In honor of Bike to Work week, we’re featuring one aspect of bicycle art per day. Yesterday we featured the Derailleurs, a local all-female bicycle dance troupe. Today, we post Part 1 of an interview with Jarico Reesce, founder of the Cyclecide Bike Rodeo. By Molly Freedenberg
Part club, part social group, part roving band of merry misfits, has been delighting audiences – and certainly themselves – with their “Heavy Pedal Cyclecide Bike Rodeo” since 1996. Bound by a love of bikes, beer, and building stuff, the crew has grown from its humble origin as merely the idea of Jarico Reesce into what is now a cohesive, extensive network of rowdy goodness. Now, Cyclecide builds pedal-powered rides and mutant bikes, assembles mini carnivals at events nationwide, hosts contests like barrel racing and bike jousting, and even provides a musical backdrop with a mariachi-country-punk band “Los Banos.”
SFBG: So what is it about the bicycle that’s so inspiring to you?
Reesce: In my opinion, it’s a very versatile machine. It’s something that’s kind of common. And it’s democratic in the sense that it doesn’t have a certain set of people who ride them or do things with them. I also like the geometry of bike frames and the mechanics of the bicycle. I find both very inspiring.
SFBG: And how do you understand what Cyclecide does with the bike?
Reesce: We try to take this common machine and alter it into something that’s different or fun. It’s funny; Some peoples’ mediums of art are painting or sculpting. We’re kind of sculptors of the bicycle — the bicycle is our canvas.