There are very few people in Portland who've had as large an impact on our bicycle scene as Ayleen Crotty. She moved here in 2000 from central Illinois as a scrappy, artistic kid, fresh-out-of-college. Ayleen quickly found her people — and most of them were on bikes.

Many of you know Ayleen as the force behind Filmed By Bike, a festival that draws filmmakers from all over the world and has shown over 1,200 films since it started in a small theater on Northeast Alberta Street 21 years ago. But before that, she was at the table for the creation of major pieces of our scene that still exist today — like Breakfast on the Bridges, Midnight Mystery Ride, Shift, Pedalpalooza, and more.

Now that Ayleen has decided to sell Filmed By Bike and move on to other creative ventures, we both sensed it was time to sit down and have a chat.

In this episode, you'll hear what Portland was like long before "Portlandia" and the many changes of the past two decades. Ayleen and I talk about early bike culture, why Portland was so ripe to blossom into a leading bike city, her impetus for launching Filmed By Bike, how she's used bike movies to make our scene more racially inclusive, and much more.

I think you'll love our conversation.

My guest today is a beacon of Portland bicycle culture. She's a co founder of several bedrock pieces of our local bike scene like PedalPalooza and Shift just to name a few. And she's the founder of the monthly Midnight Mystery Ride. And what most of you probably know her for she's a founder, owner and director — for now at least — of Portland's very own, bicycle-inspired film festival, Filmed by Bike. She's also one of the crop of people who first inspired me to get involved with this community. Ayleen Crotty, welcome to The Shed.

Hey, thanks for having me, Jonathan.

So good to have you here. Thanks for coming over in the rain. Icebreaker question: Share with me if you would, how cycling became part of your life.

Oh, that's interesting. I am not a very sporty person. And I came to cycling later in life. I wrote a bike when I was 17 to get to my summer job, but it felt very awkward. And it wasn't until I went away to college and a bike made sense on campus. And it gave me the freedom to zoom around campus and do the many, many, many, many, many things I wanted to do as a brand new college student. And I started Critical Mass at my college campus University Illinois in central Illinois. And the rest is history. That really is what helped me catch the bug and the love of cycling.

I didn't know that. So you were like a creator of cycling experiences and like activism from the get-go, like why did you start Critical Mass on your college campus?

Well, I have always been someone who's drawn to community gathering spaces and creating events, I ran events in high school, Earth Day events and that sort of thing. And I was also in the zine movement I had a zine in high school. And so because of that I caught wind of Critical Mass there, the zine community was tied in and there you could send away for how-to guides, how to do critical mass, it had flyer templates you could print out already ready to go and best practices for how to start a critical mass. I mean, it was a you know, it is a worldwide movement. And, and it made it so easy to just roll it out. And I don't know, I don't even know how we got the word out back then. But it spread and then I went away right after that first study abroad, and it continued without me, which was great to see I came back and it was still happening. So that was awesome.

Cool. Okay, maybe that was like late 90s, early 2000s, late 90s. Okay, so then I'm curious when you move to Portland and why?

I moved to Portland in 2000. Because I had visited in the 90s. I knew I loved it, I was working my way here, I just had to wrap up some other things. And I had friends out here. I was involved in community radio, and I knew that KBOO was a strong community radio station. So that was great. But I had also heard that the streets of Portland were paved with a bicyclists' gold. That is how it was presented to me by friends who had moved here and who also loved bikes! And I just thought, Well, I mean, I came out and visited, people were super friendly. Like, I cannot even tell you how friendly people were to me, who did not know me who I ran into on the streets, when I visited in the 90s. So the friendliness, the community aspect, the biking and the community radio, I was like, I am so this is I knew that my central Illinois town was too small. Most of my friends lived in Chicago, it was too big. And Portland was like that perfect in between.

Nice, nice. So how did you actually get connected into the bike scene specifically? I mean, I can imagine given like what you're into, and like how those circles tend to cross really a lot in this town, especially back then. But I'd love to hear from you like what was your initial gateway into like, you know, getting involved with the folks around Shift and other stuff like that?

It was 100% Critical Mass. Critical Mass, I tell people all the time, when they ask Why don't you have critical mass in Portland? Or why don't we have it? We're we don't need it anymore. We're beyond critical mass. But at the time, it was such... it wasn't the tool we thought it would be to convince people to get out of their cars and bike to work. But it was our networking. It's where so many of us met. It's why we have PedalPalooza, it's why we have Zoobomb. We would meet up at critical mass share ideas and information and then do critical mass. As you know, it was just such a regular occurrence, and a great place to gather with other people who understood our passion for riding bikes.

Cool. And so one of the things that you created that is still definitely going on, right? It's like the midnight mystery ride. Was that one of the things that folks in critical mass kind of started or how did the midnight mystery ride start? And then if you could just explain to folks what exactly it is.

Yeah, so Midnight Mystery Ride is a is a monthly ride to go somewhere led by somebody with the goal of wanting to just share space and hang out outside. That's really how we started. I was on my way to Kinko's one day and I saw a Midnight Bicycle League sticker on a bike staple. It was a Shawn grant and creation illustrator Sean Granton, local Portlander. And I was like, I didn't know him at the time, but I just saw this sticker and saw midnight bicycle League, I was like, That's a cool name. That's a cool concept that I'm forming in my head, I want to steal it and make the midnight mystery ride. Shawn and I have talked about it a lot since then I always give him credit for that. Because he deserves it. But we really just wanted to hang out outside, you know, we'd meet up at a bar. But a lot of people wouldn't even go inside. And we would just head out, the monthly leader would take people on a mystery ride, you didn't know where you're going. It wasn't so much about the ride as it was about the destination, and we'd make bonfires and hang out. And it we would stay up sometimes till five in the morning, two in the morning. And it was just this exciting feeling of exploring the city and those hidden spaces that were underutilized and that could be used at night.

So cool. You are somebody who was like, one of the first people that was really documenting a lot of the early Portland, Portland bike culture goes back to the you know, early, early early, like 1800s. And there's a map right here of 1896 Bike map, but Portland bike culture and like the way I understand is sort of like the more modern Portland bike culture, let's say like you were described with minute mystery ride and critical mass. I always thought it was cool how you were one of the first people documenting that. So I'd love if you could share some of like, what was that scene like for someone that that wasn't there to see it? You know, talk a little bit about like the Chunkathalon what it was like to be around in that in that moment. And what that was like?

Yeah, well, we were so fortunate to have a nice foundation that was laid by folks in the 90s Fred Nemo, Sara Stout and some other creatives who had been doing a lot of the work in bike fun that had started critical mass and laid that foundation. And then we started to catapult it to another level in the early 2000s. The Chunk folks were a bunch of Reedy folks, folks from Reed who were had this club where they could get Reed funding to build funky bikes. And they would host a party in the street where they showed off their funky bikes. And they did all sorts of other cool stuff, Chunk 666. A zine too right? Yeah, a big part of it. And we just started taking these ideas and running with it, people would just come up with a new idea and say, Hey, we're I'm going to do this thing. People would say that sounds cool, and they'd show up to it. We didn't have the extensive calendar that we have now have bike summer. So we'd go to everything. And we started to get to know each other and just show up at each other's events. So Chunk 666 was happening. Breakfast on the Bridge was a concept that I took from a guy named Arif Khan who was working for the BTA and he was doing cookies on the bridge after work to thank cyclists every once in a while. And I catapulted that into breakfast on the bridge, which is I'm so thankful that still exists to this day. And people were just starting these different concepts zoobomb got started, and they were so welcoming. They said, We love this funky, little kid bike thing. But everybody's welcome. No matter what kind of bike you're on, we just want you to be there. We just want to crowds in that enthusiasm. And maybe it was that validation that there were other people out there who wanted to just have fun on bikes like we did.

Okay, so like, but what what can you say anything about like Portland specifically, that would have led to the creation of those kinds of things. Like I'm assuming, like, you had somewhat fresh eyes, I think you and I share the fact that we moved here and like saw that and we came here already sort of being bike centric people. So I think we have like, you know, this like fresh perspective of like, understanding that it's special and different. And maybe that's why we sort of like we're so you know, intrigued or like wanted to capture it. Maybe I'm not I don't want to speak for you, but that was what it was like for me. But can you help me understand? Like, I wasn't around at those very early times as much as you were and I'm just curious, like, what do you think about Portland specifically have this, you know, led to this expression around bicycles?

Yeah, it's totally a Portland thing that extends far beyond cycling far beyond bikes and bike culture. I have always been fascinated by Portland's try anything attitude that existed especially richly in those early 2000s days. When this was a city where you could live very inexpensively rent was inexpensive you could dumpster dive and live a scrappy lie. Tons of creatives were here, Alberta Street had mostly boarded up buildings I lived off of Alberta Street at 20th. And Alberta, most of the buildings were boarded up, things were inexpensive, and Portlanders have always had this, 'I don't know, try it, see what happens, what's the worst that could happen?' And you find that in cities when in in regions, when when the cost of living isn't as high, the risks are lower, it is easier, you're not working so hard to maintain your daily life, that you don't have the energy for that, or you don't have the risk of investing some of your own money. Because let's be honest, a lot of these projects start with whoever starting it, put some of their own money into it. And that may only be 10 bucks for fliers or something. But that's still something when you're scrappy person in the early 2000s. So we did that. And we weren't the only ones. You know, the arts were really rich and exciting galleries were existing, bands were doing funky things. There were creative art projects everywhere. And we were just an extension of that with bike creativity.

And then at some point into that mix. This idea of showing bike movies, like came about? How did that how did film by bike first get it start? Like what? What What was the mix happening that you were able to sort of inject bike movies into?

Well, we there was somebody who had the idea for an event which required some funding. So at the time, many of our bike events would happen. If they were something where people gathered during the daytime, they happened without permits. So we had to find places where we could do that without you know, causing any problems. But someone had the idea of Amy stork was their name, she had the idea, let's do an event where we don't have to worry about that. Like we get all the permissions we need. We do it sanctioned so families can come and not be worried about oh, the event got closed down because it didn't have permits. So we wanted to host it at a park, have permits, it was called the Multnomah County Bike Fair. And it was meant to be a summertime fun festival full of all sorts of quirkiness and creativity. But in order to fund that, we needed funding for those permits. And I decided to put together a film festival a bike movies because I have a film festival background. I had done film festivals before. And there were bike movies being made, there was a local guy, Rev Phil, he was documenting stuff and making movies. And I thought, well, if I can get enough of Rev Phil's movies together, and a few others, maybe people will come watch it. But the secret sauce was that we routed critical mass to end at the film festival so that we were guaranteed a crowd.

Brilliant!

Yeah, To this day, I think that was one of my smartest moves ever. From a marketing standpoint. So we had a great crowd, we had standing room only, we had people buying tickets knowing they weren't even going to be able to see the screen. Because they just wanted to be a part of what they knew something is happening. They felt it. We had the bicycle powered blender out front making smoothies. Somebody hosted a baked good sale on the sidewalk and all the proceeds from the night went to fund the Multnomah County bike fair. After that night, we realized that it was exciting. It was fun. And it should happen again. That was kind of the theme of that era. If it worked. If people came, it was trying again, and again and again and again until people no longer came. So with Filmed By Bike, People kept coming year after year. And eventually I had to go to the Shift crew and say, Hey, this is a thing that's happening. And I want to just make it my own. And instead of it being the collective, everybody thing, which was our mindset back then everything was so community oriented. And I really took it under my wing and worked on making it my creative endeavor after that with tons of community support to make that happen.

Oh my gos h, there's so much there. So that was 2002 to 2000. Yeah 2002. It was it at Clinton Street Theater at the start from the very beginning?

We started at this amazing little micro theater at just off near Alberta in MLK called La Palabra Cafe Press. And it was a micro theater and a photography, art space. They had a dark room there. And they no longer exist, but they were very community minded and they let us use that space for free. And you know, having access to space was a big part of how a lot of our bike culture started because we had we didn't have to worry as much about spending money to rent spaces to do the cool things we wanted to do.

Yes, I love that. And that's that's a key part of like, some of the changes in Portland about some of those venues not being available anymore. So I hear what you're saying, oh my gosh, your your previous response like went over so many things that I think I was so excited to learn about I didn't I didn't know the connection between film by bike and Multnomah County bike fair. And we also just gloss over Multnomah County bike fair. So just for the record, since it doesn't really happen anymore. Yeah, he'd even say that, but it doesn't really happen. It was so amazing. It was such a great gathering. It was like the capstone of pedal Palooza each year. So just want to kind of like mark that for the record of like, what a cool event that was, but Oh, my God having critical mass and at film by bike, I didn't know that either way. That is such a brilliant move. Okay, so before I want to talk more about film by bike, obviously, that's one of the main reasons I wanted to talk to you. Before we do, can you give people a sense of like the scale of film by bike? I'm sure you have some numbers, whatever numbers you have, like, how many screenings have there been? Like? You know, how many how many films have been showed, like, can you give us a sense of like how big this festival has been?

We estimate that we've shown around 1,200 films over the years, our archive, we don't have all those, but we know we don't have a lot of the stuff from the very early days, though it exists on a few DVDs that are floating around out there. Film by bike was always in our later years, we were six programs in Portland. So a three day weekend festival, film by bike goes on the road to other cities, and we've been in anywhere between 15 to 30 cities a year since that started about 10 years ago. And Ithaca, New York is our longest running festival, a Portland are moved to if a cop brought a DVD and the entire concept. And the rest is history that helped start our tour program. And Ithaca has been hosting Filmed By Bike every year ever since then we have a really, really beautiful relationship with their bike/walk organization out there and other cities as well doing similar things. So this ability to move beyond city or beyond Portland and export a little of what we do here and all that creative culture stuff we talked about early on, really feeds into the tour program when we send our movies on the road. We're hoping to infuse a little of that bike fun enthusiasm with everything we do.

And something about the film's I mean, I I sort of worried that people that are listening to this that maybe haven't been to a film by bike screening yet or just they're thinking like, What even is a bike movie? Like I don't I don't get that. Like there's never like, what does that mean? Like, I think you've really uncovered like in that catalog of like 1000 Plus films, there's some real gems in there. These are not like, you know, GoPro, people riding on a street. I mean, these are some of these like real cinematic masterpieces. So like, can you pull out a few and just mentioned like, what, what are some of the memorable films? Or like, how would you explain what a bike movie is to somebody who just has no concept of what what we're talking about?

Yeah, that's a great question. Because people often ask me really, how can there be that many movies about riding your bike exactly right is about more than riding your bike. So we have seen so many gems over the years from the really raw, heartfelt stories that maybe don't have high production value to films with high production value. One of the first filmmakers that really started to bring that high production value to the festival is an amazing filmmaker named Joey Schusler, he often he's out of Colorado, and he often has funding from some brands that allow him to do the work that he does. But he takes all of his high end camera equipment on his back, and heads out into remote areas all over the world, and documents that journey. And he's a great guy. He's got a beautiful eye. His films are amazing. And when he started submitting work, I feel like that's when everything started to change a little bit for us cinematically and we were able to start showing these these beautifully stunning pieces from all over the world. We find that you know, it's sometimes it's it's a really quirky film that the audience absolutely goes crazy for local filmmaker Mike Vogel. He is known for creating short films that our audience loves one of his is about and we will see this at the Greatest Hits show there's a movie about a guy who's trying to decide if he should take his bike to go to his dentist appointment, because his wife is going to be using the car that day and he's having this existential crisis about the extra time it might take or not take and it's, you know, such a silly concept, but when you're a cyclist, these films can sometimes play out so well. The humor, we don't get a lot of the funny stuff, but when we do, it's usually very well done. and really speaks to those quirky little things that bikers think about.

And the global aspect, too. I mean, a lot of the lot of the films I see in the, in the on the list each year, like, from Africa, Iran, I think there's was the one about Afghanistan, women's cycling in Afghanistan, I think one year, so sort of, like political to. So it just really runs the gamut. I think it's such an interesting part of it.

Yeah, it really does. And in the early days, we were heavily Portland based filmmakers. And over the years, as the word got out, we were able to attract filmmakers from other areas. And we also go seeking out films nowadays, we can find so many of them online. And we actually do a dedicated process of fostering relationships with filmmakers from all over the world. We had a filmmaker for from Turkey, who made a film about a guy in India, and we were able to bring them to our show, online during the pandemic. And those were conversations we never would have had when film by bike first got started, we probably would have never even seen that movie if it had been made back then. So now we have this global connection. And the most interesting part to me is that though we may speak different native tongues, when we communicate, no matter what language we're talking in, we use a very similar shared language when talking about bikes. There's a lot of words and phrases that we just have in common. And there's something really I don't know, that's just like a little side thing that I think is really awesome. I love talking with our filmmakers whose like, native tongue is not English, and communicating with them and talking about bike stuff, and just getting stoked about the same things no matter where we live.

That's so neat, like the universality of it totally all over the globe. Yeah. So a lot of people might think that, you know, film festival, we have a pandemic, that it basically would have just completely died off, because no one's gonna go into a theater, but like, your film by bike didn't, it survived and in some ways, thrived during the pandemic, right? Like, tell me what was that experience? Like? How did you have a film festival or do this whole thing during during COVID?

Yeah, that was so interesting, because the world got weird. And people didn't even know if they could ride their bikes, right? This was the time when we wondered, Is it even safe to be on our bike? Is it safe to ride near people should be we'd be married wearing masks, should we be riding solo. And I know that for so many people riding their bikes is that it's what they do for mental health. It's what they do for exercise and socialization. I know a lot of people who struggle with social situations who have social anxiety, but can ride bikes, because you don't really have to talk a lot, or you just have this common activity, you can talk about that. And I just thought about all those people sitting inside. And it just made me really sad to think that this could be a challenging time could be even more challenging for people who are missing out on the one activity, or one of the activities that helps them feel more grounded and balanced and healthy. And I thought, well, you know, surely at first, I thought, oh, surely the bicycle industry is going to step up. I watched other industries step up and support their industry at that time. But it quickly became apparent the bicycle industry wasn't going to do anything to offer comfort and solace to people specifically speaking to them as cyclists. And we have a deep archive of awesome content and entertainment. And this was a time when everybody was consuming entertainment. We were stuck at home, we would get online, we'd watch shows, movies, whatever we could do. And so we started, we knew we had an old YouTube channel somewhere. Couldn't exactly remember how to passwords and stuff like that, where it was that login again, and we didn't know how to livestream so I got up to speed on how to livestream which was super fun. I love a new challenge like that. So I learned how to livestream got a great piece of software for that. brushed off the dust from our YouTube channel. Took some cues Thank you pathless peddled followed a lot of cues from what I saw pathless peddled doing, and just launched into it. We started with the global Bike Fest where we brought on some guests and a musician and we showed some of our favorite films. And then after that, we just started doing regular bike movie nights as well as every week we did a happy hour and I brought in anyone I could think of it was people like you, Jonathan, it was friends. It was people around I was like, Okay, let's just get three four people. We'll just talk on Friday. We'll talk about what we're all going through online on the YouTube on the YouTube channel. We'll do it live. We did it live. We caught it a happy hour. We encouraged people to grab something to drink or snack on and join us and we had a chat function because of the software we were using. It made it really easy Easy, and we just connected with people. And we created this space where I felt comforted and hoped that the viewers would feel comforted as well. We just kept churning out content week after week. And the best one of the best parts other than this happy hours, which I thought were pretty sweet. I got to invite on to the virtual stage, people I had always admired no matter where they lived. People like Rebecca Rusch and always been fascinated by her the founder of Rebecca's Private Idaho, a very accomplished cyclist, super strong woman, who does a lot to give back to the community. And I was like, to talk to Rebecca, I got Rebecca on I got Lael Wilcox, another really accomplished ultra endurance athlete. I've always been fascinated by her. And people just kept saying, yes. So I was able to bring on to our virtual stage, all these really inspiring folks and spend some time chatting with them. And just giving an opportunity for our viewers to feel connected to a bicycle conversation. At a time when we couldn't be on our bikes as much, or even if we were, it was just a way to talk about this underlying concept of you know, the strangeness of the pandemic, we understand you as a cyclist. We know what you're going through, and we just want to connect, and we couldn't connect in person. So we connected on YouTube, and I never thought a virtual space could be so powerful, but it definitely was.

Okay, it's like in a in a related way, something that I've heard you talk about that I think is really interesting, is how, you know, like a film festival, and just watching bike movies can be like, inherently inclusive. Is there is there something to that? Like? I mean, there's been a big push in recent years to make sure that as people organize bike rides, which is kind of like, the more common language of like how you do bike culture, you have a ride around a certain theme and everybody knows pedal Palooza, hundreds of rides all this stuff. But like, tell me about how you instill that kind of ethic into like, like watching a movie or like what what that's like to be in a theater.

Yeah, we used to talk about bicycle inclusion in bicycle culture inclusion, in terms of messengers, roadies, you know, commuters, right, that meant inclusion, if you can bring all those folks together. Well, now we know that inclusion is much more important. Inclusion is white folks, brown folks, black folks, indigenous folks all sharing space together and everyone being in a situation where everybody is treated equally. It's not easy to do in the bicycle culture. And the bicycle industry hasn't put on screen or an imagery, images of people who aren't skinny white men like that's the prevailing view of like, who rides a bike, right? That's what people think of skinny white guy in spandex. One of the beauties of watching movies together is when those lights go down. You are laughing and crying and sharing moments with people who you're not looking at, you don't know what they look like, because it's a dark theater space. And I love that it really is that leveling ground that opportunity to bring people together no matter whether you are into bikes, or curious about bikes heavily into bikes, or whatever it is, no matter the color, your skin, your background, your economic level, your job, what kind of bike you ride, what style of riding you like to do, we can all enjoy these movies, some are going to enjoy the mountain bike movies more than the urban movies. But I bet everyone's going to enjoy Mike Vogel's funny movies. So it's really this beautiful space that brings people together. And we also get a ton of people just here in Portland, we get a ton of people that just live around the theater that come because they love the Hollywood theater, and they support what the Hollywood theater does. And they may not even be all that into bikes. But they're probably going to leave that theater a little more inspired to ride. And that's absolutely awesome.

That's so cool. And so it's also important to you right that the actual films that people are watching are not just skinny white guys, let's say or whatever. So you were very intentional about that. Right? And you created like a black indigenous people of color like grant specifically and that how does that work?

Yeah, we started our own grant fund, because over the years, we work so hard, spending eight months out of the year looking for films, right? So we dig through the deep reaches of the internet to find every movie we can find that we think has merit, or is might have merit and we encourage them to submit their film and have our jury help us review those films. But even with all that digging, we just weren't seeing the representation that we knew was part of the culture wasn't being represented in the films.So in 2020, we decided to get crazy because it was crazy times the the racial justice uprising was happening. And there was so much awareness. And we thought this was something we would do in the future, we thought we would start some sort of a grant fund in the future when we were more established. But 2020 was just the time to do it. And I'm so glad we did, because there was so much awareness. And so many companies willing to put their money into projects that they thought would make a difference. So we launched our own BIPOC filmmaker grant fund specifically to support emerging bipoc filmmakers to create films by and about bipoc cyclists. And that first year, we had four grants that we were able to give out, the funding was great that year. Since then, we've been able to give out grants every year, and this year, we had 160 applications for the grant fund. And we were only able to award one filmmaking project. It's a beautiful project, it'll be coming out next year. But it is a powerful funding source. It's not huge. But it's enough for a filmmaker to understand that their project has value and merit and is worth pursuing. So we award cash grants of $1,500. We also have a professional filmmaker, Manny Marquez, who's a person of color himself, he is able to sit down with these filmmakers and advise them every step of the way through their project as much as they want. He's just gives us his time. He knows his stuff, he's been around the block, he's been a filmmaker forever. And we're able to help these filmmakers, at least a little bit with cash and support. And then often they'll go out and seek additional funding if they need it, to support their project. But it really helps get those projects off the ground. And it's bringing important stories to the screen, that maybe these stories wouldn't be told otherwise. And I feel like with film by bike, if we weren't operating this grant fund, we wouldn't be doing the important work that we're doing right. So without this grant fund, I wouldn't feel as proud of everything I've done with film by bike, because without these stories, and these are just a few stories, there's so many more out there that deserved to be told. But we're small, we're doing what we can, there. It's just so important to bring more stories to life. And, and to not ignore the fact that our industry and our culture has been so skewed towards the white folks. And that's not a representation of everybody who loves bikes. And so we're just trying to do our part to bring more representation to the screen and shine a spotlight on these amazing stories.

So wonderful. Last time we talked you mentioned sort of how this is a mix of for you like "art activism and joy"

Yeah.

and I think that really gets gets to a lot of that in 21 years, you've built this thing that is just so special and has such a legacy. I'm just curious about you know, the big news like why now why Why have you decided to move on personally and sell filmed by bike to someone else?

Well, film by bike to me has been that perfect combination of community building and the arts. And also bicycle activism. I love cycling. I want to get more people on bikes, fill my bike does that check brings people together community building does that: check! Love that. And also, I'm a creative I come from an experiential arts background. So I think a film by bike is my life's great work my my best artistic project I've ever had the opportunity to work on. And I'm I feel complete. I feel like I built it to where it needs to be. I've had so much joy working on it. I've met the world's most amazing people like that is what is going to stick with me when I think about those relationships I've formed all throughout the world. Those have been amazing and the experiences we've been able to have the parties, we've been able to have our street party use, you know, when we had that that was amazing. I love curating the playlists and thinking about what are people going to be listening to as they walk into the theater. Shout out to anyone who notices that I've put a ton of time into that. I don't care if people notice. But I love sculpting out the music for the shows. And I have many other creative interests in life that I want to pursue and I'm not getting any younger so it's a great time to see if there are other folks who can take it in a different realm. I'm pretty sure whoever buys film by bike will do something similar but also add in other ideas and I love that concept. You know I started Did midnight mystery ride and breakfast on the bridge and helped start shift and I love to see where things go after I've been able to have my say in some of the early decisions and, and give some of my creative input and then see what other people do with it. That's really the beauty of it. For me, I love that lasting legacy, and seeing the input of many other people along the way.

So, what should people expect, though, right? So like, you're not going to be involved? Is there a chance where someone buys it and you stay on as like, program director or something like that? Or Or no, like, I'm just trying to? Could it be a nonprofit that buys it? Could it I mean, at this point, are you pretty much open to a lot of different you know, scenarios of like what happens to film by bike next?

Yeah, lots of interesting scenarios are possible, I'll definitely be part of a transition plan to ensure that things go smoothly. Film by bike really prides itself on having great systems and good archives. We've had an amazing team over the years, primarily led by women, we've been almost an entirely women led team over the years, shout out to Guthrie Straw our films manager who's one of the few dudes that's ever worked with us, but we've really run a great show. And so it's nicely set up for someone to easily take it on, I'll be part of that transition plan and then my plan is to be absolutely not involved after that. I really want to give the new owner total creative ownership over transforming it into something new with it doesn't have to be Ayleen's filmed by bike anymore, I really want it to be something other than that. And it could be a nonprofit that takes it on, it could be a collective, it could be an owner with some other support from some other folks. There are folks interested right now. And we're in the early days of figuring out who that might be that that carries it on to the next next phase. You know, here in Portland film by bike is something we know very well and love. In other cities we go to in the other regions, it's brand new, and it is it is really eye opening. And the conversations I have with folks after they see film by bike in other areas are really awesome, because they are just wow, absolutely wowed by what they see. And the films keep getting better and better over the years. So I feel like for my bike has a lot of life left in it.

And you specifically will have another chance to inject some of that life into it with your big Greatest Hits show that's coming up later this month. Right. So what's the deal with that? What's what's going to happen at the Greatest Hits event?

Yeah, I'm super stoked for the Greatest Hits event. It's October 26. At Cinema 21. They've been awesome to work with in putting this big show together. We'll be in the main theater there with which seats 450 people. And I absolutely want a sold out show I want to see tons of people coming out for this last chance to see my take on film by bike and my opportunity to dig into the archives and share with the audience some of the rare gems, some of the audience favorites and a few of my favorites as well. We're going back to the very first year film by bike, I found an old DVD that I thought had been lost. And we got that transferred we'll be showing not only one of my favorite films from filmed by bike I, "Bloody Bike Bath 3" there was no one or two — it's just Bloody Bike Bath 3, y'all are gonna love it. But also some really cool footage from the early days of Portland bike culture, we've got some chunk 666 footage and really neat opportunities to see the early days as well as some of the great films from later years as well. That's going to be a big show. It's a long program with an intermission and an after party afterwards, it's really going to be a great blowout opportunity in October. Not much else going on in late October anyway. So come get the cozy at the theater with us. It's gonna be so much fun. And again, we're gonna have an after party afterwards. So it's a chance for people to connect and talk about their favorite memories from film by bike over the years.

OK. 6:30pm October 26 cinema 21 Yes, be there. That's going to be awesome. I cannot wait, especially the early ones. I'm looking forward to those Ayleen is there anything else that you want to share that we didn't talk about?

Well, I do have to say the Portland bike community made filmed by bike what it is if people hadn't been coming out to the theater, especially in those early days, we wouldn't have known that we're onto something that was worth continuing. Filmed by bike has been a great labor of love on top of, you know, I've always had a day job on top of running film by bike so I could not have done it without so many amazing folks volunteering and being part of the core film by bike community that made it happen over the years. So lots of creative folks have been involved. We've been able to be goofy and silly and creative and have so much fun. It really truly show the Portland bike spirit. I think we've done that well, and I look forward to seeing what happens with it next.

That's awesome. Thank you so much, Ayleen. Thanks for Filmed By Bike and all the other cool stuff that you've done in this community. And I know that you're not done doing cool stuff in this community. So I can't wait to see what happens next. But yeah, thanks again. And thanks for coming into The Shed.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.