Saturday Night

Sydney's first ever Bike Fashion Parade! Don't miss this.

The latest cutting edge cycling fashions drawn from the depths of inner Sydney’s bike messenger scene will hit the streets on November 1, with the launch of the Road: Edge exhibition, a Big Bike Love event, running alongside the eighth annual Bicycle Film Festival.

St Peters will play host to an evening of quirky, edgy streetwear with an underground tribal twist, paraded to a funky soundtrack , and music by DJ Ollo. The free event will be held in May Lane, a renowned street graffiti gallery, with hand crafted designs by Flash, Cheeky Monkey, Skingrowsback and other designers.

Tribal-style accessories in the show includes designs by Skingrowsback, made from recycled and retooled bike chains and tubes. Curator Flash comments: “The show will feature edgy outfits, cool clothes and even not-so-cool clothes! From a pink and purple leopard-print creation to bike evening wear featuring expanses of reflective tape and bare flesh, the event is a mix of practicality, fashion and entertainment.”

The Road: Edge cycling fashion show draws on inspiration from the expansion of cycling culture across the globe and recent cycling fashion parades in London, Las Vegas, Vancouver and Dublin. The trend points to the growing popularity of the bike as cool way of getting around town. Bikes are officially in.

Says Flash: “You could say I’m a person who really likes bikes, and who really likes fashion. I myself will be making an appearance on my very own Gimp bike – and the outfit is designed to match!”

He adds: “This fashion show will feature real people and real bikes. These clothes and accessories are in many cases hand made especially for the show – they are not commercially available. In some cases they promise to be hilariously bodgy, in all cases they will be funny and fanciful.”

The free party will run from 7pm to 10pm this Saturday, November 1, with a licensed bar open in the lane for one evening only. Road: Edge is a perfect opportunity to explore the heady mix of tribal fashion and to support the worthy cause of improving conditions for Sydney’s cyclists.

Then you’ve got a few days to recover before the opening of the big art exhibition on Thursday night at the vanishing point which will include an amazing piece from the SBAR team called "Bicycle Triptych" Don't miss out!

Corporate appropriation of Street Culture

One thing I really despise is the all too common practice of big corporations trying to latch onto and copy street culture in order to make themselves look hip and cool so they can sell stuff to gullible fools. It always turns my stomach. I don't like fashion. I like people to have style and look good and feel good about themselves but the best style is the one you develop for yourself. People who spend shitloads of money on poor imitations of military jackets for instance when they could go and buy the real thing for a fraction of the price. Another good example is the rise of the shop bought fixie, wasn't the whole point to convert it yourself? Why are there so many losers out there?

On more than one occasion I've ridden past the Enmore stencil wall and seen it being used as a backdrop for advertising shoots. Girls dressed up as goths or boys dressed as hipsters posing with skateboards that they can't actually ride. That's bad enough. But to actually paint over the whole wall just to advertise fizzy drink...I really find it hard to believe that even in the shallow, morally bankrupt world of corporate marketing they can be this hypocritical. Destroying real street culture so that you can create an empty, bastardised version of it to sell crap. What do you think would happen if we painted on one of their walls?

This company sells a drink that costs them about 1-2 cents a bottle to produce. The company pays $200 for a water extraction licence and sells it in separate plastic bottles for more than $10 million a year. Each plastic bottle takes a fifth of a litre of crude oil to make. This disgustingly popular drink is one of the top ten grocery items bought in Australia. What a bunch of suckers. Don't buy it, if you see someone else buying it tell them not to.

This is just one of the recent artworks that was painted over.


Thankfully the locals have moved quickly to express their opinion in the way they know best. The only good thing about oppression is that it does lead to good Art.

SBAR News

Catherine has finished our poster and postcard for 2009. You can see them below. Click on the image for a larger version. If you get the chance it would be great if you could email the images to your friends or send them a link to this page.


Jens Korff took the photo for the poster and Brent Wilson took the one on the postcard.

We have also received our official letter from New Mardi Gras to confirm that we are part of next year's festival. The paint company Matisse Derivan have kindly offered to supply us with paint again and we have been given permission to use the Physics Lawn at UNSW to marshal our riders. Randwick City Council has confirmed they will assist us in funding the event and our traffic plan for 2009 has been submitted. As you can see we have been busy! Charlie is still working on updating our website and struggling with a new software program but according to an email he sent me today it should be online next week some time. (If you have any suggestions for changes to the website now is the time to submit them)

We have a prize for our Highest Fundraiser! Cheeky Transport have donated a fabulous Gemini Gofa the ideal city utility bike and yes it does come with all those fabulous extras you can see in the picture (journalist not included). To be in the running to win this cool prize you need to raise over $300 worth of sponsorship. There will be a page on our updated website where you can register your sponsors. All money raised will be donated to the Children's Cancer Research Institute

We are putting together a promotion team for the Big Bike Love Parade on the 13th of November. Meet us at Cheeky Transport to get painted up if you want to join us but do let me know you're coming so I can bring enough paint! We should have postcards ready to hand out by then.

The only other thing I can think of to tell you is that our Artwork for the Road/Rode Exhibition has been sent off to the printers and it looks pretty fabulous, Romana and I painted Merryn and Ollie and Pete took the photos, I think it turned out really well. It's three panels and it's called Bicycle Triptych. Hope to see you all at the Opening Night on Thursday the 6th of November.

Bike Polo

Not just for boys...

Victoria




Urban Bicyclist - Melbourne



Fixed Gear London

Hard Court Bike Polo - Doug D



It's hard to keep track of who owns the pictures that people send in, if you spot a shot of yours and you'd like it linked somewhere and/or credited please just let me know by leaving a comment.

Progress?

I guess it's better than the dismissive attitude we've heard in the past but I won't be holding my breath. I'm happy riding on the road anyway.

From Clover Moore's E-News, sent in by Gilbert Grace

STATE COOPERATION ON CYCLING PROJECTS

I recently wrote to the new Premier and Minister for Roads urging
action to overcome delays in Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA)
approvals for a number of our key cycling projects. Over the next four
years, I want to achieve a cycling network that is safe enough for
children, giving priority to separated cycleways as a viable alternate
to private cars.

The Minister indicated in Parliament this week that he will look into
our concerns and agreed to work with the City to improve cycling
facilities.

This is an important step, as one of the delayed approvals involves
the road alignment for a north-south cycle route through the CBD.
Considered by many cyclists and transport planners as the most
important "missing link" in CBD cycling infrastructure, the
north-south route would connect the Harbour Bridge to the east-west
cycleway on King, Park and William Streets.

As a cyclist himself, the Premier has told me that he is keen to see
cycling become a viable transport alternative for Sydneysiders. During
development of our Sustainable Sydney 2030 vision, City research
showed that 75 per cent of non-regular cyclists said that having
dedicated bicycle lanes and off-road routes would make them cycle more
regularly.

Street Art Exhibition

Image from Wallup
Tonight I went down to the Little Fish Gallery at 22 Enmore Rd Newtown for the opening of Fez's Stencil Art Exhibition. It was very cool, you could vote for your favourite artwork and the artworks were on sale for very reasonable prices. They had dumpstered goon and bourbon to drink and lots of Sydney Street Art identities were there. I picked up lots of contacts for the Street Art documentary I'm making with Merryn. I think the exhibition is only open until Sunday so you better get down there quick. Here's just a few of my favourite pieces, there are heaps more but my camera ran out of batteries.











Exhibition curated by the fabulous Fez.

How they make bicycles in heaven

Via Bicycle Diaries

Patti Smith Indicts George W. Bush

Drybike

Just when you thought you had every possible accessory for your bicycle along comes the Drybike. Of course it is from the home of City Cycling The Netherlands.

I guess it could be tricky in windy weather or a really heavy Sydney style bucketing but there are lots of other days when this would be great for cruising around town. Jeroen Hemelrijk sells the Drybike mount for 24 euros or about $50 (including postage), it clamps around the handlebar close to the stem. At the bottom of the mount is a swivelling joint, then a solid tube ending in an eight-inch flexible rod on top that has the umbrella clamp. I reckon that if you used it with a Senz umbrella, which is also made in the Netherlands, it might be possible to ride reasonably fast. The unique shape of a Senz umbrella pairs a short front with a longer tail. The shape keeps the front of the umbrella always heading into the wind.

This one's 4 U Nick

Via Chic Cyclist
Update: An awful lot of people have been asking "Who is Nick?" and "Where can we get a look at his facial hair?" in fact it's a hot topic on the American Craig's list forum. Well Nick is a bike mechanic but I can't tell you where to find him because he might not like people coming in the shop to stare at him, possibly even wanting to cop a feel of his beard...
Update 2: Ok I give in already, due to popular demand, here it is... the beard in question. Nick's beard is widely considered to be some of the coolest cycling facial hair you will find on a face in Sydney's Uber Cool Inner West. You have to admit there is certainly nothing straggly about it. I think it's his Russian genes, he must have one of those old orthodox priests in his ancestry.

Photos from Cazzbo

Cazzbo took these in Europe. I think she's touring over there again now.

Bike of the day

Ride2Work Day!

Today was Ride2Work Day so I got up early and headed down to Wilson St to meet up with my mates from Cheeky Transport who were saluting all the workers as they rode past.

Dave, Nick and Adam

Jen was there too.

Style Queen

The Marrickville bike bus!

Off to deliver some packages?


No strangers in the World of the Urban Cyclist



Hey isn't that that cool lady from JTV? Should have known she'd be a cyclist. Look how she manages to balance all those bags. Doesn't bother strapping them on her rack. Nice shoes too.



If you look real close you can see her cool bike tattoo

Look what I can do Mum!

After we'd had enough of that amusing activity we headed down to Cafe Giulia for breakfast. No muffins and nescafe in Martin Place for us! The staff at Giulia's were proud to inform us that 5 out of 6 staff had ridden to work. I think the 6th guy lives just up the road so he walked.

Congratulations to everyone who rode!


Dinner time in Newtown Square.

Update!
Treadly has some links to other blogs about Bike2Work Day, Check them out.