Bike Fair Saturdays+Zine Fair Sundays

Sometimes it's too easy to forget the simple joy of a bike ride with friends. As we ride our bike more often and it becomes a more ingrained, unconscious part of the day, that magic feeling of flying down a hill or free-wheeling along a lovely flat road gets overtaken by all those mundane, everyday chores/facts/lists that inevitably run through your head while you're on your trusty two wheeled steed. This weekend with the WOOP2 event and the opening of the Sydney Rides Festival we were able to enjoy the (miraculous) sunshine, hang with friends and remember to take it easy, slow down, smell the organic-fresh-ground coffee and the organic-fresh-cut flowers.

I recently found a bunch of pics from another lovely weekend when we were able to chill, enjoy good company and get inspired by like minded people. Earlier this year we hopped on our bikes and headed to the always bright and colourful zine fair at the MCA. Here's a little edit...

More things in life should be as bright as this, and more weekends should be spent with great people doing the things we love. If you want to spend more time with lovely people and lovely bikes head to one of the ever awesome bike events happening over the next week or two organized for Sydney Cycleways and Sydney Rides Festival by The Spokes People.

j.xoxo

BVP at SFFN 2012

If you're in Sydney you'll have noticed that after a week of debilitating humidity, the rainy weather has closed in again, spoiling any "Summer" we might have hoped to experience. For a week or two though, in January, if the clouds didn't necessarily part, the weather at least partly relented, and we enjoyed Sydney Festival.

Like last year, Sydney Festival First Night, with the help of Sydney Cycleways and Bike Sydney set up free Bike Valet Parking, trying to encourage people to leave their cars at home. Considering that a large chunk of the city around Hyde Park and the Domain was closed off to make way for stages, roving performers, swing dancing, etc... two wheels were definitely the preferred mode of transport for a lot of Sydney-siders.

K-star and myself had such a good time last year, we made sure to volunteer early for a shift at Bike Valet Parking. The sun was miraculously out for the day, we had a picnic loaded up to enjoy after our shift, and we had Milky Joe "spoke cards" (read: postcards) ready to "distribute" (read: pimp) among the bikes we parked.

Our two hour shift flew by, almost too fast. We hung out with uber awesome bike peeps, like David from Bike Sydney and all time bike guru, Yogi. We met heaps of people, parked heaps of bikes (perved on heaps of cute bike boys- well, at least I did...) and had heaps of fun. When our shift finished it was only late afternoon, but between our station at Hyde Park and the BVP station in the Domain hundreds of bikes were parked for Sydney Festival First Night! Go Sydney! Towards the end of our shift we whipped the cameras out to take some close-ups of some of the good looking bikes and bike accessories we spied, as well as share the Milky Joe love...

After BVP it was time to relax, hang out with other Sydney-siders in the Domain and enjoy the sunset and the Festival First Night concert. More of these days please!

j.xoxo

Bike in Lights!

Summer in Sydney is sweltering... What good reason could there be to go for a bike ride in 33deg heat and 78% hummidity? To see your name in lights of course for the Sydney Festival or in our case our crocheted monkey Milky Joe's name!

To get there was a sweaty but enjoyable ride. S-boy practised his Tour de France waterbottle moves...

Whereas I just glistened...

We arrived and camped out in the 1 metre patch of shade we found. Phew!

While we waited for the big moment to arrive Milky happily posed for pictures.

And tried on new names that sounded cool...

Then it was time... Milky Joe SUPERSTAR!!

Then just for fun, our bike names came up...

(Florence miraculously appeared in spirit!)

Then ta da... The coolest bike gang in the world...

Oh the exhilaration, the overwhelming 15 seconds of glory. How can we ever top this? Oh thats how... by hitting the pool as soon as we got home. Good work Milky Joe!

P.S. I have to include a photo of this guy who we spotted on the way home. This is not the first time I've seen him but it is the first time I was quick enough with my camera to capture him. He rides around Darling harbour with the mask on, the mirrors and the flags creating a stir by tooting randomly at people. Nuisance or bike advocate? Hmmm...

Pish Tosh xx

Bike Valet Team is GO!

Oh, Sydney Festival, how I love how it transforms the city every summer. Parks become gig venues, streets host art installations, bands and artists from all over the world descend on the city so that every night something is happening. There is a really laid-back sense of pride that our city can be so beautiful and livable.

In the spirit of promoting a sustainable and livable etc. city, K-star and I decided to give a little back to the Syd Fest and volunteered for the fabulous free Bike Valet service that Bike Sydney arranges. (At the very least we thought we'd be able to get a bit of shameless self promotion done...) The bike valet corral is located behind the main stage at the Domain and central to most of the events and venues, you can roll along and drop your bike off and not have to worry about finding a pole/tree/bike park ring.

Yogi was our fearless leader and provided us with lollies, crackers, and ensured we had the skills to park bikes without hurting anyone/thing.

K-star and I soon got down to the serious job of parking bikes, with clipboards and surveys and all. We made sure to practice being efficient and professional.

Then we actually parked some bikes...

Meeting bike people is always fun and there was such a broad cross-section of the cycling community out and about on Saturday evening. If we parked your bike let us know! Did we do a sufficient job? Were we professional, efficient, and friendly? Were you a little freaked out about leaving your bike with some (strange) girls who had flowers and feathers stuck in their hair?

Were you slightly more relieved to see some more responsible looking people valet parking with us, like our previously mentioned supervisor extraordinaire Yogi, and our other valet volunteer Martin?

Martin (bemusedly) looking on as J-bot practices her clipboard/inter-personal skills

Once the lights went down and the music started up, we found we had plenty of time to entertain ourselves and others with some disco light action. Martin's superb photographic skills came into play when we decided we needed a photoshoot.

Our valet parking shift was over before we knew it. If you're thinking about volunteering I highly recommend it. Hang out for a few hours, make some friends, and if you're at all like-minded, dress up a bit! A great night out!

j.xoxo