This reflection is inspired by the prompt for this week's @KQEDEdspace #DoNowBike challenge - How Would You Design a Bike? The question "How did you learn to ride a bike?" brings back some strong memories since I did not learn to ride until well into my later teens, late compared to my peers. The challenge was that the only surface available to me was a gravel road, for which I had a fear and respect due to numerous previous scrapes and bruises. When I now watch mountain bikers plummet down a hill or across narrow planks, I realize how ridiculous my fears were, but they are still part of my personal biking experience. A passion for biking is not part of my world, but it certainly is for many people e.g. in Holland where biking is a primary means of transportation.
My mind then jumped to the Queen song "Bicycle". The refrain emphasizes a passion for bike riding. Which leads to the question -what brings people into the subcultures of bicycling - mountain bikes, BMX, bike tricks, touring and building bikes. The song refrain "I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike. I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it where I like!" is embodied in many cultures across the globe. You can listen to the Queen song and read along with the lyrics HERE.
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Thus the gif of bike riders. I created this gif of some bike riders gathering and tricking where the symbiotic motion reminds me of swarms of birds. I wanted to be able to merge the right portion of the song to this gif video clip. As a result of this desire to learn more about merging video and audio clips, I'll explore the free app Video Merger.
Other videos that caught my attention
Other videos that caught my attention
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For the Love of Cycling - Subcultures by Soul Pancake
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Bicycle skill video - amazingly talented bike tricks demonstrated by these two girls
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Why we Love Mountain Biking 2015 - awe inspiring images and biking action
In the Netherlands the design of roads, paths, spaces and treatment of bike riders is respectful of the individual and the machine. This leaves me wondering how design can influence culture. The challenge in North American locations, big cities in particular, is the design of streets and roads is based on the needs of the automobile. Toronto, for example, has been struggling with re-designing traffic spaces to accommodate the growing needs of the bike riding culture. Adapting this system design can be a complex problem.
DESIGN MEETS CULTURE
The twelve principles of living systems, as outlined by Linda Booth Sweeney, may be helpful here:
DESIGN MEETS CULTURE
The twelve principles of living systems, as outlined by Linda Booth Sweeney, may be helpful here:
- Interdependence: This describes how both bike riders and auto drivers need each other, perhaps to make them more aware of their surroundings and to be vigilant when operating their vehicle.
- System Integrity: Identifying all the parts and processes essential to bike riding to function effectively, efficiently and safely are a challenge.
- Biodiversity: the variety, complexity, and abundance of bikes, riders and roads require designers to think beyond the simple solutions.
- Cooperation and Partnership: this describes the continual process where riders and drivers can exchange energy and resources. Merging riding and driving cultures can be challenging.
- Rightness of Size: While the proportions of bike riding systems–their bigness or smallness and their built-in limitations to growth– in some locations are evident, in others their growth is challenged. This will influence bike riding culture's stability and sustainability.
- Living Cycles: opportunities for renewal in a biking culture come from special events such as competitions and shows e.g. the inclusion of BMX demonstration as part of the Pan Am Games opening ceremonies.
- Waste = Food: Bike building and fabrication cultures thrive on the reality that all materials are valuable, can be circulated, reuses, and recycled. Old bikes become gardening features. New bikes get tricked out with old trinkets.
- Feedback: growth or decay of bike culture (reiforcing feedback) happens when a tipping point or vocal majority demand changes in access to space, but counteracting or lessening the chances of change (balancing feedback) occur when structures (such as streetcar tracks in Toronto) inhibit growth
- Nonlinearity: exploring the cycling behaviour evident in the Netherlands as a disproportionate result from the cause that created the 'bikes come first' rules would lead to insights for the design of biking culture
- Emergent Properties: the behaviours that result from the interactions within a specific subculture of biking could extend to other cycling communities, the improving the health of the whole cycling ecosystem
- Flux: refers to continual movement of energy, matter and information through the biking subcultures through media, messages and art
- The Commons: the shared resources – such as videos, blogs, live performances – on which external viewers depend for information and understanding. It could also refer to bike sharing systems available in some bike friendly community spaces.