Elly Blue
From PortlandAfoot
Eleanor Blue is a Portland-based writer and activist specializing in bicycle issues. As of spring 2011, Blue writes the "How We Roll" column for Grist.org, about bicycling and bicycle policy.
Blue publishes Taking the Lane, a zine and accompanying blog about women on bicycles. (The zine and blog typically offer different content.) With Meghan Sinnott, she operates PDX by Bike, an information and referral service for Portland tourists who want to experience the city by bicycle.
Blue co-founded the Women Leaders in Transportation Fund in 2010, which later developed into a project of the Portland Society. She serves on the Portland Society's board.
[edit] History with bicycles
Blue moved to Portland in 2002 to attend Reed College and was not heavily involved in bicycling until the summer before her senior year, when she went on a memorable Midnight Mystery Ride that featured a bicyclist being "kidnapped" by a van decorated with the message "four wheels good, two wheels bad."
"Our mission as mystery riders was to find the person," she recalled in a 2011 Street Talk interview. "We met at the Alibi and then there was a big dance party under the Fremont Bridge."
A few months later, on election night in 2004, Blue was upset about the re-election of President George W. Bush.
"I drank all this whiskey and I screamed at the television," she recalled. "I said, I'm going to stay here and be a bike activist! That was my version of moving to Canada. I have no idea where that came from. I wasn't even using my bike very much."
Blue co-founded Umbrella in 2007 and worked as lead organizer for the Toward Carfree Cities Conference in Portland in 2008.
From 2008 to 2010, she worked as the managing editor of BikePortland.org and until 2011 wrote the "Monday Roundup" column of international bicycling links.
[edit] Personal life
Blue's partner, Joe Biel, is the founder of Microcosm Publishing and a filmmaker who directed Aftermass.
[edit] External links
Did you find this page useful? Could it get better? You're meeting Portland Afoot in its toddlerhood! You can help build this free online guide to low-car life in PDX by clicking "edit" in the right sidebar and adding what you know. Or just leave your questions or ideas below. Thanks for visiting!
