See our best videos, all time, in one place.
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!
Read MoreBuilding a Pedal Powered Stage and pedal powering the Willamette Valley Music Festival all this week in Eugene.
Starting this Tuesday the 4th, Rock The Bike will be in Eugene, Oregon building a Pedal Powered Stage with the U of O Outdoor Program.
We’ll be building a Biker Bar, the 3-person pedal power system and LiveOnBike stage we debuted last year. It will be the key component of Eugene’s Pedal Powered Stage. We’re also delivering two Mundo 500‘s — powerful electric cargo bikes that double as efficient pedal power generators when isolated with our Lunar Lander kickstand. The five pedalers’ efforts will flow into a Pedal Power Utility Box, and the state of the pedal power will display in a 6′ tall Pedalometer.
Our crew will include Pastana, Pedal Power intern Jeff Hansen, bassist and experienced bike rocker Jared May, Cara, and yours truly, Fossil Fool, the Bike Rapper.
Pastana has been one of Rock The Bike’s most loyal crewmembers, and he’s one of the reasons we create magic at our events. At our Earth Day event at USF he was the one who cornered a loose goat, roped it with a cam strap, and proudly marched it back into the quad:
Jeff the Pedal Power intern is back! Last summer he helped us build our Biker Bar and learned how to crew Rock The Bike events. He lives to build pedal power gear.
Jared May on bass:
Cara is an experienced bike tourer and will be holding down our crew table and merch station. Come say hi and get on the email list.
Moving the technology forward.
We are excited to improve the Biker Bar and to test our new Pedal Power Direct Circuit.
In the photo above you can see how the orange rear supports of the swingarms will relieve the bar. This is also the first time we will be building our own trailer chassis out of raw aluminum stock materials. Earlier this week I borrowed a truck and shopped for metal in Oakland.
The Direct Circuit accepts incoming power from the pedalers and feeds it directly into the JBL powered speakers without a AC/DC inverter. This cutting edge circuit comes out of a collaboration with our electronics genius Jake in our Berkeley workshop. It has the potential to improve the efficiency of a pedal powered music experience by up to 30%.
Four years in development.
The work in Eugene follows four years of active research into Pedal Powered music. Check out this early video of R&D on the Pedal Powered P/A:
More recently our collaborative work has taken us to Brooklyn, NY, and Austin, Texas, where we have built Pedal Powered gear collaboratively with Band Of Bicycles and Pure Austin Fitness. The Outdoor Program heard about Rock The Bike through the Pleasant Revolution, who also use our Pedal Power gear.
Pedal powering the Willamette Valley Music Festival, Saturday May 8
Check out the complete lineup: http://musicfest.uoregon.edu/music.htm
And on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/fossilfool?v=info#!/event.php?eid=112432352116882&ref=ts
Yours truly, Fossil Fool, the Bike Rapper, will be performing LiveOnBike at 4PM on Saturday! Live on which bike? El Arbol of course:
El Arbol has the same enclosed volumen and audio componentry of a JBL PRX535, our favorite pro-sound speaker, and is a powerful two-person generator:
At most of our events we try to pedal power the entire music experience, including the monitors, mixer, mains, and any instruments that plug in. Depending on what instruments a band uses, we have been able to get the entire music experience down to 200 watts!
However at the WVMF, the organizers wanted a bigger sound than we can provide, and will be bringing in a hanging line-array system like the photo below:
The power consumption of the audio equipment at WVMF will be closer to 2000-5000 watts! What can we do with Pedal Power in the context of a festival that’s bringing in such heavy equipment? We can help the musicians hear.
7-8 pedalers will power 4 on-stage monitors (3 JBL PRX 535’s and one Mackie SRM 450). The pedalers will be positioned right next to the stage where they can make eye contact with the musicians. Powering the stage monitors should make for a intimate connection between the pedalers and performers, though perhaps less so with the audience.
A key stop on a rapidly developing West Coast Bike Culture route.
Now that Eugene will have a Pedal Powered Stage, the West Coast is quickly becoming a destination for bike touring musicians. In theory these bike touring musicians can carry just their instruments, play acoustic shows in the small towns, and pedal powered shows in the larger cities, like San Francisco, Eugene, Portland, Chico, Seattle, and LA.
Last year the Pleasant Revolution World Bicycle Tour passed through Eugene, inspiring them to raise funds and build the pedal powered stage. Who will be next?
Read MoreThanks Bicycle Music Festival Fans, Crew, and Bands for a fantastic Road to BMF opener
In the true spirit of the Bicycle Music Festival, we pedal powered five bands, went LiveOnBike with a scratch guitarist, fed and quenched sweaty pedalers with tea, kombucha, pies hauled in by bike and a local street chef, and featured a contortionist, a unicyclist, a bootleg beer garden, and a quartet of breakdancers, putting us squarely on the Road to this year’s SF Bicycle Music Festival.
Mark Wessels serving up a delightful unicycle performance.
The Shotgun Wedding Quintet rocking after midnight.
We rolled these platforms in Donkey Kong style for a captivating Tara Quinn performance on contortion and aerial hoop. Photo: Kai
Photo: Kai
Genie Live on Bike on the Road to BMF from Adam Aufdencamp on Vimeo.
The Genie’s LiveOnBike performance. Afterwards I heard lots of great feedback on The Genie’s music, but one repeated request was to create a raised stage for our LiveOnBike performances. People in the back couldn’t see him.
Above: School kids rushed to the fence as the Genie sound checked the day before The Road To BMF.
Photo: Leif
After the LiveOnBike ride, we hauled the speakers off the Biker Bar and converted it to Pedal Power mode, sound checked Justin Ancheta, and got the party started. Above: Shotgun Wedding Quintet
Our Pedal Powered Stage gear included two Electric Mundos and the Biker Bar. We also brought out the Fender Blender Pro, hooking up the pedalers with smoothies.
For my performance I wanted to show both my passions, bike rapping and bicycle customizing, so I debuted my new tall bike, El Arbol. It’s still in progress, but the frame, drivetrain, and roots are complete after a year of hard work in the Complete Fab workshop with welder Jay Broemmel. I rode it into the room, deployed the roots, made rock signs, climbed down, and then pedal powered the lighting, which outlines the shape of the tree.
The night after, a few of us went for a 10 mile ride to the Richmond and back, deploying the roots numerous times as we wiggled through the Haight, and enjoying ample 360 visibility from the pedal powered lighting.
I wasn’t the only bicycle customizer showing off two-wheelers at the Road To BMF. Above: Jay Broemmel tightening the Dragon Bike’s clutch.
Many thanks to those who came out to enjoy this night of music, food, circus, and bike culture. Although we weren’t able to secure a liquor license because BMF’s non-profit status is still in progress with the San Francisco Parks Trust, we were able to raise hundreds for BMF.
Many thanks to Honest Tea, Bike Basket Pies, Sol Cocina, 21st Amendment Brewery, Cell Space, Big Top Cooperative, and all the performers.
Got photos, and video from the Road To BMF? Send us a link!
Both Sunday Streets and Maker Faire post their dates for 2010
Last year’s Dolores Park to Maker Faire Social Ride. Photo: dustinj
Maker Faire is back May 22 and 23 at San Mateo Fairground. Rock The Bike is aiming to make the Pedal Powered Stage event more fun this year and once again host the Dolores Park to Maker Faire Social Ride starting at 9AM on Saturday May 22.
Sunday Streets going huge in 2010.
Above: Sunday Streets’ founder Susan King taking us through the route maps for the 2010 season.
This year, all Sunday Streets days will go 10-3 instead of 10-2. The extra hour is key as it will help the Rock The Bike crew sleep in a bit and still bring out the Pedal Powered Stage. Many thanks for this compassionate update to one of our favorite events.
Schedule
- March 14: Embarcadero, starting at Fisherman’s Wharf and PIER 39, south to China Basin and Terry Francois Blvd.
- April 11: Along the Great Highway, coinciding with World Health Day’s “1,000 Cities, 1,000 Lives” international event, as one of thousands of cities hosting simultaneous car-free events worldwide.
- April 18: Bayview, along 3rd Street from King and 4th (Caltrain Station) to Bayview Playground.
- May 23: Bayview, in conjunction with the 3rd Street Corridor Project and Bayview Merchant’s Association’s “3rd Street Festival.”
- June 20: Mission, along Valencia and 24th Streets. The day after Bicycle Music Festival. Epic weekend in SF!
- July 11: Mission.
- August 22: Great Highway/Golden Gate Park.
- September 19: NEW: Western Addition, exact location TBD.
- October 24: NEW Civic Center/Tenderloin, exact location TBD.
Highlights from Vancouver Bicycle Music Festival online
Heather from Stitchcraft performs LiveOnBike at the Vancouver Bicycle Music Festival. Photo: Momentum
See all the highlight photos on the Momentum blog.
Read More