Bike or Truck?
Off again to the deepest, darkest, indie kid filled oxfordshire countryside for the Mag Rev crew at at Truck 11.
It was also the first outing for our new tall bike! Enjoy the pictures
Magnificent Tallbike
We’ve now got our own tall bike made from carefully hand picked bike junk chopped up and welded back together again!
It wouldn’t have been possible without the guidence of his darkness, Bennitto Chunkolini
“Energy Revolution”
“A new global energy revolution which would completely transform the way we produce and use energy”. Yes, Yes, Mr. Tanakan we’re on it!
The Executive Director from the International Energy Agency (IEA) wasn’t talking about bike power on the 6th of June, but how we use a wide range of other revolutionary technologies to meet the most ambitious IPCC scenario aimed at keeping temperature increases below 2.4°C.
To achieve only a 2.4°C increase, a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions from todays levels will be required by 2050. The lowest cost route, known as the (Energy technology Perspective) ETP BLUE route, explores the technologies and the investment required to achieve this goal. It focuses on four main areas; energy reduction, CO2 capture and storage, renewables and nuclear energy.
MR thanks Mr. Tanakan for highlighting to a large number of powerful people just how much trouble we’re in and for giving them some recommendations for scraping through on the cheap.
MR are looking forward to hearing about the ETP GREEN route which hopefully will be following shortly, be ultra revolutionary, and will at least make passing comment to bike power!
Dis-con-nected
Disconnected. The lights were off, the fancy dress theme was “Human Dynamo”, there was a No Torch, No Entry door policy and it was all powered by bikes! Nice Bikes!
Highlights we’re……..
- Riding the tall bike, both on the night to make some lecki and, the morning after down the street
- Schwabs high energy set (both in terms of enthusiasm and energy consumption)!
- Charlies slick single speed popping a diode which resulted in the bike wheel spinning around with no rider…. spooky
- A man with the head of a deer
- Wearing the deer head
- Staying in London on Sunday for some bank holiday beers
Lowlights were……..
- Paddy looking better on the tall bike than we ever could!
- The system tripping out for the first time ever
- Not finding the fault
- Spending the rest of the night appologising for the system tripping out
- Spending the next week stressing about the system tripping out
- Finding out mid bank holiday beer that your mum is waiting outside your front door and realising in an instant it’s Monday, not Sunday!
All in all. The good way out weighed the bad, and hopefully we’ll be teaming up with human torch sometime soon to do it all over again!
What wood you do?
The people behind the TRUCK festival have given us WOOD as their contribution.
1 week before the festival we discovered that the rig we were suppopsed to power in the tree tent was rated at 5kW. Our calculations indicated that this is 62 bikes! Which left us 51 bikes short and a ,ot of work to do in 7 days. In reality, on testing the rig when we arrived on Thursday, it took just over 1kW of actual power. Just on the limit of a revolution.
After some debate with the organisers the decision was made not to try and power the beast, but instead to run our own smaller party and film tent. Luckily we had brought some wicked 1980s HH speakers kindly leant to us by Mike at Mullet Boy Studios in Cambridge. These monsters somehow only manage to draw 25W for each amp, beautifully efficiency, unlike todays energy wasting amps. Even the ITV Oxfrod news crew were impressed!
An early rise (ahem) on Saturday and some housekeeping and further sign drawing was underway before the bike powered debut of Bellevue Rendezvois.
Saturday night and another impromptu bike powered party. E-festival describes us as, the ” ‘Magnificent Revolution’ tent, with its sound system and lights powered by a row of bicycles, which are, surprisingly, an incredibly popular attraction at all hours of the day and night” SUPRISED! We wern’t……… Party people powering their own music. Beautiful!
Sunny sunday was a blinder and we took on our daytime role of providing child bike based entertainment at this family friendly fest. Taking those enthusiastic watts and using them to power some sunny sunday reggae!
Mr. Adamsky
So we got ourselves a new crew member. His name is Adam and he sure has good looks
. However, that is not the only reason why he is in. We here at MR think that he’s got some talents, is reliable and got a great work ethic…and likes Skatalites. Together with our creative input, he designed our new business cards. Adam and Jasmine are also spearheading our new website too. It’s gonna be sweet. We can’t wait!
Julie’s Bicycle Report
Last weeks day out for the Mag Rev team was spent mingling with music industry professionals and listening to the findings of the Julies Bicycle research team. The highlight for us was Professor Chris Rapleys presentation on climate change…… one of the best and most balanced we’ve ever seen.
The findings of the Julies bicycle team highlighted some of the worst affending areas of the industry, travel (both artist and punter), venue power consumption and cd production. The study was confined to business carried out in the UK and therefor the environmental impact of artists and punters travelling abroad was not included. The report can be downloaded here.
A great “First Step” for the music industry. If the next few steps can be taken in an equally as intelligent and passionate manor, then Julies Bicyle will achieve great things!
Cycling with The Otesha Project UK
We would love to point out some amazing cycling and life changing opportunity that friends of ours are putting together. We would love to go on one of their cycle tours but unfortunately we’re too busy with our pedal power (or too old for it). The Otesha Project UK have put together couple of six week long cycle tours. The idea is that volunteers get on bikes and ride around the country, stopping in schools and festivals, performing a play and running workshops. The play is really funny and explores how our different daily choices have different impacts on the world around us. Basically, Otesha believes that we can change the world we live in, one step at a time doing some practical environmental and social action. Swapping clothes, switching to fair trade that sort of thing. We like Otesha because it’s so non preachy and tries to communicate sustainability in a creative way. Go on ….join their tour http://www.otesha.org.uk/?lid=59
Earth Day
Bit delayed but here. Little bit of background info on what Magnificent Revolution was doing during the Earth Hour few days ago. Appliances off, candles on and here it comes…..pedal power. We set up one bicycle to pedal power a laptop and a small PA. Rocking out human powered tunes. Wicked it was..bit sweaty. Earth Hour is an interesting concept but we believe that the earth deserves more then just AN HOUR. It deserves lot more attention! I hope you agree. Check out the image of our sexy capacitor taken by human powered computer camera during the dark earth hour.
E-Day Launch
Energy Saving Day was intended to show how small energy savings from individuals can make a difference. E-Day was launched outside St. Pauls in central London with some speeches and films powered by yours truly! Our beautiful Babs got her picture on the BBC website. We did an interview for russian tv and various local and international tv and radio stations gave us a mention.
It was a great day, but as we left London and the media circus we were very dissapointed to see every office light in the whole of London seemed to be left on!
E-Day written in candles - nice touch!
St. Paul switches off all its lights….. Bless!
A keen journalist wants a picture of Matt and the Carbon Cycle Crew!
Why are all the lights on in all those offices?
