Last Wednesday nearly 30 candidates for local office rode their bike to Bike Happy Hour. It was a powerful statement about how Portland does politics, and how — after years on the backburner — cycling will take a more prominent role in the future at city hall.

“Today there are no Democrats and there are no Republicans — we are all tire fixers!” said City Council District 3 candidate Jesse Cornett as he stood on a bench above the crowd and held a wheel above his head. Cornett was the spokesperson for one four candidate teams who had just finished a friendly competition to see who could fix a flat fastest.

It was the second stop on the 4 District Candidate Splash Ride organized by local nonprofit Bike Loud PDX. They worked with partner nonprofits Lloyd Eco District and Human Access Project on a ride that got candidates out on their bikes, in front of bike-riding voters, and ultimately, into the Willamette River. They met in four parks (one in each district) for a chat and then rode to our weekly Bike Happy Hour at Gorges Beer Co. on the SE Ankeny Rainbow Road Plaza.

By the time all four rides rolled up to Ankeny, the scene was poppin’!

Aaron Kuehn from Bike Loud organized about 28 or so candidates into teams of four for the flat tire fixing challenge. The idea was for them to display leadership and collaboration skills while working together to solve a problem. We didn’t tell them ahead of time, so they had to figure it out on-the-fly if they didn’t know what to do.

Each team had at least one person who’d fixed a flat before, but they still had to perform under pressure. We gave them old-school tube repair kits, not quick patches, so they had to be patient and let the rubber cement sit a bit before applying the patch (if you know, you know). It was fun watching the teams work together.

After each team was done, they assigned a spokesperson to address the crowd.

“We were slow and steady,” recounted District 3 City Council candidate Angelita Morillo who represented Team 25% By 2030. “We had Mitch Green from District 4 reading instructions and making sure we were getting everything right. Teacher Tiffany [Koyama Lane] got snacks to give us sustenance… We were cheering each other on and as you can see,” Morillo added, as she pushed a hard tire, “extremely firm and well done.”

Turns out that was the only team that completed the challenge. All three other tires were flat at the end of the day.

Team Bike Bus rep and D1 candidate Steph Routh acknowledged her team’s shortcomings. “We were a little excited about the gluing process and we tacked it, but we did not tack enough. Mistakes were made, lessons were learned, but we move on with our mistakes,” she said.

Next up was Team Bike Share. “We were given a serious challenge,” explained team rep Jesse Cornett. “We got a tire with one little hole and a faulty valve. And we persisted and we got it all back together.” Cornett had explaining to do because (as you can see in the video), he was pumping the tire up and it exploded. “I think that’s surely because somebody put somebody from Multnomah County on our team,” Cornett said. “Just kidding. We love our county partners.”

And last up with D3 Candidate Daniel DeMelo who reported out for Team Vision Zero. He claimed their tire was fixed, but then deflated for some reason. “As it turns out, we need those long-term structural changes to actually make sure the wheel was fixed in the long-run,” he said. “Sometimes you can fix things fast, sometimes it takes a bit longer. With Vision Zero we’ve got a lot to work on.”

After the fun at Bike Happy Hour, most of the crowd continued the ride to Duckworth Dock on the Eastbank Esplanade where a warm sun, great company and live DJs got them in the mood to jump into the Willamette River.

Bikes, parks, politics, and a swim made for a pretty perfect Portland day. Thanks for everyone who came out! And special thanks to Amit Zinman for taking video at Bike Happy Hour since I was busy doing other stuff and didn’t really document it. I could not have made this video without his footage.