Candy Cranks

This made the morning news in Tokyo. Apparently some pranksters at the University of Tokyo (Todai) went on a bit of a saddle swiping spree and left a free gift of broccoli for their victims. This happened last month without much issue, but a second round this month had the police involved and pressing charges. The saddles were recovered, by the way.

These events seem to have inspired a bit of a trend.

this appears to be chikuwa, a kind of fish cake that is very yummy

The guys at Monkey Light are having a competition….

“This new bike light displays full color 8-bit patterns on bicycle wheels to keep cyclists safe at night. We are crowd sourcing the design of the patterns that will be included in our new Mini Monkey Light bike wheel light. We have asked people to submit designs for new patterns. We are accepting design submissions until our Kickstarter ends on October 29th.

M210 PATTERN DESIGN CONTEST

I love this pacman design..

Link to Template here

Submit here

More info on our website here

I love this pac man design..

early stage of our camp build with the headless unicorn bike

A month ago I did a little post about the bike I was planning to take to Burning Man and the heap of bikes in a dust lot in Reno that I picked it out of. I never did get to ride that red Specialized because the friends who took it up to the event early sent me a text saying that it had a totally busted tire and to just grab another one from the lot. So I did. They gave Big Red away. There’s a lot of gift giving going on at Burning Man. So, I picked out another bike, a beautiful silver cruiser. I didn’t have much luck with bike number two either. It turned out that under Silver Lightning’s sparkly coat was a bright lime green finish, meaning that she was a “yellow bike”, a shared community bike, and I got busted by the crusty yellow bike police. While the loss of this second bike nearly broke my heart, I knew that she had community duties fulfill.

The thing that people say about absolutely NEEDING to have a bike at Burning Man is totally true. Black Rock City, the town that exists for just one week of the year in the Black Rock Desert, is a big place and a bike comes in handy for getting around to all the many things you want to see and do, plus when everyone else has a bike and you don’t it just sucks. It was a great pleasure to just cruise around in the open desert at night all lit up on a bike, avoiding pedestrians, other cyclists, and art cars, and trying not to get lost from my friends. I learned that when going to the massive parties in the club districts at either end of the city, it is imperative that you leave your lights and EL wire on and blinking or you will spend a good chunk of time looking for your ride.

So, on that sad sad morning when Silver Lightning left me, what did I do? After a few moments of feeling sorry for myself, I remembered that Susan, the lovely lady from Reno who had let me pick my first two bikes out of that pile had had the smarts to pack an extra bike in her RV, just in case. At the time back in Reno, I thought she was crazy, but I was blessing her that day out in the desert. I just walked over to her camp and picked up the spare bike and took the opportunity to borrow her kids trailer and hauled some water back to my camp. Bike problem solved and hydration provided! I even inherited some EL wire to light up that last bike, I’ll call her Lucky. So, I rode Lucky through the potholes and fluffy patches of dust for the rest of the week. I cruised around with new friends to the perimeter fence and airport, to various bars, parties, and burns. I checked out art and participated in Critical Tits, the largest group ride at Burning Man with around 5,000 riders, women only, tops off.

Third try's a charm. Me and Lucky hauling some water.

out by the perimeter fence with little planes landing and taking off just behind it

Me and some camp mates all set for Critical Tits with the Man behind us

Dude taking pics of all the tits. Expectedly, still sadly there were many like him.

looks like some sort of Critical Pink is about to happen...I was just passing by in the wrong colour

It was such an amazing week that was filled to overflowing. If you haven’t been to Burning Man and you have friends who have and they don’t stop talking about it, just forgive them a little. There’s just so much going on and it’s tough to describe. I was so into experiencing it that I didn’t take many photos. There were tons of crazy bikes lit up in crazy ways, some super tall, others with antlers, or unicorn heads and ponytails. I did however document the parking lot at the casino hotel I went to after the event. There were cars with crazy dusty bikes all over.

Good ole Lucky served me well and is now is storage in Reno. Hopefully I’ll get to ride her again, perhaps even next year.

From the team that brought you Keep It Wheel last October comes ‘The Moving Feast’ - a celebration Sydney’s cycling and foodie culture!

On Saturday 24th September from 9am, we’ll be cycling to 3 of Sydney’s foodie hotspots; and farmer’s markets along the way.

An East Side ride from King’s Cross markets to Taylor Square markets.
 

The West Side ride has been cancelled due to low number but we’ll now be including Eveleigh markets as a stop on the one ride!

At the end we’ll meet up in Prince Alfred Park for a huge picnic party to enjoy music and the food we’ve collected along the way.

Click here for full details of the routes as well as an itinerary for the day.

The Sydney Tweed Ride is on again, MC Cyclery and Ride Sydney to bring you an even better event and thank you to Daniel Dittmar for this year’s poster art.

Once again the Sartorial needs of the city will be met with the 3rd annual Tweed Ride Sunday July 31st 2011.

A slow and elegant ride through the city streets in dapper and ladylike apparel.

8am – Registrations start at Town Hall. You must show your helmet at the sign in and wear it during the ride. No helmet no ride.

9am – Ride to start following pre assigned route and stopping at pre assigned photo points and marshalling points before coming to the finish of the ride.

Hand-made wooden bike shelf by UrbanCityBikeShelves on Etsy.com

I believe it was Meg that posted another bike shelf back in September–this piece is obviously similar in design, but comes in a lower price-point ($149 versus $270 for the Knife and Saw version). Both shelves come in Walnut, but UrbanCityBikeShelves also come in Maple and Cherry.

Living in New York where space is at such a premium, I’d love to try one of these shelves out. Sadly, living in a rail-roaded apartment means that pretty much every wall I have is too narrow to even lean a bike against! I’m also a bit skeptical that I’d knock everything off the shelf every time I grabbed my bike in a rush. Curious to see if any of you have had any experience with a similar product?

Spotted this quirky little number in Newtown. I loved the eagle on the Muppet Show, he was great!

Abandoned vagabond-bike at the Seattle Ferry Terminal. The next day we saw a rather grizzled man riding around another bike that was set up exactly the same way! I’m surprised I didn’t see them at the Dead Baby Downhill.

Safety third!