Last week, several prominent figures from the cycling community met with a business development group in Portland, Oregon, to share information about their local cycling industry.
Greg Cowan, owner/CEO of Castelli, and Sacha White, owner of Vanilla Bicycles, along with a couple of other notables, each gave presentations as part of an effort to help educate the business leaders on the importance of cycling to the local economy. Between the bike -related businesses (Chris King is there now) and the tourism revenue that cycling generates, this is an area of the economy that they cannot afford to overlook.
I applaud the city of Portland, as well as the individuals involved, in putting this event together. You can find more info here.
As a car-free cyclist living in Portland, I’m really happy to see my tax dollars for business development being spent this way. Being able to show how much the bike industry contributes to our local economy is yet another “weapon in the arsenal” to use when trying to convince others that bikes and people who ride them are a force to be reckoned with. After all, money talks. Less cynically, our cycling industry folks have been very generous in their financial support of local advocacy, cycling sporting events, and just plain old bike fun.