2010 Planning Blog
View 2010 Tour Blog | View 2011 Planning Blog
PF Meeting
April 26, 2010
We've got fun news and sad news, what do you want first?
Sad news first: Ramiro Fernandez will no longer be joining us for the entire tour. Check his music out anyway!
Fun news: We brainstormed a working model of the bike-powered generators! Nick and Walexandar are working on putting the final product together this week.
Long and productive meeting!
Festival Fest
April 24, 2010
An annual event put together by JMU EARTH, Festival Fest is the culmination of Earth Week, a week of environmental awareness centered around Earth Day.
We enjoyed watching PF "tourists" in Ears to the Ground Trio and the Dish Dogs take the spotlight, and the PF was allowed a promotion table. We talked to interested folks and worked on our DIY saddle bags all afternoon!
We met a representative from Front Porch Fest who recruited some of us to play the North Carolina festival in early September. Anyone up for an "off-season" petrol-free ride?
PF Meeting
April 12, 2010
We decided it was best to contact pretty much every biking group in the relevant areas. Some were as obscure as the "Mostly Single, Entirely Jewish Men Who Like to Cycle Around the Park on Weekends Club." We decided that no club was too obscure to shower with peace and love!
We discussed what to tell cycling clubs about powering the show. Walexander suggested mentioning the cycling shifts will be dependent on how many people show up willing to pedal to power the show. We could come up with a suggested "cycling sponsor" time length, but for all we know, people will be fighting to power our instruments!
Walexander has some great opportunities of places for us to play and stay near DC. Stay tuned for confirmations!
PF Meeting
April 5, 2010
We talked about times of the day that we could visit schools while on the Petrol-Free. The general idea seems to be going to schools on the second day we are in a city (early morning), and then getting on the road soon after that! Nick, Nichole, and Liz are going to meet this week and start calling schools.
We sang a great short version of Old Man take a Look at my Life by Neil Young; Nick and Ramiro think we could end our schools presentation with this song, mainly repeating that one line: "Old Man take a Look at My Life, I'm a lot like you."
Ramiro taught us his awesome song Lady Lands (hear the song on the right) and we also sang You Are My Sunshine. (Count it as practice for the gypii band.) Ramiro suggested making up sweet verses for this one. We dig.
Music, Social Media and an Invitiation
April 4, 2010
Opportunities are now available to listen and learn about the bands joining the PF for a show or a leg! Check the right column for the excitement.
Links to our Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube pages are now more obviously available for the clicking. Friend us on your favorite medium!
Everyday Bikes has invited us to do a presentation for Bike Month! We will be talking about how we came to create the tour as well as the DIY bike trailers, saddle bags, and generators. More info to come.
MACRoCk Bike Panel
April 3, 2010
Reminder: The PF has a table at MACRoCk today! If you're attending, visit us in the basement of Blue Nile 11am till 3pm.
Also, check out the panel, "Kickstand: Bike Culture, Safety and Everything In Between" at the Shenandoah Bicycle Company at 1pm today. Our very own Walexander and Lara will be speaking about the PF and Harrisonburg's One Mile Challenge, respectively.
Update from our attendee, Nichole
The Bike panel was great! Walexander shared about the Petrol-Free, and showed everyone the saddle bags and the trailer. He also explained how cheap they are to make!!
Lara Mack led a discussion with the question, "Why do you bike?" One person said that when you are on a bike, you get to experience nature and the environment in a way you can't in a car. Yay! And on the flip side, if there is exhaust coming out of a car and you are biking, you get it in your face, so biking makes you take environmental concerns more seriously.
She also talked about bicycle advocacy in Harrisonburg and how the biking community here is growing! She encouraged us to take the One Mile Challenge pledge. She also enlightened us about safety (get a horn, a front light, a back light, and a helmet!) and road rules:
- If you are going the speed of traffic, a bicycle can take up a whole lane.
- If you're going under the speed of traffic, you have like 3 or 4 feet from the side of the road, and cars must pass around you.
- Bikes are considered vehicles, so they are supposed to stop at Stop signs AND red lights.
Good to know! Lara recommended BikeCommuter.com for more information.
Then Tim from SBC talked about bike maintenance and cleaning! He has a neat holistic view of maintenance: a bike is not a totally petrol-free product (rubber tires and petrol-based lubricants), but cleaning your bike often and knowing your bike really well helps maintain the parts and therefore makes your bike last as long as possible.
How to make your own saddle bags: Updated content!
April 2, 2010
Interested in making your own saddle bags? We've just updated our "How To" page! Check it out: How to make your own saddle bags
Contact Nicholas Melas if you need buckets or have questions.
PF Meeting
March 29, 2010
The agenda and the meeting structure kept getting run over by a stampede of good ideas, important questions and side comments!
Venues are slowly coming together! Check the dates page for more up-to-date information.
The Emergence Community Arts Collective is a community center based in DC. They are located near Howard University and would be interested in hooking up somehow. Wednesday, May 19th they have Capoeira classes and Yoga, so we couldn't play that day, but Thursday, May 20th is their open mic night! I will contact the open mic night people to see if we could provide a featured artist that night, and about what other venues we could play in the area.
MUSIC! Petrol-Free Gypsy Band! Musicians! Come to our meetings at 6pm so we can get some practice jamming before meeting. Contact us for the time and location. We have a lot of talented musicians on the tour already. All we are missing is a melodica and a tambourine!
Nichole and Lizz did some amazing work putting together a letter to be sent to schools in VA. It says who we are and what we stand for etc. We all had some constructive criticism to offer. They also found out what the SOL curriculum is and how we fit in. There are many direct links between our mission statement and what we are doing to the SOLs, like generators and motors, fossil fuels, renewable energy, etc!
NOmadjik Media Bus
March 28, 2010
Flux Rostrum is part owner of the Mobile Broadcast News bus. Basically, Flux has dedicated his life to traveling around the country covering all the news that corporate media does not cover in a bus powered by waste vegetable oil (see video below).
It is a great honor to announce that Flux Rostrum and the Mobile Broadcast News bus are coming on the Petrol-Free Gypsy Carnival Tour 2010!! Below is an exerpt of the email Flux sent to the Petrol-Free google group. Contact us to join the google group planning collective.
I'm still figuring out my logistics for this but I'm definitely planning on being a part of this. As long as you folks understand that unless we find BIOdiesel somewhere near [Harrisonburg] ... I will need to burn diesel for a few miles each time we start up the bus. I'm not completely petrol free. The bus heats the oil by running it through the coolant line, so in order to switch to veggie I gotta get the engine good an hot first.
I will be able to haul equipment on the roof deck.
2 to 4 people could sleep on the bus as needed.
The bus has no restroom facilities.I just bought 3 new deep cycle batteries because my other 3 were leaking.
I do intend to have 200 watts of Solar power on the roof before the tour.
I have a video projector for documentary screenings and I also live mix art video projections at clubs/parties.
I usually connect to the internet with a broadband card that has worked in about 90% of the country. I can share that connection out to others to connect as well.
I would be able to shoot video and publish along the way to promote the tour and should be able to do live streams as well.
Here's a video tour I did before the 2008 season. I was far too ambitious then, corn dog will not be with us skinnychef MAY want to come along as well. not sure.
View Flux's current project or main website.
Battery Options
March 26, 2010
Nick and Ramiro went to a local battery store to look into battery sizes, weights, power and prices. They also asked the store owner about our pedal powered electricity generator design and he offered lots of design suggestions and advice.
Deep Cycle batteries come in all different sizes, but like the principle behind buying in bulk, the bigger the battery, the more you get for your money. The largest deep cycle battery costs $70. Since no one wants to carry a 50 or 20 lb battery up Afton Mountain, we'd have to pay a bit more for smaller batteries.
The problem with deep cycle batteries, in our case, is that you have to leave them fully charged at the end of each use, or you will diminish battery life. This would mean we'd have to top the batteries off every night after the show, after everyone will be exhausted! IMPORTANT: I don't know how long this would take with a small battery. It just sounds like a daunting task. The store owner mentioned that we could just plug it into the wall at the end of the night to top it off, but since this would mean filling out batteries with coal power, we just couldn't do that.
Alas! It is possible to do this whole operation without a battery at all! The battery is like a reservoir. The same way you drink water from the reservoir in between heavy rains, if someone were to stop pedaling as fast, or at all, the music could go on using energy from the battery. Without the battery, riders would have to keep going at least for the duration of each song. If the riders pedaled faster, there would be more volume/wattage potential, and vice-versa. This seems like a worthy concession to make.
Also, we could say the following sentence in all honesty, "We make our saddle bags out of waste plastic buckets, our trailers our of waste aluminum ladders and waste steel tubing, and our generators out of waste car alternators," without having to buy new lead-acid batteries. This would mean our project would be doable in places of extreme poverty! Petrol-Free Latino America! I'm still pondering about buying a small battery though!
New site and promotional material
March 25, 2010
We launched the new website today! Click around and check it out.
Also, handbills have been created for PF promotion. Feel free to download, print, and distribute!
 Color PDF |
 Black & White PDF |
PF Meeting
March 22, 2010
This was an extremely positive meeting where we had a lot of valuable discussion. Join us at an upcoming meeting! Please contact us for details of where and when.
Some highlights from the meeting:
We discussed presentations at various elementary, middle, and high schools and are beginning the process of calling around to find out if any schools are interested.
The PF has a table at MACRoCk this year! If you're attending, visit us in the expo section. Also, check out the panel, "Kickstand: Bike Culture, Safety and Everything In Between" at the Shenandoah Bike Company at 1pm on Saturday, April 3rd. Our very own Nick and Lara will be speaking about the PF and Harrisonburg's One Mile Challenge, respectively.
We discussed making more trailers to sell as a fundraiser. Contact us if you're interested in one!
PF Meeting
March 15, 2010
We created a working mission statement! "A Bicycle-Powered Music and Art tour to promote Peace, Social Justice, and a Healthy Planet." We also pieced together a sub-statement like: "A Conscious and Creative approach to changing the world."
We mentioned how fun it would be to have costumes and parades. Elizabeth mentioned the busker parades at Bonnaroo. Tom Benevento told Nick about a group of people that dresses up like super heroes and rides around the country on bicycles jumping at any opportunity to help people with mundane tasks like carrying their groceries to their car, or mowing their lawn, or walking their dog. People can dress up, help people, mime; Zach Evans can ride a unicycle!
Anne mentioned having a sag wagon: a veggie grease-powered vehicle to take our stuff. Nick mentioned the importance of packing light.
Anne suggested group rides to get in shape for the ride. Nick should be organizing weekly Sunday afternoon bike rides around Harrisonburg! Take weight with you!
Bike-powered success!
March 8, 2010
Rachel Sarah's grandfather is a world-class electrical engineer. He helped us figure out how (and in what order!) to configure all the pieces of the bike-powered electricity generator. We spun the arm of the generator with the bike wheel, and Rachel Sarah's grandfather measured the voltage with a voltmeter. Then he showed us how to safely make a light blub shine!
Electricity generation is simple. If you take an electric motor and plug it into electricity, it spins. If you do the opposite and spin the electric motor, it makes electricity. We can do this thanks to the miracle of electromagnetism. One biker will have no problem charging a battery and lighting a lightbulb all at once!
Trailer Assembly
March 7, 2010
The wheels arrived yesterday and we assembled the trailer today! Nick drilled a hole in the trailer tongue and connected it to the mount on his bike with a cotter pin. We used rubber washers made from an old bicycle tire. The trailer is made from a bent up old aluminium ladder and the tongue from scrap steel.
Fun fact: the trailer tires in the bottom-right picture have a small piece of duct tape temporarily wrapped around the axel so they don't fall off. The solid steel was too much for the 20-year-old drill to get through!
 |
|
 |
 |
PF Meeting
March 1, 2010
We started with this fun fact: the modern battery is designed to mimic living muscle tissue. An Italian scientist in the 1700s was dissecting a frog and happened to be using two scalpels made of different metals. When he touched them to the freshly dead frog muscle, he noticed that it twitched! This is what a battery is designed after, and thanks to this scientist, Volta, and the utter perfect genius of muscle tissue, we can store the electricity we generate with a bike!
We discussed some of the Creation Care reasons for doing the tour. We looked at Matthew 10:5 where Jesus sends out the 12 apostles and tells them to go only to the lost sheep of Israel, with the message "The kingdom of heaven is near [you]." Jesus says, "Freely you have received, freely give. Do not take along any gold or silver or copper in your belts, take no bag for the journey, or extra tunic, or sandals or a staff, for the worker is worth his keep." All the more reason to pack light!
Nick, Rachel Sarah and Nichole are going to help write a zine called, "The kingdom of heaven is near you," written to the lost sheep of the US Church to hand out only to those who are interested along the tour. It will have topics in it relating to peace, social justice and a healthy environment from a Christian biblical perspective.
Note: The Petrol-Free Gypsy Carnival Tour is an open environment where people of any faith, or non-faith based spirituality, or non-spiritual background can expect to feel welcome. One of the reasons some of us feel deeply called to bring about peace, justice and a healthy planet is because of our spiritual beliefs. Because, in Nick's words only, there is a Truth behind the veil of what can be seen that pulls us to justice, peace, redemption, beauty, harmony and care for the gifts of the earth.
People should expect a joyful interfaith environment.
Nick and Ramiro talked about design specifics for the trailers and we now have a brand new design to retrofit any ladder to be a bike trailer, the best part is we don't have to make any permanent modifications to the ladder. We also figured out, in a stroke of insight, how to bend strong steel tube using Nick's deck as a fulcrum and a larger stronger steel tube Nick found in the steel mill dumpster! So we are well on our way to designing trailers!
Initial PF Interest Meeting
February 15, 2010
Billy, Liana, Nichole, Matt, Rachel Sarah, Alex, Axie, Evan, and Nick formed the inital interest group. We discussed everyone's skills and what level of time and interest they have in planning and attending the tour. We went over the travel route and discussed doing presentations for elementary, middle, and high schools about bikes and the importance of taking care of the Earth.
We've created a Google Group so we can quickly and easily send messages and contact each other with ideas. If you're interested in joining the list, please contact us!
Social Media
January 13, 2010
The PF is now available for friending! We've got a page on Facebook and MySpace. Please friend us on whichever social media you feel more of a connection to.
We've also created a new, collective, easy-to-remember email address: gypsycarnivaltour@gmail.com. Contact us with questions or comments!
