Christine and I saw many beautiful things in our bike ride along the coast of Oregon. While the rocks and the waves are awesome, the small town of Waldport is home to beautiful things “ugly” green cycling.
As luck would have it, Rick Hill stopped by sea dog bakery as Christine and I went and I talked a little green on the bike he was driving. Rick is a retired teacher who now runs amazing Waldport Green Bike Co-Op.
Rick Hill, enjoying a coffee outside the bakery sea lion in Waldport, OR
The Co-Op, not only offers free bicycles for anyone to wear around the city, offering repair classes for adolescents and adults and long-term loans of bicycles for low-income people. Founded by John Mare ‘in 2006, John and several adult volunteers and young people who maintain more than 100 bikes in the fleet of bikes in green loan. This is an amazing resource, especially when you consider that Waldport is not a big city, the population of this coastal town is a little more than 2000 people.
The bicycle program works on the honor system, if a bike is tied with a yellow rope that is in use. If it is loose, that is free of charge. The use of the bicycle, as long as you need it and when finished, let it erupted in a public place. John and the other volunteers sometimes move around to keep distributed bicycles, but mostly the system works. Volunteers carry the bikes in good condition and every bike carries the disclaimer “WALK AT RISK”.
I asked John if he had ever bike away, and he replied: “Sure,” he said quickly adding “but that just means that someone who needs a bike has one, and that’s the point.”
John and his team of volunteers are busy with the keys and green paint, keeping things going in Waldport. This is a beautiful world, made a little more beautiful thanks to the hard work of some good and some ugly green bikes.
Advertisements:
