Candy Cranks

Honolulu’s first BIKE PROM was a collaboration event by KVIBE, The ARTS at Marks Garage, The Kickstand, Bike Shorts Hawaii Film Festival, Sau Hsu, Dieter Runge, Ambika, HNL Bike Polo and Malia Harunaga. additional support by Jonathon Lott, Cycle Manoa, Jeremy Pang, Dylan Botelho, Jonathan Lau, and Sergio Garzon. Gratitude to all the bicyclists who allowed for their bicycles to be displayed. all photos are copyrighted by Jonathon Lott, Malia Harunaga, Ilana Nimz, and Michael Keany. For the bike month feature, the art gallery was full of floating bikes from all genres of cycling, had pictures from ladies bike events, and artwork by fellow riders relating to bicycles.

The KVIBE kids provided a bike valet service:

Jade rocked a full-on prom gown (she really biked in it!)

The KVIBE kids made an arch out of bicycle parts!

Assorted cute bike “Prom Pics”

And some pics from the Bikes @ Marks show

Via a Hawaii connection, I was introduced to Dan, co-founder of Portland Design Works while visiting Oregon for a tree conference in August. PDW has created a range of innovative cycling products that consider safety, durability, comfort and style. Major cool points when you rock these products. They’ve acquired a building in NE Portland and Dan gave me a tour of their spot.

They’ve got a giant space, complete with a PDW basketball hoop

The meeting loft with a lookbook featuring articles about their awesome products

Office for the important business stuff with Erik

Great rooftop view of the city

Ping pong table.. most important room in the place

Additionally, PDW is the home of the only Circulus in the world!

Fantastic PDW classy unique product picks: Danger Zone Light, Takeout Basket, 3wrencho

Please check out the website, read their blog, get a cool light… etc.

Cheers to Dan for the tour!

Every year for an annual conference regarding trees, cycling arborists gather together for the Stihl Tour des Trees. The Tour is a 5-day cycling trip covering over 500 miles in the country or state where the conference is held, with the intent to raise funds for the TREE fund, a tree research organization. Over 100 cyclists participated in the 2012 Tour in Oregon, USA. I was unable to participate in the full tour, but joined in the last day for a 30mile ride around Portland, OR for the Ride for Research.

All the tour riders in their matching attire gather for the final day of their ride

In good tree humor, the ribbon to celebrate the beginning of the ride is cut with a Stihl chainsaw, complete with the protective equipment donned over the spandex

Rolling out of Holladay Park

Some happy Ride for Research participants

Beautiful Oregon day

Nearly finished with the Tour

And a Tree themed ride would not be complete without custom made wooden bicycles!

Through the Tour des Trees, the TREE fund raised over $500,000 for grants and scholarships to improve knowledge and technology regarding trees. Next year, the tour will be held in Toronto, Canada.. hopefully I can make it to the whole tour and that some of you may participate as well!

I’ve been away on another field season and have not had the opportunity to organize bike rides, so this ride marks the return of the Hawaii lady cycling group Punani Pedal Club. Though the turnout was small, we had a lovely ride to Christmas Tree park, through Waikiki and then to Kakaako Park for firedancing.

Couchsurfer Diane joined us while visiting Hawaii, borrowing Louise’s bike

Jade being excited about Sau’s organization represented on his new team jersey

My friend Smiles decided to join the ride after a long day at work

Molly relaxing before biking home

Diane poses with the wonderful photographer of the Punani Pedal ride, Mike Keany

Sau trying out the safe version of Firedancing with light sticks

Amazing group picture from Christmas Tree Park in Kaimuki

Thanks Michael Keany for documenting the ride with the wonderful photo memories.

Thanks to the lovely people that showed up and hope to see more Hawaii ladies on upcoming rides!

While headed to the grocery store while traveling through Petaluma, California, I randomly came across the Rapha bus, as they are filming a California ride. Team rider Evil Ryan was kind enough to provide me with a cycling cap and let me take pictures of the bus.. thanks!

if you have not yet viewed the women’s prestige, here it is:

The nonprofit organization KVIBE (Kalihi Valley Instructional Bike Exchange) has ordered a custom made cargo bike by Portland, Oregon company Metrofiets to make their mechanic program mobile. The plan is to extend their warehouse beyond the building by traveling to nearby schools to teach underprivileged youth about bicycles, on a bicycle.  Before heading to its final home at KVIBE, the cargo bike did a bit of sightseeing and racing! KVIBE coordinator Sau Hsu pedaled me around Honolulu and beyond in the cargo load for a few great adventures.

Photo Stop: Waikiki Beach!

You don’t need a cargo bike to transport giant things in Hawaii.. bicycle surfboard racks do the trick!

The bike poses with Olympic swimmer Duke Kahanamoku

Sau pedaled the cargo bike with me in it for a 12.8 mile time trial over rolling hills and through the rain.. epic!

View from the rainy cargo hold

Sau being a champ, suffering up the final hill to pedal me into my first place female mountain bike finish!

The cargo bike is at its new home in Kalihi Valley, about to go on its first official work-related ride on March 17th for the Great Kalihi Cargo Haul. The ride will promote youth cycling by providing up to 100 helmets for kids and encourage the children to work on the land, with the ending point at the Kokua Kalihi Valley nature preserve, Ho’oulu ‘Aina.

During the holidays, the City and County of Honolulu puts up an impressive lights display. Unfortunately, this year was a bit of a letdown with fewer lights than usual, but we still had a fun and rainy bike ride to see it all.

The group in front of the shaka Santa

Jade showing off her awesome Google Bike shirt and bicycle

Hawaiian style Christmas tree featuring shave ice and spam musubi

The Surfrider Foundation sponsored a display powered by solar energy and featured Lego bicyclers!

Molly posing with her bicycle

Happy holidays and New Year from Honolulu! Cheehoo!

Coming from the craziness of Honolulu’s streets full of potholes and terrible drivers, a vacation to Oregon was the Hawaiian cyclist’s paradise. Luckily with Hawaii powers, we brought the sunshine to Oregon and had fantastic fall cycling weather with wonderful friends. Our first stop was for a delicious Thanksgiving feast in Corvallis, home of Oregon State University. This college town is flat and comprised of over 90% bicycle lanes. We visited our part-time Hawaii resident friend and bike polo enthusiast Eilif, who lives at the Corvallis “Bike Haus”.

The Bike Haus residents graciously lent us polo bikes and took us on a mini bike ride on some paths and to downtown Corvallis.

Cuties Kevin and Shanna rocked the tandem bike!

Eilif even gave people rides on his bike rack.. Dave looks like he’s having tons of fun

And by chance, we ended up with the Corvallis bike and pedicab crew’s section in the holiday parade. The kids enjoyed the pedicabs, bike tricks and wheel guards on the polo bikes.. hopefully it made some of them want to ride bikes!

From Corvallis, we went to Portland for a weekend of bikes, beer, friends and good food. The Honolulu community bike shop KVIBE is getting a cargo bike from a local Portland framebuilder, so we went to the cargo-bike specialists at Splendid Cycles to check out the bikes, and pose for pictures.

The Ace Hotel where we stayed offered free bike rentals to hotel guests, which allowed us to explore the bike friendly streets of Portland with great happiness. Our friend Shawn gave us a tour of the North East Alberta district and other friends Brett and Megan biked us around the South East area.

Overall, a successful vacation from a tropical paradise to a cycling paradise!
Most photos by Sau Hsu.