Big thanks to Derek Pearson for the latest in a series of shots taken near his home in Olympia, WA.

I had an interesting exchange with one of the volunteers at the SFBC’s fabulous Winterfest party last night. I said “Hi” to the volunteer as I approached one of the food tables. He was surgically picking the turkey out of his sandwich.

He said:

“Normally I would eat a vegetarian sandwich, but since I’m not a strict vegetarian anymore, I’m leaving it for someone else.”

At this point in the night, there were three platters full of turkey and beef sandwiches, and one vegetarian platter.

I said: “You’re taking the turkey out of a turkey sandwich. It’s just a bread and lettuce sandwich now. Why don’t you eat the one you want?”

“I remember how it was when I was a strict vegetarian. The vegetarian option always ran out first. I used to hate it when meat-eaters would eat the veggie option to feel like they were doing something healthy, leaving the vegetarians without food they can eat. So I’m just doing it out of consideration for them.”

I was sort of impressed at how principled he was, but at the same time, his action was a metaphor for the guilt trips and self-denial that bug me about bike advocacy in general. Too many ‘Should’ statements, like “You should ride a bike because of Global Warming,” or “You should ride a bike because of Traffic,” or “You should ride a bike because you need excercise.” But think about it. How did you react the last time someone told you you should do something? You probably said, “Thanks, Mom!” Why would it be any different when you tell someone about riding a bike?

Today’s bike advocates tend to be very effective at lobbying local governments for the things committed cyclists need, like bike lanes and public transit access, and less effective at increasing the overall numbers of cyclists on the road.

Since 2003, Rock the Bike has been exploring and innovating new ways bike people can pump up the volume on their outreach, without guilt tripping their friends and family. If there’s more than a pinch of martyrdom in your bike advocacy style, you might want to consider our approach.

The whole reason we’re involved in the Bike Music Scene is that the concerts and cruiser rides draw people in naturally, through the power of music. Once they show up, they start asking the more experienced bikers for help getting back on a bike after (a) their tires went flat two years ago or (b) their last bike got stolen. Our Down Low Glow bike lights (which we just sponsored for the fifth year at Winterfest) are probably the only bike lights on the market that can make SUV drivers want to give biking a chance.

I went back to the food table later in the night, after the Extra Action Marching Band shredded the venue as the featured performers. I didn’t see the volunteer around, but I did notice that there was still half a platter of veggie sandwiches, but no meat. The volunteer’s self-denial was for naught.

When you “Show, Don’t Tell” the benefits of biking, you’re tapping into a much more powerful way to get your message across to your friends, and, well, to make change in general. To begin, keep it positive. Focus on the things you love about biking, and do them — don’t talk about them, but do them — as much as possible. If you love them so much this should come naturally. But don’t stop there. Make it social. Host rides to concerts you and your friends are interested in seeing, have weekly repair sessions on your front stoop on Sunday mornings, clean your bike and trick it out with colorful parts and lights. Focus on doing the things that will activate the excitement of the people in your life. Leave the guilt trips to their moms!

Kipchoge and Wild Johnny kept inviting me to the Pleasant Revolution tour stop in Redondo Beach.

I really wanted to cruise and perform with my friends, not to mention take part in a huge Xtracycle / Down Low Glow rally, but I didn’t have a way to get there. I haven’t had significant-other access to a vehicle since February, there wasn’t a carpool option, and the idea of flying or renting an SUV to get to a bike ride didn’t ziggle with my zooglea, as we say in the Kombucha business.

So ended I staying up all night Friday, making them a special Fossil Fool cruising mix in Ableton Live, complete with shoutouts, DJ beatmatching, and crossfades. We’re talking crossfades, people! Apparently it went over really well. See google chat transcript below with Kipchoge. (If that download link dies, please let me know.)

I’m really hoping that Rock the Bike can become a vibrant channel where local (or distant) DJ’s can get their music heard in the streets, and cruisers can get access to more interesting mixes than they’d come up with on their own. I have nothing against “Billie Jean” but when you’re talking about playing loud music in the streets, you have to bring a mix, not just the warhorse classics.

Kipchoge: really nice ride.

the mix was rad and super appreciated. I didn’t tell anybody before blasting it and suddenly everyone thought you were there!

me: Awesome!

Kipchoge: very cool every time your emceeing and singing came on.

me: I’m so happy to hear it.

I was looking for a way to take part that wouldn’t destroy my chances of getting a productive start to the week.

Kipchoge: yeah, super low impact traveling!

me: I actually had a real breakthrough on Ableton live on Friday night.

I’d been struggling with the basic concept of Live but it clicked on Friday.

So I stayed up till 4 working on the mix.

In the future I’ll be able to crank them out faster, but i was learning.

And having fun.

I spotted this bike video on YouTube, of rising musicians “Bat For Lashes’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1wnOUH2jk8

It wasn’t a pretty scene when his mom and dad decided it was time to go home…

All lit up for post Thanksgiving dinner ride

We’ve been riding a two-trike tandem with DLG lighting on both units. It’s fairly flashy going across Minneapolis on the Midtown Greenway. Here’s another view: just the one trike, on the new bike bridge on the Midtown Greenway trail:

After helping Myles install the Xtracycle FreeRadical on his Cruz Bike recumbent, it got me thinking once again about the passenger experience. On most long bikes such as the Xtracycle and the Mundo, the passenger’s eyes line up roughly with the middle of the back of the rider. This limits the front visibility of the passenger and leaves them to simply trust that the rider knows what they’re doing.

By serendipity, Myles’ Xtracycle build offered a much different passenger experience. As you can see in the picture, my eyes as a passenger lined up with the top of Myles’ head, allowing me a nearly complete view of the road as we cruised. Another subtlety of the passenger experience on the Cruz Bike / Xtracycle combo is how close the rider’s and passenger’s heads are to eachother. This makes conversation so much more easy going. You don’t lose nearly as many words to the wind, and you can talk to each other the same voice you’d use in a room.

The Cruz Bike isn’t for everyone, so before you run out and buy one, you should know that, like other recumbents, it’s going to make it more difficult for you to climb hills. There’s no way to climb ‘out of the saddle’ like you do when you need a burst of power on an upright bicycle.

When I designed the Soul Cycle Convertible Chopper, my goal was to provide both the powerful leg extension of an upright bicycle with the attitude, comfort, and passenger experience of a chopper / semi-recumbent bike.

Above: Lisa can see over my shoulders while cruising on the Choprical Fish, based on the Soul Cycle Convertible Chopper frameset. Photo: Paul McKensie

Above: When it’s time to climb a hill on the Soul Cycle Convertible Chopper, the seat comes into upright position, allowing full leg extension for maximum power. Photo: Fast Boy.

About a week ago, when San Francisco Bay suffered its worst oil spill in 20 years, Jon and Adam took their boat out, saw that no one was doing any cleaning, and started wondering what ordinary people can do to fix a problem as massive as a 50000-gallon oil spill.Earlier this year, they bought a 50-foot steel-hulled sailboat to turn into a research and design vessel, the Magnet.

They went out on the Bay to look at the damage to the bridge piling.

Adam observed that the shape of the concrete ‘bumper’ on the Bay Bridge supports “looks awfully similar to the blade on a can opener.” Expecting to see glassy reflective pools of oil covering the water, they instead observed huge clumps of spongy oil. They were able to pull some of these into their craft using a fishing net with holes the size of limes.

That night they were over my house for a pot luck dinner with the Ginger Ninjas. They were showing me their photos from the day and were really shaken up by their day on the bay. Apparently the Coast Guard had raced over to their boat and shouted through a loudspeaker to get away from the bridge, even they were just out there scooping up oil and taking pictures. I helped them start www.oilspillsf.org , a blog of their research and DIY efforts. Did you know you can get a blog up and running with its own URL in about 25 minutes these days?

As bike people, you and I may not think too much about the waters adjoining our commutes and pleasure rides. I commute underneath the bay on BART twice a day, and didn’t notice the oil spill, or even hear about it in the news, until Adam called me to ask if I wanted to go out on the Magnet and help.

If you owned a boat and cared about the oceans, and a cargo ship crashed into a bridge in your bay, what would you do?

It’s hard to capture on video the feeling of a good cruiser ride, but these two come pretty close. The first video, made by ultradistance rider Paul McKensie, was used on the tourbus of Clif Bar’s excellent 2-Mile Challenge. It was shot with a handful of friends and Clif folks at my place in the Mission. It’s got a beautiful shot of Mafiosa and I cruising in front of Mona Caron’s Bikeway Mural.

The second was shot by Wild Johnny, who leads the South Bay Cruiser Ride down in Redondo Beach. This one was shot at Santa Monica Critical Mass from his Xtracycle with a backwards facing web cam. Despite the grainy video, it’s got some good, spirited footage. Check out wild dance sequences, especially the first few seconds of the video.

Although the video itself is set to some groovy rock music, all the people dancing in the video were getting their beat from John’s Soul Cycle Head Unit. There are a handful of cool testimonials about the product, including one from John.

While we’re on the subject of backwards-facing video shoots, last night I helped out a local electro pop band called The Rubies make a music video “I feel electric.” The Swedish director Mattias wanted to capture some of San Francisco’s bike culture and wanted to use bikes with the Down Low Glow.

A very solid offering in the current west coast bike culture is the Pleasant Revolution Tour including sustainable rockers SHAKE YOUR PEACE! and the Ginger Ninjas. Their San Francisco tour stop is this weekend.

This Saturday is the big show.

Read on, bike people. Read on.

THE PEDAL POWERED PICNIC!
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10
FREE FREE FREE!
With music by:

SHAKE YOUR PEACE!
snoopy snoopy snoopy snoopy snoopy kaBLAM!

SONYA COTTON
music as haunting as a headstone, full and purposeful as a boat sail,
and as glistening as a bank robbers treasure

STITCHCRAFT
female folk duo “leading the new San Francisco folk sound”
– State of Mind Music Magazine (or something like that)

and THE GINGER NINJAS
fronted by XtraCycle co-founder Kipchoge Spencer and
Uruguayan singer Eco Lopez, it’s political and humorous rock & roll

1pm: BIKE RIDE!
Meet with your picnic basket and warm clothes @ the NE corner of Dolores Park for a music-thumping social bike ride through the Mission, Castro, and Panhandle up to the top of Buena Vista Park, where a woodland stage and an 800 watt human-powered PA system await.

2pm: CONCERT!
2pm – SHAKE YOUR PEACE!
2:40pm – Sonya Cotton
3:20pm – Stitch Craft
4:00pm – Ginger Ninjas.

5:03pm – SUNSET~
We’ll watch the sun set over the city and kiss and make a wish…

When your new assembly and shipping employee has a hernia, and he’s carrying a heavy messenger style backpack with the used mountain bike frame you gave him strapped on it, and he’s on the cell phone with his father as you ride home to West Oakland BART together, telling his dad he has back pain that shoots down his left leg, and you know he doesn’t have health insurance and is fighting the system to schedule his surgery, you don’t just keep riding. You stop, take his pack, and strap it to your Xtracycle, even though you’re already carrying your own stuffed messenger bag, 8 DLG‘s, and a box of Schwalbe tires that the Ginger Ninjas need for their tour. Because you can.

And then, when you take a few pedal strokes, you ‘re surprised how good it feels, not the good samaritan act of helping your employee at the end of a long day, but riding the bike itself, and you say out loud, “Whoah, it’s even easier than before; I think the load is more balanced now. I must have been fighting it a little before.” When those types of this things happen to you, on a regular basis, you’re riding an Xtracycle.

OK, here’s another one. I was literally in the BART the other night and an attractive grad student pulled her face out of her text book to say “Nice bike. What do you carry on that?” And it’s not the first time it has happened.

I urge bike people who haven’t seriously considered getting themselves a long bike to let these anecdotes sink in. It’s only by experiencing magic scenes like these that you understand how transformative it can be to have a dependable, nimble, fun cargo hauling ride like the Xtracycle or the Mundo.

Dante is on the cutting edge of research into human powered amplification. We set him up with a bench in our workshop, and he’s putting the finishing touches on the Ginger Ninja’s touring rig as I write these words. Dante helped Rock The Bike develop an offering for an Xtracycle-based DC motor mount for human powered music systems. Now he’s working day and night on a 4-bike human power setup for the Ninjas. No one’s had a chance to hear it in action yet, but it’ll probably be 5 times louder than the setup we used for the Bicycle Music Festival.

It’s amazing how the project just totally flows through our community. First Blender man Nate got the bug, then me, then Kipchoge and Dante. With each handoff, we get more experience. Dante is now the most knowledgable guy in our community when it comes to human power. It’s a rad collaborative atmosphere, knowing that we’re producing powerful tools for sending out the bike vibe, the peace vibe, and the party vibe, through bikes and music.

The title of this posting refers to a video competition from Specialized on Human Power.

The Ginger Ninjas are on their way to Mexico. Here’s a little shot of my garage late last night. There were two more in there tonight. The Ninjas and Bicycle Music Festival co-organizer Gabe Domingez’s project, SHAKE YOUR PEACE!, along with 8 other people, are 300 miles into the tour.