Common Cycles

Sisters Nicole and Rose Lavelle ride their fresh Alabamboo bikes...

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 23:28:00 -0500

Sisters Nicole and Rose Lavelle ride their fresh Alabamboo bikes from Alabama to San Francisco and make a stop in Boulder, Colorado. Video by Evan Swinehart and Matt Corliss.

Here’s a quick video montage of the Alabamboo Make &...

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 21:57:00 -0500

Here’s a quick video montage of the Alabamboo Make & Ride journey. It was a 3,000 mile, 2 month-long bike tour from Greensboro, AL to San Francisco, CA on bikes made out of bamboo.

Want to get your ass on a bamboo bike? One that you built with...

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 21:55:22 -0500

Want to get your ass on a bamboo bike? One that you built with your own hands? Talk to the folks at Bamboo Bike Studio and make it happen!

The Recyclery - A Bicycle Cooperative The story of the Asheville...

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 17:44:56 -0400

The Recyclery - A Bicycle Cooperative

The story of the Asheville cooperative that builds bikes they’re taking across the country for the America reCycled project.

Cool concept for an urban mobility vehicle that’s farmed,...

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 17:19:30 -0400

Cool concept for an urban mobility vehicle that’s farmed, not factory-made.

Bamboo 101: Sustainable Cultivation This is a great little video...

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 01:16:29 -0400

Bamboo 101: Sustainable Cultivation

This is a great little video on the many benefits of bamboo.

Ride Alabamboo & Common Cycles

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 14:43:08 -0400

The fearless foursome of Team Alabamboo stopped off in Tulsa, OK at the home of Jake Sullivan, who was part of the first COMMON MBA that launched Common Cycles. Good food and good time had by all. The Alabamboo riders are going to spend a couple of days in Tulsa before making the trek to Boulder. You can follow the team @ridealabamboo

Photos of the riders hanging with the Sullivan’s.

The Alabamboo Make & Ride

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 15:06:00 -0400

A group of four cyclists recently descended upon Greensboro, Alabama to build bikes with locally grown bamboo and to ride them across the country making their way to San Francisco. The project is part of a collaboration between Project M, Bamboo Bike Studio, Common Cycles, and a local effort to advance the growth of “Alabamboo” as an agricultural cash crop in the United States.

Check out the photos from the build and follow the ride at RideAlabamboo.com.

Learning to Ride

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 05:55:00 -0400

A little inspiration for anyone trying something new.

Support Car Alabamboo Make & Ride

Sun, 22 May 2011 10:42:00 -0400

In June, four young adventurers will meet in the small town of Greensboro, Alabama for the Alabamboo Make & Ride, an epic journey across the United States. Their first task? Build the bikes they are going to ride….out of bamboo. Specifically, Alabamboo, the largest domestically available source of bamboo in the United States. Their second task is to ride the bikes from Greensboro to the West coast. Their objective? To increase awareness and create excitement around the potential of this amazing natural resource. A sustainable resource that is bringing jobs, economic growth, and hope to one of the poorest areas of America.

How Your Support Will Make A Difference

Safety. Riding a bicycle across the country is incredibly ambitious. Your donation will allow the riders to have a support car so that they can focus on riding and the support car can help with logistics.
The story of Alabamboo is the story of bringing jobs to rural America. Green, sustainable jobs.
Karma. Unlike other fundraising initiatives, Common Cycles has negotiated a deal with the Gods so that your donation guarantees you good vibes in the future.

Make your secure donation via PayPal by clicking on the widget below. Thanks for donating and spreading the word!

Your donation will show up on PayPal as a donation to the Hale Empowerment and Revitalization Organization or HERO, the parent organization of this endeavor.

Re-imagining a way of life

Sat, 21 May 2011 20:34:00 -0400

Via Boingboing.net here is a great article. The Real Reason Why Bicycles are the Key to Better Cities.

The most vital element for the future of our cities is that the bicycle is an instrument of experiential understanding.

On a bicycle, citizens experience their city with deep intimacy, often for the first time. For a regular motorist to take that two or three mile trip by bicycle instead is to decimate an enormous wall between them and their communities.

Congrats B-Cycle!

Fri, 20 May 2011 13:03:00 -0400

For people who may wonder what makes us think that we can make Common Cycles legendary, it is important to understand where we draw our inspiration. The founders of COMMON have a long history of making the impossible possible. Below is Alex Bogusky reflecting on the launch of B-Cycle. (via Fearless Revolution)

Congrats!

Handsome Bamboo

Fri, 20 May 2011 10:39:00 -0400

Ben Morrison, loyal member of the Common Cycles posse as well as a founder of Handsome Cycles sent along this video about John Cho Moore. “John grew tired of the limitations of the industrial design process and is now trying to capture the essence of design with his beautifully handmade bamboo and canvas bags.” Enjoy.

Beauty Through Bamboo from Turnstyle Video on Vimeo.

Mark Wills - Stud

Thu, 19 May 2011 01:38:37 -0400

Mark and his crew continue to amaze. While we are plotting out the strategy for the first production line of Common Cycles from the comfort of our home offices, favorite coffee shops, and Wi-Fi enabled dive bars, Mark is actually getting the real work done. Check out the pictures below of the guys scrapping off the plaster of the shop walls to leave the exposed brick, as well as getting a fresh coat of paint on the ceiling.

Mark also plays a pretty mean guitar weeknights at the PieLab. Seriously, how cool is this guy? We are very lucky and thankful that he is part of the Common Cycles crew.

FILMMAKERS WANTED

Wed, 18 May 2011 15:44:00 -0400

Legend has it that famed Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, once placed the ad above in a London paper to solicit crew to accompany him on one of his attempts to reach the South Pole. He received an overwhelming response.

So what’s this have to do with Common Cycles? Well, we need a filmmaker(s) for a legendary expedition of sorts and we like thinking big, really big, so we thought drawing inspiration from a famed adventurer was a good starting point.

Our Ad:

FILMMAKERS WANTED for epic cross-country adventure. No wages, brutal heat, long days with stinky cyclists, potential danger, prospect of returning unchanged doubtful. Honor and recognition for changing the world in case of success.

The Project – The Alabamboo Make & Ride

In June, a team of four cyclists will ride across America to share the story of Alabamboo, the largest domestically available source of bamboo in the United States. The adventure starts in Greensboro, Alabama, the home of Common Cycles. Here, in a picturesque main street bike shop, our four young heroes will build the bikes that will carry them across this beautiful country. It is a story that has many plotlines and themes to explore.

The revitalization of small town America
Creating jobs with innovative, sustainable products
The highs and lows of riding a bike across the United States
Opinions and reactions of people along the way
A testament to the power of determination

This project is ideal for someone who wants to be a part of something truly amazing.

Requirements

You are a filmmaker or aspiring creative. You have the ability and means to capture and edit video footage. You can drive a car. You play well with others. You like uncertainty, risk and thinking wrong. You have the will to make this happen.

The ride starts the first week of June and goes until they reach the West coast. Learn more about the ride here and about COMMON here.

How to apply

Send a quick blurb about why you want to be apart of this project and links to your work/portfolio to cmmncycles[at]gmail.com. You can also find us via our social media links which are located on the sidebar to the right.

Ride On, Ride On, Ride On.

Southern Accents

Mon, 16 May 2011 10:35:13 -0400

I love the South. I love its complexity and compassion, even though it can be a hard place to understand. There is a matter-of-fact practical approach to things that is endearing, can be frustrating and is often weary of outsiders. And a lot of that comes across in the way people talk. Slow and drawn out, the cadence of the words themselves have a way of keeping things from moving too fast.

When you launch a bamboo bicycle company in Greensboro, Alabama you’re going to raise a few eyebrows, but the question that has lingered with me from that weekend, and the one I am still trying to answer, was from Tom (pictured above), one of the many truly great people I met in Greensboro. Seeing my camera he asked if I was down in Alabama as part of one of the news crews covering the recent tornado damage.

“No, we’re down here to launch a bamboo bike company.”

“Bamboo?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What’ca wanna do that for?”

To the untrained ear, the question sounds pretty straightforward. But then again, this is the South where “bless your heart” can roll off both sides of the tongue. Tom was asking more than why we were doing it; he was wondering what was motivating us. What were we getting out of it? Which is a damn good question and one that I’m sure each of the Common Cycles crew will have to answer on their own. For me, I think part of the reason for being there has to do with a disconnection I feel from the material world. One that Matthew B. Crawford, eloquently explored in his book, Shop Class as Soulcraft. From the introduction:

What ordinary people once made, they buy; and what they once fixed for themselves, they replace entirely or hire an expert to repair, whose expert fix often involves installing a pre-made replacement part.

So perhaps the time is ripe for reconsideration of an ideal that has fallen out of favor: manual competence, and the stance it entails toward the built, material world. Neither as workers nor as consumers are we much called upon to exercise such competence, most of us anyway, and merely to recommend its cultivation is to risk the scorn of those who take themselves to be the most hard-headed: the hard-headed economist will point out the opportunity costs of making what can be bought, and the hard-headed educator will say that it is irresponsible to educate the young for the trades, which are somehow identified as the jobs of the past. But we might pause to consider just how hard-headed these presumptions are, and whether they don’t, on the contrary, issue from a peculiar sort of idealism, one that insistently steers young people toward the most ghostly kinds of work.

The book goes on to explore the relationship the “creative class” has to the work they do and questions whether a society that celebrates astute management over skilled labor is ultimately satisfying. Perhaps this is why DIY sites and the Maker’s Faire have taken off in recent years, as people try to reconnect with the joy of being creators in the physical world.

One idea that really resonated with us during our brainstorming was “build-cations.” A variation on “stay-cations,” these would be weekend build workshops where people could travel to Greensboro and build their bike while getting to soak up some of the local culture. Maybe even stop by the Elks Lodge and have a beer with Tom and see if they can answer, “what’ca wanna do that for,” for themselves.

What do you think?

What was it like to be at the COMMON MBA?

Wed, 11 May 2011 14:22:00 -0400

Kinda like this, but on land. LEGENDARY.

- Jake

Want to come play? Check out the COMMON community. Fresh sets on the way.

Our New Home

Tue, 10 May 2011 13:31:00 -0400

During the MBA weekend we scouted the shop on Main St. that was going to be the future home of Common Cycles in Greensboro, Alabama. As you can see it needed some TLC to get it cleaned up.

But thanks to Mark Wills, Pam Dorr and crew this is what it looks like less than two weeks later.

These guys have done an amazing job in a short amount of time confirming once again that they are some of the best people you could ever hope to meet. You guys are amazing and are a real inspiration to all of the Common Cycles team.

Check out more photos from the COMMON MBA weekend here http://flic.kr/g/fsWXp and you can follow us on Twitter @Common_Cycles

Bamboo Bikes Worldwide

Tue, 10 May 2011 10:06:31 -0400

Check out this cool video about bikes being built overseas by BamBike. Link to article

IMG_0944 on Flickr.One of the best things about starting a bike...

Sun, 08 May 2011 22:48:46 -0400

IMG_0944 on Flickr.

One of the best things about starting a bike company is getting to geek out, drool, rant and rave about all the possibilities. This vintage cruiser was spotted a 1/2 mile off of Route 66 smack in the middle of the USA.