For the next four years, a niche bike apparel company with its U.S. headquarters in Portland will outfit the top-ranked pro-cycling team in the world. The London-based company Rapha announced in January its sponsorship of the British Team Sky, which claims 2012 Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins and several national champions among its ranks.

The state and local governments extend hundreds of millions of dollars each year in property tax waivers, corporate income tax credits, rebates and loans. Yet the question remains: Do tax credits and incentives actually create jobs?

Oregon is indeed a blue state, at least where berries are concerned.

Every package of Dave’s Killer Bread tells president Dave Dahl’s rags-to-riches story in small print on the bottom. “I was a four-time loser,” it begins, “before I realized I was in the wrong game.”

In many parts of Europe and Asia, mobile tickets and payments for transit are ubiquitous.

Three major international sporting goods companies are located in the Portland metro area: Nike, Adidas and Columbia Sportswear. Nevertheless, fewer than half the 491 readers surveyed identified Oregon as a hub for the sporting and athletic goods industry.

On March 16, my teenage son was among the hundreds of Oregonians who traveled north to watch the Portland Timbers play the Seattle Sounders. This game is a big deal, he informed me, well aware that my knowledge of things athletic is limited to kinder, gentler recreational activities such as bike commuting, camping and power walking around the neighborhood.