SF Cruisers

Video: LalaVirnana

See if you can spot yourself in this still shot of last Friday's Halloween Critical Mass passing under a downtown building.

Plus, check out the Down Low Glow in action at 0:55 through 1:30! I had no idea it would be that visible from above. Plus, what the heck are the light up tires you see at 3:39 - 3:50? And check out MonkeyLectric in effect at 4:00 The funny thing about this footage is that I thought I was in the back of the pack, but there was still 4 minutes worth of Critical Mass behind me.

Also, Check out McKenzie's tunnel footage from last Friday:

 

Hey Bike Rockers -

There's a fun looking bike event on Sat. in Fairfax, Biketoberfest: http://www.biketoberfest2008.org/

Lots of nice, local handmade bikes, beer and music. That's the good life, right there.

word.

JB

Here's a pic of Nate Byerley from Oct.fest 2007 mixing up a smoothie on an Xtracycle (photo by Mo Gaffney)

One of my personal highlights from this year's BMF:

Also check out the video piece on making the LiveOnBike rig:

 Just announced: Mos Def will be performing live with SF's Realistic Orchestra backing him up!

http://www.bohemian.com/citysound/ 

Fossil Fool, the Bike Rapper, and drummer Joel Elrod perform while cruising the streets of the Mission District in San Francisco at the Bicycle Music Festival held in June, 2008. Joel keeps the beat on a SPDS drum machine mounted on the LiveOnBike rig, a modified Mundo Cargo Bike, whose signal is sent wirelessly by a Shure bodypack microphone to the Choprical Fish (Fossil Fool's bike) and then wirelessly amplified by two other Soul Cycles rolling alongside.

SJ Bike Party has been a lot of fun. Try to come out!

Hello Bike Blog Readers,

 

Ran into Antioquia on my way to work. The band got seriously inspired by riding around San Francisco with us at Bicycle Music Festival this year and are now on their way to Santa Cruz on Xtracycle SUB's. It's a shake-down tour, getting used to being bike-touring musicians. In the future they're hoping to have their own pedal-powered PA system for live shows. Here's one of their videos below from performing at the Bicycle Music Festival in June.

Check out their upcoming shows this weekend and October 7 at the Elbo Room in SF!

Meet at Justin Herman Plaza (Market and Embarcadero) at 5:30 to carve with us. 

It started with a rain-check idea, since forecast is for rain Friday. But it got more and more enticing: 

So far (in my group) we are rolling 13 people deep. Are you down?

Cruiser Ride Checklist

Hello Bike People,
Here's a list of stuff to help you prepare for a night of bike fun with friends on the streets. These are just suggestions to help you have a good time with the least amount of problems. Murphy's Law can be minimized on a Cruiser Ride if you prepare!
DJ Jojo
Cruiser Ride Checklist/Guidelines

1. Your Bike
a. A is for air
• Inflate tires to rated pressure as listed on the sidewall of the tire
• Use a pressure gauge to insure proper pressure
• Check for damage to tire tread and sidewall; replace if damaged
b. B is for brakes

Its great to make new friends when you're on a bike. Pics courtesy of Leese. I don't encourage belligerent drinking actions or biking while intoxicated. Please be safe out there!

http://www.myspace.com/sjbikeparty

First of all, I really enjoyed the ride Fri night. I had a FANTASTIC time with the ride.

I think that so far the ride is pretty good and has a lot of potential to be a GREAT POSITIVE event in the South Bay.
Some of the concerns I have listed below.

A common call and response to alert riders ahead of "BIKE DOWN" or other concerns to get the ride to stop or slowdown.
* Walkie talkies and set them to a common channel to communicate.
* Encourage helmets and lights and safe conduct.

Some of the GREAT things about the SJ Bike Party:

This is some fresh new hip hop about BIKES!

Mucca Pazzi performing at Tour de Fat. Photo: Dustin Jensen.

Before turning our focus to bike culture and bike safety, we developed a system called the Lifebike for bicycle-based paramedics and EMTs to use at large crowded events such as July 4th, parades, sports events, etc.

This is a stunt video, not an education video. The idea was to recreate a tool I read about in the book "Snowcrash". The device is called the carpoon and it costs $5. The Carpoon: Designed to attach to large slow moving vehicles and allow a bike to quietly skitch behind it. Enjoy.

photo: dustinj

The De Young museum has a great plaza for street performing. Three years ago when they opened, there were 1/4 mile lines all night long. Daimian, Thao, and I rolled there and had a mobile party that lasted until 3AM, when they asked us really nicely to leave.

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.

Rock the Bike is going to be providing pedal powered sound for the Union Square Musical, a public dance event. Say you happened to be walking through Union Square at 3:45 PM on June 7th. Well you'd be in for a treat, as dozens of dancers in street clothing, pretending to be average tourists and street sweepers, bust into a full-on choreographed rendition of Bjork's 'It's Oh So Quiet.' I'm collaborating with the crew of the 'Union Square Musical', which includes producer Karen Offereins and choreographer Margery Fairchild to pedal power the music for their performance.

What's up SF Cruisers,

Have you heard about the Maker's Faire happening this weekend? It's a big event at the San Mateo fairgrounds, featuring inventors, crafters, and interactive artists from around the Bay Area. This is Rock the Bike's second year at Maker's Faire and this year we are producing the Pedal Powered Stage. With three human power generating bikes, we'll have enough power to get 200 people dancing. We have a great location at the Faire at it's been well promoted. Come down and enjoy it.

Here's the Saturday Night Lineup:

5:30-6:15 SHAKE YOUR PEACE! Sustainable Rock n' Roll.
6:30-7:30 Yacouba and the Spirit Gatherers. West African dance music.
Sunset 8:00-8:45 Fossil Fool, the Bike Rapper.

Here's the full line up:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Ride out to the headlands with us and experience awesome dance music and a midnight hike.

Imagine this place at sunset with 80 people rocking to pedal powered sustainable rock n' rollers SHAKE YOUR PEACE!, and Fossil Fool, the Bike Rapper get people moving.

Then imagine a midnight hike out to here:

More info coming!

 

This Tuesday night, come on down to little Baobab for performances by Fossil Fool, Cello Joe, and DJ Sergio. Late that night, after Sergio spins, we'll have a little mission cruiser ride.

Lineup:

9:00 -- Cello Joe Just back from the Pleasant Revolution tour

10:00 -- Fossil Fool, the Bike Rapper

11:00 -- DJ Sergio

 

Birds in hand
Originally uploaded by rudeboyrobbo

 

Birds in hand
Originally uploaded by rudeboyrobbo

 

Southwest Cycling News' Bob Farr, a.k.a. RudeBoyRobbo, shot some beautiful images of a ride in Austin in memory of Sheldon Brown.

Clif Bar has posted a groovy 4-minute video of the SF Cruisers in action, shot last September. Look for "Soul Ride" on their home page.

Malamana shredded it tonight with Afrolicious at the Elbo Room.

Weather permitting -- Let's gather at my place at 9 and ride to the show together.

935 York St. is the starting point.

 

I must preface this by saying that I'm from Boston, and I learned from my mother recently that the Patriots were having a record-setting perfect season, and I still have just about zero desire to sit in front of a TV for 4 hours on Superbowl Sunday. If you're with me on this, then join us for the Superbowl AlternaRide.

Download link: http://download.yousendit.com/E2EB4F057D7B2644

 

My goal was to take some the music that hit me hardest in 2007 and mix it seemlessly into an hour long cruising mix. The tempo and mood starts kind of chill and cruisy, then gets a bit more headnoddy, and progresses to set-down-your-bikes-and-dance level.

It features a lot of musicians I met or hung out with in 2007:

• Hernan Battiato opens up the mix with a digeridoo song
• Kid Beyond "Wandering Star"
• Mafiosa Felice "Wayaya"
• Sahaja Uprockers "Hear This"
• A DJ Sergio mashup
• Isaac James and Borinna Mapaka

So play it in Hermosa, play it in Boulder, play it on the Pleasant Revolution, play it in Austin, play it in Rochester, play it in Carrboro, and whereever you are, bike people. Please let me know what you think. Please join or login to post your comments.

Here's a track listing:

2nd Year Running!

An awesome multi-venue event.

Everything on our bikes, rolling from park to park during the day, and to bars and street parties at night. Come join us. Volunteer to help carry, coordinate bands, refreshments, permits/escape routes.

Check out www.bicyclemusicfestival.com and
www.rockthebike.com/music/bicyclemusicfestival

Location:

22nd & Bartlett St. On Bartlett between Mission and Valencia.

Due to the cold weather, the SF Cruisers NYE ride will start a little earlier than previously expected, and will NOT be an all night street party. We'll focus on having a great early evening cruise so that you can attend larger (indoor) parties later in the night. If you come on the cruise, you'll still have time to go home, change, and get to another party before 9:30 or 10. Sound good?

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.

A few photos now online: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rockthebike/1712973598/in/photostream/

Photo from our 2006 Halloween ride. Let's make this year's ride even spookier.

 

Our annual Halloween ride keeps getting better. Come ride, dance and celebrate Halloween with us!

Meet at the Fair Oaks Street party, not at the Rev as previously posted.

Fossil Fool and Lisa on the Choprical Fish
Originally uploaded by ClifBar&Co

What's up bike people? I've been riding like crazy over the past few weeks. Meeting some great people, hosting good street parties in the Mission District.

The new bike's been handling so well. That's my friend Lisa on the back in the picture. We were taking a photoshoot for the upcoming 2 Mile Challenge Tour, planned by Clif Bar. I'll be joining my friends and fellow bike culture musicians the Ginger Ninjas on the tour. The name derives from the fact that 40% of car trips in this country are two miles or shorter.

In October and November, the tour will hit college campuses to promote the magic and logic of bicycling to students. I'll be one of the entertainers on the tour. It'll be our job to use our music, our art bikes, and our bike culture juju to persuade college kids of the righteousness and sexiness of bicycling, as they get prepared to make major life decisions -- first home, first job, first commute.

Bike culture blowing up! Hope you guys get out and rock the bike this weekend!

The Bicycle Music Festival is distinct from every other summer festival in that its success rides completely on the sweat and leg-power of the community. With its trademark human-powered P/A system and Critical Mass-style bicycle party caravans between festival venues, the Bicycle Music Festival is the only festival where every song is truly an audience participation song!

The Bicycle Music Festival isn't only the greenest music festival ever conceived, with zero use of cars and trucks to transport musicians and PA equipment, it also breaks exciting new ground in festival dynamics.

Come check out what's been happening in our Berkeley workshop! Nate and I have been tricking out some great bikes over the past few months. And we're excited to show you what's been happening. Bike on over to our workshop and enjoy some after work snacks and drinks. There's always a potential for some live music on our stage.

This bike ride was a transforming experience that forever changed my life and you should go to every one from now on. Diverse throngs of people cheered us on as we paraded through the city streets with Fossil Fool the Bike Rapper leading the way, and Gabe and JoJo providing the amplification of the jams. we danced with families to uplifting house-funk from an outlook in the golden gate park whilst delivering a message of true freedom and independence through bikes and music.

Join Fossil Fool and DJ Jojo for a cosmic fireworks cruise on the 4th of July.

http://www.sterngrove.org/concert_dates.html

What's up SF Cruisers?

This year there are so many great free concerts at Stern Grove. I'd love to have the SF Cruiser Ride mobilize a daytime cruise to a bunch of these. My suggestions are in bold.  Which ones do you want to hit? Post comments here and lets get the schedule nailed down so we can publicize it in the Guardian or Craigslist. 

 

At the Maker Faire (www.makerfaire.com) May 25 and 26, Fossil Fool taught a workshop on how to make a one-of-a-kind bicycle audio system.

 

Topics included:  

- Overall concepts

- Picking amps and speakers and batteries.

This ride already happened. Here are some pictures:

 

Sorry for the late notice everyone, but tomorrow is the Beach Impeach, when thousands of people will arrive at Ocean Beach to spell out the word IMPEACH with our bodies. Meet at 18th and Valencia at 10 and look for me on the chopper.

More info: http://www.beachimpeach.org/sfa28.html

Seriously people, what do you have to do to get impeached around here?!!