My wife has to go to Portland (the one in Oregon) in a couple of weeks, and since I have some unused vacation, I'm going to drive up with her from Reno, then she'll fly home and I'm going to wander aimlessly. We know the coast pretty well, but haven't been to Portland except to pass through. I'll have my bike for after she's gone, but she's just coming off knee surgery, so we're not taking hers (the hotel has rentals if she wants to ride)..
The tentative itinerary is that we get to P-town on a Monday (staying downtown, near Powell's), she has a half-day of meetings, then we screw around until Thursday morning when she flies home. I may go out to Astoria for a day or two, then amble down the coast as far as California, or not--no real plans.
Anybody got suggestions about restaurants, stuff to see, rides up to two or three hours etc? About all we've done in Portland is hang out at Powell's Books..
--Thanks.

Fellow Northwesterners, help a guy out. I mean Cory comes all the way here from the Lowngz, and he gets a bunch of nothing. ;-)

PDXMark, where are you when we need you?

Fellow Northwesterners, help a guy out. I mean Cory comes all the way here from the Lowngz, and he gets a bunch of nothing. ;-)

PDXMark, where are you when we need you?

And I'll send them to Applebee's.

I have been to Astoria a couple of times with my GF while she was on business. The riding is pretty good as 101 has a bike lane and the back roads have very little traffic. From Astoria I would take the Lewes and Clark Road down to Seaside, OR and ride 101 back to Astoria (30-35 miles). If you go to yahoo map and type in Lewes and Clark road, Astorai, OR you will see it parallels 101 to Seaside. When we drove back on Hiway 30 towards Portland, I noticed that there seemed to be alot of truck traffic and not a very big shoulder, so I don't know of I would ride this road east of Astoria? As far as food goes Rollin Thunder BBQ on the waterfront has huge portions for a very reasonable price.

From downtown ride your bike up Broadway all the way up to OHSU and ride the tram back downtown for free, nice little ride.
I live in Beaverton and bike around north plains, west union and skyline. You should definitely go to the Multnomah Falls, just about 20 miles west on I84, nice hike up the waterfall and plenty of roads to ride a bike.
As far as restaurants, check the rock bottom brewery, good food and plenty of beer!!

There's a reasonably efficient driving route between Portland and Astoria (Hwy 30) and a good scenic riding (or driving) route via Mist, Jewell, and Olney. There are various ways to get to Mist, depending on your desired balance between scenery, terrain and efficiency. I can help you sort through those options. Astoria is a nice place. The Oregon State park at the mouth of the Columbia (near Astoria) is cool too, but then I have a bit of a fixation on confluences and things like that.

The hike up Cascade Head on the coast (a bit north of Lincoln City) is amazing. Great hikes within an hour or so of Portland include Dog Mountain (very strenuous), Eagle Creek (in the Gorge), and the Timberline Trail up near Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood (see below).

A ride/trip down the coast can be quite nice, but I think there are much better ride choices if you want to do day rides from one, two or three different bases. (The coast doesn't thrill me.) I'm not much up on the "must do" restaurants, but I like Lauro and it's Indian-style cousin (whose name I'm forgetting), and there is a decent restaurant list to work from at tripadvisor.com. Portland things to do include Saturday Market on weekends, walking or riding the Esplanade & Waterfront Park, the wine country southwest of Portland, Clear Creek distillery in NW Portland, any of a ton of brew pubs, including Kennedy School, which was converted from a closed elementary school, art galleries in NW (in & around the Pearl District), ummm, I'm blanking out now, but will add more. Interesting neighborhoods to walk through include NW 23rd Ave., the Pearl (for New Urban condo setting), Hawthorne or Alberta St. for a bit of eclecticity.

Non-coast things to see outside Metro Portland include the Columbia River Gorge, with a bike ride or walk through the Mosier Tunnels (Old Highway tunnels that have been reclaimed as a bike path) and a ride up to Rowena Crest (all east of The Dalles), Timberline Lodge for a nice hike and to see some wonderful CCC-era craftsmanship, Mackenzie Pass (the site of a 2000 yr old eruption with the highway built up to the edge of old lava flows) is a good scenic ride or drive, Crater Lake (site of an eruption 10,000 yrs ago that blew 4000' off old Mt Mazama (I think)), Ashland for some Good Outdoor Shakespeare & Good Restaurants, etc. There are great rides in all of these places, too.

Cory, it would be fun to meet you or you two when you're here... We could do a nice in-town ride or just drnik some good beer.

Here's another restaurant I like: Lovely Hula Hands

It's set in an old house and evokes alot of the eclectic style that is Portland outside of Downtown.

Stumptown Coffee on SE Belmont

People's Food Coop in SE, Food Front in NW or New Seasons on NE 33rd for examples of nice independent food markets can be like

Broadway is an awful road to ride up to OHSU - there are much better routes to get there

hang out on Hawthorne or Broadway bridge at AM commute times to see actual bike traffic volumes (See Breakfast on Bridges every last Friday of Every Month, 7 to 9 am, on the Hawthorne and Broadway Bridges, Portland, Oregon. -- see shift2bikes.org)

see bikeportland.org for our own professional bike blogger

The Japanese Garden in Washington Park is quite good. The Portland Chinese Garden is very interesting, too. You've probably been to Pioneer Courthouse Square. Pioneer Place if you want a downtown "mall" that's very different from suburban malls (but still a mall, of course).

River City is a fine bike shop with a short indoor test track, but CityBikes Coop (conveniently located on a SE Ankeny - a bike boulevard) is much more interesting and unique with new and used bikes & parts.

For a nice steady 3500' bike climb over 14 miles Larch Mountain is close and fun.

BodyWorlds 3 will still be at OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) and is very good.

Cocktails are quite good all over town, but an age-old classic is Spanish Coffee at Hubers, a 90-100 yr old bar.

Breakfasts are good at Milo City Cafe (NE), John Street Cafe (N - St. Johns), Tin Shed. Folks like the Bijou (downtown) but it's not my fav.

A new restaurant that I've not been to yet is Mark Lindsay's Rock & Roll Cafe, which is run by Mark Lindsay, of Paul Revere & the Raiders fame, and has a burger menu from a former beloved Portland burger joint, Yaws.

There are 3 things you have to do while in Portland to say that you truly experenced PDX.

1) You HAVE TO go to Voodoo doughnuts. Pretty much the most "downtown pdx" place you can ever go. http://voodoodoughnut.com/

2) You have to go to The Montage on the east side. What can I say, they have everything from the best mac & cheese you'll ever taste to frog legs or aligator jambalaya. And for the love of god, order an oyster shooter. Good things happen when you do. http://www.montageportland.com/

3) Go to stupmtown coffee. Its real close to Voodoo.

As for things to do on a bike, Mr.Mark pretty much covered all of it. I've always liked the skyline climb out is SW.