Ride the Veins

Six miles in four minutes on two wheels through the heart of Portland, Oregon.

Climb on your bike and meet us for a drink in the Central Eastside.

Portland has grown and changed, as all cities do over time. The start of the 2020s, though, felt different. The pandemic and the protests. Smoke every summer from forest fires. Rendered in caricature on the national news. But the Portland we love persists.

We wanted to capture a version of the city that locals would recognize. Creative, thoughtful and kind. Principled, beautiful, complicated.

“Knit the city bones / ride the veins” was a couplet published as part of a 2012 public art project in Portland called Orange Lining. More than 100 lines of text submitted by local residents were painted onto bright orange fencing along the construction path of what would become TriMet's MAX Orange Line. When the fencing came down, the text was stamped into adjacent sidewalk pavement.

The cyclist on screen—that's Rosie, an art director and designer at Sheepscot Creative—sometimes finds herself pedaling past "ride the veins.”

Watch the trailer: