folkbikes

North American Handmade Bike Show

2006-10-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

Wow--I didn't even know these folks existed: The North American Handmade Bicycle Show.

web site for 2007 show

CalfeeDesign

2006-10-04T20:53:00.000-07:00

CalfeeDesign

Calfee Design bamboo bike. this thing is beautiful.

BME - Brano Meres

2006-10-04T20:49:00.000-07:00

BME - Brano Meres

Excellent example of a bamboo and carbon bike.

Google Image Result for http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2002/tech/taipei/hand_painted_mtb_s.jpg

2006-08-21T21:18:00.000-07:00

Google Image Result for http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2002/tech/taipei/hand_painted_mtb_s.jpg

Hand-painted bike frame, created by Chinese artisans.

spotted on campus today

2006-01-30T12:43:00.000-08:00

This home made recumbent is about EIGHT FEET LONG!
Its aluminum angle and square sec tubing bolted together. It looks slightly heavy but I didn't touch it to confirm. It also looks like a daily rider and you know what that means!
ONE LESS SUV!

I like the sign this home made fixed gear is locked to

phat schwinn typhoon phixy

2006-01-30T06:46:00.000-08:00

phil phixed/phree phlip phlop hub

frakenfixie sighting on campus today

2006-01-18T14:54:00.000-08:00

Xtra

2005-12-12T10:44:00.000-08:00

We showed you Gary's PX-10 fixie
last month. This month he showed
us his new Xtra-cycle. He has this set up single speed/freewheel.

So far he likes it!

Ed was right! He said it would snow.

folktrailer

2005-11-30T12:43:00.000-08:00

I wonder what's inside that plastic box.

Atomic Zombie Extreme Machines

2005-11-23T14:41:00.000-08:00

Atomic Zombie Extreme Machines are making a small business out of the homebuilt enthusiast, offering various books and plans for garage experimenters. Their gallery of project bikes is very cool. Bicycle Builder's Bonanaza looks very good., offering a number of really good bike plans.

Homebuilt Recumbent Bikes

2005-11-23T14:32:00.000-08:00

Steve's Recumbent Bicycle Projects is a great web site for homebuilt recumbent bikes, some of them make largely out of wood.

Cyclecide Bikes are Way Cool

2005-11-23T14:16:00.000-08:00

While listening to a Bikescapes podcast I learned about Cyclecide: "The heavy pedal bike rodeo." Not sure what all the troop does, but they certainly have some utterly unique bikes.

best

Robert

Xtracycle Sport Utility Bicycle (SUB)

2005-11-22T11:52:00.000-08:00

On Green Street today Rick and I saw this Xtracycle, essentially a kit or bike you can buy that extends the wheel base by fixing an extension where the rear wheel would be. This creates a cool, heavy hauler that can add saddles and such to allow for carrying all manner of equipment. Pretty cool. This bike is also a single gear.

best

Robert

Just aquired

2005-11-04T11:51:00.000-08:00

maybe I'll get this fixedgear

Seen on campus today

2005-11-04T11:34:00.000-08:00

Another PX10! This is owned by the young guy working at our favorite video rental store. www.rentertainment.com

Prof. Gary Cziko with 1969 Peugeot PX10

2005-11-03T22:04:00.000-08:00

This is Prof. Gary Cziko from UIUC with his Peugeot PX10, now a fixed-gear with wheels from freeze-thaw, on a bike he once rode from NY to Oregon. Gary is multitalented to say the least: a very active academic who also plays jazz, cycles, runs community internet radio for language learning, and on and on.

best

Robert

1 of a Kind at UIUC

2005-11-03T22:00:00.000-08:00

Pretty amazing home-made recumbent I saw on the UIUC campus. I'd like to get some video of this bike actually rolling down the road--need to see it to believe it. very cool

best

Robert

Mecca for Folk Bikes

2005-10-07T22:23:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm learning as I go and am just getting started, but it seems that the mecca for folk bikes just might be the Louisiana Bike Festival, which celebrates novelty, homebuilt, vintage and custom bicycles, as is wonderfully evident by John Preble's "Horsigator." I know where I'll be next June!

Schwinn with Plastic Soap Jug

2005-10-07T21:52:00.000-07:00

This is a great old bike and a great mystery--at least to me. Ok, forgive my possible ignorance, but what the heck does the blue plastic soap jug offer the typical cyclist? In terms of just style, the blue jug is strangely appealing. Perhaps someone on the Internet can offer a hint as to practical value, or I'll just ask the person who rides this Schwinn next time I see him or her at the bike rack.

University of Illinois

best

Robert

Folk Bikes: Our Mission

2005-10-07T21:35:00.000-07:00

Our mission here at folk bikes is to document with photographs and text those bikes that are no longer boring and indistinguishable from 100s and 1000s of other identical, mass produced bikes. These are bikes that are unique due to the effects of aging, rarity, customization, or applied folk art. We call these bikes "folk bikes" borrowing from the use of the term folk, as in folk art, to suggest the role of individual folk (people and not companies and corporations) who personalize and change mass-produced bicycles. Similarly, a 30-year-old stock Schwinn that is weathered and dented and now utterly unique due to the ravages of time, is also welcome, representitive of the role of nature in "customizing" a bike so that it becomes a unique object. We are not bike snobs and any little thing can make a bike unique, even a mass-produced Schwinn or contemporary mountain bike. Thus, we strive to find those bikes that embody the odd, the unique, the weathered, and the creatively bastardized. Please help us by submiting your own local discoveries to r-baird@uiuc.edu.

best

Robert

to start us off, one of my own rides, a Schwinn Le Tour, with Prairie Farms milk cart held on with plastic ties