USA Archives

24/03/202311/06/2023

Keshia Roberston: Black Wheelwomen Legacy Shero

The US National Bike Summit is an annual conference event that brings together bike advocates and enthusiasts from across the country. Now in its 23rd year, will be held from March 26 – March 29, 2023. This year the summit will be held in Washington, DC and the program offers a range of engaging activities, including in-person workshops, mobile discussion groups, biking opportunities, and networking events. Its primary focus is to foster the development of a Bicycle Friendly America that caters to the needs of everyone. In order to accommodate participants both physically and virtually, all sessions, panels, plenaries, and keynote speeches will be live-streamed online.

I was super excited to see this year that Keshia Roberson was one of the Key Summit speakers.

Keshia will be hosting the They Were Seeds: The Buried Legacy of Black Wheelwomen.

This session explores the legacy of Black women cyclists and how their roots have inspired future generations of diverse riders.

See here for more on this session.

Keshia Roberson

The incredible contributions of Black women in cycling deserve our recognition and celebration. Throughout history, remarkable figures like Kittie Knox and Ayesha McGowan have shattered barriers and blazed a trail for Black women cyclists.

Their groundbreaking achievements continue to inspire a new generation of Sheroes who are dedicated to creating more opportunities for Black women and girls to embrace the exhilaration of biking.

The remarkable Keshia Roberson founded Major Knox Adventures (MKA) with the aim of honoring the legacy of these trailblazers.

MKA is dedicated to providing affordable bike trip experiences, ensuring that women of color can partake in the transformative joy of outdoor adventures. It’s important to acknowledge the representation and contribution of African-American women cyclists which has been historically lacking and sorely underrepresented.

MKA seeks to change that by fostering inclusivity, creating a welcoming environment, and empowering Black women to experience the outdoors in all its splendor.

It would be amazing to hear Keshia Roberson present the They Were Seeds: The Buried Legacy of Black Wheelwomen at this year’s 2023 Bike Summit.

It is great to see a virtual conference option as well….mmmm….maybe next year….

5 Cyclists Project

As regular readers of this blog know, I have a particular interest in decolonial herstories and in uncovering the lesser-known stories, contributions and experiences of women on two wheels… which is how I come to know about Keshia.

I contributed to a journal publication last year which looked at geography and collective memories through art – and in this article, I cited the incredible 5 Cyclists Project (included below and see the full article here), which is the inspiration for Keshia’s MKA 1928 Legacy Tour.

The 5 Cyclists Project showcases the incredible untold story of five African-American women, Marylou Jackson, Velva Jackson, Ethyl Miller, Leolya Nelson and Constance White, who in 1928, biked 250 miles cross-country. At the time, cycling was overwhelmingly white and elite, a dynamic that still remains today (Mackintosh & Norcliffe, 2007). The centrepiece 5 Cyclists photograph (Scurlock, 1928), challenges essentialising assumptions as to when, how and why certain bodies cannot move through landscapes. It questions mainstream notions of who a cyclist is, where they can go, how far they travel, what spaces they can access, and how mobility shapes environments encountered. This project reminds us that certain voices and lived experiences are systematically overlooked, and the need to shed light on the complex issues and legitimacy of racialised, gendered, and classed experiences.

by Nina Ginsberg
Read more here.

I am truly inspired by the multitude of remarkable endeavours undertaken by bike activists, and it fills me with great admiration to delve into the rich legacy of extraordinary women in the world of cycling, both past and present.

The dedication and passion exhibited by individuals like Keshia is so needed today.

To Keshia and the Bike Summit community, keep shining and making a positive impact!

20/12/202102/09/2022

Holiday rides with trail dogs: Rosco & Lacy

Happy holidays all! Instead of celebrating Christmas, I celebrate the holidays. As we wind up for the year, my thoughts turn to ‘t(r)ail’ holidays and riding bikes with four-legged friends. The December break is a wonderful time to get out and visit your favourite trails and explore new ones. Riding mountain bike trails with your dog is one of the most enjoyable things you can do. To whet your whistle, here’s an offering from Kona which introduces Rosco the mature trail dog and his MTB owner Lacy. This short video puts together all the best things about MTBing with furry friends – and more. Enjoy! NG.

The company of dogs when MTBing is the best feeling in the world. They love to explore new places and meet new people – and they ALWAYS love being on trail.

I’m a BIG fan of bikes and dogs. I’ve previously shared stories like:

When you ride with a dog, you are never alone. You always have someone to keep you company and make you laugh.

Dogs are also great motivators. They always want to go faster and harder than you do, which can push you to ride at your best.

Plus, there’s nothing like the feeling of cruising through the woods with your best buddy by your side.

I love riding with my 11-year-old trail dog Zoe. Zoe is a fit and keen kelpie who loves the outdoors and we have had many happy trail adventures together.

Recently I saw this short video (below) by Kona. Kona is an American bike manufacturing company so it makes sense they would promote themselves as gender-inclusive, exciting, and approachable for a range of riders.

Rosco is a nearly retired trail dog. At 11 years old, he’s still got plenty of spunk, but these days he prefers to lounge at home while his human counterpart hits the trails – but not always! Lacy started riding mountain bikes with her dog Rosco as soon as she got him, and the two have been shredding together ever since.

These days when they ride together, they do 30mins ‘old-man laps’ so Rosco can still get his paws dirty.

They take it slow because Rosco needs a few rests along the way – awww bless!

I agree with Lacy that you always learn new lines following your dog.

As an avid night rider – I loved seeing Lacy shed in the evenings, although we don’t get snow where I live, so seeing that was next level for me.

Lacy likes snowy night rides because its ‘like riding sugar’ and its where ‘shadows pop’.

Most riders can relate to Lacy’s sentiment when she says:

‘I feel weird, I don’t feel whole if I don’t get out on my bike.’

Whether you’re a seasoned veteran or a first-time rider, we all feel the joy of riding mountain bikes with dogs. And if you haven’t managed to do this recently, this video will help until you do!

So next time you hit the trails, be sure to bring your furry friend along for the ride.

Happy Holidays all!

07/11/202114/05/2022

A solar-powered tricycle that waters hard-to-reach urban planters

In the bustling city of Edmond, it can be difficult to keep up with watering all of the urban planters. However, one man has come up with a solution: a solar-powered tricycle that can reach even the most hard-to-reach planters.

Edmond local, Travis Kennedy, has devised an ingenious solar-powered plant watering bike after noticing that the big watering trucks that serviced the curbside planter boxes couldn’t reach them all.

He came up with the idea after meeting a local cafe owner who was using an e-bike to deliver coffees – and so put two and two together!

With the help of Travis Kennedy’s bicycle and some solar power, Edmond residents are now able to water their hard-to-reach urban planters from the bike lane.

The tricycle has a 70-liter water tank run by a solar-powered electric pump. The attached hose pushes the water with the help of this electric pump. The bike is one-seater and it carries its solar panel and is a great investment in the environment. It is outfitted with a tank of water and a hose, allowing users to pedal around and water their plants while they get some exercise. The solar-powered pump ensures that the tricycle can be used even on cloudy days and doesn’t require any extra energy to operate.

The tricycle is also available for use by anyone in the Edmond community, and it has already been put to good use by residents who are passionate about keeping their plants healthy.

In addition to watering plants, a similar style of tricycle could be used for other tasks such as delivering food or supplies to people in need and so is a valuable asset to the Edmond community.

With this new invention, keeping Edmond’s urban planters and community happy is a breeze!

I can’t wait to see more of these bikes around!

Nice work, Travis!

18/08/202102/12/2021

Art, Apps, UCLA & the Civic Bicycle Commuting (BiCiC) project

I first came across this story while scouring the internet for community-focused, bike-related, arts-based projects. This project caught my eye as it was initiated by a group of senior UCLA academics and I like the innovative use of technology to get more people engaged with bicycle commuting. Projects like this are inspiring not only in the end product, (more people on bikes), but also in the process (engaging arts-based participation in new and creative ways) and in bringing together a range of people (professors, artists, riders, and community members) who are passionate about bikes, sustainability, transport, healthy communities to create a more positive future for all. Below is an article published earlier this year in Transfer Magazine explaining the project in detail.

I love the idea of senior academics and professors being passionate about biking. Here’s to (hoping for) more projects (and academics) like this! Enjoy! NG.

For many Los Angeles residents, the daily commute is frustrating. A project by three UCLA faculty members aims to change that — especially for those who ride to work on two wheels — by creating bicycle “flows” that produce real-time digital art exhibitions throughout the city.

One of the project’s goals is to make cycling to work feel as accessible and safe as other modes of travel, so the professors envision groups, or flows, of cyclists that would be organized by a smartphone app. The app would encourage reluctant or inexperienced cyclists to participate by pointing them toward those flows, suggest routes that are optimized for enjoyability and safety over efficiency or speed, and enable participants to share their experiences.

Those experiences, in the form of text, photos, videos and other creative submissions, would feed directly into digital murals throughout Los Angeles. The murals would be located in community spaces and transportation hubs around the city — including, for example, a large interactive display at the Los Angeles State Historic Park, adjacent to Chinatown — elevating biking to work to a collective creative experience.

“We envision the cooperative bike flows as a type of performative media artwork that is shared live with all of Los Angeles in public spaces and on the internet,” said Fabian Wagmister, the project’s principal investigator and the founding director of the UCLA Center for Research in Engineering, Media and Performance, known as UCLA REMAP.

“By inviting communities to think about bicycle riding as a way to express themselves in the urban landscape, we can strengthen commuters’ ownership of the system and offer a deeper level of engagement in the future of the city.”

The project, called Civic Bicycle Commuting, or CiBiC, is co-led by Jeff Burke, co-director of REMAP and a UCLA professor-in-residence of theater, and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, a distinguished professor of urban planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

The project already is gaining some traction: In February, the initiative received $50,000 in funding from the Civic Innovation Challenge, which is funded by the National Science Foundation in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. CiBiC is now in contention for an additional grant of up to $1 million, which the researchers would use to create a prototype of the project.

CiBiC’s art-led approach makes it somewhat of an anomaly among most of the competitors in its category, “communities and mobility” — most of the other proposals have origins in the STEM fields and social sciences.

To ensure the project incorporates the diverse experiences and needs of Los Angeles commuters, the researchers are soliciting input from Los Angeles neighborhood groups. Loukaitou-Sideris said the team will especially seek participation from low-income residents of Chinatown, Solano Canyon, Dogtown and Lincoln Heights.

“We want to hear from community groups and residents and understand how we can create something that is tailored to their needs,” she said.

The researchers also are collaborating with Eli Akira Kaufman, executive director of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, who said the project could demonstrate how transformative bicycle culture could be in Los Angeles if bicyclists could help create infrastructure that reflected their needs.

“Instead of allowing the built environment to dictate the culture of bicycling in Los Angeles, we need to uplift the culture of bicycling to make sure the built environment is defined by the social infrastructure and the people who use it,” he said.

Aggregated data from the app could also eventually be used to influence Los Angeles’ long-term infrastructure planning.

And Wagmister said the project stands to both reflect and amplify the city’s creative spirit: “We want to create an alternative transportation system in Los Angeles, one that values our collective creative capacity to transform the city for all.”

Image courtesy of Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition. This article was sourced from Transfer Magazine and was originally posted on the UCLA Newsroom.

18/07/202109/10/2021

Railbiking: ‘Riding rail trails’ and creating your own access to nature & adventure

Many of us dream about ‘getting away‘ to beautiful places to relax and ride bikes with those we love.

Recently, I came across the video Smartwool Presents: Riding the Rails.

In this video (see below), we meet Evan Kay, his wife Ella, their dog, their bikes, and the railbike project they designed to use on rail trails to access more nature and adventure.

Evan and Ella ride MTB – a lot. Like most other MTBers, off-trail riding is their passion and purpose. They like to explore remote places and go on adventure rides.

Evan is an engineer who grew up loving farming, fishing, and family – and combining these passions with his technical skills is at the heart of this project.

Evan and Ella live in Vermont (New England, USA) where there are several disused railroad lines. There are many similar remnants of the old train networks across the USA, and seeing these got Evan curious about how to use these railroads to reimagine family adventures.

The challenge was to combine his technical skills with his love of outdoor MTB adventures. Inspired by seeing other riders adapting their bikes for railroads, Evan and Ella started working on ideas to use the rail to reach ever further and remote locations.

In this video, we see the evolution of their project to adapt their MTB bikes to ‘ride the rails’ – or railbiking as it is known.

A central aim of this project was to experience nature using active pedal power generated through their mountain bikes.

The initial design was based on three main needs. First, they wanted to use their mountain bikes as the drive mechanism. It also needed to be stable and safe. And third, they wanted both riders to be parallel (side-by-side) and not front-to-back (as in tandem like other designs). There is a platform between them that carries all their cargo and the dog with minimal effort.

I was really inspired by Evan’s ingenuity and skills in being able to utilise what is already there, yet often overlooked (in this case the abandoned rail trails) as an opportunity to extend their bike riding adventures – as well as creatively self-manufacturing an adaptive MTB frame that is unique and purposeful. So inspiring to see a design makes it easier and more comfortable to go further, for longer on a bike.

I also love that the whole family can literally ‘go along for the ride’ together!

Gives a new meaning to ‘off-(t)rail mountain biking’!

All images in this post are stills from the Smartwool Presents: Riding the Rails video.

14/06/202109/08/2021

Leo Rodgers: An inspiration for cycling

Leo Rodgers is a man who loves to ride his bike.

Leo lives with his family in Tampa Bay (USA) and has become a well-known figure in the community bike scene as a hero for diversity and inclusion after having his left leg amputated following a motorbike accident 14 years ago.

After learning to walk again, he started riding a bike to get around. This soon became an integral part of his identity, mobility and independence.

Leo started getting involved in community bike rides (like critical mass and weekly social night events), then single speeds and fixies and this lead to racing track cycling – and then all kinds of riding.

What I love about Leo and his story is his how positive and relatable he is – he just loves riding his bike.

There is much to learn from Leo’s story about overcoming adversity, being open to trying new things, being bold and brave, perseverance, being true to yourself, leading through example, surrounding yourself with good people, and the profound ways bicycles can change people, break down barriers and transform lives.

I’ve been following Leo for a few years now. I dig his genuine passion for riding all types of bikes, being connected with community and how he stoked he gets sharing his passion with others.

It is just an added bonus that he has mad bike handling skills – endurance, skills, balance, speed, epic track standing prowess and the rest!

You can find heaps of online content about Leo – he’s been in news reports, blogs, articles, cycling documentaries and lots of YouTube videos (just type his name into the internet to see!) if you want to find out more about his story and adventures.

For background: His local paper the Tampa Bay Times published an article by Chris O’Donnell that chronicles his childhood and entry into the cycling world with a level of detail I had not see elsewhere.

On the bike: Peter Flax did a great article for Bicycling on Leo in May 2020 in which they go for a ride and talk about Leo’s cycling history, approach to riding (and life), successes and personal style to come through. (It is well worth the read.) Here’s a little of what Peter wrote about Leo’s bike affiliations

Leo isn’t in a bike tribe—he’s in all of them. He likes to go out at night in khaki shorts and smash it with a fixie crew and he likes to do hard paceline training rides with the local spandex roadies and he likes to go out for gravel epics with dudes who consume a lot of CBD chewies. He does alley cats and pub crawls and off-road centuries. He noodles around the waterfront on a tall bike he helped fabricate.

Leo’s Instagram @slimone1000 show the range of events he is involved in and the types of bikes he rides: track cycling, fixi, tandem, urban commute, street/park, mountain-biking, bike packing, cruising with critical mass, his beloved blue and pink repainted singlespeed bombora, bike riding adventures, events, social meet ups, and good times with friends.

His Instagram motto is: ‘overcoming adversity through cycling’.

As Peter writes: ‘Without explicitly trying, Leo makes a powerful statement every time he pedals through his community.’

What an inspiration for his kids, for the biking community, and for us all.

Image: Bob Crosling for Bicycling

All images are stills from Leo Rodgers is Unstoppable by Bicycling unless otherwise attributed.

03/03/202106/05/2021

Women’s History Month – March 2021

Internationally, March is known as women’s history month.

The aim of this initiative is to redress previously omitted women’s participation and achievements from being known by celebrating women’s contributions to history, culture and society.

There are many exhibitions, projects, protests and events run during March that raise awareness for the significance, roles, struggles and issues of women and girls.

So to kick off ‘Women’s Month’, here are three more-than-usual initiatives that are exemplary in celebrating a range of women’s achievements.

Enjoy!

Royal Australian Historical Society

The official Royal Australian Historical Society (RAHS) ‘Women’s History Month’ website page caught my eye this year.

This page celebrates March being Women’s History by highlighting a range of Australian women and the diverse contributions they’ve made to Australia’s history.

What I like about this particular page is that it is inclusive and immediately understandable in what it is trying to achieve. Having a simple photo album-style layout showcasing significant women (with names and dates) makes it quick and easy to get a sense of the range of cultural backgrounds (Indigenous, Australian-Chinese, European immigrants, white) and their contributions (politics, literature, arts, sport, law and many others) over time – ranging from Fanny Balbuk Yooreel (1840) to Everly Scott (2017).

I think it is imperative to not only name the person but also to give each woman just identity. Consider how many times you’ve seen historical male figures of significance. There is ALWAYS a photo of them to reinforce their status as ‘important’ and that ‘this individual is not only someone you should know the name of, but you should know what they look like.’

Including images of women is a political move in this regard. It’s a critical move to shift past erasures of significant women from not just naming them (whereby their name is ‘listed’ and therefore at risk of being yet again ‘lost’ in the density of descriptive discourse), but so that the uniqueness of each woman is also recognised – as well as their name.

Photos are especially important given that surnames are patrilineal (assigned by fathers and husbands) so it is usually only first names that distinguish individuals from others. Linking women to their first and surnames with their photos helps to identify AND personalise these women beyond a perfunctory mention by name in passing. This is what the RAHS site does well.

There are so many incredible women listed on the RAHS – and many that most Australians have probably never heard about. For example: Muruwari Community worker and filmmaker Essie Coffey (otherwise known as the Bush Queen of Brewarrina), or Ruby Payne-Scott who was Australia’s first woman radio Astronomer, or one of Australia’s first great actors Rose Quong, who was a breakthrough given her Chinese heritage during the Australian White Policy, or WWI war correspondent Louise Mack.

If you’re down under or have not seen this site yet – go check it out! It is a great starting point resource to learn-talk-share about incredible Australian women.

Dr. Katie Phillips #WomensHistoryMonth

I’m following Dr Katie Phillips’ Twitter account for all of March.

In an act of radical generosity and support, each day, Katie uploads a different post each day that shares the voices, work and contributions of highly influential, but lesser-known Native, First Nations and Indigenous women from what is now called the USA.

This project was a real eye-opener for me. Not only did I appreciate the forethought, planning and process that Katie applied to make this happen, but it was also an incredibly educational initiative that has far-reaching scope and implications.

Twitter’s limited text allowances meant that each day, Katie provides the name, image and brief synopsis about ‘the woman of the day’ and her significant contribution. I not only learned about these incredible women (which, as an Australian, I would have not have been exposed to), but this approach is also an invitation (and reminder) to keep learning about amazing women elsewhere around the world.

I found myself following up on many of the women Katie posted, wanting to know more about their conditions and experiences.

As a teacher, researcher, creative, and someone with half a brain and a heart, I was impressed by Katie’s approach. It showed a genuine commitment to decolonizing history and better accounting for diverse women’s experiences.

F@*king incredible work!

Dr. Kat Jungnickel – Bikes and Bloomers

Of course we must have something on bike riding!

I’ve previously posted on this blog about researcher-creative Dr Kat Jungnickel’s work which perfectly fits the theme for Women’s History Month!

Kat’s specific interest area is reinvigorating Victorian women investors and their amazing cyclewear. She published a book based on her PhD research called Bikes and Bloomers. Here’s a description of the book from Kat’s portfoilo:

The bicycle in Victorian Britain is often celebrated as a vehicle of women’s liberation. But much less is known about another critical technology with which women forged new and mobile public lives – cycle wear. Despite its benefits, cycling was a material and ideological minefield for women. Conventional fashions were inappropriate, with skirts catching in wheels and tangling in pedals. Yet wearing more identifiable ‘rational’ cycle wear could elicit verbal and sometimes physical abuse from parts of society threatened by newly mobile women.

In response, pioneering women not only imagined, made and wore radical new forms of cycle wear but also patented their inventive designs. The most remarkable of these were convertible costumes that enabled wearers to secretly switch ordinary clothing into cycle wear.

This highly visual social history of women’s cycle wear explores Victorian engineering, patent studies and radical feminist invention. Underpinned by three years of in-depth archival research and inventive practice, this new book by Kat Jungnickel brings to life in rich detail the lesser-known stories of six inventors and their unique contributions to cycling’s past and how they continue to shape urban life for contemporary mobile women.

Talk about raising awareness for previously hidden women’s achievements! Go Kat!

Happy Women’s History Month all!

27/02/202104/06/2021

Terry Barentsen’s Hotline Series- Street Riding Videos

This post is about Terry Barentsen’s Hotline videos.

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!

Below are a few to get you started…

Happy Hotlining!

31/01/202129/03/2021

Cyclisk

What is it?

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…

Cyclisk. Bicycles Create Change.com. 30th January 2021.

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.

Once installed, it quickly gained news attention such as Wired’s Gadget Labs and Inhabitat won a number of awards, like AIA Decade of Design First Place Award, a Structural Engineers (SEAONC) award, and the prestigious Public Art Network Year in Review Award.

Materials & Budget

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.

Some content for this post sourced from CODAworx, Atlas Obscura and Santa Rose City.

25/07/202027/08/2020

Bicycles help the Pascua Yaqui community fight diabetes

I am always looking for stories where bicycles create positive community change. Inclusive bike-focused programs that support First Nations and minority groups is a special interest for this blog.

Previously, I have posted on programs that increase bike use, access and participation for Indigenous Australians such as:

This week, I came across a US community-based project working at the forefront of 3 critical intersecting issues: diabetes, first nations (Native American community) health and using bicycling to mitigate chronic health issues.

This project works with the Pascua Yaqui people in the US. Obesity and diabetes is a major individual and community health issue in many communities – and the Diabetes Community Empowerment Project is using bicycles to help address this issue. What an awesome project!

Who are they?

This initiative is part of Native Exercise Empowerment Project.

Since 2012, the Diabetes Community Empowerment Project has been working with the Native American community helping them move towards better health. This community sees a high incidence of diabetes and obesity and DCEP empower native people to exercise more and be role models for each other.

The programs work in resource poor communities by removing the barriers between people and the healthier, happier versions of themselves.

Starting out

The project began when James Stout (DCEP Executive Director) was training in Tucson Arizona. At the time, he was making a living as a cyclist. Having spent time riding through the reservation and working with nonprofit outside of the US, he noticed the high rate of diabetes among Native American people and wondered if there was anything he could do to help.

As someone who lives with diabetes, James was motivated to share the joy, and health, he found in riding his bike. Taking a clapped out station wagon and as many old bikes and helmets, as it could fit, James took time out from his PhD I began to work on the reservation in order to better understand the barriers between Native people and better diabetes management.

Although access to medication is an issue in many Native American communities, a lack of access to exercise and education is often equally dangerous. Through working with the healthcare team on the reservation, the program engages people with diabetes and encouraged them to try cycling with the goal of completing a El Tour de Tucson event.

3 years after it started, each of the initial riders have returned to serve as a mentor and bought friends and family with them. By 2016 the project has seen over 100 participants finished their goal event, thousands of pounds have been lost and blood glucose management has seen drastic improvement.

DCEP Mission

To research and implement peer mentored, exercise based lifestyle interventions in resource poor diabetes communities. Focusing on goal events, we aim to use community based education and exercise programs to empower people to live healthier and happier lives as well as to be changemakers in their own communities.

Moving forward

The DCEP website has not been updated in a while, so I hope this project is still ongoing! Even if it is not, the project is a great example of an how bicycles can be used to improve indiviviual and community health and well-being.

It also serves as a reminder that we need a broader, more inclusive methods of providing specialist, community-focused responses to support the needs of First Nations communities and minority groups.

All images and some content of this post sourced from DCEP.