My necessities for a recent housing search in Portland… and the front rack bag I crammed it all into. (Photos: Erin Bailie)
Hi! I’m Erin Bailie, and I’ll be moving from Seattle to Portland (Sullivan’s Gulch neighborhood) in February. By day I work a tech job in product/research, and I love using bicycles as my primary means of transportation. In my 30-something years I’ve lived a lot of bike lives: I’ve been bike commuting since second grade, sometimes I do track racing or go bikepacking, and I love Pedalpalooza. Reading BikePortland has been part of my morning routine for years, and I can’t wait to chronicle some of my thoughts as a newcomer to town.
Though my husband Jonathan and I will be new to Portland, Portland won’t be new to us. Over the past few years, we’ve found any excuse we can to visit for the weekend. We’ve driven, taken Amtrak, and once we even rode the whole way to Portland (thanks, STP!). When the opportunity knocked for Jonathan to take a job in Portland, we couldn’t say “yes!” fast enough.
The month before our move, we spent a week in Portland with the sole purpose of finding housing. Each day played out in a chaotic frenzy: I crammed my necessities and laptop into a front rack bag and rode from our lodging in Richmond, to rental showings across northeast and southeast, to co-working spaces to dial into meetings — and tried to find a gluten-free lunch somewhere along the way.