Some links and works in progress

In the past couple of weeks I've found a couple of interesting sites worth checking out.

http://tinyurl.com/2a7fk6 - An Oregonian link with articles on good recreational rides around town. This, of course, is not really history but I thought it noteworthy that the O used to have a weekly column dedicated to recreational riding that no longer exists.

http://tinyurl.com/28azd9 - The Place of Bicycle Transportation in Modern Industrialized Societies

http://www.quotegarden.com/bicycling.html - Good quotes from famous people on biking. There is also a book out there called The Quotable Cyclist with lots of good ones. My favorite is Susan B. Anthony's homage to women on bikes.

As for work in progress...I am still working on the Historic Streetcar paper, which I hope to post here soon (no promises this time, since a month ago I thought I'd have it up in no time). The Bicycle History Capstone Project will definitely be done by the end of June. The students are hard at work filling in some missing links from last term's project and wrapping it up in a nice little package. The amount of data they've found is impressive - there will probably be close to 1,500 articles about cycling in Portland from 1971- 2006, all from Portland-focused media. In addition, I am working on trascribing some of the fantastic oral history interviews the students did last term. Its a laborious, time-consuming process. Let me know if you enjoy that kind of unpaid work, I've got about 8 hours of talking that needs to be transcribed...

Lastly, my hope is to take the work that the Capstone students have done and write an article for a historical journal (such as the Oregon Historical Quarterly) on bicycling in Portland from 1971 - 2006. Its a long way from here to there, but I think there is enough primary data and interest to write a good history. We all know, of course, that its a great story already!