photo: Paul McKenzie

Welcome to Rock the Bike, where we average 2.5 laptops per employee. Yes, we are thrilled to reach untold levels of productivity in our airy new office! This room had always adjoined our workshop but only now did we have a chance to use it, after 2 years in Unit B and 7 years on Channing way. Leif, Ben, and I put in the bamboo floor and built the desk. Took us two days.

Sometimes you have to show them what you want.

GSR (Gimme Some Room) Technology. Funny name, but it really works. GSR technology refers to the erie bands of light jetting out to the sides of your bicycle, extending well into a full lane of traffic even under street lights. This helps you show drivers visually what part of the road is yours, and what part of the road is theirs. No other safety light communicates a boundary like the Down Low Glow.

The Original Suicide Shift

Originally uploaded by Rock The Bike

This bike is just one of the antique racing bikes hanging on the wall of my neighbor Gian Bongiorno's shop. It's one of Campagnolo's earliest shifting mechanisms. Apparently Fausto Coppi won the Tour on it. To operate it, you pull one lever to undo the axel quick release. At this point, the axel is imobilized in the dropouts only by notches in the dropout! Then you pedal backwards, using the other lever to change gears. Once the chain has moved to the new gear, you redo the QR for the axle, then pedal forward. Apparently these were popular because they were light weight, but they caused many accidents.

Join our most musical July 4th Fireworks cruise yet, this Friday at 7.

photo from last year's Fireworks Cruise.

What's up SF Cruisers?

Hope you're down to join in for one of our favorite annual traditions, the July 4th SF Cruiser Ride. This year on the ride, we'll be featuring LiveOnBike performances by Mafiosa Felice of La Malamaña, and Joel Elrod of Afrolicious (Thursdays at the Elbo Room). Check out Joel's live on bike drum rig, set up for street performing. Photo: Ray Tracing.

Some interesting scenes from the workshop this week, preparing for BMF. The musical part starts at 3:05. It was awesome to see the expressions on our neighbors’ faces as we cruised around West Berkeley with Janaysa singing and playing.

Live at Maker Faire 2008 from Rock the Bike's Pedal Powered Stage. Watch in high quality by clicking twice on the video itself and selecting "Watch in high quality" on the YouTube page:

Video from Rock the Bike’s Pedal Power stage at Maker Faire this year. The sound system we’ll be using at Saturday’s BMF is even better.

Nice clips of SHAKE YOUR PEACE! performing, as well as Yacouba and the Spirit Gatherers, and Fossil Fool, the Bike Rapper.

We had a great practice ride tonight in the neighborhood around our workshop. The aTractor Seat and custom bamboo piano mount were both strong and comfortable, allowing her plenty of leg room. She practiced about 5 songs, giving me time to see how the bike handled. The handling was difficult but manageable. Even the slightest uphill made it noticeably harder to maintain a straight line, because her weight is so far behind the rear axle. The frame was up to the task, but the front end just felt light. I had to really maintain focus and keep my arm muscles tensed at all times.

The sound of her voice and piano playing made it all worth it, though. I'm really excited to bring her unique music to the streets at BMF, live!

Just in time for Bicycle Music Festival, we've come up with the aTractor Seat for live on-bike music performances and superior passenger comfort.

It all started one night when we were sitting around the cafe on one of these rare warm San Francisco nights. I didn't have a Soul Cycle with me. I had the Mundo. And Mafi had her cuatro, so we decided to have an 'acoustic night,' and had a beautiful ride with lots of sing-a-longs.

The experience got my wheels turning and I started looking for ways to turn the Mundo into a serious performance bike. The aTractor Seat is a mod to the Mundo's frame that allows us to mount an IKEA tractor seat rigidly to the Mundo's frame. The frame is so stiff, that I can carry a passenger on the very rear of the rack, and I still don't feel any appreciable frame flex. The front end does get a little light, because there's so much weight behind the rear axle, but not enough to make me nervous, unless we're talking about a 200lb passenger. I took my landlord Nick in Berkeley to lunch today. He weighs about 170. The front wheel never picked up, but the steering was a little less immediate.

Anyway, I wanted you to see the types of mods that you can easily do with a Mundo. The tubing on the Mundo is thick-gauge steel, not boutique thin-walled cromoly. You can take this to any welder and they'll be able to weld a bracket on there for you for your surfboard, skis, camera mount, whatever.

Here's a cool new video we just uploaded about the Mundo, featuring a new song of mine, "Sendin' Out":