Meet Ben on My Bike Earring Ride!

I make upcycled handcrafted vegan-leather earrings out of old bike tubes,* bike chains, and bike brake pad hardware (retail cost: $35 a pair/wholesale cost: $25 a pair in limited micro-batch orders of 10 pairs/every $150 in proceeds enables me to offer 1 free bike class** — connect with me here). Today I swung by REI to see if the bike repair shop there had some more old tubes (they did). I met Ben (see photo above — he’s Today’s Nice Stranger), who told me he loves my work and that he gave a pair of earrings I had brought there (as a thanks for the tubes) to his girlfriend. He was in luck again, because I had another pair to give!

I then popped in to Goodwill to see if they had any “Survival Couture” — this is the name I’ve given to the apparently magical yellow clothes that supposedly protect you while on your bike in dangerous-by-design cities. I found this fun yellow shirt, and bonus surprise — it’s Senior Discount Tuesday! Saved me a buck or two! (And yep, I’m rockin’ my PeopleForBikes Ridespot Ambassador swag! See this ride on the Ridespot app, and follow me there for more fun!)

And then off to Michael’s for some more earring fish hooks and jump rings! (That’s fun earring-making jargon!) I then stopped at Panera for their delicious veggie sandwich on the way home, thereby hitting a total of 3 of the less-than-2-dozen bike racks in my city’s 12 square miles! (#BikesMeanBusiness, even more so when ridden by women, but not everyone has gotten the memo, and the city does not require bike parking.)

Note that 2 of the 3 bike racks are too close to brick walls 🤷‍♀️. (Here’s a User’s Guide to riding a bike in the Metro Atlanta city of Dunwoody, if interested, with some info that’s helpful everywhere. I’ll add my bike rack spreadseet with user-experience reviews shortly.)

And yes, yes, I know. Everyone asks about BikeNoodle. Here ya go — the facts, a video, a catchy little song you can sing, a sticker . . .

I even found a stuffed football turkey along the way (see photo below), just fending for itself out there in the big world. Maybe I should buy it some Survival Couture . . .

Here’s how the yellow-lined earrings came to be. (There are also solid black ones and ones with white lines, in two different feather shapes and differing hardware combinations.)

@speedofbike
Got more old #biketubes from @REI to #UpCycle into #handcrafted #vegan #leather #bikewaste earrings. Thanks, REI!
♬ original sound – #TrustTheJourney