’t have a lot of time in town, book the Intro to Portland tour, a reasonably-priced and thorough downtown overview that cuts through all the major neighborhoods and rolls past the Willamette River. If bikes and beers are your idea of soul mates, take the Brewery Trail tour, which include three sipping stops and a brewery tour, plus plenty of post-tour beer crawl recs. And if, like Homer Simpson, your motto is “Mmm, donuts," don’t miss the Donuts of Portland tour—a relaxed ramble around downtown that includes four delicious donut breaks.