Archive for September, 2007

Car Free Day

Saturday, September 22nd, 2007

Hauling stuff by truck bike

Today was Car Free Day. A festival was organized in Kitchener’s Victoria Park. Park Street was closed to car traffic and various bikes from the Bicycle Forest collection were available for the public to try.

A solar-powered stage featured live music from Moglee, Capital Grass and the No Men, Prize Fighter, Jolly Llamas, and Mathmatikos. Ted from Mathmatikos used the Pickup Truck Bike to move his band’s gear onto the stage.

Hauling stuff by truck bike

This was the fifth year for the festival in Kitchener. I’ve always found it a challenge to maintain order as crowds of adults and children descend upon the bikes, all so eager to have a turn on the unusual machines. This year, we only had six bikes out including a Varna handcycle, a Strida folding bike, a Kickbike, a Mini125, a Hulabike and a Pimped out Rhoades Car. Everyone was still very enthusiastic about the bikes, but I felt a little more at ease with the bearable degree of chaos that ensued.

By the end of the day, Mohrgan and I were pretty hungry, so we stopped on the way home for all-you-can-eat Sushi. It seemed appropriate that as we dined on the evening of Car Free Day, one of the parking spots out front was occupied by a bicycle.

Sushi stop

Peter Hatch’s Guerilla Sound Events

Monday, September 10th, 2007
  This weekend was the Junction Arts Festival in Toronto. A Bike Friday folding tandem from the Bicycle Forest was used for one of the performance pieces. Peter Hatch’s ‘Guerilla Sound Events’, with Margaret Bardos, Benjamin Covey, Jamie Hoffman and Andrea Naccaretto, are short, spontaneous performance art pieces intended to draw attention to urban soundscapes through unannounced sonic interventions. While often humorous in nature, they also call for a more active role in shaping our urban soundscapes. This video captures a moment from the performance where the riders stop, break into a few lines of the song “Daisy Bell” and then carry on down the street.

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