This year's new program bringing back short track mountain bike racing this summer in addition to the road racing in Spring. Fun Monday Nights, no cars, lots of bicycles and friendly bike folks.
I have sent $75,000 so far this year, which covers most of the operating costs for one of the orphanages in Peru for a year.
End of October through beginning of November, eleven of the BicycleAttorney.com team riders (including me) headed to Peru for cycling gravel camp I helped sponsor, connecting with the orphans at Casa Girasoles. More pictures from our gravel camp are on the team page for 2024.
We brought 11 brave souls to participate in a gravel camp in the Sacred Valley. The camp went great. The daily rides were not only oxygen-deprived but also offered some of the most unique vantage points in the valley. The camp was a chance for HBI stakeholders to share their passion for cycling with the Girasoles and provide them with companionship and connections.
Proud to support the orphanage bicycle team in Peru, The Casa Girasoles Bicycle Team.
Thanks to the generosity of Mike Colbach and BicycleAttorney.com from Portland and a group of committed volunteers (Hugh Givens, Kevin Chudy, and Laura Miller), the bike team has grown to support the boys at each Casa Girasoles home. The program is a lifeline for some of the boys.
Last week, Raul competed in his first bike race. A cross-country event that went from the city of Cusco to the town of Urubamba in the Sacred Valley. The race took a route that included technical descending, tight single track, and a mountain pass of over 15,000 FASL.
Raul was third overall. Competing against seasoned riders and elite competitors, he took a spot on the podium.
Hugh and Kevin's pictures and stories from their daily bike mechanic lessons working on the kids fleet of older mountain bikes and youth size bicycles as well as their daily cycling rides and cycling tactics practice lessons are on their IG or on the team's 2023 bicycle highlights page.
Proud to be a continued contributing partner of the Race Monday Nights Series at Portland International Raceway and series sponsor of ALL WOMENS RACERS FROM ALL TEAMS RIDE FOR HALF OFF. Racing starts April 24, 2023.
Proud to be a continued contributing sponsor of Oregon Bicycle Racing Asociation, OBRA
Bicycles Change Lives.
Proud to support the orphanage bicycle team in Peru, The Casa Girasoles Bicycle Team. And planning on a good year to help send more bicycles and BicycleAttorney.com cycling team people to their next Gravel Camp.
One of our recent partnerships has been around helping to bring more bicycles and support to the boys in the Casa Girasoles. Mike Colbach and BicycleAttorney.com have over a two-decade commitment to promoting cycling and healthy living. The BicyleAttorney.com team, started by a Portland based lawyer and social justice advocate – Mike Colbach – is a vehicle for bringing together people from different walks of life and experiences to share their love of exercise.
Proud to support the orphanage bicycle team in Peru, The Casa Girasoles Bicycle Team. In 2022 I sent 18 brand new bicycles to the Peru Orphanage bicycle team and some members of the team to train and teach the boys some bicycle mechanic skills. KGW did a news story about this:
Avid cyclist Hugh Givens joined Centrone's team on a recent trip in November. Givens races with the Bicycleattorney.com cycling team. [...] A fiend and fellow cycling teammate, Kevin Chudy, joined Givens on the trip. For decades, Chudy ran his own bicycle shop and spent years assembling and repairing bicycles.[...] The team rode bikes with the kids for nearly a month, teaching them how to repair them, and Givens and Chudy said they know the boys gave more to them than they received.
In the summer of 2021, I donated my lightly used Colnago Prestige Carbon Cyclocross bike to PDX Cycling Worlds to help support their effort to bring the Road Cycling World Championships to Oregon, while delivering a near mint-condition bike in time for Cross season to the lucky winner. I am looking forward to seeing the winner on this bike out in the wild at rides and racing.
Working with Hugh who had built 3 bikes for the orphan bicycle team in Peru, The Casa Girasoles Cycling Team, I donated my old Hi-Fi rims which Hugh sold for cash which he used to buy more parts and was able to build 2 more bikes in addition to 3 he had already built. But Hugh wanted better bicycles for the team to really be able to compete at bicycle races with, that could also handle the rugged conditions in Peru. In October, I bought 5 more brand new bicycles which Hugh selected from Westend Bikes for the Peru orphanage bicycle team and had those shipped to Peru. The picture below is the team on some of the bikes Hugh built, on their first rides out after rough Pandemic lockdowns.
2020 and the beginning of the Pandemic. The Benson Bubblers were initially turned off because little was known about how the virus spread and the safety of drinking fountains. BikePortland.org amplified the need for clean water bottles that could be given so that all folks could have access to fresh drinking water. The BicycleAttorney.com cycling team being such wonderful folks heard the call and dropped off around 70 of their water bottles.
Proud to be a continued contributing partner of the Race Monday Nights Series at Portland International Raceway and series sponsor of ALL WOMENS RACERS FROM ALL TEAMS RIDE FOR $10.
Proud to be a continued contributing sponsor of Oregon Bicycle Racing Association OBRA.
Proud to be a continued contributing partner of the Race Monday Nights Series at Portland International Raceway - And Sponsor of August ALL Women Race for Free and prize purse of $250 for each category 3 deep.
Proud to Support the BicycleAttorney.com Cycling Team's efforts and successful ride for Reach The Beach Oregon - American Lung Association fundraiser bicycle ride 104 miles Portland to Pacific City. We wanted to be the top team but had to settle for 3rd. I got the team a rental house on the beach for the night, and the friendly BEASTS road back the 104 miles from Pacific City to Portland the next day!
The short film Two Wheels One Love first debuted in 2018 at the Portland Motorcycle Film Festival. OregonMotorcycleAttorney.com Michael Colbach is proud to be a title sponsor.
Later in 2018, I also sponsored a documentary short of Andy's second consecutive RSD Super Hooligan National Championship finale and win in Huntington Beach, CA at the Moto Beach Classic / Surf City Blitz, rounds 10 and 11 of the 2018 Roland Sands Design Super Hooligan National Championship. Video by Spencer Owens. This year he was sponsored by and racing on a Latus Motors Harley Davidson who also title sponsored the short film.
Proud to be affiliated with Andy DiBrino Pro Motorcycle Racing.
Andy's racing reports are on his blog.
The Oregon motorcycle riders PSSR invited to this track day I sponsored were some of the fastest on the West Coast!
PSSR closed up their doors after 2016. They were some of the best motorcycle instructors on the West Coast. I certainly learned a ton and enjoyed the track days I spent with PSSR.
One fun note is that some of the BicycleAttorney.com/racing cycling team have also held their motorcycle racing card with Oregon Motorcycle Road Racing Association, OMRRA, and I personally invited one fast team member who I knew had done some racing at PIR to this track day, fast on 2 wheels of all types.
Proud to have been fishing and contributing to this for since pretty much the beginning, 10 years, and winners of 2014. Tuna Classic donates to Oregon Food Bank
Since it began in 2005, the Oregon Tuna Classic has donated a portion of the catch every year. In 10 years, more than one million pounds of tuna has helped coastal residents struggling to make ends meet.
Oregon Tuna Classic / Deep Canyon Challenge I've been supporting and usually fishing in the Oregon Tuna Classic since it started on my own boat, Shake N Bake Sport Fishing, or the Double Down. We actually won the tournament in 2014. The tournament has grown and branched out with the Deep Canyon Challenge (sometimes the Washington Tuna Classic as well) giving anglers more fishing tournaments to fish for a good cause benefitting Oregon and Washington food banks. In just the first ten years of the Oregon Tuna Classic, over a million pounds of tuna was donated to the Oregon Food Bank!
I donated a couple of fishing trips and raised a few thousand dollars for the Z-Man foundation. Mark was an excellent guy who met a tragic death.
Oregon Tuna Classic taps an exciting fishery to feed the needy
Aug. 04, 2012
By day's end, more than three dozen albacore were on ice. Nine of them, including one of mine, would be donated to the Oregon Tuna Classic. We participated in the Classic's new charter division, sponsored by Portland lawyer Mike Colbach.
The Tuna Classic, a fund- and food-raiser for local food banks, is in its seventh year and well on the way to adding even more to the 50 tons of canned tuna and more than $128,000 given to aid the needy since 2005.
The Classic's 41 participating six-angler teams and the charter division combined with other anglers (some weren't even in the event but just wanted to help) for 10,640 pounds of tuna donated to food banks in Washington's Pacific County and Oregon's Clatsop County. Many winners of cash prizes (including Elliott) donated their winnings back to the food banks as well.
The Bicycle Transportation Alliance has been around for years and years in Portland, and Kevin Chudy, owner of Bike N Hike and the sponsor of the Presto Velo team (which is now the Bicycle Attorney Cycling Team and the team I used to race for) was actually awarded the Alice Toeclips Award in 2007. Kevin says the Bicycle Transportation has been helping Urban cyclists since 1980 and their work has, among other things,"resulted in TriMet bus bike racks, helped implement Bicycle Boulevards in Portland." Kevin Chudy very deservedly wins the Alice Toeclips award for, "In 2007, the BTA presented Bike n Hike owner Kevin Chudy with an "Alice B. Toeclips" award for service to the cycling community through event sponsorship, direct assistance to the Safe Routes Program, and providing to cyclists through the Bike n Hike stores."
In 2010, Bill Monroe of The Oregonian wrote an article about the event while riding along on my boat:
Bill Monroe: Tuna Classic unleashes a frenzy on the ocean
The Oregonian
August 6, 2010
We were team No. 57 in Saturday's field and ended the day with 57 tuna, sixth in the event. The Classic weighs each boat's top five fish. Nearly 6,000 pounds of tuna and thousands of dollars were donated to local food banks from the Ilwaco tournament as the Oregon Tuna Classic heads for its third leg Saturday at Charleston. Track the summer's uniquely Northwest event online at oregontunaclassic.org. Colbach, circumspect about his team's results, has never been rabidly competitive, opting instead for simply participating and donating to the cause. "That's the beauty of this thing," he said. "You can catch five fish and win or 57 and lose ... but still everyone wins."
Portland Twilight Criterium rescued for this year, but could be on final lap
The Oregonian August 6, 2009 By Seth Prince
"Normally lawyers in the same field are each other's competitors and don't team up on anything," he said. "But I figured, maybe we could come up with a non-traditional collection of people who thought the race was important." Of the attorneys he called, half responded with support. They are part of the reason the Twilight Criterium -- the only bike race staged downtown each year and one of the most popular for spectators anywhere in the state -- will happen Friday night. [...] In Mike Colbach of BicycleAttorney.com, Mark Ginsberg of Berkshire Ginsberg and Bob Mionske of BicycleLaw.com, Thomas thought he might have willing partners. Colbach is a former racer who sponsors a team that shares his practice's name.
Oregon Tuna Classic helps meet needs for Oregon Food Bank
We've just about doubled our donations each year," said Del Stephens, OTC chairman. "This will put us a little over 10,000 pounds;last year we raised $46,000 and 13,000 pounds (in three events). If we'reable to hold even one of the other two (weather dependent; Aug. 15 in Charleston and Aug. 29 in Garibaldi), we'll go higher again.
In 2008 and 2009 I was proud to be a title sponsor for the US Gran Prix of Cyclocross the Stanley Cup bringing world class cyclocross racing to Portland, Oregon. The BicycleAttorney.com team's sponsors were all part of this, Bike n Hike Keven Chudy and HUB Hopworks Urban Brewery. It was a couple great years for cycling with also the US Cyclocross Nationals held in Bend 2009 and 2010. A BicycleAttorney.com cycling team member made the podium that year at nationals too!
Proud to support the Alpenrose Velodrome Challenge. The Alpenrose Velodrome is one of only 26 velodromes in the USA and was the steepest. The yearly Alpenrose Velodrome Challenge has the biggest prize lists in North America and promises to draw elite cyclists from all corners of the USA.
I sponsored Portland, Oregon bicycle racing super star Evan Elken when I first opened my own law practice in Portland. For every Bicycle Accident Case I represented, I made a donation to Evan Elken's racing fund. Evan was voted by Velonews Amateur of the Year in 2004. Evan finished 8th in the Olympic Selection Trials in 2004. I continued to support Evan Elken until he retired, as I also started sponsoring the TIA bicycling team in Bend for a short while, and when I first started sponsoring the team I used to race for, Presto Velo, until I was the title sponsor of the Presto Velo team. Evan has still been spotted from time to time coaching cycling in Portland.
I supported the Alpenrose Velodrome since opening my own law practice until the end, as well as supporting the yearly huge event The Alpenrose Velodrome Challenge. The Alpenrose Velodrome was (?) one of only 26 velodromes in the USA. The Alpenrose Dairy officially closed to cycling events it hosted in 2021 but things slowed down with no velodrome racing in 2019. Hopefully we will get a new velodrome in Portland in the near future, maybe. This historic velodrome is sorely missed and with only 26 velodromes in the USA, only 3 have year round racing - indoors, and only one of these meets International racing standards. Velodromes and the classic 6 day events were able to draw huge crowds at the beginning of the twentieth century.
For years, I offered a free PSSR track day with every motorcycle case I handled until PSSR retired in 2016.
I am a big believer in motorcycle education. I have learned a lot by attending PSSR's track day at PIR and
Portland motorcycle accident lawyer Mike Colbach is in the front of this group at Portland International Raceway (PIR) PSSR Track Day in 2007.
Proud to be the main cash title sponsor of the Presto Velo BicycleAttorney.com/racing cycling team, this is the bicycle team that I road with when I was racing.
The team is one of the oldest continuous bicycle teams in Oregon and over 70 people strong. These folks are so awesome.