During the 2011 season the BBL has been modified due to flooding on the Missouri River.  The route will tour the Historic Vinton District, 16th and Vinton, 16th Street Mall, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Kaneko, Old Market, Bob Kerry Pedistrian Bridge, NoDo, Creighton University, Joslyn outdoor sculpture garden, Durham museum.

Total Distance 12 miles.

Total Time: 2 hours.

Thank you Bill for keeping the spirit of the BBL alive in 2011!

http://www.omaha.com/article/20100805/NEWS01/708059858

The cost is $55 for the 9 hour course.

Find out more information here:

http://www.bikeleague.org/cogs/programs/education/course_detail/3853

If you have any questions please email Stephen Draper, the instructor.

Public Art Bike Rack in Portland Oregon - How about in Council Bluffs IA or Omaha NE?

London’s bicycle highway system opened today.  Portland has neato public art bike racks. Cities are beautifying their landscapes and supporting the option to ride for transportation.

We have a great deal of interest in public art around these parts lately.  Both Omaha and Council Bluffs are plopping monolithic sculptures around our towns.  I am sure they will continue to do so for the forseeable future.

How can we think differently about public art – how do we connect urban beautification with urban functionality? Bike racks designed by artists is a way, the Metro Bike Blast project facilitated the creation of a number of them last year.  We need more, and definitely need them on the Council Bluffs side of the river.  But what about bicycle lanes?

Imagine two cities connected by a pedestrian bridge with streets painted like a Barnett Newman or Mondrian,  bicycle highways of every color sprucing up the urban landscape, adding functional and forward thinking transportational conduits that signify 21st century thinking — and that are perhaps even designed by artists?

Bicycles and Public Art?

BBL riders on 10th St. Wouldn't riding be more fun on a brightly painted bicycle highway?

Preparing to ride the BBL, Saturday July 10, 2010

Mike Krainak did a great review of Hopey Changey Things  a few weeks back.  I am proud to say that I think some of the most critical comments I have seen Krainak write in recent times are about the Bancroft Bayliss Loop.  Having your work described as “not art” is every intermedia artist’s dream.  Take a moment to read the article.

The BBL is not a video on the wall, or a google map but an experience.  These elements are documentation  in the gallery at  Hopey Changey Things, and are merely that, documentation of an experiental work of art. Boring? Likely to some. That’s ok.  Hesse Mcgraw was quoted a few weeks back in One Magazine quoting Klaus Oldenberg “I am for an art that does more than sit on its a** in a museum”.

http://www.designtaxi.com/news/32343/Never-Mind-the-Locks-Wrap-Your-Bike-Around-Anything/?page=4

I like you Kevin Scott. You make great things.

Bike repair station outside New Pioneer Coop - Iowa City Iowa

One sometimes hears, in critiques of bringing bicycling in a bigger way to American cities, something along the lines of “that might work in Europe, but it will never work here.” But the preponderance of cycling didn’t just happen in Amsterdam or anywhere else—it was the result of a politically nonexpedient, concerted effort. Now, that refrain has often shifted to something like, “Well, that might work in Portland, but it wouldn’t work in a city like (insert your city here).” Who knows where it won’t work next?

Josiah Bartlett, Founding Father and Signer of the Declaration of Independence

One City recently held a bike only Sunday, another is banning bicycles altogether. It is the great American experience.  My grandfather from eons ago, Josiah Bartlett, was a founding father and signer of the Declaration of Independence.  

Two years ago I went to Philadelphia for the first time.  As I was walking down the sidewalk ogling the architecture, I stopped and noticed plaques of our founding fathers below my feet.  

Eerily, somehow I had stopped directly at Josiah’s.   

A copy of the Constitution of the United States came home in my daughter’s back pack from camp this week.  Is the right of the individual or the right of the masses more important?  I continually swing back and forth. Recently I have been voting all over the place, which  makes me a real Iowan.  For now, I am on the side that outlawing bicycles seems illogical and near-sighted, and celebrating bicycles seems pretty darn fantastic.   

and 

by the way

Happy Independence Day.