A great video from Rock the Bike!
..you know I'm still looking for a musician for my bicycle-towed trailer in the parade.. ;)
Some background: Rock the Bike creates and sells cool bicycle products like the Down Low Glow and Audio Systems for your bike. The company was started by Paul Freedman, also known as Fossil Fool, the bike rapper. I own a Down Low Glow myself and LOVE it!
Their advocacy philosophy, which sums up what I strive for, is awesome (bold emphasis is theirs, not mine):
We're bike people. We're inventors and advocates working away in a sweet little workshop in Berkeley, California, pushing the limits of bike culture. Our dream is to help spread the spirit of the bike into the broader culture by organizing, entertaining, inspiring, educating, and inventing new ways to get the message out there. And more importantly, we help our customers spread the message in their communities.
The bike is about so much more than transportation or environmentalism or physical fitness. It's about bringing the element of magic into our communities. You can't ride a bike and not be part of a community. We hope that our inventions and outreach efforts help more people experience this magic.
We're developing a new school of bicycle advocacy, working off of the old writer's adage "Show, don't tell." If you want more people in your community to ride bikes, then get out their and show them how fun, cool, and sexy it is. We make the kind of bikes that make died-in-the-wool car people want to ride bikes. We get pulled over by cops when we're riding. Not because we've done anything wrong. They just want to know where we got our bikes. The 'Sex Appeal School of Bike Advocacy' is not about guilt-tripping and alienating people. It's about shining our light brightly and spreading a positive message in the community.
