Nina and Zoe the kelpie. ‘Follow the dog’ trail. Forest, VIC.
Many trail riders are what you might call ‘outdoor people’.
One of the greatest delights trail riders can have is going for a ride on wicked trails with best mates. And when I say best mates, I mean two-wheeled (of course), but also two-legged (human mates) and four-legged (trail dogs) mates.
I love riding trails with dogs.
My kelpie Zoe and I have been on many happy bike riding adventures.
Having a dog just makes life, and riding your bike, so much fun.
Ruby the Trail dog is one of many trail dogs that I go to if I need a lift and seeing her out on natural singletrack with her MTB dad turns always makes me smile.
There are always some great content, videos, products and artworks circulating for special events and days like US National Dog Day.
Or the big-hearted project Riding for Rescues, a program where bike riders raise money to help, rescue and sponsor animals (many of them dogs) to get them out of high-kill shelters and be re-homed instead of being put down.
Recently I got sent a link for A Dogs Tale which celebrates dogs and trail riders. It is in a similar vein to Paws and Wheels, but with a stronger narrative line from the POV of retired trail dog Raven.
This video has a mix of all kinds of shapes, sizes, colours, ages, locations and breeds. In this video we are introduced to:
Raven (the narrator)
Levi
Lucy & Sid
Driggs
Nash
Emmy
They are all adorable and make you want to get out on your bike on single track.
So many awesome bike riding trails, environments and moments.
Emmy’s tummy scrub at 6′ 55″ is such a great slo-mo shot! Just saying!
So do your mental health a favor … and check the video out.
The description for this video reads:
It all starts with the trail. The crunch of the dirt, the smell of a dewy morning ride, or the feeling of brushing away pebbles with a perfectly timed belly scrub.
These are the happy memories of a trail dog’s life well lived.
Raven is a 13-year-old retired trail dog from Squamish, British Columbia who’s spent countless days frolicking on loamy singletrack beneath towering spruces. Old age has slowed her down, and now Raven happily lies in the driveway, watching dog after dog, and their human, head for the hills.
Celebrating the joys of mountain biking through the eyes of the trail dog, Raven takes us from her driveway memories in BC to the high deserts of Utah, to freshly cut South African trails and back again.
We meet some of the feistiest, four-legged trail personalities along the way, who all enjoy the mountain bike world in their own way, just like us humans do, whether it’s hitting jump lines, lapping through the loam, or setting out to build new trail.
Terry Barentsen is an NYC-based bike rider-creative who makes incredible mobile videos about urban biking and the associated lifestyle – and much more his YouTube channel is very popular and rightfully so. Terry’s content is crisp, inspiring, professional and highly engaging.
My favorite videos are the Hotline series, where Terry rides behind a local rider (who is miked up) and then follows them as they ride around their local area – which is usually a densely populated city.
These clips are incredible to watch. It is exciting watching highly skilled (mostly fixie) riders zooming dangerously around New York, Mexico City, Moscow, San Francisco, Rome, Tokyo or where ever.
Below is a 100-word worlding I wrote about the Hotline videos:
Worlding: Lessons from Hotlining
Research lessons from Terry Barentsen’s hyper-urban street bike riding Hotline videos. Fear and excitement comingle. Bodies, bikes, cities, noises, skills, congestions, objects, demands and decisions. Moving intuitively. Operating on feel and precognition. Bravery shoves perilousness into oncoming traffic. Constant(ly) urgent flow(s). Giving red lights, erratic vehicles and law-abiding pedestrians the finger. Always pushing and scanning just ahead(s). Whistles, shouts and drag-hitches on cab doors. Scaring yourself and others. (con)Sensual (re)Activity. Instances of recovery and realisation. Extreme moments of confluence. Getting to where you need to be, faster. One long, unedited, continuous journey of think-ride-living in the middle.
Getting into Hotlining
Although mostly located in the US, Terry travels widely and I really appreciate the broad range of diverse people, places and bike styles he showcases – he genuinely includes everyone – and they are all equally exciting to watch for different reasons.
The sometimes included daggy 1970s Hotline intro is hilarious.
You don’t need to be a bike rider to appreciate a Hotline.
Zipping down streets, over embankments, skidding between cars, dodging walkers, jumping barriers, crossing lines and managing fasts speeds, traffic, built environs and themselves the whole time. Unreal!
Watching fixie riders is exhilarating: their skill, grace and bravery is incredible – and definitely not always legal. I find myself mesmerized as I watch how they hold speed, what lines they chose to take, the snap decisions they need to make and how the city lives, breathes and orientates around everything that moves – it is literally poetry in motion.
I’m a Hotline fan for many reasons, least of all because it is highly original content, beautifully produced videography, celebrates ALL kids of bikers and bike riding, takes in all the sensory surrounds, is inclusive, positive, exciting and creative, and is exclusively focused on the embodied, moving POV of the riders in situ.
I also really appreciate that most of these videos are one-shot non-edited footage – raw as!
And I love that the whole series is about celebrating all different types of riders (and not just focused on Terry himself) – how refreshing!
Some of the Hotlines, have cool Jazz or World Music tunes overlayed, other times there is no music, sometimes both. I dig being able to hear the rider breathing and talking as they whip and whizz and ride. The quality ASMR immersion of the ride helps better appreciate the dynamicism and noise of the riding activity and surrounding vibrancy: honking, braking, music blaring, road crossing beeps, pedestrians talking, snippets of conversations, natural sounds of wheels on surfaces, bus engines ….and all the while being able to ride-with a rider-bike-environs assemblage.
As well as the Hotline videos, Terry’s channel also has HEAPS of other associated bikey-interest content, like video diaries, tech info and explanations, bike checks, special bike styles/models (fixies, road, track, singlespeeds, MTB), ‘How to’s, night rides, ride-alongs, meet the rider/interviews, event, rides and site visitations, a series called ‘chasing strangers’. There’s also a few tech-specific video playlists like the 4K series, stills, 360s and a few unspecified off-cuts, rough-cuts and ‘shorts’ that always have something a little left of center.
So if you haven’t already seen the Hotlines, series, I highly recommend on your next tea break to go and check out a few different Hotline rides – I guarantee… you will not be disappointed!
Recently, I attended a very unique opportunity: a 4-part virtual Geography, Art and MemoryWorkshop co-convened by Griffith’s Centre for Social and Cultural Research Dr Laura Rodriguez Castro, Dr Diti Bhattacharya, Dr Kaya Barry and Prof. Barabra Pini.
As a New Materialisms community bike researcher working in Sierra Leone, my work is embedded with post(de)coloniality, cultural dynamics, current-past experiences, gender, geography, mobility and space-time-matterings.
So I was excited about this workshop! Right up my (v)alley! (Get it? Geo joke!)
This workshop invited us to examine and experiment with the cultural and political potentials of ‘memory through art’ in geography inquiry. We looked at creative practices, collaborated and had discussions on some key and pressing issues related to our specific research. There was also the added bonus of an invitation to contribute to a Special Issue of Australian Geographer(2022).
In this session we asked:
What does art do to geographies of memories?
Image: Memories Through Art
A workshop in 4 parts
The workshop was structured in four parts:
Part 1 – 1st February 2021 by 5:00pm: In the week leading up to the event, workshop participants submitted a 1 page (A4 portrait or landscape) response to the question: ‘What does art do to geographies of memory?’ The response could be written, creative, drawn, mapped, photos, collage, text, prose, or more. We will share these on our website, and will form a key discussion point for the interactive workshop event.
Part 2 – 4th February 2021, 3:00pm-5:00pm: We attended the keynote presentations by Libby Harward (Australia) and Virgelina Chara (Columbia). These two artists (see below) work with the current pressing issues of geographical research, treating them as a threshold point for their own creative responses and provocations that they may choose to share during parts 3 and 4. We focused on artistic interventions from Southern epistemologies as these continue to be underrepresented in Australian geography.
Part 3 – 5th February 2021, 9.30am – 12:30pm: Each participant gave an informal 5-minute talk about their creative response which they submitted prior to the workshop. (See my submission is at the end of this post).
Part 4 (optional) – 5th February 2021, 12:30pm – 1:30pm: In the final hour, we collectively discussed how to take these ideas and discussions forward as a Special Issue ofAustralian Geographer integrating some of the workshop themes.
Keynote speakers
Virgelina Chara
Virgelina Chará is a human rights defender, educator, embroidery artist and protest music composer from Colombia. She coordinates the ‘Association for the Integral Development of Women, Youth and Children’ (ASOMUJER y Trabajo) which works with forcibly displaced families and victims of the armed violence in Colombia. She is also the leader of the Embroidery Union at the Memory Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in Bogotá, Colombia. She is a world-renowned educator on the pedagogy and power of memory for the construction of peace.
She was born in Suárez, Cauca, which is a region where armed conflict, extractivism and neoliberal development have meant many people, including Virgelina and her family, have had to confront violence and displacement. Since 2003 Virgelina has resided in Bogotá. In 2005 she was proposed as a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.
You can read more on Virgelina’s work here (left click to Google Translate to English).
Libby Harward
Artist Libby Harward is a descendant of the the Ngugi people of Mulgumpin (Morton Island) in the Quandamooka (Morton Bay Area).
Known for her early work as an urban graffiti artist under the pseudonym of ‘Mz Murricod’, and her performance-based community activism, Harward’s recent series, ALREADY OCCUPIED, engages a continual process of re-calling – re-hearing – re-mapping – re-contextualising – de-colonising and re-instating on country that which colonisation has denied Australia’s First Peoples.
This political practice engages Traditional Custodians in the evolution of ephemeral installations on mainland country which has become highly urbanised and calls for an artistic response that seeks to uncover and reinstate the cultural significance of place, which always was, and remains to be there. Her current place-based sound and video work engages directly with politically charged ideas of national and international significance.
You can find on Libby’s work here and read more on her project DABILBUNG here.
Workshop foucs
During this workshop we discussed themes of memory, art, and geographical knowledge in order to motivate a creative dialogue among geographers, artists, and activists.
We talked about the key question and looked at how to move beyond methodological debates and how to use art mediums as approaches to bring to light the affective and political forces of place speaking to timely and important issues such as colonialism, climate change, migration and peace and conflict.
There was a strong focus on Indigenous and Southern epistemologies and discussions on how to decolonize feminist research involved with geography, power, labour, art, and memory.
Image: Still taken from Virgelina Chará’s keynote.
Workshop convergences, notes, artifacts and ideas
I was heavily invested in the discussions, which were provocative, rich and challenging. Out of respect for the content and participants present, I have chosen to deliberately deviate from the traditional blog ‘reportage’ style of summarising the workshop. Instead, I am using a non-linear, fragmented, messy, (in)process(un)complete, more New Materialist approach to ‘throw up’ a few random snippets, thoughts and connections I noted during these sessions. The below content is a deliberate post-human shift from presenting content as if it is ‘right’, ‘accurate’ or ‘makes sense’ to humans-participants-knowers. While some content may make sense – some may not. There are no mistakes or errors in these notes. So for the below notes, you dear reader, are implicated in the reiteration and (re)co-creation of the workshop ‘matters’ ….. here we go!
This story is ‘sew’ important …memory, history and life for so many, but new information for others (like me) elsewhere..truthtelling, invasion, pollution, academic violence and extractivism…The ‘Justice ‘ dept, The Memory Centre, the Power of Memory, parent-teacher-adult time with student-children-learner, ‘education is so square now’, pedagogy of memory, to the teachers: ‘do you realise you are the useless ones here?’… we don’t do it through writing, we do it through sewing and food, they have had massacres in every country, ‘ (Duque) he’ is just the model..creative outputs that help us think about these issues…
Some participants linked Virgelina‘s keynote to other textile protests, work and exhibitions, such as:
Libby shares with us her visionary bloodletting, deadstream and saltwater reflections. Flow. Sand Crunch. Lying in grass. Forms and textures. Listen (more) carefully. Birds-eye views. Film as experiential documentation. Art that moves and breathes. Unexpected. Tasmanian salvaged timber. Art(work)s. lying – lying. Post-colonisation – Decolonisation.
Mike is a chairmaker and researcher. Listening to Mike makes me think about how the ideological state apparatus presents a ‘version of collective memory-truth’ (ie statues & iconoclasts) – that is literally set in concrete (or other material) and associated forms of patriarchal, colonistic (tee-hee..get it?! not now, stay focus(ed), be serious!), political issues that go along with that kind of art …and that the artist is rarely? clearly? identified or acknowledged….after all it is their output/work/….
BI re(views) the memory artifacts produced: Proserpine Ambulance Depot (1990), Proserpine Hospital Outpatients Department (1939-1999), Proserpine RSL Club (1950-1990), and the Eldorado Picture Theatre (1927-1985).
Janis literary maps and remaps the Queensland Wollen Manufacturing Company floorplan(s) with mill(field)work, mill(i)visits, millscapes and milieus. Overlaying Coral’s draft interpretations of Mud Maps. Ron’s List across the ages – staff payroll (50?) years on.
Embodiment -moving through time-space-places
Public art
Art, bike, memory and geography
Institualization of memory – academic violences – uni mapping vs uni tracing
Cyclisk is a 65-foot high (five-story), 10, 000 pound (4,535 kg), Egyptian-style obelisk made from 340 recycled bicycles. This commissioned artwork was created in 2010 by artists Mark Grieve and Ilana Specto and installed in Santa Rose, California (USA).
EPIC!!!
Mark and Illana collected unusable bicycles and cleaned them up, then welded together into a steel superstructure to create a towering obelisk form.
This project is considered to be a landmark in gateway public work.
Here is more about it…
Project background
The Santa Rosa’s City’s Art and Culture Element in the General Plan 2020 calls for creating inspiring places for the residents and visitors.
By law in Santa Rosa, any construction project costing over $500,000 must put 1% of their budget toward public art.
This has led to the creation of hundreds of benches and murals in the city, along with the Cyclisk.
The project site for Cyclisk was chosen because of its proximity to the Nissan car dealership, who funded the funded the “1% for Art” requirement.
Cyclisk is one of the largest public art projects in the region.
The project budget was $37,000 and included expenses related to design development, engineering, collecting and disassembling bike parts from nonprofit bike bicycle groups, insurance, fabrication, special inspections, transportation, installation of the artwork, and all other project-related expenses.
All work was completed by artists and Grieve and Spector who chose not to take an artist fee in order to create the necessary scale required for such a work.
Architect Daniel Strening and ZFA Engineering also donated time to make the project happen.
Bicycles were collected from the debris bins of the following bicycle kitchens: Trips for Kids/Recyclery in San Rafael, Bici Centro in Santa Barbara, and Community Bikes in Santa Rosa, as well as individual donors who formed integral partnerships.
Every bicycle (and the monument’s one tricycle) were beyond the point of riding.
Besides bicycle parts, the monument was sprayed with a treatment to help preserve its color and integrity.
The towering traditional Egyptian-style obelisk made of reclaimed bicycle parts brings a sense of whimsy and regal ridiculousness to a previously downtrodden section of the City of Santa Rosa.
It also shows you can shape a landfill-bound material into a polished form.
According to the artists: Cyclisk creates a series of intersecting rhythms – a visual metaphor for the human experience exploring technology and the humanities – history and possible futures – individual as well as collective for the City of Santa Rosa landmark, evoking a “world of possibilities,” for years to come.
I first posted about Cycle Ink way back in August 2016, where I delved into the bike-tattoo world as an antidote for too much solo work time. And boy did it do the trick!
In that post I asked the question:
If you got a bike tattoo, where and what would you get?
Then for variety (and for those who did not want to commit to the permanency of a tattoo), I had a look at some bike-themed temporary tattoos – many of which you can get online. These are great for experimenting if you are thinking of getting a permanent one – as well as scaring loved ones, parents and those who think you (will always be) a straighty-one-eighty. So wrong!
And the last bike tattoo post was on a very specific (or should I say body located) subset of this genre – the thigh bicycle tattoo. Thigh tattoos are unique and unusual, but for bike riders who often wear short-legged clothing or who see their upper legs a lot as they ride – having a thigh tattoo makes sense.
Bicycle Tattoos: Meaning and symbolism
While checking out bicycle tattoos online recently, I came across a US website called TattooSEO which is a tattoo networking site. They had an article entitled Bicycle Tattoo. which was aboutthe meaning’ and ‘symbolism’ of bicycle tattoos. It was interesting to hear ideas on design and choice from the tattooists/designers’ POV. It is a little simplistic, but I think it is a good entry point for discussions with ‘customers’ about what they want and considerations regarding choice, design and representation. Keep in mind that this site is for tattooists and those interested in tattooing, not necessarily bike riders. I thought it gave an interesting alternative perspective, so I have included their post here (my own highlighted words) in full below. Enjoy! NG.
Lovers of bicycles big and small are fantastic candidates for the bicycle tattoo, which can be designed in thousands of different ways. Not only that, these bike tattoos can also bring with them plenty of great meanings that a lot of people could work with. On this page we will take a look at some of those meanings and ways that you can get your favorite bicycle tattooed on your skin.
The most obvious meaning attached to each bicycle tattoo is the love of riding. Whether you are a professional bicyclist or simply someone who loves to ride around and see the world on your bike, this could be a great tattoo idea for you. What’s pretty great about this meaning is that you do not have to add in any other images or any text to the design for people to recognize the symbolism of your tattoo.
Another cool bicycle tattoo meaning that you can use is “adventurous,” which tells outsiders that you have a love for getting out and exploring the world. Even if you only sometimes actually get on your bike and go for long adventures, the bike tattoo can work for you. It’s a great meaning for people who regularly take trips to the mountains, go out on the water fishing, or even simply travel the world.
Some people will get their bike tattoos because it reminds them of some great times they had on their bicycles when they were younger. This is a kinda-sorta symbol of innocence that people can use to show that they still remember the good old days and they have not completely let go of their youth. The bicycle can work by itself when using this meaning, and you can also add in additional symbols of innocence if you want the meaning to be clear to everyone that sees your tattoo.
Another thing that can add to the meaning of your bicycle tattoo is the type of bike you have designed. For example, tricycles can be used to represent your innocence or even your love for your children, while a professional bike can show that you yourself love to get out and ride. Other options include classic bicycles and tandem bikes tattoos, which can bring with them additional meanings that you can attach to your design.
While most people get the bicycle by itself in their tattoos, others choose to add background landscapes or other images with their bikes. This is especially true in bicycle tattoos meant to represent adventure since they show the bike out in the world. In reality, you can include a landscape or some other background in any type of bike tat, but it’s important that you know the implied meanings that come with those backgrounds.
In most cases, people get full-bodied bikes in these tattoos, but others will only include a bicycle part or two in their designs. For example, you can get a bike gear or a chain as a cool alternative bike tattoo, yet you’ll still be able to retain all of the great meanings mentioned above. You might also opt to “chop” part of the bike off to either make it fit in your design or to add in additional effects.
It might not seem like it, but the bicycle tattoo can actually fit just about anywhere on the body. That’s really great since it gives you more flexibility with your design and you can make it fit where you want it. That doesn’t mean you should just design anything and expect that it will end up looking great anywhere on your skin, but it does mean you don’t have to worry about it not being able to fit anywhere.
One of the most popular locations for bicycle tattoos is the arm since it is one of the best spots to show the bike “moving” across the skin. Those looking for a great forearm design might want to add the bicycle to their options, especially if any of its meanings work well for them. The leg is yet another great place to put a bike tat as it can work as a wraparound tattoo or designed vertically. If you want to enlarge your design, you can pretty easily make the bike work on the back or on the chest, too.
Bike tats can also be wrist or ankle tattoos since you don’t lose any meaning by shrinking them down a bit. The decisions people have to make with these designs are whether they want to have them go around their wrists or ankles or have the bikes pointing towards their hands or forearms. The wrist is a great spot for one of those bike part designs we talked about earlier, particularly a gear, a pedal, or a tire.
Unless you are getting an extremely simplified design, you will want a really good tattoo artist to work on your bicycle tattoo for you. They will be able to help you fix up the design to look great on your skin, and they will be able to line it up so it works with the natural lines of your body. Don’t take the time to come up with a cool bike tat design only to have an inexperienced tattooist apply it for you. You should have no problem finding a good tattoo artist in your city, possibly one who has experience creating bicycle tattoos.
Bicycle tattoos look great and they come with some very interesting meanings, so it’s not a big surprise that so many people choose to get them. They work for adults of all ages since just about all of the meanings can make sense for all of us. Plus, as a bonus, you will find that just about all well-designed bike tattoos look fantastic on the skin. If you know that you will end up getting a bicycle tattoo, be sure to take your time during the design process to make sure that you have something that you will always wear proudly.
Maps are ubiquitous and we’ve all used them at some stage: schematic maps of bus routes, locating ‘you are here’ to explore a city, finding the nearest train station, driving to a new destination or going on holiday. As a bike rider, I use maps to check and navigate direction, connection, location or distance, and points of interest.
Maps are used to communicate information about places.
Historically, under the guise of ‘exploration’, maps enabled geo-political or economic motives such as colonial expansion, mercantile ambitions and violent extractivism. Such utility speaks to the epitome of rationality: objective, cold and calculated.
But maps are more than just geospatial wayfaring tools.
Maps are also gendered. Mapping the physical world has been, until more recently, the domain of masculine perceptions and control of resources, governance, power and administration. Maps of yore were solely created by male cartographers for male users. In doing so, they showed a very selective promotion of what was considered ‘significant’ and detailed interpretations as to ‘what is on the ground’ or located in environments – both physical and socio-cultural. Female and non-binary ways of moving, traveling, experiencing and journeying have been largely ignored or overlooked in cartography.
Thankfully, things have changed since then – and so have maps and maps users.
As part of my bicycle research, I read a lot about bike riding in different spaces, places, terrains and environments. AsaNewMaterialisms researcher, I’m especially interested in embodiment, relationality, movement and the affective intensities of bike riding.
This means I’m look at maps differently and I’m interested in considering how gender and emotionality feature in mapping.
Maps elicit emotions:
I feel anger knowing modern maps negate the abuse of indigenous peoples
I feel frustration when the place I want to get to is not shown on the map
I feel satisfaction when I finally get to the location I want
I feel connected when I recognise a familiar route
I feel nostalgia when I trace trails of past beloved adventures
Today, I am thinking of the absences in physical cartographies and considering:
How can maps/mapping better attend to the intersectionality of gendered journeys, bike riding and emotionality?
I thought I’d share a few of the initial considerations I’ve come across so far.
Image: Stockport Emotion Map – a collective public-consultation-art project Stockport Local Council (2007)
Cyclists’ participation in Emotional Mapping
Emotional mapping is an approach to capture how users of a space ‘feel’ or emotionally relate to spaces. This approach is used by those interested in engaging with how end uses feel as a way to enhance functionality, design and process, people like educators, policymakers and city planners.
As many cities work to encourage more bike riding, cyclists are a central target user group who have significant value to add by expressing their emotional reactions to routes and places. Cyclists experience spaces definitely to other users and have very clear reactions to lines, paths and points that are shown statically on a map of the city, but yet manifest emotionally, such as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ places, or places to avoid because of anxiety, safety fears, or desire lines for the familiar and ‘fun’ routes. Such emotionally-charged choices and behaviours are not adequately represented on static maps – hence the addition of emotional mapping.
Emotional mapping is volunteered geographical information and/or crowdsourcing as a way to boost citizen participation in urban planning and it provides a platform for alternative voices and experiences to be better accounted for.
Emotional mapping foregrounds the importance of natural and built environments for cyclists, as well as the range of feelings engendered by cycling close to car traffic or in the street with cars, or traversing natural environments and obstacles.
Cyclists’ participation in Emotional Mapping. Image: Cartographic Perspectives
Emotional Cartographies: Technologies of the Self
This entry comes direct from the ever-inspiringBrainpickingsby Maria Popva. Say no more.
Emotional Cartography is an excellent, free book on emotion mapping, featuring a collection of essays by artists, designers, psychologists, cultural researchers, futurists and neuroscientists. Together, they explore the political, social and cultural implications of dissecting the private world of human emotion with bleeding-edge technology.
From art projects to hi-tech gadgets, the collection looks at emotion in its social context. It’s an experiment in cultural hacking — a way to bridge the individual with the collective through experiential interconnectedness.
Download the book in PDF here, for 53 glorious pages of technology, art and cultural insight.
Image: Emotional Cartography
Bike T-shirt with Map Icons
I found this innovative bike T-shirt design byStorySpark on Etsy. Although not technically a map in the true sense of the word, I found this generative for a number of reasons. I like the provocation that instead of mapping spaces, it was using map icons to trace experiences with the bike as opposed to on the bike. I like that it’s described as a ‘Pathfinder Cyclist Graphic’ and that it’s gender-neutral.
When I first saw it, I saw it I thought it was using cosmology and celestial constellations which I thought that was cool, but when I looked closer and realised it was using familiar map icons, it worked just as well.
It also speaks to my ethical compunctions to support artists (an innovative and unique creative output) and the environment (this eco-friendly T-shirt is made From organic cotton and recycled polyester). I see this as a wonderful example to think more divergently about ‘mapping’ and is a creative reframing of mapping bicycle experiences anew.
Bike T-shirt with Map Icons. Image: StorySpark (Etsy)
Heat maps for cycling flows
Cycling heat maps show the intensity of movement in spaces. Usually, a cycling heat map is city-based and created by cyclists who download an app which tracks ride data. This is then collated into a visualisation to enable new perspective and insights to emerge that might not have been considered before.
This is useful to represent changes in movement and places over time. So things that are not shown on traditional static maps, like traffic jams, peak hours, changes in routes, most used routes (and when) are documented. There are also a few women’s only heat maps underway so as to compare ‘general’ users to ascertain differences.
What I like about these heat maps is that changes in flow is foregrounded and temporality (time) can more directly be folded into the map/ped/ing experience. I also like that the ‘heat’ terminology hints at the heat of bodies (riders), warm climate (environmental temperature or humidity) and ‘hot spots’ (such as avoidances, blockages or issues). Some pretty cool future potentialities here.
Heat Maps for Cycling Flows. Image: Bicycle Citizens
Using Strava GPS to be a bike ride map artist
This idea has been around for a while and many bike riders would have seen these before. I’m not sure how well-known they are outside of cycling communities. These are fun, dynamic, creative and wholly bike-focused, movement-based moment-in-time expressions of user (re)mapping. These approaches reinvent modern mapping with the user reinterpreting the map using technology which could not have been achieved previously. These are also freely available and shared.
Here, bike rides transcend exercise, competition and transportation to press into more unfamiliar (and exciting) territories such as public art and performance. Kudos to the bike rider-creative-(re)mapper whose interpretation and commitment in order to produce these pieces: I appreciate the careful planning and organisation needed to make these pieces happen. There is also a telescoping aspect of the riders understanding their trip as being (literally) larger and more significant than just the route in front of them…I love the idea of riding for a purpose that can be seen from outer space! Here, a known map which is a social product embodying a range of histories and ideologies in and of itself is iteratively reimagined by each individual rider into a (re)newed vision, commentary or reality.
Google search: bike strava art map
These are a few entry points so far and each have their own usefulness, limitations and possibilities.
I’ll be exploring other ways to think differently about how mapping might better attend to gendered bike riding and emotionality and let you know what I find.
The creator of this bespoke, hand-made bike is Japanese student Enji. Enji is studying at the Tokyo College of Cycle Design ( I know ..right!! A whole school for studying bicycle design!!) and this working bike was his final graduating project.
Enji wanted to restyling the old traditional handicraft of Kitsuregoshi (lattice work) into the bike build.
The handcrafted bicycle has been carefully thought-out from concept to finish, with the saddle, handlebars, tires and frame all designed to complement the star of the creation that sits in the middle of the piece: the lattice panel.
Lattice work like this is known as kitsuregoshi in Japan. This centuries-old woodworking craft can be seen in sliding door panels in traditional Japanese rooms, and on walls beneath the roofs of shrine buildings.
Enji has taken inspiration from the word kitsuregoshi, naming his bicycle Kitsure, the “Traditional Japan Bicycle.”
The lattice panel can be popped out like a shoji sliding door, so it’s possible for a different design to be mounted in its place in future.
And it’s not just the lattice section that’s impressive, as the entire frame of the bicycle was also made from scratch and melded together to make his vision a reality.
Image: Sonar News 24
When Enji shared his bike on via Twitter @enjiblossomlily, it went viral with over 13,000 retweets and more than 73,000 likes in just one day.
Enji’s bicycle was part of his graduating cohort display at Tokyo College of Cycle Design. This college is a vocational school located in the Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward where students study the design, maintenance and building of bicycles.
With Japan recently championing innovative designs like the Walking Bicycle Club, we can only hope to see more bikes like Enji’s Kiture make their way onto streets of Tokyo and beyond.
We don’t have a strong culture of celebrating Halloween in Australia. But given many readers of this blog are in countries that do celebrate Halloween – this post is for you!
Previously I have shared Halloween-themed posts – like the super-fun Homewood Witch’s Ride (Alabama, USA) where everyone dresses up in awesome outfits and go for a ride around town.
Also, the Mala Bruja Alleycat (New York City, USA), which is held the night before Halloween, on Witch’s Eve which is an all-women’s courier-inspired alleycat fun-but-serious race-ride where you tick off checkpoints along the way. (More events like this please!)
Halloween Bikes 2020: Ideas for events & costumes
So for a fun bike-themed Halloween 2020, you will need a bike-and-costume and a kick-ass bike event to go to….so here two ideas to encourage you to get your ‘spooky self’ (and family + friends) on bikes and riding your local neighbourhood for Halloween 2020.
2020 Zombie Bike Parade
The 2020 Zombie Bike Parade (what a wicked idea!) was a collaboration between local bike shop Davis Cyclery and BIKE City Theatre Company (Bike City USA). This event invited the local community to dress up and join in for an afternoon ride around the Davis Bike Loop for a massive Zombie Bike extravaganza.
As well as mixing with locals, the Bike City Theatre Company and their team of sketch writers, directors and actors provided entertainment and an event like no other! The dancers did a great job of zombifying dance moves that keep everyone humming along. They had fun, laughs, socially distanced photo ops and an unforgettable community bike-themed Halloween experience. Here are a few snaps from the event and you can see more here.
Bike-Themed Characters & Costumes
If you are just cruising around your neighbourhood for general spookiness (and not a themed event – like the Zombie Ride above) then you can diversify your costume – and anything goes!
Online, you can find heaps of websites, pictures and DIY videos of creative and fun bike-themed costumes. Some websites have links to buy the products featured – but like most people, I will ALWAYS opt to make my own version out of recycled materials.
Any mum’s DIY YouTube video is great for tutorials on how to make costumes at home. More sustainable, more personal! Here are a few of my favs from Bikes Reviewed.
Headless Horse (Biker) Man
Pac Man Pair
ET & Elliot (a classic!)
Evel Knievel
Pee Wee Herman
Image: aby7ny.com
So what ever you do for Halloween 2020 – have heaps of fun doing it on ya bike!
I am doing ‘okay’ and seem to be keeping up with everything.
I hate to admit it, but at some (low) points, I feel like I’m just going through the motions. This is not my normal framing – and I know I have to take action to shake the ennui and get out of the funk. Pronto!
When I feel like this I seek out bike art. It ALWAYS makes me feel better.
Previously I’ve shared some of bike-inspired artworks like:
So this time, I head to a source that I know will lift my spirits and help me connect with all I hold near and dear – bikes, community, being creative, sharing positivity and having a sense of humour.
It is profile that showcases handmade, bike-inspired posters by independent artists.
I love it because you never know what is going to get posted and it is exciting to get a smorgasbord of weird, whimsical, technical, located, colourful, graphic, text/font-based, iconic and original artwork from a range of artists and disciplines that cover all types of bikes, riders and bike cultures.
@Artcrank showcases a wide range of artistic skills from painting, digital art, illustrations, collages, graphic art, graffiti, vector avatars, wash & ink, cartography, linocuts, and more.
Some posters are monochromatic, others classic black and white, some contrasting theme hues while others are bursting with colour and vibrancy.
I love how each poster tells a story of a ride, place, a person or a moment that is usually so relatable. Some types there are adventures, moments of stillness or well-heeled tropes that we all know and love.
It is also a great forum to support artists and give their work wider exposure.
I often click on the posters I like and check out who the artist is and follow them up online to see more of their work.
Often the posters come with additional snippets of cool information, links to events, nuggets of interesting bike facts, or offers something that you didn’t know about bikes previously – added bonuses (be sure to check out the comments as well).
Best of all, you can purchase any of the featured posters via @Artcrank – GOLD!
I appreciate the invitation to enter each artist’s bike-fuelled world. They are so inspiring.
I love how each poster vignette transports me into different bikey times, spaces and places.
As I take in @Artcrank images, I realise I am smiling.
I feel better and I feel more connected.
Suddenly my day doesn’t seem so drab and I got a bit more of my spark back.
Thanks @Artcrank! I needed you today!
Keep those amazing art bike posters coming!
All images included are sourced from Instagram @Artcrank.
Shedding Light – Tutti Arts & Oz Asia Festival (2015)
We left off the previous post on the ‘reversed engineered’ bike project ‘Returnity’ by German art duo Elin Wikström and Anna Brag, with the idea that experimentation can be used to engage cory and mind in such a way as to galvanise both personal autonomy and social affinity.
This was further demonstrated by the Shedding Light project that featured in the 2015 OzAsia Festival in Adelaide.
Shedding Light was a two-year collaboration between Tutti Arts, a multi-arts organisation for artists with a disability in Adelaide, and Perspectif, a sister organisation in Yogyakarta 2013.
Among the many mediums through which the artists explored the Indonesia–Australia relationship were creatively constructed carts inspired by the Indonesian kaki lima (street vendor carts), and vehicles inspired by Sepeda Lampus, the four-wheeled pedal cars augmented with neon lights and sound systems hired out at the Sultan’s Palace square in Yogyakarta.
This part of Shedding Light was realised in collaboration with James Dodd, an artist who has long engaged in bicycle modification as part of a practice concerned with informal and incidental forms of public creativity.
Dodd fabricated the pedal cars using two bicycles so that they could accommodate a Tutti artist, a support companion and a passenger.
The neon light frames were modelled upon designs created by three Tutti artists: a unicorn (William Gregory), a shark (Joel Hartgen) and a three-headed snowman (James Kurtze).
Over several nights, passengers would be taken a short distance around the Adelaide Festival Centre Plaza to a special location where a short performance by another Tutti artist was staged for them.
Like Returnity(see our previous post Part 2) , Shedding Light involved modifying bicycles to facilitate a creative social intervention, in this case tied to the aim of enhancing the visibility of Tutti artists.
As Dodd relates, what made the project so rewarding and unusual was that it created intimate encounters between festival audiences and the Tutti artists out in the streets, far from the organised formality of ticketed events.
Image: James Dodd
Laura Fisher is a post-doctoral research fellow at Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney. In October 2015 she co-curated Bespoke City with Sabrina Sokalik at UNSW Art & Design, a one night exhibition featuring over 20 practitioners celebrating the bicycle through interactive installations, sculpture, video, design innovation, fashion and craft. This event was part of Veloscape, an ongoing art–research project exploring the emotional and sensory dimensions of cycling in Sydney.
