Participants negotiate a water-carrying checkpoint at last year’s event.

(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)

Portland’s Disaster Relief Trials are back for the fourth year and there are some exciting changes in store.

Before we get into the details, here’s the mock scenario:

“Imagine this: It’s two days after the big earthquake… roads are broken, fuel is unavailable, but your family and neighbors need supplies. Think you are out of options? Think again! Use your cargo bike! Portland cyclists are called to test their navigation, problem solving and load hauling mettle on October 17th, 2015 in a disaster drill designed to showcase the relevance of cargo bikes in disaster relief.”

As we’ve been covering since 2011, the tandem rise in popularity of cargo bikes and disaster preparedness have added a lot of momentum and relevance to this event.

Organizers announced earlier this week that the 2015 DRT will be held on October 17th at the campus of the University of Portland. Also new this year is a “hub and spoke” checkpoint arrangement (with U of P as the hub), which will make the event much more spectator friendly.


If you’ve never seen or participated in this event, we highly recommend checking it out. Competitors show up in all types of bikes and have to go through nearly a dozen grueling checkpoints that require them to do everything from lift their bike (and up to 100 lbs of cargo) over obstacles and carry odd-shaped items. The idea is to demonstrate how resilient bicycles (and the people who ride them) can be after a natural disaster strikes.

In addition to the competition, there will also be an expo where you can learn more about disaster preparedness from the event’s sponsors and partners which include: the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management, the Cascade Regional Earthquake Workgroup, and others.

Pre-registration is open and you can sign-up online.

To learn more, read our recap and browse photos from last year’s event, check out DisasterReliefTrials.com and follow @PortlandDRT on Twitter.











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