Postponed - New Dates TBA (Great White Bird Trail - day 1 & 2)

The Gunyah Humpy, the oldest surviving European building in the Sutherland Shire, part of the Sutherland Estate built by Thomas Holt.  

Two rides for May to coordinate with the Hazelhurst exhibition "Wuliwulawala: Dharawal Women Sharing Stories" (17 Apr 2021 - 14 Jun 2021), https://bit.ly/3aTpASD. 

See Rides Page for details. RSVP essential on the Meetup page. 

COVID19 RESTRICTIONS EASING

Our friends at Bicycle New South Wales have just informed us that the restrictions on public gatherings are easing significantly. From now we can safely hold our rides and events provided the safety precautions listed below are adhered to. Molly will be advising of the date for her 'Walk in Sydney Park', and in July we have the Salt Pan Creek Trail for cyclists. Check the Meetup page for details.  Keep safe, Gilbert. Hi ARTcycle, With the easing of COVID-19 restrictions, we hope ARTcycle are enjoying group rides again.

In exciting news, from tomorrow (June 13), groups of 20 will be allowed for non-contact training activities in NSW under the easing of COVID-19 restrictions.

Riding in groups of 10 has been allowed since May 15, but this further increase will be exciting information for many. What does this mean for ARTcycle? You are allowed to exercise in groups of up to 20 in NSW, provided you are following physical distancing.  Follow physical distancing protocols of staying 1.5 meters apart from anyone who does not live in your household. This includes whenever you are riding you must ensure to keep physical distancing when stopping at traffic lights, on narrow streets, overtaking other riders etc.  Stay home if unwell or have any flu like symptoms (cold, fever, running nose, cough) No 'bush hankies' instead of a tissue when out on a ride In order to help you through this challenging time, Bicycle NSW has whole page of resources available and we're always just a phone call away.

All rides and events temporarily cancelled.

https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert

A Walk in The (Sydney) Park

A Walk in Sydney Park

Saturday 6 June 2020

We will meet at 10:45 am in the grassy area at the St Peter’s entrance of the Park for an 11:00 am start.

Guests, fellow walkers, will be offered maps of Sydney Park and choice of drawing implements to use as they walk in Sydney Park to note/draw/record/scribble their experiences and responses.

Walkers will be invited to spend an hour walking alone to explore what interests them and attracts their attention. There is no set route or tour as this is an exercise in individual, creative autonomy. Walkers are invited to end their walks at the start site and have a picnic and opportunity to share their walks and maps with one another.

The picnic can be a BYO or shared plate.

Yahoo, good soaking rain at last. Ride postponed.

Bureau of Meteorology - Friday 9.30am - gonna be like this for days! Great news for firies and farmers and all urban types who keep a plant or two on the go. Droughts and Fires always end with floods and there goes the topsoil.

Rather than swim our way around the Great White Bird Trail test ride this Sunday how about a sleep in and we will see you on Sunday the 23rd Feb. The verges should be fresh and green, perfect for reconnecting with nature and your inner greenie.

Hindsight is 2020 - Emerald City Trail

Time to get back in the saddle and start pumping the Sydney Green Ring again, or as we are going to brand it, the Emerald City Trail. I mean there are so many green this and green that,  most of which are planning devices so we decided the Green Ring needed an iconic name to match its iconic potential.

To help launch the new name there will be three major events for 2020. The Great White Bird Trail, The Salt Pan Creek Trail, and The Emerald City Trail.

The Great White Bird Trail

Test rides: 9 + 16 + 23 Feb, Official rides: 18 + 19 + 26 Apr 2020. See ARTcycle Inc Meetup for details and booking. 

Artist and keen active transport advocate Gilbert Grace is curating a series of rides for ARTcycle Inc in 2020 to mark the 250th year of British colonisation: the good, the bad, the indifferent.

The Great White Bird Trail uses the art of emigre Brit sculptor Michael Kitching and the colonial ambitions of emigre Brit capitalist Thomas Holt to tell the story of dispossession, advancement, and development of Southern Sydney and the Sutherland Shire.

The Great White Bird Trail is divided into two rides. Day 1, from Cronulla to Kurnell then Kogarah (40 km); and, Day 2, Kogarah to Campbell Cove, Sydney (30 Km).

This will be a test ride, in which riders will be able to gain insight into the creation of the ride and offer feedback and corrections. Photography encouraged.

The official ride will coincide with a solo exhibition by Grace in April 2020 in the Broadhurst Gallery at the Hazelhurst Art Centre, Gymea.

The Salt Pan Creek Trail

Test ride: 17 May, Official ride: 19 Jul 2020. See ARTcycle Inc Meetup for details and booking. 

Salt Pan Creek Trail curated bicycle tour. At the turn of the  20th century in the suburb of Peakhurst on the Salt Pan Creek, was a permanent camp of First Australians clustered around two freehold blocks owned by two Aboriginal families, the Rowleys and Andersons (ref: Rivers and Resilience, Heather Goodall and Alison Cadzow,). 

Amongst visitors to the camp were some feisty agitators for Aboriginal rights including artist Lin Onus' father Bill Onus. It is also the locality in which members of ARTcycle spent their childhoods. 

This trail provides an opportunity to conflate personal, subjective narratives within a broader, objective, Australian dialogue of reconciliation.

The Emerald City Trail  

Test ride: 23 Aug, Official rides: NSW Bike Week Sep 2020. See ARTcycle Inc Meetup for details and booking. 

The rebranding of the Sydney Green Ring as the "Emerald City Trail" came about because of the confusion caused by the proliferation of "green" labels promoting active transport, blue+green corridors.

The Emerald City Trail will become an iconic trail to match Melbourne's "Capital City Trail". The Capital City Trail was a long time in the fomenting and took much advocacy to reach the level of acceptance it now enjoys. There is no rational reason (discounting expansionist plans of flight-shamed Sydney Airport) for the Sydney Green Ring / Emerald City Trail not to achieve the same level of public and private acceptance, recognition and government financial support.

To read more about the Trail go to the Sydney Green Ring website. Get in touch if you would like to help promote the Emerald City Trail. It's got 20 years of research and 50 years of practical cycling experience and hundreds of hours and kilometers of hands-on riding backing it.

And it seems the Tide Might Be Turning for the recognition of bicycles as a zero emission form of congestion and budget busting personal transportation. 

Close observation as action

Documentarian Florian Reber traded his desk chair for a bicycle seat

He biked from British Columbia to New Mexico to gather stories for a film about climate change.

From Yale Climate Connections: original story here.

"The Swiss sustainability consultant says he used to spend a lot of time talking about how global warming will affect the world in several decades. He says that’s important for policymakers and corporations.

“But people don’t identify and relate to that,” he says. “So I wanted to focus on what’s happening here and now.”