Candy Cranks

A couple of a weekends ago, my fellow and I headed out for a get-away in Victoria, BC on Vancouver Island. We used a combination of cycling and public transit to reach the ferry on the Vancouver / Mainland side of the trip, and hopped the ferry over to Vancouver Island. From the ferry terminal in Schwartz Bay on the island, we rode the Lochside Trail into Victoria.  This 33 kilometre trip is mostly flat, and runs alongside the highway, through farmland, forest and suburbs and finally winds into the city.

Traveling towards Victoria we faced headwinds and I got two flat tires along the way. After a frustrating two and a half hours we made it to Victoria, cold and tired. What better way to raise our spirits than a leisurely dinner at The Pink Bicycle. We stuffed ourselves on homemade soup, yummy (and ethical) burgers, fries cooked in truffle oil, local beer and chocolately desserts.

After a weekend spent vintage shopping, beer tasting and filling up on great, local food we made the trip back to Vancouver. The return ride was much more pleasant, and far faster! With strong tailwinds to help us along, we made the trip from Victoria to Schwartz Bay in a mere hour and a half!

For those of you that love bikes (I’m pretty sure you do) and classy movie stars of days gone by, Rides a Bike is a sweet, simple site that you never knew you wanted.
You’ll find photos of long-gone Hollywood starlets and a few famous folks that are still around, all posed on their bikes (folding, safety, tandem or otherwise).

Here are my highlights of the ladies photos, but check out the site for more where these came from, plus pics of a few handsome gents, too.

Audrey Hepburn

Susan Peters

Genevieve Bujold

If you haven’t heard about The Prohab Helmet Society, you should really get to know them. Prohab is a non-profit incorporation dedicated to promoting and providing helmets to cyclists who are not wearing them. They encourage safety and strive to break down any image barriers associated with the use of bike helmets and protective gear.

Last year they released a super-rad 2010 Calendar as a fundraising initiative. The funds generated helped them buy more helmets to give out to those who couldn’t otherwise afford them.

For 2011, they’re taking this calendar thing up a notch.
Check out a preview spread from the 2011 calendar here. This proves that helmets are hot, without a doubt!

Pre-sales are available now online or head over to the calendar release party this Friday at the Astoria.
Lots of music, prizes and awesomeness, for only 5 bucks.

See you there, and don’t forget to slap a helmet on your melon for the ride over.

Candy Cranks has featured Contrail in the past, and now they need your help!

According to the project description, Contrail turns your bicycle into a paintbrush leaving a temporary mark of your bicycle’s path.

You attach it to your bike and as you ride, it leaves a colorful line behind you. When many people ride with Contrail, the result is a colorful path which illustrates where bicycles are riding. We envision artists, non-profits and community organizations using our product to create art, promote their events and celebrate shared spaces.

Contrail uses washable, non-toxic chalking fluid made from eco-friendly pigments. Like a jet’s contrail, the lines on the road will fade with time and rain.

And now the folks at Contrail are trying to bring this great bikey innovation to non-profits, community groups and artists by putting it into production. Check out the Contrail Kickstarter page for more info and to become a backer of this great project. They’ve got 34 days left to raise the money they need to make the project a success – let’s show them our Candy Cranks support!

photos via Contrail: bikecontrail.com

Portland’s Rapha has opened a pop-up shop in NYC at 352 Bowery for a few months.

I managed to squeeze in a visit during an action-packed one-week trip to the Big Apple. Though it’s definitely dude-centric, there was a (very) small selection of ladies cycling-wear to check out and lots of cycling eye candy. Rapha aims to build a community while they’re in NYC, and even though daily live screenings of the Tour de France are over, there are rides, movie nights and a cafe to help foster the Rapha love.

Small, but excellent women’s cycling-wear collection

Portland transplants can get their caffeine fix at Rapha’s coffee bar that serves up Stumptown coffee.

Uber-cool indoor bike parking

All Tour de France, all the time

Menswear – nice jerseys!

Vintage Tour de France van used for picking up stragglers

It seems like ages ago that my fella and I visited New York, but it was only a month ago. Now that I’ve had a chance to go through the scads of photos I snapped, I’d like to share a few of the ones featuring bikes of all shapes and sizes from Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Our indispensable foldies that made it a snap to get around the city. Greenwich Village.

Classic turquoise, Manhattan.

Union Square Market delivery bike.

New-old. Outside of Chelsea Market, Manhattan.

Eurostyle, Soho.

Oldie but a goodie. And check out that chain ring! Somewhere in Manhattan…

Political bike, with a sticker from Our Community Bikes of Vancouver! Chelsea. It’s a teeny, tiny world.

Bold blue bike outside of a Williamsburg shop

Rusty old charmer, Brooklyn.

Urban Rustic Grocery and Cafe delivery bike, Williamsburg.

Over the past few years, as my fella and I have become more and more interested in bikes (okay, obsessed), our place has definitely begun to show signs of bicycle decor. Right now we have a metal bicycle sculpture, a painting of a bunny riding a bike, helmets hanging in our front hall and in our old loft, bikes hung from the ceiling.

Check out today’s post on Apartment Therapy about bikes and decor for some lovely eye-candy and potential DIY projects, like the bike tire mirror below. So I wonder: what items make up your bike decor?

ArtConductor’s Bicycle Wall Decal

Tour Table by Gae Aaulent

The Bicycle Tire Mirror by Audrey Brandt

Pics via Apartment Therapy

A couple of weekends ago, when it was hot and sunny (seems like eons ago), I ventured out to the Trout Lake Farmer’s Market at its new location in the north parking lot of John Hendry Park. The move from it’s former location by the community centre on the south side of the park means no parking for customer vehicles.

The group that organizes the market, Your Local Farmers Market Society, has taken this lack of parking as an opportunity to promote cycling, transit and walking as viable ways to get to and from the market. Pedestrians and transit-users are encouraged to bring along rolling carts to wheel around their purchases, and cyclists have it easy, with unofficial parking along the fence of the adjacent alley. Plus there are a couple bike routes that run to the park from different areas of town.

I did keep my eyes out for valet bike parking, a more and more common service at community events, however I only saw a tent that was promoting a specific brand of bikes and allowing test rides. Perhaps I missed the valet parking station?

At any rate, more people seem to be choosing sustainable and healthy means of transportation to support the choices they are making by purchasing local, organic and delicious farmers market fare.

Car-free alley behind the market is flanked by bikes ridden by market-goers.

Masses of Vancouverites scouting out produce, baked goods, cheese, meat, ready-to-eat to-go meals, plants, crafts and more at the market.

Delicious sunflower sprouts grown at the University of British Columbia and transported to the market by bike.

Nicest tractor I’ve seen in a long time.

I’m part of a group called the B:C:Clettes. We are an all-lady bicycle-inspired performance collective based in wonderful Vancouver.

Every week, throughout the year, we get together to dance, talk, dream, and have a great time together. Over the winter we choreograph new performance pieces and refine our collective process, by assessing our goals and making new plans. In the summer we are either preparing, participating or recovering from performing on tour or at a slew of shows around town.

We have traveled our show to LA and back, run a cabaret featuring the B:C:Clettes and other amazing local acts, filmed a music video/public service announcement, presented workshops and talks, and completed two bike-powered summer performance tours. And all while dressed in red, black and shiny!

As a way of highlighting not just our performances, but our process and the wonderful people involved, I thought it worthwhile, and perhaps even interesting to do a few posts about the group. For a more fleshed-out description and history of the group, plus links to photos, videos and press coverage, please visit the B:C:Clettes website.

I recently photo-documented an average winter practice for the B:C:Clettes. On Thursday nights we trickle in to our winter practice space, chat while we peel off layers of rain and bike gear, and then get right into the fun. Each week a different B:C:Clette acts as the facilitator to keep us on track, take notes during our discussions and ensure that we have a great time. As far as moving around, we do a warm-up followed by dancing in the form of learning new choreography, reviewing old numbers and brainstorming new moves.

Pre-practice meeting of our website team.

Deep into one of our discussion sessions.

Our beautiful indoor winter practice space. The B:C:Clettes practice outside over the spring, summer and fall.

Dance-off to warm up those leg muscles.

Working in pairs to go over the moves for one of our numbers

Mini-rims makes great props!

Working in front of the mirror to perfect our moves.

Blocking our starting pose for our robot-inspired bike dance.

Experimenting with new choreography.

Gliding across the floor in pairs.

Learning choreography for a new dance for the 2010 season.

So, February is coming up and what better way to fend off the winter blahs than a party?

Get ready for…

BIKES INSIDE

- Saturday, February 20, 2010, doors @ 9pm

W2 Culture + Media House

Bike Porn visuals by Rev Phil
Gastown Sprints
Disco, electro & dubstep by the Soft Infiltrators
Live dirty pop electro by Autacoid
Bicycle Art, Prizes, Cheap Beer + More!!!

Art by Topher Wong