~Pedal Powered JUKE BOX+home-made bicycle trailers~

August 23, 2010 | No Comments

It took us a few community gigs to realise that the young lads + lasses of today weren’t impressed at all by our strange musical choices: “why would we wanna pedal to hear that rubbish?”- fair enough- so we thought we’d give them an incentive to pedal.. Pick your favourite song off our jukebox list- but you’ve got to pedal if you want to hear it.. It worked great (shamefully highlighting our age; “is that the title of the song or the name of the band?”). It was strange to be working in a park away from our beloved Platt Fields- but still good to get amongst a  local community vibe going on at this event in Ladybarn…

We were so PROUD to test run our recently finished home-built bicycle trailers- no more shameful taxi journeys or filthy van hires will be necessary for us to get to gigs anymore-HOORAH! We packed + ratchet-ed our heavy equipment to them feeling super nervous that a terrible accident was about to happen, then cycled not much faster than walking pace to the nearby park but soon arrived BEAMING that they had loyally held up to the challenge + more importantly that we hadn’t had to rely on those pesky fossil fuels to get us there!

We can’t take credit for the incredible design of these trailers- they were originally built by a guy named Nick Lobnitz who has also founded the revolutionary Carry Freedom trailers.. The home-build designs we have worked from were made for third world and developing countries to enable them to transport trading goods, tools and produce around- made from accessible materials- literally: bamboo, nuts + bolts, wheels= perfect trailer. Nick very kindly shared his kit design plans with us and we’re sure he would share them with any other people who would like to do good things with bicycle trailers..

~~25,000 girlguides @ Fusion:1/2 of them on our bicycles~~

August 6, 2010 | No Comments

..well perhaps not that many but we sure were SUBLIMELY SWAMPED in singing cyclists! Swarms of eager young ladies huddled around our tent eagerly awaiting to perform with their pedal powered bands which they had formed. This was the official launch of Karao-eco: it was Fusion Festival a.k.a The Girl Guides national Centenary celebratory event. We were very happy to be invited by our friends Manchester International Arts to put on some pedal power as it meant we got to work alongside some of the most talented and extravagantly spectacular street theatre performers and rigs in the world!

The mass volume of excited girls made for a PERFECT participating crowd for our colourfully crammed little pedal tent (loyally JUST about keeping out the sporadic potentially damaging rain drenchings). An hour before we were due to start we already had our first line of eager performers- and amongst the many newly formed pedal bands that jumped on the bikes there were lots of pleasantly wonderful singers going all out with their performances- complete with synchronized bicycle dances, funny jokes and adoring encouraging audiences. We were totally loving the positive mentality of these wonderful groups of girls- getting right stuck in, ignoring the rain and whole-heartedly supporting one another in the unusual set of circumstances they’d found themselves in!

Understandably the way it is working at these events you’re rarely lucky enough to witness any of the other monumentous acts performing- but the finale of the day was taking place right above our very heads- in the form of two huge white balloons each with a suspended ballet dancer swinging and swooshing and moving beautifully to loud hypnotizingly stunning music in front of the stately Harewood House and completely wowing the awe struck girls (+us!) gaping up in disbelief!

>>pedal-poW(Wow)ered-paint-by-music-game<<

July 15, 2010 | No Comments

“Ah” we muttered to each other as we arrived at Prestwich Arts College to find out it was actually a ginormous secondary school + not the advanced creative college for over 18s that we had pitched our unusual + highly experimental pedal powered paint game for.. Nevertheless we got stuck in + worked our way up through the years- conducting what might be described as sociological music studies on the baffled but highly enthusiastic kids.

The project:

-4 X highly contrasting 1.5 hour playlists consisting of jazz, classical, music from around the world and the fourth playlist can only be described as insane electronica

-Children are split into teams- some pedal power the music whilst the others were asked simply to respond to the music they were hearing- by playing with paint and expressing their surfacing emotions onto huge boards.

-The only rules of the pedal paint game were: everyone has to pedal, only one paintbrush per team to be used (other implements we made in a furious junk modelling session before painting began)+ 3 people have to be blindfolded at once (to heighten sensory responses..)

To say the day unravelled into absolute carnage would be an understatement- but the session results, atmosphere and behaviour of each class was fascinating- for example; the crazy playlist resulted in kitchen taps drenched in paint getting thrown and beaten onto the boards with frantic nutty neurotic kids flying around- to contrast so fantastically with the following jazz workshop- where glorious swirls, hearts and peaceful colours transcended throughout the finished pieces and calm, considerate children worked peacefully as a team to make their paintings.

* * Bike : Fabulous * *

June 28, 2010 | No Comments

A glorious blue skied day, bicycles, weird music, a Saturday and um, The Arndale Centre?

We’d only ever been in there to wee before… the horrendous enclosure of main stream shops, security guards and fluorescent lights that monopolises central Manchester, replacing where sunny streets existed and independent shops once traded.  The prospect of spending a day inside this fearsome place sent shivers down our wheels but after closer consideration, the idea behind Friends of the Earth’s intriguing + inspired well-thought-out ploy to target unsuspecting shoppers + promote cycling totally convinced us to enter this place + attempt to get as many of them riding as possible..

Organisers of the event Bike Fabulous, the Love Your Bike campaign is based in Manchester. They aim to promote cycling and to help make it an attractive, accessible and fun way to get around as well as working closely with other like-minded organisations to promote their activities. This particular event was based around a series of fashion shows with every-day people modelling every-day cycle wear; Lycra? Nowhere to be seen! Also set up to lure in the public were smoothies; “Free! But you have to pedal for it!”, Pimp your cycle wear creative workshops alongside regular cycle maintenance workshops getting progressively more advanced throughout the day (run by Bikeright), treasure hunts, bicycle competitions offered by The Edinburgh Bike Co-op and bellowing out some sounds; PoWWow Pedal Power (who took great satisfaction in playing several times Supermarket Sweep by The Autonomads- those who know this song will get the joke..!)

An hour into the event, the initial fears of being in The Arndale seemed to disappear as we got totally consumed into luring people onto bicycles- as usual, embarrassingly unsuccessful to start with; “What? Why would I wanna get on a b***ding bike when I’m gettin me gear in?” but soon enough, good biking vibes and stubborn perseverance managed to convince self-conscious groups of  teenagers to do something out of the ordinary-along with bunches of other unlikely targets were responsible for powering the PA for the day- hoorah!

All credit to the organisers Pete + co- this really was an amazingly well thought out event, created with very little cash and I’m sure has had a really big impact of lots of people that would ordinarily have had absolutely nothing to do with cycling..

+ the sun was still shining when we left the Arndale!

~”Karao-e c o” @ Cycle Chester~

June 28, 2010 | No Comments

We thought we’d pull out some extra stops for part one of two of our pedal injections into Bike Week- by furiously finishing our new workshop combining pedal power and karaoke (appropriately named Karao-eco) to deliver + encourage the people of Chester to put down their shopping bags, let loose, sing loud + abolish all inhibitions. As part of the Cycle Chester event we were excited to join other wondrous wheeling get-ups- like Electric Pedals, who were gloriously getting people on bicycles to make tea + toast (9 people riding at once!) and Rollepaluza who were carrying out the usual roller racing pedalling carnage challenges on stage..

With micophones attached to painted broom sticks and fastened onto handlebars, people were given the chance to pick their favourite song, jump on a bicycle and sing away to puzzled looking passers by.. admittedly it was hard work convincing people to abolish their strict buying schedules to make plonkers out of themselves whilst getting increasingly ruby faced but we still managed to get lots of people pedalling the music and a couple of brave young’uns indulging in some karaoke.. We were super pleased with how well the intricate computer rig worked to form the Karao-eco (all credit to Dan, the genius computer man) + can’t wait to bring it to more festivals where we are convinced countless more people will be up for some wheeling-wailing!

**BIKE LAB : community cycling website**

June 7, 2010 | No Comments

Magnificent Revolution have done another amazing thing:

“We are pleased to announce the launch of Bike Lab – a new home for all things pedal powered. The community site will allow you to share upcoming bicycle events, upload images and videos of your projects, as well as provide a forum and blog for you to share your ideas and technical know-how. There’s even a Q & A section where members can ask all your burning bike powered questions and get advice from our team and other cycle powered professionals.”

Should you want to, get involved!!

**Stockport Loves Bikes**

June 7, 2010 | No Comments

On Saturday (5th June) it was World Environment Day, and Stockport celebrated with its Stockport Loves Bikes event in St. Peter’s Square. Unusually so, the skies were kind + sun belted down onto clusters of people- a diverse range, to make up interesting combinations of cycling enthusiasts + local Stockers teenagers who needed a good four hours to convince them onto the bicycle generators- the eventual lure of the initially difficult crowd may have been down to our powers of persuasion but more likely to have been the switch from playing obscure Balkan jazz to stomping D + B that might have done the trick.

To complete the bicycle feast there was also a pedal powered scalextric, hoards of different bicycles to try out (including an array of crazy ones for excellent comedy value) from Bikeright and an incredible community arts workshop transforming bicycles into animals to culminate in a parade around town. If there were more events like this, the whole city would be cycling…

Part of the Culturefeast Festival 2010, more details should be available on their site soon.

>>UNDER THE RADAR<< alleycat + soundsystem

May 24, 2010 | No Comments

Cobbled inner city courtyard,

lots of highly fit cyclists,

r a c e s

trick + track stand competitions,

h o u r s of pedal poWered songs- (gloriously uninterrupted with these strong legged participants who are  no strangers to pumping the pedals)

light till ten O clock;

Cycling summer evenings begin!

Keep a look out on I Bike MCR for more summercyclingshenanigans

* * One hundred years of (cycling in) Platt Fields Park * *

May 11, 2010 | 3 Comments

Overwhelmingly so, the C E N T E N A R Y F E S T I V A L  turned out to be the monstrously magnificent event it was anticipated to be- the dark clouds lingered, hesitated- then left- to part + be kind to us on this historic occasion. Hundreds of happy faces milled + thrilled their way around the intimately, superbly programmed site; full of puppets, gorillas, ingeniously choreographed temporary shows, insane strolling performers, some s e r i o u sly spectacular live music from around the world- A N D – the bandstand returned!!

We were getting a pedal on for the best part of both days… + it was g l o r i o u s to see little people’s faces b e a m with amazement (+ later pride) at powering this unlikely order of songs (eclectically picked to merge in with the marvellous array of multicultural influences that so joyeously drench the park)- all the way round and through + through this event was a masterpiece! !

**Platt Fields Park >>BIG 100<< Centenary Festival**

May 4, 2010 | No Comments

F I N A L L Y the date has arrived!! Our grand, prescious, luscious, pluscious park turns 100 years old on the 7th May! A date that us at Friends of Platt Fields have been eagerly working towards for the last 18 months- now it is time to celebrate this historic occasion.. The Centenary Festival will be running all weekend; from 7pm Friday- Sunday evening whereby Grangethorpe Rd field will once again play host to THE BANDSTAND + a marvellously eclectic array of music from all over the world, alongside workshops, street theatre, strolling performers, games, food + of course, ourselves with our special PoWWow p o w e r; attuned with bicycles suitable for all sizes! Come get involved!

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