SHAKE YOUR PEACE!’s Gabe Dominguez pedal powers a press conference of Salt Lake City’s mayor Rocky Anderson, opening their Live Green festival. May 2007.
Below: Rock The Bike’s Paul Freedman pedal powers a press conference for San Francisco’s Wade Crowfoot, announcing the city’s endorsement of pedal power.
Photo: DustinJ. Please check out the piece below.
Had a great time performing with Ken the mad scientist, Joel, Zori, Mafi, and Daniel last night at the KFOG Kaboom. We had completely sustainable sound — solar charged keyboard amp, and human powered vocals. We performed about 2 hours in an area filled with tailgaters, for tips, food, and fun.
I’ve been thinking about the comparisons between Bike Culture and Hip Hop culture. One of the cool things about Hip Hop is that it has four clearly defined elements: Rap, Breakdance, Graffiti, and DJ’ing.
It seems like Bike Culture could have similar pillars: tall bikes, critical mass, night rides with music, riding in the rain, fixing a friend’s flat tire, etc. Perhaps human power might be one of these pillars also?
Here’s a video shot in Austin at their annual Moonlight Cruise. We were at one of the rest stops, and I popped the Choprical Fish onto it’s beefy center stand and pedal powered some dance music. You can get a sense of how well attended this ride is, especially considering it began at 2AM!
photo: Paul McKenzie
I’ve had some serious wanderlust recently and decided to head to Southern California. I’ve been wanting to stuff a few things in my bag and travel as a street performer with the Choprical Fish.
The night before my train, I had a photoshoot for the upcoming Clif Bar 2 Mile challenge, along with Gabe from SHAKE YOUR PEACE! and his friends from Utah. The 2 Mile Challenge is an upcoming college campus tour to promote bicycling. After the shoot, I packed my messenger bag with clothes and we all rode to Embarcadero BART so I could sleep in the workshop. What an amazing send off. We cruised by the ball park, where a game was letting out. We sang a call-and-response song as we were threading our way through the crowd. Epic!
It was my first time really traveling with the Choprical fish, so I put in a long night getting the bike road worthy. I never got around to sleeping.
The next morning at 6 I rode to the Amtrak in Emeryville from the workshop. I don’t have many occasions to ride the Choprical Fish without music, so that morning was very sweet. I swear the birds were responding to the squeak of my disc brakes.
The Amtrak people were friendly and did non make me put my bike in a box. I dismantled the audio components and stowed them as luggage. In Bakersfield I transferred to an Amtrak bus, and the bus driver gave me my own storage bay.
The hardest part of the journey was figuring out how to get from downtown Los Angeles to the beach. I rolled the Purple line to Wilshire Western and rode from there — about 16 miles. It took about two hours. I ain’t built for speed!
Once I got to the beach, it wasn’t long before I found the 3rd Street Promenade and set up as a street performer. Put the bike into human power mode and pulled up people to pedal. A few guest rappers of diverse ethnic backgrounds rapped in a Spanish, English, and Japanese. Pretty sweet welcome.
From Wired online
DJ Fossil Fool provides the BarCamp soundtrack. Pedaling a wired-up bike, he generates the power needed to run his sound system and light show.”
Kipchoge shows up for a little late night rabelrousing with the Long Tall Salley.
Late in the evening, after Gabe and I had officially closed the Bicycle Music Festival, Sanjay got on the Choprical Fish and began singing very soulfully along with the music. I passed him the mic and he shredded the place!
