One day in either the 7th or 8th grade, Joe Hoffman, Richard Pauly, and probably Billy Kopczak (and maybe others, I don’t remember) thought it would be fun to push our bikes up Portland’s Germantown Road and ride back down.

Germantown Road goes from the south end of the St. Johns Bridge up to Skyline Boulevard. It is a paved, tree-lined, narrow, steep, and winding two-lane road with several blind curves. Boy, we thought, that sounds like fun!

To get there we had to ride up from our neighborhood to the north end of the bridge, walk our bikes across the bridge on the west sidewalk, and then ride halfway down the exit road that went down to St. Helens Road, then left turn onto Germantown Road. Then it was dismount and push our bikes up the road.

In those days, bikes, at least the ones we had, did have brakes, but they were called coaster brakes. To go forward you simply pedaled, and when you quit pedaling you would coast. To brake, you pushed one or the other pedal backwards to lock the brakes.

These brakes were adequate on level ground or when used infrequently, but would fail when used continually. Rather than being “rubber” pads that engage the outside of the wheel rims front and back as they are today, they consisted of several thin metal discs inside the rear wheel hub that would compress, thereby creating friction inside the hub when the rider tried to pedal backwards. When overused these discs would overheat quickly and start to slip, thereby allowing the rear wheel to continue to turn no matter how hard you pushed on the pedal.

Now picture this. Several kids who had pushed their bikes up Germantown Road then got on their bikes and started back down. Remember, the road is tree-lined, has blind curves, and we had no way to know if there was a car coming up while we were on the road.

All went well for the first couple of turns and short, straight stretches. But then our brakes began to get hot. Most of us were trying to be as cautious as we could, but not Richard Pauly. He took off like a bat out of hell and left us in the dust.

Unfortunately he didn’t get too far. We caught up to him where he had hit a solid rock wall when he failed to negotiate a sharp turn. Fortunately he appeared to be ok, at least as normal as usual, and we continued on our way. But we were way more cautious, didn’t encounter any oncoming cars, or have any other mishaps.

We did make the trip up and over Germantown Road one other time when we had the bright idea to ride our bikes to the ocean, which was 90 miles away. Fortunately we had enough sense to turn back before we got very far since we had no food, camping gear, or money, and had not bothered to tell our parents what we were up to. We took it a lot easier going down German Town Road that time.

This is the best I recall. I’m sure Joe will add to it or make corrections. That will be appreciated.

Ken Kaiyala
1-14-2024