Toronto VeloReel fast approaching!

The ever amazing Nuit Blanche comes back to entertain us once again on October 5th! What better way to explore Toronto then a nighttime 12 hour art party? And there is no better way to do Nuit Blanche then on your bike with your friends, family, and frienemies. To prepare for this celebration of culture on bikes, it's best if you start out your night at the 2013 VeloReel Film Festival. For the second year in a row DNS curated an amazing line up of films-about-bikes for your eyeball pleasure. For the first year we are tagging onto Nuit Blanche to do this. For the second year, you can roll up on your bike and watch movies with your friends under the stars... It's only $5, along with being BYOB. No fancy-smansy film festival BS- just good moving pictures, good people, and bikes. Just the way we like it. COME HAVE FUN WITH US!

This year we have as a feature film the long anticipated BIKE LORDZ, a crowd-funded film about BMX trick culture in Ghana. Last year's favourite film makers from Cycle Me Home brings us their new film Feel Free. We have more movies from our beloved city and around the world, why don't you go check out the program to see how awesome it is yourself. While you're at it, why don't you share with a friend and start making plans about coordinated matching macrame pink elephant costumes?



Just the facts ma'am:
What?: Local, DIY film festival about bikes and the people who ride them.
When?; October 5th, 2013. 7pm-9pm.
Where?: The end of Fraser Ave in Liberty Village, Toronto. MAP.
How much?: $5! BYOB! Popcorn is Free!
Why?: It will be really fun, and you don't want to be sad when all your friends are talking about how awesome it was.

Orontas Loves DNS (and it's mutual or something)

Orontas is a rad cycling brand out of Toronto. They love this city, bikes and smart design as much as we do. Naturally we've become Besties. They even partnered up and did these amazing Orontas Kit Saddle Bag with YNOT.



We're one of the few who get to be Orontas Activists, meaning we do rad stuff so they give us product to try out.  They profiled our crew on their website. If you want to know why the Deadly Nightshades are like the Wu-Tang and what is our world takeover plot, you should go mosey on over and read it already. Bonus: photo montages of what we ladies of DNS have been up to these past years.

Thanks Orontas!

xo

Am I Invisible?

A very rad photo contest has come to light in NYC, brought to light by Bicycle Utopia NYC.

Anyone out there have any more photos of us Nightshades in NYC?

 

“Am I Invisible? A Portrait of New York Bicyclists” is an open call for photographs and photography-based art that capture the cultural diversity and individual style of New York City's distinctive bicycling community. Launched by Bicycle Utopia, a portion of the entry fee will go to Transportation Alternatives, New York City's oldest and largest bicycle advocacy organization."

Present

My present this year to all you Nightshades is a donation to Because I am a Girl. My gift is to help send another girl to school. She can then meet her future best friends, and then with her own crew plot to takeover the world and make it a better place, one matching jacket a a time...

xo

Help Expand T.O.'s Only Bike Courier Collective

"Send It is Toronto's only courier owned and operated bike messenger company. Our focus is local. We live here, we work here, we play here. Our goal is to support Toronto’s thriving local businesses and residents. We offer lower rates compared to larger courier and shipping companies so that same day delivery service can be accessible to smaller businesses and our neighbours." 

http://www.indiegogo.com/senditcargobike

They got this Indiegogo going on as they need to buy a Bullitt Clockwork cargo bike to take their game to the next level. Care to pitch in?

On a note, if you give the whole 3.5 grand, THEY WILL TATTOO YOUR NAME ON THEIR BODIES. Some eccentric person out there please do this.

Here's a great video from a few years ago introducing CycleHawk's Trike Bike.



Or check out this video about Cargo bikes in the amazing city of Copenhagen, that features the Bullit. We need more of this in Toronto.



Love!

Murder of Couriers

Another courier movie you say?

Murder of Couriers is beautifully shot Doc by Tom MacLeod. It's been in production for a few years, and there was some flak about when it would actually come out... I think I had been asking that of Tom for at least two years.

Well it's here. I went to the premier in Vancouver. In a nutshell, It's a great movie, you should see it. I'm biased, there are some Vancouver characters in there that I adore, like Newf and Ottawa, but besides following some great characters it's an impressively shot piece of photographic imagery. Vancouver is an incredibly beautiful city, which makes the riding of the bikes that much more of a joy. The treatment and showcasing of the city of Vancouver, along with a incredibly honest story telling makes this doc stand out. It captures a golden area of sorts in the bike scene from what I am told, something I may have just missed when I was getting to know everyone in early 2011. Nuts.

In short- watch the movie when it comes to your town in whatever various film festival.



On another note- HEY- bike world. Yeah you. Someone out there needs to give Patrick his own show/podcast/column/something. Serious. The man makes you develop abs with the laughing, and he can like bike backwards in circles for hours.



On a same thread, a HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Jamie Cooper (Original Three Inches of Blood singer in the 2nd trailer, co-owner of Superchampion) for welcoming a wee one into the world this week! LOVE!  

Woah there NYC

Bad-ass.

There was a few other bike crews out and about, I had fun watching the Grime boys and their antics on Instagram.

It seems many cyclists can be considered daredevils and trill seekers, many want to live life to it's fullest and experience the world as it is- not through protective glass. There is something about biking that gives you a confidence and an ability to not be afraid of using your own body, of doing something a bit daring, to trust in your own self and to the world is not as dangerous as it seems.

Other cool NYC bike things- Times Up is powering everything from cell phones to coffee machines with bikes. 

On the twitterverse, so many 140 character thoughts about the future of infrastructure will soon be turning into papers, lecture topics, design measurement and government policy. If climate change means more extreme weather, then we need infrastructure to reflect this. I had a friend from lower Manhattan email me asking if "What was going on with the Oyster Creek power plant- are they telling us the truth?" Then there is the giant oil spill in NJ.

Also, anyone out there heae that on the 27th BC got a 7.7 Earthquake? Thankfully the resulting Tsunami was small and in a remote location, but imagine if we had dozens and dozens of oil tankers to China in the area? The big one is still supposed to happen here in BC, and who knows what extreme weather the future has for us in store. So please, no tankers. The Dogwood Initiative has some great insight here. Fill up your brains, cause...

1 Love SF

So if you haven't heard yet, it's time once again to rally together to take care of our own. Bike peeps, we got to stick together.

"Beloved Cyclist "Chuey" Munkanta Beaten Unconscious and Arrested By Police"

There is IndieGoGo fundraiser to help Chuey with his legal and medical bills. My girl Melissa (talented, talented, bike-polo playing, fixed riding, designer at IndieGoGo) is part of a team that is putting on. Pitch in if you can, sadly at the rate democracy is going you don't know when this could be you or one of your best friends.

xo

#LeadwithLove

Why Do You Ride?

I got interviewed for this lovely blog out of Australia not too long ago.

"What's the best thing about cycling?" they asked, and I gave a cheeky answer....

Get Excited About Bikes

FOR IMMIDIATE RELEASE

Toronto VeloReel
Get Excited About Bikes

Just in time for TIFF! Toronto VeloReel, is a one day film festival working toward cultivating community & celebrating bike culture through film. The festival debuts September 15th in historic Liberty Village.

This year's program is guest curated by The Deadly Nightshades, Toronto's only all girl bike gang/arts collective. The Nightshades are known for organizing many cycling and arts events in the city, including Ring My Bell and Style Spin through the Drake Hotel. They hope their international and Canadian reel selections will include a snapshot of various histories, communities and viewpoints that will entertain all audiences and contribute to the successful birth of VeloReel.

To kick off the days events, there will be a peepshow film loop which includes the feature length films; Hit ‘Em in the Mouth, a Seattle Bike polo documentary, Cycle Me Home, the tale of Levi and his bike ride home to Budapest after studying abroad in Madrid, and I Felt Your Pulse, a Super 8 film dedicated to Darcy Allan Sheppard plus a few more.

While hanging out in the courtyard, be sure not to miss the various bike art instillations, a short play entitled “Cadillac Kills” and a drop in from the Bicycle Music Festival with musical performances by the Complete Street Band and Garbageface in the afternoon.

As night falls, projections will light up the big screen outdoors for a bike-in style theatre at 7 Fraser.

It will begin with a mixture of short films including; 10 Things: I Have Learned About Mountainbiking, Paint Bike and Sex On Wheels, to name a few. The audience’s heart will get pumping with 10-20 Berlin, a film made of the 1993 Courier World Championship, featuring many original Toronto names. To end off the evening, the audience will awe at Line of Sight, directed by Ontario’s own Benny Zenga, featuring world renowned Lucas Brunelle, “the gnarliest bike videographer in the world.”- Rolling Stone Magazine

VeloReel is in it's first year, but it intends to become an annual event, and a staple for the cycling community in Toronto. Please join us at 7 Fraser Ave., on September 15th. For more information and a full line up, please visit: www.torontoveloreel.blogspot.ca

Not Far From the Tree

Laura and I spent the golden hours of yesterday taking a very civilized stroll through Brooklyn's historical Botanical Garden, talking about rose breeding, this year's crops, the state of the nation, eligible matches for mawidge, and the nature of climbing the social climbing... socially.

Well, we weren't very good at imitating Jane Austin, but we did liberate some of the garden's fresh herbs and munched on some fresh kale. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. Although NYC has provided the Nightshades with a spectacular Indian Summer, you can feel the chill in the air and winter will soon be upon us. No point in the sage growing all summer to not be enjoyed, right?

Our walk and gathering looked a little something like this. Yes, we were barefoot in seafoam dresses.

Talk of city harvesting then ensued, with Laura and I exchanging various stories of Toronto and Vancouver's various fruit picking spots. In Toronto, only a minute from Much Music is the most spectacular apple tree in an alley way that will give you bags of apples just when school starts and you are at your poorest from supply buying. Vancouver is just ridiculous, with blackberries everywhere (I lived off of Blackberries most of August and September), and networks of friends sharing the locations of various fig trees that are untended and ripe with fruits to be plucked. FIGS!

Anthony Westenburg from Evergreen Toronto tipped me off to Not Far From The Tree, and amazing Toronto organization that mobilizes volunteers to harvest fruit in Toronto that would otherwise go to waste. And they do it all by bicycle. Check them out, because stuff like this is awesome!

Here is a great video they put out. Enjoy! 1LOVE!

SUBMIT TO THE BICYCLE!

Velo City 2012 is gearing up for another fabulous conference in the soon to be bike-capital of the world, Vancouver. They are currently seeking abstracts for presentation proposals for their amazing conference next June.

"The conference theme, Cities in Motion, will spotlight communities that are enabling and encouraging people of all ages to choose cycling as a daily form of active transportation and recreation. We encourage all cities and regions around the world - small, medium, and large - to share how they are creating healthy, livable, inclusive, vibrant, green communities through cycling and enhancements to the built environment that are both supportive of and enabled by embracing cycling as an integral component of combined, sustainable and smart mobility"

Maybe you'll see DNS there presenting about the 3B's and how they encourage active and healthy transportation? (That would be bikes, booze and babes.)

DNS (hearts) Pemberton's Slow Food Cycle

Narrated by David Attenborough.



DA: We can see her, a Deadly Nightshade and Man-shade out of their natural habitat of Vancouver, up in the valley of Pemberton BC, stalking their meal on their bikes.



DA: The Deadly Nightshade discovers Monkey Nuts at Ice Cap farms. Hand-crafted cozys made out of coconut shells.

\

DA: Blackbird Bakery in Pemberton is the best bakery there ever was. It is said that when you toast their Potato Bread with butter it's like eating heaven. YES! They combine the best parts of breakfast (potatoes and toast) and put it in one delicious form. This is a bakery sent to us by the gods as some sort of gift upon us mortals. The Nightsahdes starting off their Pemberton ride with one of these amazing muffins, which gave a good precedent for the rest of the fun-in-the-sun-biking-in-a-beautiful-valley day.



DA: We see here a Deadly Nightshade stopping along side a swarm of other cyclists at Riverdale Farms to take in the food, beverages, artwork and culture that abounds in the Pemberton Valley. She makes a sign to let others know she comes in peace.



DA: Strange message. What are the locals trying to say to the outside world?



DA: Behold the kinetic Bike Art. We see these Pembertonians positioning themselves in the bicycle tribe, by paying homage to Pemberton's vehicle of choice.



DA: What has gone on here?

GROW UP/ Decentralized Dance Party

This happened on August 20th in Vancouver.



The Zenga's presented some amazingly edited visuals of what seemed to be of them growing up, and a lot of antics. They did this to beautiful live music by great musicians. It was awesome.


Vikesh Kapoor


Lead act Saintseneca was mindblowingly amazing. They made you want to dance and cry and laugh and love all at the same time. If you can see them, go. I got their 12" and free download and I feel like I'm the luckiest girl ever to see them in such an intimate setting.

Then after there was the Decentralized Dance Party. I went from Crab Park to Third Beach were there was a massive (and legal) beach rave set up. There were many a fun stop along the way.







It was really fun. Good job Vancouver.

Bikelordz

Bikelordz is a short documentary about the self-taught, self-invented bicycle culture which young people in Accra, Ghana have created and passed on to their younger contemporaries over time. It follows crews of these young bicycle gurus as they try and use their skills to make money, gain recognition, and live on their own terms.

Bikelordz : Stunts and Styles from Accra, Ghana from Bikelordz on Vimeo.

This team needs money to make this movie and their dreams happen! Show some love! <3 $ <3 $ <3

BIKE VANCOUVER!

Vancouver is exploding with bike fun!

Tonight the Zenga's are showing their film GROW UP at the W2. After that is the decentralized bike-dance party. Tomorrow Namtron and I are headed up to Pemberton's slow food cycle. Then on Tuesday there is this Paper Girl event...



It's a make-art, deliver art on your bike project. I have no idea what this really is, but it's a free event at a rad venue and I'm going. I'll report back with photos soon!

xo

BIKES MAKE LIFE BETTER.

fact.

The Great Escape

Great Love <3



By Eduardi Sepulchro

BIANCHI IS MY BOYFRIEND.

Stole this off Prolly's post yesterday for obvious reasons. SWOON! (minus the LV saddle).

BIKE RAP

Just messing around on the Internets, listening to some music. Yesterday I was listening to something in a car while I was moving, and it just made me want to ride my bike.

First, check out our girl Sunny D's new track "Moving" with Stone Tone and Angry Drew.


With this bike related beauty TO native Abdominal won the 2007 Echo Songwriting Prize for the best song in Canadian independent music by the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada.

And this Rye Rye ft MIA song has been in my top rotation since its ACTUALLY BEEN SUNNY in Vancouver this week. Great for riding bikes...


Continuing with the sunshine theme, check out Bliss and Eso's Sea is Rising. Not related to bikes but I can break my own rules. Their group captures a zeitgeist... Check out their Addictions video for some mind blowing graffiti and animation.


And see what Jamie T thinks about riding bikes at the end of Calm Down Dearest...