Burning Man - Tiger Art Bike
I’ve long wanted to make some sort of fun art bike, and finally built one for Burning Man this year. I had so much fun riding around the playa on the tiger bike, and lots of friends in camp appreciated how easy it was to spot the fiber optic tail (one of those rave whip lights I taped on to the back) when we were riding around at night.
It started with a beach cruiser that I picked up off of craigslist. The wider tires, and more upright riding position of the beach cruiser make for a more comfortable playa bike. It also had a kick stand on which I put a tennis ball to keep it from digging in to the playa which helps a lot when parking. It does have a rear derailleur, which is a common source of broken bike woes on the playa, but I didn’t have any issues with it this burn. The playa dust is extremely fine and gets in and on everything, so the simpler the mechanics the more reliable time you’ll generally have. Also, keeping the wide tires under-inflated helps both give a smoother ride and avoids flats as the sun and high temperatures cook the bike during the day.
It also had a happy-sounding “get out of my way” bell, which quickly got filled with playa dust and was a source of joy as it slowly stopped working. Well, it kept working but not on-demand. The dust froze up the little ringer thumb lever which I eventually accidentally MOOPed while riding one night as the plastic failed and snapped off and disappeared into the night. The bell, however would then randomly start jingling from time to time from bumps in the playa - a wonderful little happy song emanating from the nuances of dust.
I bought some tiger stripe fur from my wonderful local fabric and crafts shop Stitches and spent between 30-40 hours meticulously cutting and glueing the fabric on the frame. I was careful to keep the mechanical bits accessible so that I could service the bike without having to remove the fur.
Another in-progress fur-ing photo. I’d originally planned to put tiger stripes on all the pieces of the back frame/rack but ended up liking how the original blue paint went with the other tiger furred pieces so I kept some parts exposed.
I had planned to make a more elaborate tail to the tiger bike but ran out of time before the burn, so I ended up taping one of those fiber optic rave whips onto the rear of the bike as a tail-like attachment. It worked really well for visibility and lighting aesthetic, though the batteries generally only lasted for one night’s worth of riding around. Adding more lights to it will be a fun extension project for next year.
I loved both making the bike and riding it around. The tiger bike definitely brought myself a lot of joy and drew a nice range of happy comments and compliments as I rode around, so I think it spread some joy to others as well :)