Building Steam

In preparation for this Sunday's "SteamPunk" bike ride, my daughter Jackie and I thought that the "Art Night" sponsored by Bikeology and held Bikeworks would be  great opportunity to make some bling for our bikes.

Funky is it not?

We had bandied around the idea of riding the tandem since it already has such a retro look to it but we decided that as organizers of the ride, we might want to concentrate on the ride itself and not have to worry about learning to ride a tandem at the same time.

BikeWorks itself was busy and we had to wend our way through the throngs to get to the recycle bins where we might find the "Gold" that would become bike bling.  Karly from Bikeology fashioned for herself a simple but attractive necklace from a sprocket, some beads and a shifter cable.

Karly's necklace

Jackie rummaged around in the discarded metal bin and came up with the idea of making a sort of "necklace" for her front handlebars and added wings made from chainrings to the back of her bike.

The green colour is reflected from the walls

Gear wings on the rear

Myself, I discovered a clever way to make recycled streamers from two old inner-tubes (which in my excitement I forgot to photograph).  An old handlebar connector that I found in the garbage quickly became the device I would use to hold an old railway lantern from the front of the bike (see photo).

What I hope the lantern will look like on the 1963 Triumph

We had a fun time at "Art Night" and just as importantly, we had a two hour bike ride where we could try out our new bike accessories to make sure they wouldn't be falling off during Sunday's ride.