Don't forget!

Tonight's supercool bike-art crawl in Minneapolis, noted earlier this week by the estimable Amy Rice. It's not too late to book your flight from a less bike-friendly city! (Well, maybe it is.)

Bikes and Art in Minneapolis

There are two bike-related art shows opening this Friday night within blocks of each other here in Minneapolis.

There is The Art of the Bicycle, Paintings by Gregg Rochester at Gallery 12 and then a two minute bike ride away is Fine Fendered Friends at Wheel Good Bicycles, where 17 local artists have used new stock vintage bicycle fenders as their canvas. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should let you know I am one of the artists and the organizer of the show).

Also the ARTCRANK Bike Poster show has been extended at One On One Bikes until May 13th so if you haven’t checked that out already you could make it a theme night!

Minnesota Monthly was the second piece of print press I read that referred to the upcoming Art-A-Whirl as “Art-A-Wheel” (can’t remember where I read it first), not only will all three above mentioned shows be open for Art-A-Whirl (the ARTCRANK show will be in the Northup King Building then) but also A map of 40 venues with bike lockup facilities and free water will be available on the tour or at www.northeastbikemap.org
Image : fenders by Jennifer Davis,
Amy Rice, Ingrid Restemayer, and Keegan Wenkman

Bikes bend space and time! More at 11!

It seems to me that there is growing awareness of how cool it would be to get this culture, you know, post-automobile. No more motorcarbon. What's nice about the bike, a course, is that it feeds the soul without eating the ozone. I'm also working on this theory about how bikes not only save space, they also bend time. Any long-distance bike commuter knows this effect. (Short distances in the city, bikes are way way faster than cars, even if you're not blowing the lights.) A long commute bends time. You take the same routes day in and day out, and about six weeks into it you stop thinking to yourself, "Christ, I wish I'd driven today, I'd be home by now." Instead, you start to think "Christ, if I'd driven today, I wouldn't be on my bike right now."

I used to commute to St. Paul a couple times a week, from South Minneapolis. It wasn't a huge bite, but it was 60 minutes each way. If I was in a car that entire time, I'd be a nervous hateful wreck by the time I got home. Instead, my sweater smells like fresh air, my ass is sweating and sticky, and my wife says, "Looks like the cat got the canary."

The fact is, I'd much rather dwell on the beauty, elegance, and joy of bikes than on the negatives of the motorcarbon. I wonder what it would be like to try to make a living--I mean for society to make a living--without internal combustion. Can a person convert to the Amish faith? Can Amish folks ride bikes?

By the way, that picture is today's bike porn, snapped outside the downtown bureau. A vintage lugged Tesch fixie. Beauty. Anachronistic bars and stem. Run what you brung! Queer plastic fender, though. If you're going with fenders, I say commit to it with nuts and bolts.