Late night Haunted Hay Ride on the Biker Bar, cruising down 18th from the Castro to the District, with five European tourists along for the ride.
Rockin’ Halloween colors on our way to Fair Oaks St. with a Masked Masha rolling a Mundo with the Down Low Glow. At sunset, yeow!
Whoah. Amazing weekend. So much gratitude to the crew, the people of Fair Oaks St., and the Yes Men!
Kai and Pastana showed up Saturday afternoon to help mod the Biker Bar into a Haunted Hay Ride.
Tara had texted me earlier to “try 6th and Bryant as a source for $15 hay bales.” Then on the way there I realized she was sending me to the wholesale flower market. Thanks for the tip, T! I pulled in and immediately saw a bale in a stall. One cam strap on the Mundo. Back to the house.
We reduced the hay to useful cushion sizes and cam strapped Kai’s birdcage to the Biker Bar.
Kai bringing Pooh into the mix.
We kept the dancing going for the big kids for another couple hours.
Heading to the San Francisco debut of the Yes Men’s touching and hilarious “The Yes Men Fix The World”
Adam practicing one of the building block skills for no-hands surfing.
The lucky recipients of three $4 million Survivaballs.
Escorting the Survivaballs from the Roxie to the closest Chevron.
The Yes Men used the march as an opportunity to tout the
benefits of the Survivaball. Rock The Bike supplied the mobile P/A and
later the Pedal Powered Stage for the rally.
We turned up the dance music, including an exhuberant “I Will Survive.”
After the Chevron protest, we kept the afterparty going.
The Mundo 1000 has been holding it down as our most efficient pedal power bike.
If you’ve read this far and you’re local, you’ll probably want to join our SF Cruisers email list, and come out Monday night to Dia De Los Muertos with the Rock The Bike crew.
The photo shows Travis from Band of Bicycles hauling a WFMU radio DJ and his guest around Brooklyn on the practice session for a LiveOnBike radio broadcast. The actual broadcast was foiled by rain.
Practice ride:
It was a big weekend.
We hit the road Saturday to Pedal Power the 350.org rally at Justin Herman Plaza.
Lauren from Greenpeace on the mic.
The Biker Bar’s swingarms were recently gusseted (the triangles). They’re much stiffer and the bar is functioning well these days, though our electric bikes have the edge in efficiency.
After the rally, we got an afterparty going.
photos: Steve Rhodes
Adam and Tara clowning around after the gig.
We packed up and cruised the Embarcadero. Above, Leif following a tight path through the crowd.
The Mundo 1000 was short a battery all weekend. so we developed ways to get it around the city.
Sunday morning in the park with Scott McDowell of Hyde Street Studios, Rock The Bike’s most experienced sound guy.
Soul Medic getting the Pedal Powered Stage jumping at West Fest.
Kai and Pam powering Oona. Kai went big, powering the show for about 50 minutes.
350.org and Greenpeace are planning a major mobilization of bike people, environmentalists and others with a conscious for next Saturday.
Join one of the awesome bike rides that will converge on Justin Herman for this event. Then help us pedal power activists, poets, speakers, and live music.
A huge shout out to YouthSpeaks and the crew behind Life Is Living, where we pedal powered our first BBoy Battle yesterday!
After the usual morning rustiness and coffee, we rolled to the Ferry Building to catch the Alameda-Oakland Ferry and biked to Defremery Park.
We set up a 4-bike Pedal Powered Stage.
The Biker Bar and the Mundo 1000 powered our JBL PRX-535 mains and Mackie SRM150 Monitor. We had 3-5 power cuts over the course the day, but they were all positively received, in the sense of being a welcome reminder that the sound was, indeed, pedal powered. The listening levels were loud but still on human scale; the crowd was able clap along and shout, and their cheers could cut through the mix.
We ran the DJ booth (two turntables, DJ mixer, laptop, audio interface, external hard drive) off an extension cord from a park facility shed 100 yards away.
The spirit of the BBoy battle was strong and positive. Above, two breakdancers share a quick shoulder bump after a bout.
At one point I dispatched Tara to tell the organizer we were ready to blend smoothies. She came back with a box of pears and reported “you were supposed to bring smoothie supplies for 50 people.” Check that, text Leif: “We have pears. Need ice, juice, cups for 50.”
Leif rogered that, and showed up a half hour later with the juice, soy, walnuts, a lemon, ginger, bananas, frozen blueberries, and 12″ long chef’s knife and cutting board, and we proceeded to go to town on the smoothies, dropping refreshment on the pedalers all afternoon.
Both Tara and I entered the breakdance competition. And both of us were gonged within about 20 seconds, despite busting our best moves. The music was up loud enough that neither of us could hear the gong. So the MC had to get on the mic and say “You just got gonged!” Pretty fun though.
Unlike at our live music events, the beat never stopped at the BBoy battle. There were a few power cuts, but the beat would be back within 20-30 seconds. Between bouts in the battle, the emcee would call for freestyle dance, great stuff.
A proper battle ensued.
The MC called for crowd to sit so the pedalers could see.
The Pedalometer was in effect, helping the group of pedalers keep system voltage in the sweet spot. (The green).
Rolling back to the city on the 5:30 ferry. Captain gave us shit. Sea gull shat on me. Had to unload and reload Biker Bar. Otherwise no sweat.
This short highlight video begins with the Bicycle Music Festival faithful rolling away from Lindley Meadow in SF’s Golden Gate Park to Dolores Park. SHAKE YOUR PEACE! performs LiveOnBike, joined by Sonya Cotton and Cello Joe, leading a raucous singalong of Joey’s “Silly Song”. With Joey and SYP!’s Gabe Dominguez using the Biker Bar as a mobile stage, they salute the people of Dolores, and the cops, who want to pull the plug. But BMF co-directors Gabe and Fossil Fool persuade the powers that be to let the festival stay, and the BMF roadies quickly set up the Pedal Powered Stage for performances by Oona Garthwaite and Sean Hayes. The Biker Bar sheds its wheels and becomes a stationary 3-person generator.
Sean performs “TurnAroundTurnMeOn” with drummer Ezra Lipp, also a BMF volunteer. While waiting for the festival to arrive from Golden Gate Park, nearly 3 hours behind schedule, Sean had serenaded the park acoustically. Texting back and forth with Ezra, who was with the festival, Sean decided to stick it out. Similarly Oona’s band had already headed to our backup venue, Alemany Farms, and it wasn’t easy to convince her that it was really back on in Dolores. But both played inspired sets.
Enjoy!
Check out the Yes Men’s latest brilliant spoof of the NY Post.
Photo: Joey Mac
Stay safe and have a little fun this fall with a bike light as phenomenal as you are. Pictured above is a dual-tube Down Low Glow system, paired with a rear blinky. We now offer a discount on our rear blinkie when you purchase a Down Low Glow. Just look for the “Add a blinkie” option at checkout.
Here are 16 more reasons to roll with the Down Low Glow this fall.
Join the Rock The Bike crew at Cell Space as we power an awesome lineup including Oona, The Ferocious Few, the Rabbles, Fossil Fool, and more.
We’ll be bringing our complete pedal powered stage. Scott from Hyde Street Studios will be working the knobs.
$10 at the door, but you can bring your bike-culture wares to sell