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Velo Cult
1969 NE 42nd Ave., 503-922-2012, velocult.com.
At this bike shop, you can get a beer or kombucha and watch one of the best local standup comedian showcases in town, while guys in custom screenprinted tees fix your flat. It's a bar, an indie venue, and a bike shop selling custom-made commuters. It has Christmas lights and a disco ball—and it used to have a theater downstairs, until the fire marshal shut that down last March for violating safety codes. In short, it's nearly everything "Portland" cemented into one shop. It guarantees a 24-hour turnaround for most repairs, and holds enough beers, bikes and beards to keep you entertained for at least that many hours.
Spoke and Vine
1451 N Skidmore St., 503-287-1700, spokeandvine.com.
The pristine farmhouse tables, house-marinated Castelvetrano olives and Mason jar flower arrangements at this year-and-a-half-old wine lounge stand out on Interstate Avenue, with the Palms Motor Motel sign glowing just a few blocks down. You'd expect a bike theme inside, based on the bottle shop's sign: a wheel with a bottle in the center. Instead, it's a New Portland shop dedicated very loosely to the idea that people in Oregon like both drinking and bike riding. This notion shows up in a bicycle triptych next to the fireplace and little else. There's no lack of events, though—Friday night tasting, craft night, fundraisers for the Lymphoma Society and yoga in the vineyard—making it a welcome pit stop if karaoke at the Alibi doesn't spin your wheels.
Hopworks Bike Bar
3947 N Williams Ave., 503-287-6258, hopworksbeer.com.
Hopworks Bike Bar is in many ways even more thoroughgoing than Portland's beery bike shops in incorporating bicycles into every aspect of the experience; from a bar top loomed over by countless bike frames, to spokes and hubs on the wall, bike-named beers like Gear Up IPA, and a pair of stationary bikes allowing you to pedal some energy back into the bar for no real reason we can fathom other than to make you feel good about yourself. And why not? It's a feel-good place: family-friendly, bike-friendly and eco-friendly, with low-cost food and a solid beer selection that includes small-batch Belgian tripels and reliable IPAs and Pilsners.
Corsa Cafe at Western Bikeworks
1015 NW 17th Ave., 503-342-9985.
This tiny respite inside Western Bikeworks is much more cafe than bar—but it's also a weirdly pleasant spot to get an after-work IPA in a still-industrial Slabtown neighborhood, and an even better one to get a $5 cheapie cup of sangria, in what's otherwise a very functional and very friendly bike shop with a heavy local focus. The decor is sparse: an understated chain-and-sprocket mural, old-school cycling posters, and a few geometric panels on one wall made from repurposed, shined-up bike chains.
Lumberyard
2700 NE 82nd Ave., 503-252-2453, lumberyardmtb.com.
Lumberyard is a massive indoor mountain-bike park, sure, if you're into doing flips and ramps and tricks on two wheels, with a bar to cool down at after. But it's also a form of beer and dinner theater if you're into watching other people do the tricks instead. The pleasant bar inside the park is a bike-kid parent's dream, but also a remarkably decent beer spot in general for its desolate strip of 82nd Avenue—with near-weekly tap takeovers by small local breweries. In addition to its cracker-thin-crust pies, former food cart Pulehu Pizza serves hot dogs made with sausages from Sheridan Fruit Co., one of the city's most underrated butchers.
BackPedal
1425 NW Flanders St., 971-400-5950, facebook.com/BackPedalPDX.
We've all seen beer enthusiasts pedaling away on those trolley-style vehicles that roam from brewery to brewery. Well, last year, Portland's premier bike-based beer tourism company decided to get in the brewing game itself with the opening of BackPedal Brewing. Walk past three parked BrewCycles into a cozy garage that houses what now claims to be the smallest microbrewery in Portland. It's a throwback to the days when a taproom was just a room with some taps. Drink the tribute to Portland's late favorite pseudo-son "Rowdy" Roddy Piper: Piper's Pit, an unconventional spiced Scottish ale with nutmeg and cinnamon.
Apex
1216 SE Division St., 503-273-9227, apexbar.com.
When the sun comes out, seemingly the entire nation of Canada appears at the city's most famous beer patio to partake in its massive digital tap list. The cash-only bar is also famously surly, refusing even to look at the dude in an LSU cap trying to pay with a card. But it's very friendly to bikes, with something nearly unheard of: a long row of bike parking inside the fence containing the patio, plus a little piece of bike neon above the door and a tandem bike hung from the ceiling.
Gestalt Haus
3584 SE Division St.
The owners of Gestalt—a bike-obsessive San Fran bar so well-loved that bikemaker Marin named a line of bicycles after it—moved to Portland this year. They brought the bar with them, which will open in the space formerly filled by Eugenio's. Expect sausages "from vegan to veal," a beer list splitting time between authentic German and local craft, German apéritifs from Underberg to Jäger, and some very serious one-of-a-kind bicycles hanging from the ceiling that will actually be for sale on the bar's food menu. One of the two owners works at River City Bicycles, so expect plenty of bike events and bike rides to jump off here.
Welcome to Bikey Town | Bike Bars | Nice Rack
My Night as a Pedicab Driver | Tykes on Bikes
Bikes vs. the World | Bike Gear for Spring
The New Portland Bike Activism
Willamette Week