Pedal PaLooza Goes Vegas

Land Rover is helping to fund a parallel Pedalpalooza in Sin City.

Photo by Ot Pi
By Rebecca Jacobson

Pedalpalooza is Portland's annual celebration of all things bikey, with rides for devotees of just about everything—Morrissey, Dave Matthews, tweed, plaid, baby animals, Star Trek, Star Wars, yoga, zumba, ice cream, freemason architecture, nudity, drunkenness, drunken nudity.


This year, apparently Las Vegas wants in on the fun. On Sept. 11, Sin City is hosting an event called...wait for it...Pedal PaLooza. The one-day event includes a kids' bike rodeo, a retro bike show, "professional and ameteur (sic) 'Criterium Races'" and "Bicycle Industry Celebs." ("You never know who is going to stop by," notes the website.) None of the events involve nudity. Sierra Nevada is a sponsor. So is Land Rover.


Shift, the loosely knit bike collective that helps organize Portland's Pedalpalooza, has seen a flurry of emails on its listserv today. Some have advocated trolling the Las Vegas organizers on social media. Others have suggested trademarking the name.


As of now, Shift’s Chris McCraw—who sent the first email that raised the possibility of a trademark—says there are no plans for a campaign against Las Vegas Pedal PaLooza, nor is he sincerely pushing for a trademark. “Shift has no legal budget,” he says. McCraw also points out that the name “Pedalpalooza” is itself cribbed its from Lollapalooza, and that it’s not the only Pedalpalooza out there: Similarly named events exist in Port Townsend, Wash., Herriman, Utah and even London. (He’s pretty confident, though, that Portland’s event came first.)


“We’re not so worried about brand dilution,” McCraw says. “As long as they’re not using Pedalpalooza to advocate a military or political agenda or something." 


Pedal PaLooza creator Mike Olsen says the impetus for the event was to bring a criterium race to downtown Las Vegas, which he says is undergoing a renaissance, and to promote an urban cycling culture. "Our urban cycling community is pretty much nonexistent," Olsen says. "We think that if done correctly, it can work."


He adds that was aware of the name overlap. "They're all over the country," he says.

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