Urban Jacksonville

It’s a big week for bike events. This weekend is the Night Ride and they need volunteers:

Just an hour or two of your time is all that is required and most of it can be done while you are out enjoying the different festival happenings. None it requires anything in the way of labor or heavy lifting. If you can help out email bikejax@gmail.com

1. I need a couple of people to split time and help out at Fuel (festival central)
2. I need a couple of people to hawk raffle tickets throughout the day. (Can be done while out enjoying the fest.)
3. I am going to need several ride guides for The Night Ride itself.
4. I am in need of a couple of people with digital video cameras that would be willing to document the event in all of it’s glory.

Here is the massive Night Ride schedule. The Night Ride is a day long celebration of the bicycle and it’s rider. All events are Free to all that attend and are held throughout Riverside and Five Points.

• Bike Art Show – All Day @ Flux Galley – Creations of Local And Not So Local Artists Held at Flux Gallery.
• Bike Tour of Bold City Brewers – Noon to 5 PM – Celebrate the Opening of Bold City Brewery With a Tasty Bike Tour. Tours are on the hour every hour Noon thru 5 PM.
• Bike Film Festival – Starting 1 PM @ Fuel – Features and Shorts staring the bike and those who ride it. Films will be running thoughout the day starting 1 pm at Fuel in Five Points.
• Bike Polo – 1 – 2 PM
• Woman’s Workshop – 2 PM @ Jax EBikes – A ladies only workshop. Learn how to maintain your bike along with basic repairs from the gang at Zombie Bikes CoOp.
• Bike Polo – 3 – 4 PM
• Bike Maintenance Workshop – 4 PM @ Jax EBikes – A workshop open to all. Learn how to maintain your bike along with basic repairs from the gang at Zombie Bikes CoOp.
• 70′s Theme Costume Contest – 5:00 PM @ Fuel – Funkyist Male & Female Receive a hand made bomb proof Burro Bag.
• Raffle – 5 PM @ Fuel – Sweet swag from the fine merchants in Five Point and Jacksonville Area Bike Shops.
• The Night Ride – Ride starts 6:30 PM – The Night RIde is the culmination of our day long celebration of the bike. I hope you will make plans to join us on this epic event for and about cyclists. Where: Riverwalk Under the Fuller Warren Bridge When: leaving at 6:30 PM Oct. 11th
• 8:00 PM – Bike Films @ Fuel

On to other bike related events. Yes, there are more.

Burro Bags is planning a birthday party for this January
Movie Night! Tomorrow Night at Zombie Bikes: 12-4 and MOVIE NIGHT at the shop bring blankets/chairs we’ll be watching Quicksilver at 8pm

I got to thinking “why aren’t there any bike lanes on Main Street?” Seems like a no brainer, so I asked and here’s what I found out.

Main Street is a four lane, State and Federal Highway which carries so much more traffic than 8th Street that it is considered unsafe to allow bike lanes.

SPAR inquired about incorporating bike lanes in the Main Street construction plans, but the FDOT would not approve them. Jerks.

Update: Johnny’s Ghost Bike
The crossing signal where Johnny Jones was killed while crossing the street on his bike was faulty.Watch the video here. Within 20 minutes, the city sends someone out to fix it as WTLV is taping a story. Go citizen journalism!

What Can Jacksonville Learn from Portland, Maine?
Portland gives us the opportunity to see what an urban core can resemble when we work to improve our existing landscape, with affordable elements, such as clear wayfaring signage, well-design parks and most of all…. designing for the pedestrian first.

Burro Bags just posted a huge update on their blog. Highlights include:

• Yesterday we moved in a screen printing shop that opens up a lot of opportunity to make some damn good looking product.
• More ROOM – We are making our bags slightly larger in every size.
• Vegan friendly – Our original leather tag with ‘Burro’ hand burned into each one will be set aside as an option. We are replacing it with cloth tags.
• Adjusting straps – Adding finger loops to the ends
• Visibility is a concern – Screen printing our bags with reflective paint
• Screen printing – Handfuls of bag will be up with artwork by local artists printed on the outside and maybe inside. We’re going crazy with this.

Don’t forget the Dog and Pony show Sight Sound this Friday at the Art Institute

We’re having an opening THIS Friday from 5-8pm and we’ll be showing almost everything we’ve created since we started doing these awful screen prints in December.

Directions to the Art Institute
95 to Baymeadows.
West on Baymeadows.
Right at 2nd light (Baymeadows Way)
Right at 1st light (Baypine Road)
Follow that around to the parking garage, gallery is right there.

Nest Living is having a huge clearance sale from now until August 5th. Up to 50% off on floor model furniture and lighting.

Barack Obama Campaign Headquarters Grand Opening Party Tonight
I posted this right before I started writing this update, so I want to reiterate. Go Tonight and have Beers for Obama. Disclaimer: there may or may not be beers which you may or may not be able to drink.

Group art show at Bogda in Riverside this Saturday

Royal Treatment Records, Burro Bags, Zombie Bikes and gone, but not forgotten, Inertia. That’s what most people call 1520 Main Street in Springfield. Hardly anyone ever calls it The Buyers Market Lodge, but that was the original name, current name, future name, who knows. Tony Allegretti gives a nice history of The Buyers Market Lodge. Long live Main Street! Here are a few excerpts:

The Buyers Market Lodge was a concept/brainchild/idea that Triclops (owner of some bar on 6th – Shantytown) and I and our benevolent landlord (SRG) came up with to do three things. (1) Create a “place” on Main St, (2) create a few no to low paying green collar jobs, and (3) create a shopping experience of simple yet sometimes hard to find things the new urbanist (really any body, but it sounds sweeter) would want and need.

Matt and Chris (Burro Bags) hand craft these custom bags to your specs (if you wish) and they use recycled materials. Right now they’re kickin vinyl from billboards. Who said clear channel was rubbish? Now you can wear clear channel’s rubbish! They also pad bags for electronics/computers etc.

the real soft spot in my heart is the zombie bikes. These guys are solid. My daughters bike was swiped and she is just learning to ride. I dropped in to the shop (its like the taxi teevee show only greasier) and walked out with a spider man special. Under $20 and built to spill.

Thanks for the history lesson Tony!

More on The Buyers Market Lodge Complex
Polo Is My Life – Bury Your Bike Festival

I talked with Matt Bort the 1st and Chris Williams from Burro Bags, a messenger bag store in Springfield. Burro Bags is having their grand opening this Friday, May 16th from 6:00 to 10:00 at 1520 Main Street in Springfield.

Podcast Episode #15: Burro Bags Grand Opening May 16th (42:56)
Subscribe to the Urban Jacksonville podcast

Chris

Matt

All Photos courtesy of JaxScene. Also this is the first post by contributor Jon Bosworth.

While many hood rats were sleeping off their hangovers from First Friday in Five Points, the dead were rising in Springfield. You may have spotted some of them, walking… or rather riding among the living at First Friday because Friday was day one of the free Bury Your Bike Festival.

A subculture is rising in Springfield. Even after the sad departure of Inertia Records (don’t worry, Royal Treatment Records is selling Days of War Nights of Love on their behalf), the ironic fashions and deeply held ideals thrive on. Replacing Inertia Records is Zombie Bikes, a bicycle collective and a bike shop that welcomes you to come to customize your ride among fellow enthusiasts.

We are just adamant bikers that wanted a bike shop that we’d like going to said Zombie Bikes’ founder Devin Wolf. 

This most recent tenant puts the building at 1520 N Main Street at capacity, since only a few weeks ago Burro Bags also opened their shop inside of the space. What was once being tentatively referred to as Buyers Market Lodge is truly living up to that name. But rather than being a traditional commerce center, it is more like a community center where recycled materials are being made into useful luggage, old records are being re-sold to new fans, and old bike parts are being brought back from the dead and returned to the street.

I spoke with Devin Wolf while he was busy welding two children’s bikes into one medium-tall bike. I presume he was doing this so that this bike could enter the tall bike race that would happen tomorrow. According to Wolf he was one of the people responsible for the tall bike movement in St. Augustine and now we can expect them to be invading the streets of Jacksonville.

The tall bike trend has arrived, Wolf proclaims. We’re definitely gonna make an impact on the community. 

I didn’t catch the tall bike race, but I did get to watch some of the bike polo tournament on Saturday. It was brutal. From seeing shirtless dudes fly over the front of their bike as their wheel jackknifed to seeing an ambitious player fly wildly into the a busy mid-day Main Street, it was nerve racking, but the players seemed to be capable of striking the small rubber ball with their oddly long mallets without striking one another. Bystanders had lawn chairs and beers. It was like tailgating but with more tattoos and an uncommon sense of community.

Following the bike polo was a Zombie hunt, wherein painted tires were hidden all over the city and participants raced around trying to collect the most. Other activities included a bike build-off at Wild Bill’s (a rather surly bar near the stadium) a bike toss and a dirt jump.

Zombie Bikes has a workshop with pipe cutters, welding equipment, tools and plenty of spare parts. Zombie has the sort of vibe that makes a welcoming place to hang. There are couches and a television and plenty of workspace. Resurrect your bike at Zombie Bikes. Go to zombiebikes.com to learn more.

As for Burro Bags, they’ve only been open for a few weeks but they are already managing to crank out a substantial collection of custom luggage. Spend as little as $40 for a small bag or get a $200 large custom bag. In addition to courier satchels and smaller bags, they also make bags from recycled vinyl fast food promotional banners and other reclaimed materials. They hope to soon introduce wallets. Check out burrobags.blogspot.com.

Burro owners Chris Williams and Matt Bort live in the same house as some of the Zombie Bike guys, so being neighboring businesses has just become an extension of their home and the partnership is flowering into something much more significant. It is just another evolution as Springfield grows its own distinct personality and brings Jacksonville another step closer to being the kind of community that can sustain a variety of interests, the way a big city should.

More Photos
Bike Jax’s Bury Your Bike pics
JaxScene’s Bury Your Bike pics

I think it’s pretty awesome there is someone making messenger bags in Jacksonville. It’s even more awesome they are doing it 6 blocks from my house. Burro Bags is:

bur-ro – n. A small donkey, especially one used as a pack animal. Our materials, fabrics, fasteners, buckles, are American and we assemble every bag: cutting, sewing, outfitting…

I was checking out Antarctic at TSI Wednesday night when I ran into Burt told me all about the bags. He showed me his bag and let me know they also make hip-bags, six pack bags, frame pads and u-lock holders.

If you don’t know how a messenger bag differs from any other bag here’s the difference: messenger bags stay put on your back when you’re riding a bike. The first time I rode my bike to work 4 years ago with a normal bag, I spent the whole ride, moving the bag from my stomach to my back. I hate the way backpacks look so I’ve been all about messenger bags ever since.

I’m in the market for a new bag so this is the perfect opportunity to support some local business and get what appears to be a bad-ass bag. To place an order email burrobags@gmail.com. I’ll have more on Burro Bags after I get my bag. Until then you can check out Burro Bags on Flickr.