A good set of bicycle panniers can cost a chunk of change, but if you’re thinking of heading to the store to pick up a few essentials they’re pretty indispensable. Check out these cheep and easy DIY bicycle panniers you can construct from a couple of reusable grocery bags, some masonite, and a bungee.
The day before Maker Faire Bay Area opened, we ran into Kurt and Bobbi Pires putting the finishing touches on a unique quadricycle in the South Lot of the fairgrounds. Dubbed Opabinia Regalis, the vehicle is named after an extinct Precambrian creature and has now been reborn as an angry, fire-spewing art bike.
Philadelphia area maker Jenn Hall improved the visual quality of her motorcycle helmet by turning it into a R2D2 helmet. The process included scuffing up the existing paint job and adding consecutive coats of spray paint and laboriously cut masking tape. The whole thing is finished off with some PVC tubing, some blinking lights, and plenty of clear coat. What a great way to liven up an otherwise mundane safety apparatus.
Since most urban cyclists can never be sure what they’ll be locking to, they’ll often keep both a chain and a U-Lock for versatility’s sake. If you had an extra twelve pounds to make your bike theft-proof, how would you do it?
New York City is often analogized as a “concrete jungle.” For me that might be very fitting, as I often find myself hunting makers, But unlike a machete-wielding jungle-clearing Amazonian, my approach usually involves asking questions such as “What does this do?” and “How’d you make that?” So earlier this week, I was out for a lunchtime stroll when I spotted this guy Tucker on his bike.
Anyone who’s tried it knows that “pipe” or “tube welding” is an art that takes a while to master. This outstanding phototutorial by Amy Qian won’t substitute for the hours of practice needed to draw a good bead around a fishmouth seam, but if you’ve got the chops…
Bike Fixation, run by Chad and Alex of Minneapolis, MN, manufactures Bike Fixtation, a bicycle repair kiosk consisting of a vending machine selling drinks, inner tubes, patch kits, and other stuff, a free air compressor and free tools connected by cables to a bike rack. [Via core77]
