photo courtesy of Madsen Cycles

Spring clouds greeted the participants of the Bike Gallery’s inaugural St. Patrick’s Day Green Ride, but failed to dampen either the raingear-clad riders or their spirits. Actually, we had quite a few riders on all types of bikes joining us for this fun, after-work city tour that lasted about an hour and then returned to the Downtown Bike Gallery for beverages, snacks, and a chance to win a Madsen Utility bike.

Jared Madsen – the designer and namesake of this exciting new line of utility bikes -  joined us for the festivities and did the honors of drawing prize winners. Several riders won some cool Madsen t-shirts and one lucky family – the Saxton-Rowes of North Portland – won a beautiful blue Madsen bucket bike. The family was ecstatic and rode home that evening on their new bike (with one of their old bikes in the Madsen bucket). We know that this Madsen will be one busy bike, since the family lives in a car-free co-housing complex.

After the ride, Jared talked a bit, not just about the bikes, but also about an exciting micro-franchising project he is working on in Africa. The goal of this project is to provide families in Mozambique with Madsen utility bikes, whcih will enable these families to purchase charcoal at a remote distribution point at “factory price” and transport it to areas where people are usually not able to buy it. Charcoal is the most reliable fuel source in the area, however many people either can’t afford it or can’t get it since they live too far away from the distribution points. Jared Madsen is heading to Africa in April to help kickstart the project and he plans to set up a page on the Madsen Cycles website to take donations.

We were already pretty stoked about the Madsen bikes, but Jared’s commitment to use his bikes and his passion for cargo bikes for such a great cause makes us even more proud to be a Madsen Cycles dealer. Thank you Jared (and Jared’s co-worker Jason) for all the great work and for joining us on a fun ride!

For Jared Madsen’s own impressions of the St Patrick’s Day Ride, visit blog.madsencycles.com.