Brooklyn by Bike

Recycle-A-Bicycle will be holding its 15^th Birthday Celebration: A Benefit Auction Featuring the NY400 Fleet of Batavus Bicycles & Bike-themed Art at Superfine 126 Front Street in DUMBO, Brooklyn.

Recycle-A-Bicycle has been creating an arsenal of bike art from hand-crafted from bike parts by volunteers for a sale at the event.

Tickets to RAB’s benefit and 15 year birthday start at a $20 donation and include food and drink – not mention that you can meet your favorite cycling blogger, yours truly at the event! You can find the event on Facebook or online at www.recycleabicycle.org.

Eric Corriel, a Brooklyn based artist has created an interactive video installation that explores the history of bicycle culture in Brooklyn from 1880 to today. The piece is viewable at sundown on Clinton and Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn Heights from now until January 3rd, 2010 but check the calendar to be sure.

He’s looking for photo and video submissions from the cycling community. Help him out and become a part of the installation! [via Brooklyn Cycling]

Brush and Spoke is a simple art portal which features cycling art. There are “no critiques, no reviews, no opinions, just one post after the other of bicycle related art.” Ed, the creator of the site goes by, the less obtrusive the better. On the site you’ll find large examples of art, with a link to the source, along with those involved, and some tags to help better sort the content.

I was immediately drawn to the visual aesthetic of Brush and Spoke much like Hufnagel Cycles and found quite a few items I’d like to purchase. Check it out for yourself and find the rest of my interview with Ed below.

Why cycling art?

My reasoning behind Brush & Spoke was pretty simple. I love art, bicycles and the internet. I own many genres of bicycles, and have been riding since I was a little kid. I was recently looking to decorate my office with some wall art, so I looked online and ran across a bicycle print by Anthony Cozzi titled Drop Sequence. I immediately purchased it, and continued searching online to see if there was a resource that feature that type of art elsewhere. Since I was unable to find one, I decided to build my own.

How do you find the art work you feature on your site and do you get a commission?

The process involved in finding the art that is featured on Brush & Spoke, is pretty hit or miss at the moment. I have a growing list of sites that I scour, looking for the latest bicycle related updates. From art blogs, to personal portfolios, to flickr groups, to twitter updates, I find myself looking anywhere and everywhere. There is also a submission form on the site, which I encourage my viewers to use as much as possible. It’s with their help that I have found out about some amazing art, and without them, I wouldn’t have had nearly as much content on the site, as I do now. There is currently no commission, or advertising system on the site.

Anything else to add?

If I could thank some of the sites/people that have made Brush & Spoke possible that would be great! UPSO @ http://upso.org ,Chris @ http://chrisforrette.com, Mikey K, and everyone @ http://yayhooray.com.

You can also find Brush and Spoke on Twitter @brushspoke.

Let’s just say we are getting into the holiday buying frenzy (much to our dismay). Hey we’ve been entertaining visitors and accompanying them to the Esty Holiday Handmade Cavalcade, the ARCmusic LP sale but that LeSportsac sample sale on 18th St. btw 6th and 7th Ave put us over the edge last night. We hear there is just one day left so run your selves over there – the line is growing.

Those of you who are not in New York City, no worries. We’ve gone and found some t-shirts that that will suit your bike loving selves available on-line and they won’t break the bank, promise.

More Bike Lanes – $19

“10% Of the proceeds of this t-shirt will go to support Recycle-a-Bicycle. ”

We love Recycle a Bicycle (a non-profit in NYC that teaches kids and adults about bike mechanics and refurbishes old bike) because they don’t rip you off for labor!

Double Bike – $18

“1950′s Raleigh bicycles printed in ultra blue ink on a tangerine colored Alternative Apparel t shirt (that’s why it costs a little more than the others). Sizes small through X-large are available. The design was made by our friend Justin at Triplemilled.etsy.com.”

[via rattappress on Etsy]

Save the Whales – $16

“Save the environment ride your bike. Uphill battle, hang in there cougar. Black water based ink printed on a white American Apparel Tee” [via Rumplo via PrintLiberation]

Vroom – $18

“Save the environment ride your bike. Uphill battle, hang in there cougar. Black water based ink printed on a white American Apparel Tee” [via Rumplo via The Cotton Factory]

Type Bike – $15

“What do you get if you combine a love of typography and biking?

Here’s an awesome design of a bicycle by Matt Sutter drawn entirely with type (letters, punctuation, and ligatures). No letterform has been skewed, stretched, or flipped – the Type Bike was created entirely by scaling and rotating.”

[via Neatorama]

Pedal Power – $15.50

[via Uniglo]

Enjoy!

We’ve been meaning to write about the NYC bike rack design competition for some time now but between the shocking news in Bombay, turkey and Britney’s “Off the Record,” we’ve been full and busy. Oh wait, did we just admit we watched that terrible documentary? Like we said…we’ve been busy. 

So bike racks yes! New York City held a competition for a bike rack redesign…another step towards making the city a more friendly place for cyclists. The CityRack wesite reports.

“Although bicycle lanes are the most noticeable element of the City’s cycling infrastructure, access to parking is also essential. Indeed, a study conducted by the Department of City Planning found that lack of access to secure bike parking was the primary reason cyclists did not ride to work. The current standard fixture for bicycle parking consists of variations of a fabricated square steel tube called the “CityRack” that is mounted on sidewalks. These fixtures occupy little space on the sidewalk and do not obstruct the flow of people or goods. New York City currently has thousands of CityRacks within its five boroughs and plans to add thousands more in the foreseeable future. The CityRack design, however, has been in use for over ten years and does not fulfill the potential to be an icon for New York City cycling.”

That’s right! The city is open to change and what a great way to encourge new design by holding a competition. Out of the nine finalists shown on their website, the design below was chosen as the new flagship. What do you think?

[via Gothamist]

See more bike rack designs from David Byrne.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brCk1-AVvRk&eurl=http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/innovative-and-stylish-racks-for-your-bike&feature=player_embedded]

[via WSJ]

This past weekend we dragged ourselves out in the 30 degree weather to The Brooklyn Flea for the second time and were pleasently surprised with some of the art venders there…braving frozen toes and all. For those of you who are curious, the Flea takes place every Sunday from 10am to 5pm in Fort Greene Brooklyn and features vendors of “vintage furniture, clothing, collectibles and antiques, as well as new jewelry, art and crafts by local artisans, plus delicious food.”

I found Taliah Lempert’s Bicycle Paintings stand in the very back next to the mobile pizza oven. (I really wish I had a camera on me that day.) Taliah was selling some unique paintings, t-shirts and other good stuff. Her cargo bicyle was off the hook and reminded us of this one we saw in Treehugger.

I purchased the painting you see at the very top. Check out her site for more good stuff. She’ll even paint a custom portait of your bicyle. We love her stuff.

In honor of this historic day, we bring back a beautiful photo of an Obama led spoke set. I haven’t been this inspired in a very long time. Yes we can!

SpokePOV has been getting a lot of press recently thanks to Aneel’s awe inspiring LED Obama spoke display. [via Aneel on Flickr].

It got me thinking more about bike as art. SpokePOV has kits for sale on their site and allows you to customize your wheels however you want. I can’t think of better way to increase biker visibility while making a statement. This project has a good deal of science and soldering thrown in there for fun.

Their site explains the sience stating, “A SpokePOV is a ‘stick’ of LEDs with a magnetic (hall effect) sensor on the outer end. When a magnet passes by, the microcontroller takes note. By counting how long it takes between magnet passes, SpokePOV can tell how fast its rotating and quickly blink the LEDS to present an image. Therefore, no matter how fast you are riding, the image will show up correctly!” I love it and think it would be perfect thing to bring to the Brooklyn Halloween bike ride.

What happens to beautiful old bikes that no longer have ridable use? Andy Greg turns them into furniture! We over here at Brooklyn By Bike love ideas that help make the environment a better place and Andy Greg has been designing bike furniture in Michigan since 1990. Need a new table, chair, barstool or lounger? Check out his site for more information.

We wonder if that old banged up Schwinn we’ve had since middle school can be custom reconfigured into a coffee table.

“Bike Furniture Design is a design and manufacturing studio specializing in contemporary, modern furniture made primarily from recycled steel and aluminum bicycle rims, handlebars, and frames.”