Rock The Blog!

New Product Alert 📣 Introducing the sLEDgehammer Leaderboard
New Product Alert 📣 Introducing the sLEDgehammer Leaderboard
Announcing our newest product launch along with information on how to get this newest product for free! Make your summer exciting by upgrading your sLEDgehammer competitions with a customized Leaderboard!... Read more...
Ways to transport your Pro(s), near and far
Ways to transport your Pro(s), near and far
Get valuable insights for moving pedal power bikes down the hall or across the planet. Moving Pro frames is easy - they are designed for rolling, towing, and shipping. At... Read more...
Cousin Kate's 3 Best Egg-Free Ice Cream Recipes
Cousin Kate's 3 Best Egg-Free Ice Cream Recipes
Cousin Kate's 3 Best Egg-Free Ice Cream Recipes. Great treats that can be made using the Ice Cream Bike or Icycleta. Read more...
Pedal Powered School Assemblies and Dances
Pedal Powered School Assemblies and Dances
We had a great time with Quail Run Elementary School at their recent school dance. We brought DJ Thiago, a bumpin' sound system, laser light show, bubble blasters, our custom... Read more...
Our Best Gift Items for the 2020 Holiday Season
Are you looking for the perfect gift? Support a small business, give the gift of wellness and help your loved ones reduce their carbon footprint this holiday season. Here's a list of gift ideas to empower the ones you care most about. Receive 20% off by using the code: pedalpowerholiday Off The Wall Generator Stand: Get fit while you charge your family’s electronics. Cycling indoors for fitness? Stop wasting the energy you pedal! Charge laptops, phones, cameras, lights, etc. Connect more devices to increase the resistance. Fender Blender Universale High... Read more...
NAU Student Runs Green Events with Rock The Bike's Most Compact Bike Powered Sound System
NAU Student Runs Green Events with Rock The Bike's Most Compact Bike Powered Sound System
A Look Inside Arizona’s 1st Bike Powered Concert organized by the students of NAU After NAU student Joanna Wheaton saw Rock the Bike’s bike-powered music and light show at UCLA’s... Read more...
Pedal power for outage preparation
Pedal power for outage preparation
A quality bike generator from Rock The Bike can be a serious -- and seriously fun -- component in your preparedness plan for upcoming Public Safety Power Shutoffs during this... Read more...
Your Name in Lights!
Your Name in Lights!
LightBox in use at the 2018 New York State Fair. We calibrated it to be a fun challenge and attraction for kids. 3 kids working together can do it. Fun,... Read more...
1000 smoothies in 6 hours?!
Occasionally we attempt a really big smoothie operation, in which we show up with hundreds of pounds of fruit, ice, juices, etc., and get lots of people bike blending. If this is what you're going for too, here are the factors you'll need to consider: - Time (prep, setup, and the event itself) - Ingredients - # of Bike Blenders and enough space to position them - # of pitchers - Other kitchen gear: tent, tables, washing system, banners, waste system. - size of your crew - will you be... Read more...
Coming to a Spin Class Near You
Coming to a Spin Class Near You
Rock the Bike has rocked events around the Bay Area with our message of pedal-powered revolution. We’re ramping it up – for the first time, people who take their daily... Read more...
Update on advocacy and giving
We're stepping up our giving and pro bono work more than ever before. Below is a rundown of what we've been up to lately. Thank you to all our customers; your purchases stabilize our operation and make this kind of direct social impact possible. Paul and the BooLander recently rode the Climate Ride Death Valley, and used his network of friends, fans, and RTB fans to raise over $3600 for Climate orgs. Paul pitched in $1400 of that, covering the ride costs. Fundraising is still open! A perfect match between... Read more...
BooLander, new custom tall tandem, hits the streets and the National Parks
Coverage update! The BooLander gets a sweet write up in Bicycle Times Magazine and a beautiful video from KQED Arts: What's up bicycle customizers, feast your eyes on the BooLander, the latest custom bike to hit the streets at Rock The Bike. The BooLander is a vertical tandem (riders are top / bottom versus the more common front / back arrangement) with optional swing-out 'landers' or 'roots', that stabilize the rig when mounting, dismounting, starting, and stopping. The frame is constructed of naturally cured bamboo poles with fiberglass joints of... Read more...
1.7 Million Views! CNN Covers Rock The Bike's Roll-Up Generator at Standing Rock
CNN sent journalist Sara Sidner to Standing Rock in North Dakota, though they don't identify which camp they visited: Oceti Sakowin Camp, Rosebud Camp, or Sacred Stone Camp. While walking around, Sara found a Roll-Up, our portable pedal-powered generator, brought to Standing Rock by friend/collaborator/co-conspirator Mike Cobb, and gave it a spin. Check out the video below: Read more...
New audience sizes at Maker Faire, recent rallies mark transition for Pedal Powered Stage
New audience sizes at Maker Faire, recent rallies mark transition for Pedal Powered Stage
Maker Faire is very family oriented. The largest audience of the weekend was for Magician Bryan Patrick, whose sound needs were ironically minimal. Since our earliest moments of Pedal Powered... Read more...
Top 10 features & benefits of the Fender Blender Pro (High Performance)
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Take a listen to our new music album: "Live and Pedal Powered from Maker Faire"
Take a listen to our new music album: "Live and Pedal Powered from Maker Faire"
We collaborated with Maker Faire to record and produce an album of Pedal Powered performances from the 2014 Maker Faire. These and some studio tracks laid down at our upstairs... Read more...
Can you put ingredients in your bike blender and process them while riding down mountains? Yes you can.
Can you put ingredients in your bike blender and process them while riding down mountains? Yes you can.
Props to RTB customer Mark Harris for this fun video demonstrating one fun way to enjoy bike blending. In his blog, the "Transcendental Art of Bicycle Blender Touring", Mark documents... Read more...
Introducing the High Performance Upgrade for Fender Blenders
Introducing the High Performance Upgrade for Fender Blenders
Same frame, same base. New Blendtec-made pitcher. We're changing the name of our high-end Bike Blenders from "Vitamix Upgrade" to "High Performance Upgrade" and including a Blendtec pitcher rather than... Read more...
New video shows what it takes to do a large, legal bike blended smoothie booth
New video shows what it takes to do a large, legal bike blended smoothie booth
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Pedal Powered homecoming at USC
A growing number of students are considering how their values meet up with the production style of campus events. At USC the Environmental Student Assembly wanted to showcase that big events can be green events. Rock The Bike was up to the challenge. One of the cool things that the student organizers contributed was the 'sponsorship' of individual bikes by campus organizations. Note the signs on handlebars... Campus orgs got exposure in exchange for providing volunteer pedalers. No power outages all night (except when we tried to plug in a... Read more...
Activist rapper Boots Riley's spoken word at the People’s Climate Rally Oakland, Rock The Bike's biggest event ever.
Activist rapper Boots Riley's spoken word at the People’s Climate Rally Oakland, Rock The Bike's biggest event ever.
Thanks to the 350.org Bay Area and System Change Not Climate Change organizers, volunteers, and attendeeds, and Rock The Bike crewmembers who came together for the People's Climate Rally this... Read more...
Fender Blender Universale overview video: turn any bike into a Blender Bike.
 > > Link back to FBU purchase options Read more...
Old and new Fender Blender Pro seatposts. If your old one is causing your seat to slip back, we want to get you a new one.
Old and new Fender Blender Pro seatposts. If your old one is causing your seat to slip back, we want to get you a new one.
We are offering a free upgrade to anyone whose Fender Blender Pro seatpost looks like the one on the left and is experiencing seat slippage: Old seatpost on left doesn't... Read more...
Using Pedal Power with larger crowds.
From our vantage point the events world seems to be ever growing, and out of passion for spreading our bike message and in the interest of providing the best gear we can to our customers, we continue to test our activities with larger crowds. In this post we'll share some of what we've learned about bringing Bike Blending and Pedal Powered music to larger events. When we work at this scale we now go through a complete process that includes applying for a temporary health permit (ideally 2-3 weeks ahead... Read more...
Moberi entrepreneur survives Shark Tank, reps Human Power
Ryan Carpenter gets the Sharks pedaling healthy smoothies as he pitches his Pedal Powered smoothie carts on National TV. Click here to watch the full episode. Ryan's appearance is at the beginning. In a sense, Moberi's Shark Tank segment was the perfect microcosm of the current debate between environmentalists and pro-business voices. The conservative sharks grilled Ryan about his ability to grow his biz without electric blenders (fossil fuels), while Ryan insisted that his customers want a more organic experience of life, and prefer to pedal their own smoothies, using... Read more...
We're moving! Open house April 3. (Reprint of National newsletter).
It is with great hope and excitement that we invite you to the Open House of our beautiful new headquarters in the Golden Gate District of Oakland, CA. The occasion will also mark the celebration of our 10th Birthday. We have been in business since September 2003 and are in our 10th year of providing products and services that combine our love of bikes, music, the earth, food, community, and education. As our new decade begins we continue taking part in the environmental transformation and awakening happening right now on... Read more...
Chobani Team USA Spin Class video going viral. Here's our behind the scenes look.
With viewcounts racking up, Chobani's Team USA Experience is officially going viral. 30 everyday athletes are introduced into a new environment and invited to pedal to power an incredible spin class that unfolds before them with live music, interactive LED art, and a huge hillside projection. Rock The Bike produced the Pedal Power Spin Class system and the interactive lighting: per-bike LED strips that responded to individual pedaling effort, and a 16' LED mandala. The 4-speaker sound system was the same we use at our Pedal Powered DJ events and... Read more...
Brainfood promotes Nutrition and Health with a Bike Blender
Brainfood promotes Nutrition and Health with a Bike Blender
A look at the workshops the Community MVPs have done with Brainfood's very own bike blender. As the President/CEO of Youth Service America said, "The smoothie tasted even better knowing... Read more...
Holiday Greetings (reprint of newsletter)
Bike Blenders growing in popularity and variety. Above: Wheely Good Smoothies in Baltimore continues to dazzle at farmers markets with their customized Fender Blenders. The newest is their Rainbow Fish (using the Fender Blender Pro as the base). Bike Blenders continue to be a force for good, both out in the world and in our business. Good for business because of the amazing outreach that happens each time our customers use their blenders in the community. Thank you, we really appreciate it! We're seeing strong interest and even fellow human... Read more...
3000-person Pedal Powered concert system fits in briefcase. Rock The Bike's biggest custom build to date.
3000-person Pedal Powered concert system fits in briefcase. Rock The Bike's biggest custom build to date.
Demolding wave guides. Each of the slots is at a slightly different angle, allowing the 6 tweeters to reach different parts of the crowd. Photo: Mike Cobb. 1/9/15 Update! The... Read more...
How many people will it take to power my laptop and projector, pedalboard, (or any device)?
Pamela Parker's pedalboard at the Peace Day SF rally. Photo: Nio. OK, so you have a device or set of devices in mind (like a laptop and projector) and you want to know whether it's possible to power them with people on bike generators. Here are the steps to figure it out: First, you need to measure the power consumption of the device you want to power. There are two ways to do this. You can read the writing on the product OR you can actually measure it using a... Read more...
1 Bike / 1 Speaker used for 500 activists at 350.org's Global Power Shift summit in Istanbul
When we heard 350.org was gathering 500 climate justice activists in Istanbul for the Global Power Shift conference in June, we offered to loan them our latest and simplest yet Pedal Power system, "One Bike / One Speaker" . Since several of the organizers were coming from the Bay Area, we reduced our smallest system to two boxes, both within airline regulations for checked baggage, bringing the shipping cost to 0. We met up with two of the organizers to hand off the two boxes, one at a BART station... Read more...
Thank you Bicycle Music Festival for a day of music and inspiration!
June 22nd marked the 7th and largest San Francisco Bicycle Music Festival. Please click "more" to see an album of photos from BMF. Many thanks to photographer Volker Neumann. Read more...
World's Largest Human Powered Music Festival returns to San Francisco June 22. Be There!
We co-produce and Pedal Power this annual community-powered music festival which always falls on the Saturday closest to the Solstice. This year, our 7th, is going to be our best ever. Please say you'll join us :) Check out this amazing video from last year's event: Read more...
When a bike gets stolen, activate your networks to get lots of eyes looking for you. And then get that bike back.
After a recent Bicycle Music Festival volunteer meeting one of our best cargo bikes, a Mundo 500, was stolen. It was locked to itself. This electric cargo bike was heavy, immobilized and impossible to push. The thieves must have had to lift it into a truck. I realized it the next morning and felt dejected and ashamed. I gathered some resolve to ask around for my bike. I remembered my friend Kipchoge's story of recovering his stolen laptop by spending 3 days lurking in the underworld of San Francisco's seediest... Read more...
Thanks 350.org and Sup. Avalos' office for the opportunity to Pedal Power Bill McKibben
When I heard Bill McKibben was going to be in San Francisco to announce a recent success in Supervisor Avalos's initiative for San Francisco to divest from Oil giants, I jumped at the chance to Pedal Power the speech. Avalos' office put me in touch with the organizers who were excited to make it happen. On the day of the rally, Nio and I transported two of our Modified JBL Loudspeakers and towed one electric Fender Blender Pro to use as the generator. We used our newest Pedal Powered Stage... Read more...
A bangin' Bike To Work Day
This morning on Bike To Work Day I was racing to drop off a Bike Blender to UCSF for their Health Fair. In classic fashion I'd double-booked the drop off with a really important meeting, the ISCOTT commission meeting where Bicycle Music Festival was to present our Nighttime street closure plan. I didn't check the bike routes and ended up climbing this WALL of a hill. Switchbacking too tight I flipped the blender and pushed it up the second half. Happy Bike To Work Day! Drop complete, ready to sprint... Read more...
Justin Ancheta LiveOnBike at Sunday Streets
Justin Ancheta Band to debut their new CD "Plant" at Cafe Du Nord in San Francisco April 13. RSVP: http://www.facebook.com/events/325251237585774/?ref=ts&fref=ts Read more...
The sLEDgehammer has escaped the tube.
Our Pedal Powered lighting challenge, the sLEDgehammer, has escaped the tube. We've both advanced the circuitry and the creativity of this piece of gear, making it even more of a crowd pleaser. The sLEDgehammer is a Pedal Power game where you have to pedal really hard (but not for very long) to win. When you win, the power you've built up by pedaling gets unleashed in a dazzling light sequence. In the example above, a river appears to flow down the courtyard away from the pedaler, then the Peace &... Read more...
Basic questions to consider when crafting your Pedal Powered Stage
The technical needs of a Pedal Powered event vary greatly depending on audience size, venue, and power needs of musician's devices. The questions in this post will help you to know what features are most important for you, and how much power you'll really need. Please answer these questions and email us using the contact form. Also, please check out some of our recommended packages to see systems intended for different crowd sizes: https://rockthebike.com/pedal-powered-stage-packages Above: Shake Your Peace! performs during the Bay Rising Tour on their Pedal Powered Stage crafted... Read more...
Watch Fossil Fool's TED Audition.
VOTING IS CLOSED! Thanks for reading and watching the video! Friends, customers, and fans: Please support my campaign to speak at the global TED 2013 conference. There is an open voting and comment period happening NOW until the end of August, in which you can watch and review all the amazing auditions that took place in the past 6 months. I auditioned in Vancouver in May. While the TED team make the final decisions, your feedback and ratings are going to help this talk get noticed. Please see bold instructions... Read more...
Many thanks San Francisco Bicycle Music Festival: World's largest Human Powered Music Fest.
The 6th Annual San Francisco Bicycle Music Festival was our biggest ever and a milestone for our grassroots Human Powered Music Fest. Many thanks to the bands, fans, and our huge volunteer crew. Any one of the 3 phases of the day would have been epic enough. But we had a beautiful, idyllic daytime music festival in the park, an outrageous mobile party, and a post-modern urban block party all in one day. Daytime: 500+ people in a meadow, enjoying live music in the beautiful sunshine... Followed by a fire-truck... Read more...
What are the elements of a Pedal Powered Stage?
Pedal Power Generators Two Mundo 500 generators in use at the Eugene Bicycle Music Festival. The rear wheel is elevated off the ground so that you can pedal in place and generate power.How many? You will need enough bicycle generators that the pedaling effort per person is approx. 50-75 Watts. Based on our experience at events, 50-75 Watts is the amount that an average audience member can continuously provide. You should also have 'ringer pedalers' in your crew. Ringer pedalers are strong racer or everyday commuting cyclists who can contribute... Read more...
El Arbol: The Bike Tree
This custom art bike, made and based in San Francisco, rides through the city at 12 feet tall, then sprouts roots, branches, and leaves at events, where it becomes a 2500-Watt double-stack main speaker at our Pedal Powered Stage. Integrated LEDs look stunning at night. The Tree has two seats and creates all of its own power using an integrated One Bike / One Speaker circuit. Above, El Arbol in action as a Aerial Dance rig at Gaia Fest in 2012. Aerialist Shredder performs on hoop from El Arbol's trusty... Read more...
Pedal Powered Recharge Bar
Rock The Bike produced a Pedal Powered Knowledge Station in San Francisco's beautiful Yerba Buena Gardens for VM World, a major software conference. A Knowledge Station is a combination of a Recharge Bar and a DJ Rig. It's more than just a place to recharge phones; it's downright groovy! It's a place to relax, pedal, get your heart going, meet others, and send great music out to a larger space. Over the course of the four days, conference attendees pedaled nearly 5 KiloWatt Hours (kWh) of energy as measured dynamically... Read more...
No guarantees it'll work for you but here's how I fought the tall bike law in court and won.
California's Vehicle Code prohibits tall bikes, stating you have to be able to put your foot down and stop safely. I agree with the 'stop safely' spirit of this law. We don't want to be seeing people keeling over. But tall bikes are fun, can be designed to be safe, and are great for Bike Culture events and rides. Here's how I designed a tall bike that keeps to the spirit of the law, and then successfully defended myself in court! When I started making my tall bike, El Arbol,... Read more...
See a dynamic highlight video from the 2010 San Francisco Bicycle Music Festival, featuring Rock The Bike's Pedal Powered Stage
Start a Bicycle Music Festival in your town? Talk to us for advice on the gear you'll need! Start a conversation about your Pedal Powered Stage this month and get free shipping. Please use the contact page or call 888-354-2453. Read more...
German electronic music performance powered by Rock The Bike Pedal Powered Stage
Watch as a Brazilian reporter covers a German electronic music event a park, pedal powered by Rock The Bike gear and the Green Music Initiative. The Portugese is a bit hard to follow in the beginning (though she interviews people in English later), but the Pedal Power dynamic is great throughout. The gear shown in the video is: Rock The Bike's Biker Bar, Mundo 500, and 6' Pedalometer. Read more...
See our best videos, all time, in one place.
1. Debuting LiveOnBike at the 2010 SF Bicycle Music Festival. Shows our preparations for the LiveOnBike element of the 2008 Bicycle Music Festival, co-founded and sponsored by Rock The Bike. 2. Old School Human Power Research in the Rock The Bike workshop with Nate Byerley, inventor of our Fender Blender bike blenders, Marquist, neighborhood kid, Paul Freedman, founder of Rock The Bike, and Gabe Dominguez, musician and co-founder of the San Francisco Bicycle Music Festival. See where we caught the bug for human power! 3. Mundo Surfing, circa 2009. Rock... Read more...
Ice Cream Bike -- Pedal Powered Ice Cream Maker
Take the cranking out of your arms and into your legs for a more ergonomic method that taps into larger muscle groups, yielding amazing results at your events. Crank out up to 2 gallons in only 20 minutes of casual pedaling! Our new Ice Cream Bike combines the wide size range and style of our steel Fender Blender Pro base frame — proven sturdy for human power use since 2006 — with a modified hand crank ice cream maker from Country Freezer — they’ve been stirring up frozen goodies since... Read more...