This year we’re planning to host the 3rd Annual Dolores Park -> Maker Faire Social Ride, put on the Pedal Powered Stage at Maker Faire, and do a debut of an Aerial dance performance from El Arbol (above).
Meet at Dolores Park’s 19th St. steps at 9:00AM. There will be Bike Blended Smoothies at the start. Bring a cup!
Ride 21 miles to Maker Faire. Mellow route, social pace.
Download the print the route map on Google maps: http://tinyurl.com/3ryad79
RSVP on Facebook to help build momentum for the ride: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=186605664707350#!/event.php?eid=163941343661961
Oona Garthwaite performing on the Pedal Powered at Maker Faire 2009
1:00 Charlemagnet
2:00 Sour Mash Hug Band
3:00 Shovelman
4:00 Cradle Duende
5:00 Justin Ancheta
6:30 Fossil Fool with Zori and Nicco
7:30 Tara Quinn: Aerial Contortion
Sunday, 5/22
11:00 School of Rock
12:00 School of Rock
1:00 Zen Finger Painting
El Arbol:
photo: Aufdencamp
This year at Maker Faire we’re psyched to be featuring the evolution of El Arbol, our flagship music bike, and inviting Maker Faire goers to help complete it by adding leaves to its Canopy. Over the course of the 2-day Maker Faire, the Canopy will fill up with drawings of projects and inventions, Pedal Powered Spin Art, scrap paper decorations, and other lightweight scraps from around the Faire.
In the works since 2008, El Arbol is a 15′ tall rolling tree with several unique features including the first-ever deployable ‘roots’, shown deployed above. These 6′ wide stabilizers (please don’t call them training wheels) swing out on command, allowing the tree to remain upright at low speeds and stop signs, and to be used as a Pedal Power generator.
El Arbol also features a state of the art 2-person Pedal Powered Stage with amazing audio clarity, thanks to the vertically stacked speakers in its trunk. Two people pedaling can provide plenty of energy to amplify a band’s performance to an audience of hundreds.
Process:
We’ll display a series of poster-sized photos from the making of El Arbol on the sides of our 10×10 tent, engaging Faire goers in the creative process that goes into a multi-year project like El Arbol. We hope to inspire Faire goers to think big and get inspired for their own projects in the coming year.
Over the last four years, Faire goers have seen Rock The Bike progress from making party bikes like the Choprical Fish to creating a 6-bike Pedal Powered Stage. Now we are setting our sights on creating a Pedal Powered circus using El Arbol as the equivalent of the circus tent.
photo: Aufdencamp
Above, testing out the rear branch of El Arbol as an aerial rig. We plan to feature some of the aerial artists in our crew at this year’s Maker Faire.
photo: Aufdencamp
This year at Maker Faire we’re psyched to be featuring the evolution of El Arbol, our flagship music bike, and inviting Maker Faire goers to help complete it by adding leaves to its Canopy. Over the course of the 2-day Maker Faire, the Canopy will fill up with drawings of projects and inventions, Pedal Powered Spin Art, scrap paper decorations, and other lightweight scraps from around the Faire.
In the works since 2008, El Arbol is a 15′ tall rolling tree with several unique features including the first-ever deployable ‘roots’, shown deployed above. These 6′ wide stabilizers (please don’t call them training wheels) swing out on command, allowing the tree to remain upright at low speeds and stop signs, and to be used as a Pedal Power generator. (more…)
California’s Vehicle Code prohibits tall bikes, stating you have to be able to put your foot down and stop safely. I agree with the ‘stop safely’ spirit of this law. We don’t want to be seeing people keeling over. But tall bikes are fun, can be designed to be safe, and are great for Bike Culture events and rides. Here’s how I designed a tall bike that keeps to the spirit of the law, and then successfully defended myself in court!
When I started making my tall bike, El Arbol, three years ago, I knew it was going to be bigger and heavier than the other ones I’d seen. So I began looking for ways to stabilize it at low speeds so I could stop without needing to put my hand on a nearby truck.
Kipchoge riding his Long Tall Sally in San Francisco traffic.
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Start a Bicycle Music Festival in your town? Talk to us for advice on the gear you’ll need! Start a conversation about your Pedal Powered Stage this month and get free shipping. Please use the contact page or call 888-354-2453.
Watch as a Brazilian reporter covers a German electronic music event a park, pedal powered by Rock The Bike gear and the Green Music Initiative. The Portugese is a bit hard to follow in the beginning (though she interviews people in English later), but the Pedal Power dynamic is great throughout. The gear shown in the video is: Rock The Bike’s Biker Bar, Mundo 500, and 6′ Pedalometer.
1. Debuting LiveOnBike at the 2010 SF Bicycle Music Festival. Shows our preparations for the LiveOnBike element of the 2008 Bicycle Music Festival, co-founded and sponsored by Rock The Bike.
2. Old School Human Power Research in the Rock The Bike workshop with Nate Byerley, inventor of our Fender Blender bike blenders, Marquist, neighborhood kid, Paul Freedman, founder of Rock The Bike, and Gabe Dominguez, musician and co-founder of the San Francisco Bicycle Music Festival. See where we caught the bug for human power!
3. Mundo Surfing, circa 2009. Rock The Bike’s Pedal Power coach Pastana came up with an amazing new way to ride, and we’ve been surfing ever since.
4. Fossil Fool, LiveOnBike at the 2010 Barcelona Bicycle Music Festival. Great camera work and daytime light make for a clear demonstration of the LiveOnBike concept. Part of the 2010 Pleasant Revolution bike tour.
5. Fender Blender Bike Blenders available from Rock The Bike. We take bike blending very seriously. Check out the three types we make!
6. Side Visibility with the Down Low Glow. Notice how much brighter the Down Low Glow is from the side than regular blinkies. Please note that as of winter 2010 the Down Low Glow is off the market for a major redesign that will be ready soon.
7. The Mundo Cargo Bike. Rock The Bike helps test, design and engineer the Mundo and we love using it in our Pedal Powered Stage.
8. The Choprical Fish and the UMDJ — Documentation of a Fossil Fool original Soul Cycle and of collaborating on the UMDJ in Austin, Texas. Keep in mind, this is 2007 Technology.
9. BONUS VIDEO! Don’t watch!
Highlights from a LiveOnBike performance on my latest custom Soul Cycle, the Blue Whale, at the first ever Barcelona Bicycle Music Festival, timed to coincide with the 10-10-10 global day of action on climate change.
The video shows clips of three songs: “Funky Quadricycle”, “Rock The Bike Rider,” and “No Bikes In The Yard”. Brock was pilioting the Blue Whale, and nearby Kipchoge was carrying bassist Jared May. The video shows off the great passenger hauling capabilities of Cargo Bikes like the Mundo, the base bike of the Blue Whale.
This was my first LiveOnBike performance on the Blue Whale, which contains the audio elements a 3-way JBL PRX 535 speaker. The top surface of the Blue Whale’s fiberglass cabinet is a wide tractor seat, allowing the performer to shift his weight and face riders to the side and rear of the rig. The Blue Whale has a horn-loaded midrange and tweeter mounted on a pole that can pivot to any angle. When used as a LiveOnBike rig, the mid/high horns face obliquely to the rear, where they direct the sound to the mobile audience and serve as a monitor to the performer. The main 15″ bass woofer faces to the right, away from the performer, but the large bass port faces left. Bass frequencies are fairly omnidirectional to begin with, but the port facing left means that the bass truly envelops the performer. The music cabinet is custom made to fit the Mundo V3 cargo bike, designed for carrying gear and passengers. The weight of the cabinet, battery, and the performer was probably close to 250 pounds, well within the rated capacity of the Mundo.
The power source for the amplifier was a pair 12V NiMh batteries rated at 4AH. The Class-D Crown amplifier that came with the PRX 535 has been modified to accept DC power, rather than AC, which eliminates the need for a bulky and inefficient AC/DC inverter. The batteries used on the Blue Whale weigh only 4 pounds. The DC modified Crown amplifier is problably the most efficient audio amplifier around, and is available from Rock The Bike on a custom basis. The DC modification also makes the Blue Whale an exceptionally efficient Pedal Power rig.
The backing tracks are stored on a modified Kaossilator Pro looping synthesizer, which you can see on my left leg. I can trigger samples A, B, C, and D while performing, enabling me to take a song into a breakdown section or drop out the beat for a funny rhyme. The Kaossilator Pro has a built in mic preamp eliminating the need for a separate audio mixer. Nearby, Jared plays bass while sitting on a JBL 512 speaker.
The Barcelona Bicycle Music Festival is part of the Pleasant Revolution tour of Europe. The Pleasant Revolution has been touring Europe by bicycle since late May, and will next head to Portugal in time for a Bicycle Music Festival of Lisbon next weekend. I joined up with the Pleasant Revolution in late September.
The goal of the Bicycle Music Festival is to help bike people grow the movement with an inspiring all-day event featuring local and bike-touring bands. We hit three venues, all in Barcelona’s parks and plazas. As we cruise between venues, performing LiveOnBike or playing dance music, we pass out flyers and call out the festival venues pied piper style, helping to increase turnout on the day of.
Thanks to Pamela and Christian and the other volunteers of the Barcelona BMF. Thanks also to Jared and Joey for playing along with me (bass and bucket drum) and to Brock for piloting the Blue Whale. Big thanks to Jonathan Grevsen for editing and shooting the video.
Help us send a wake up call to Shimano, the largest maker of bicycle components. Their other main business arm is fishing, and they consistently fund anti-conservation efforts to block marine parks and sanctuaries. Replacing reefs and fish stocks is about as hard as replacing the innards of a Rapidfire shifter. Our conservation choices now make a difference.
We’ll be bringing out the Pedal Powered Stage and featuring music from DJ Toph One and a performance by the bike dance troupe The Derailleurs. Check out their performance at this year’s San Francisco Bicycle Music Festival:
After the dancing, music, and speeches, join us for an unforgettable LiveOnBike performance up Market St. to Triple Crown for the afterparty.
Please RSVP on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=132003886840808&ref=ts
Justin Ancheta performing LiveOnBike at the 2010 San Francisco Bicycle Music Festival, co-produced by Rock The Bike.
Fans pedal powered 7 hours of live local music.
Here you see the three key elements of a Pedal Powered Stage in action:
As usual with our local events our trusty roadies hauled all of our Pedal Powered Stage gear to and from the venues on cargo bikes, such as the Mundo and the Xtracycle. In the foreground special Roadie guest Aaron from Aaron’s Bike Repair in Seattle carries his girlfriend and tows our Biker Bar. Strong!
Once we set up our Pedal Powered Stage, we wasted no time getting band after local band amplified. Here’s the Tri Tip Trio breaking it down at Golden Gate Park.
El Arbol in effect as a two-person generator.
Locura got the dancing started at Showplace Triangle, our night venue. photo: Aufdencamp
Obo Martin, LiveOnBike. photo: Aufdencamp
1st time Golden Goose Lindsey rolling with the pack. The Golden Geese are the volunteers who shake the buckets for musicians after each set.
Untitled from TyrellVoightKampff on Vimeo.
Karlanga’s Silk Performance from TyrellVoightKampff on Vimeo.
Our night venue: Showplace Triangle, the largest of San Francisco’s popular “Pavement to Parks” mini parks.
It was our first time offering monitored bike parking at one of our events. Thanks Sam and the crew from DPW for your help!
Posted by Wild Johnny
Time:
07/24/2010 – 07:15 – 11:30
WHAT: Southbay Cruisers: The Big 80’s IV
WHEN: July 24th, 2010
WHERE: Ride starts and ends at Valley Park in Hermosa Beach. (Corner of Gould Ave and Valley Drive in Hermosa Beach, CA 90254) Meet at 7:15/Ride at 7:30PM We will meet at the Kiwani’s Club Parking Lot at the south end of the park as usual.
WHAT: We will go off on a slow cruiser ride (about 8 – 10 miles) dressed in our favorite 80’s attire through the Southbay, barbecue, sing our fav 80’s tunes to bicycle karaoke, and play games! This is one of our funnest rides of the year. We will have the soul cycle, we will be barbecuing. Come join us!
WHAT TO BRING: Your bike, a headlight, your ipod with your favorite 80’s tunes if you have one, anything you want to eat and drink in the park at the barbecue after the ride. (please no alcohol permitted in valley park.) your favorite 80’s attire is strongly suggested but not required. If you have any 80’s games that you want to play bring those too. If you don’t have a light for your bike you can buy one at the ride with batteries for $12.
Here’s a video of us doing bicycle karaoke in the park at our last October Halloween/Creepy cruise ride…
For more information see www.southbaycruisers.com or send us an email to info@southbaycruisers.com