Entry No. 27 — the Portland file — filed under: public art
Zoobomb Pyle
A tangled, spray-painted tower of junker kids' bikes chained to a custom rack — Portland's only city-funded (RACC allocated $10,000) piece of public art that's also a functioning lending library. Every Sunday night, Zoobombers grab a mini-bike off the pile, MAX up to the Oregon Zoo, and bomb back down the West Hills; the rest of the week it just sits there as a monument to the ritual.
The story
Most city-funded public art stays safely dead inside its plaque, but this one requires heavy-duty chain cutters. At the corner of West Burnside and SW 13th Avenue sits a steel post topped with gold leaf, choked beneath a spray-painted, tangled tower of child-sized bicycles. Official municipal records call it the People’s Bike Library of Portland, commissioned after the Regional Arts & Culture Council allocated $10,000 to artists Brian Borrello and Rankin Renwick. To anyone on the street, it’s simply the Zoobomb Pyle—a working monument to downhill anarchy where you lock up a mini-bike so someone else can hurtle down a mountain on it later.
The ritual predates the gold-leaf sculpture by years. Every Sunday night, a mix of local cyclists, punks, and night owls gather around the pile. They unchain tiny BMX frames, 12-inch toddler bikes with ridiculous high-rise handlebars, or Frankenstein-welded junkers, then wheel them onto the MAX light rail. The destination is the Washington Park / Oregon Zoo station high up in the West Hills. From there, riders helmet up and gravity-bomb back down the steep, pitch-black winding descents toward downtown, hitting absurd speeds on wheels built for eight-year-olds.
When the sun comes up on Monday morning, whichever bikes survived the descent get hauled back to Burnside, locked to the central rack, and stacked into a fresh mound. It operates as equal parts functional lending library, street-art installation, and a standing reminder that the city once wrote a five-figure check to formalize an underground bike ritual.
What it's like
Visit during the day and you’ll get a quiet, accidental sculpture of rust, metallic paint, and lock cables sitting just down the street from Powell's Books. Show up on a Sunday evening around 8:30 PM, though, and the corner comes alive with people gearing up, swapping tools, and pulling mini-bikes off the stack. You don't need to ride the hills yourself to catch the show; standing on SW 13th watching grown adults prep tiny pink bicycles for a high-speed transit ride is worth the trip alone.
The move: Walk over from Powell's on a Sunday evening and watch the Zoobomb crowd suit up and disappear up the hill — or just admire the pile any other day as accidental sculpture on your way to dinner on Burnside.
- 📍 Downtown / West Burnside
- 💸 Free
- ⚡ Up for anything
- 🌗 Outdoors
Where: SW 13th Ave & W Burnside St, Portland, OR 97205
Hours: Added 2026-07-20 — confirm current hours before you go.
Pair it with
- Multnomah Whiskey Library — A single block away on SW Alder, you can trade the outdoor bike-punk energy for leather chairs and wall-to-wall spirits behind a quiet, unmarked doorway.
- The Skeleton Key Odditorium — Walk three blocks east to keep the strange vibe going inside a 2,500-square-foot museum filled with vampire mannequins and radium displays.
- Kvinneakt — Head four blocks east to compare Portland's favorite functional bike tower with its most infamous controversial bronze nude sculpture on the Transit Mall.
- Shanghai Tunnels Underground Tour (Old Town Pizza & Brewing) — Pair Burnside's open-air Sunday ritual with a descent into the dark 1880s brick basement corridors beneath Old Town.
Good to know
Is the Zoobomb Pyle free to visit?
Yes, it stands on an open public sidewalk at SW 13th and West Burnside and costs nothing to inspect or photograph.
Who built the sculpture?
Artists Brian Borrello and Rankin Renwick designed the official steel-and-gold-leaf rack structure after RACC approved a $10,000 public art commission to anchor the bike pile.
How does the lending library work?
The bikes chained to the post are community property used for the Sunday night rides. Riders unchain them for the run up to the Oregon Zoo and re-stack them at the pile afterwards.
When is the best time to see it?
The sculpture sits on the street 24/7, but Sunday nights are when the ride gathers if you want to see the community in action.
Plan a visit & invite your people →
Further reading: Wikipedia · bikeportland.org · odoka.org
last checked: 2026-07-20