Portland Round Up

Last week was a whirlwind of activity for the Routes & Mapping department! The entire department -- minus cartographer Casey Greene, who was in Missoula prepping for a research trip -- was in Portland, Oregon.

The activity began with a member gathering in downtown Portland, Oregon at the Bike Gallery. Routes & Mapping Director Carla Majernik, and GIS Specialists and Cartographers Nathan Taylor and Melissa Thompson arrived at the shop after a 10-hour drive over the mountains to the city. In addition to office staff, tour leader Pete Strause was also present. Pete graciously brought his loaded touring bike and some storyboards of past trips to inspire attendees.

There were about 70 people in attendance, a great number for the first-time member gathering crew to meet and speak to. Melissa reported, "I'd say the member meeting went really well. I heard lots of thank you's afterwards -- people seemed to appreciate the outreach. The bike shop guy who stayed late for us told me they have held several cycling related events and that ours was easily the best attended. So he was impressed too."

Following the formal presentation of Adventure Cycling's history of map making, Bicycle Route 66 research, and GIS map conversions, there was a question and answer period that seemed to revolve around the future of maps. Nathan said, "questions I fielded mostly had to do with navigation by GPS and use-case scenarios for the gpx files, and if/when we will have a mobile app for routes."

And there were cookies! I can't forget the fabulous refreshments that were provided by members because a cookie care package made its way to me later that evening. Yum!

While Carla, Nathan and Melissa were conversing with cyclists, I was helping to complete the finishing touches needed to get the North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) annual meeting handled.

But earlier in the day, I had the pleasure of sharing lunch with the America ByCycle group, Ryan, Michelle and Alex. I brought along a cartographic colleague, Glen, hoping to inspire him to do a bicycle adventure of his own down the road.

We talked about bicycle travel in general and their current trip down the Pacific Coast. As with their TransAmerica Trail trip last year, they are mostly sticking to Adventure Cycling routes but have some great side trips in mind as well. Part of their mission on this outing is to explore sustainability, mostly as it relates to food, including beer. They were especially enthusiastic about a brewery tour via bicycle they had on tap for the next day.

On Wednesday morning, Carla, Melissa, Nathan, Glen and I convened for the kickoff of the NACIS meeting. For the next three days we were immersed in learning about new mapping technologies, expanding our ideas and gaining inspiration for moving forward. It was exciting to see how other organizations have dealt with expanding their paper map offerings to digital formats.

One display in the poster gallery particularly caught our eye, The Oregon Bicycle Map. Sounds pretty mainstream, right? Not quite so. According to its creator Mark Scott, "It exemplifies multi-media 3-D map art, where metal and geography come together to form something called Cartomation." It was an amazing map sculpture created with dozens of sprockets and chains from discarded bicycles representing 35 locations across the state and connected in a visually pleasing way. And it really worked!

It was stimulating to be surrounded by people with a shared passion for creating great maps. I especially enjoyed sharing this meeting for the first time with Nathan and Melissa. Carla and I have attended before and are already invested in the value received from participation. I think we all walked away with a refreshed vision of what's possible and some connections with people and solutions to make it happen. It is a slow process to be sure but one that with resources and enthusiasm, can happen and happen well.

Now that we're back in the office it's time to occupy ourselves with getting another printing out the door. All the while that inspiration from the last week spins on in the backs of our minds.

First photo: Cookies baked by Heather Andrews.
Second photo: Lunch with America ByCycle, Alex R. Favacho, Michelle Cassell, Jenn Milyko, Glen Pawelski, Ryan McAfee. Notice the empty plates, crumbs were all that was left of the fabulous vegan cookies we enjoyed for dessert.
Third photo: Michelle and Alex prepare to move on to their next destination post-lunch.
Fourth photo: Supplies for a good meeting, cookies, coffee, water, a program and bag to carry them in.
Fifth photo: The Oregon Bike Map. 
Sixth photo: The Oregon Bike Map with NACIS board member Eliana MacDonald for scale.
All photos by Jenn Milyko.

--

GEOPOINTS BULLETIN is written by Jennifer 'Jenn' Milyko, an Adventure Cycling cartographer, and appears weekly, highlighting curious facts, figures, and persons from Adventure Cycling's Route Network with tips and hints for personal route creation thrown in for good measure. She also wants to remind you that map corrections and comments are always welcome via the online Map Correction Form.

Source: http://blog.adventurecycling.org/2012/11/portland-round-up.html

cycling training