In case you missed it, here’s the first issue of the free monthly BikeBloom newsletter on Substack:

Pick Buttercups

These two words have been on our To Do list every day for the past two months as these sweet little flowers have come, and now just about gone. 

Pick buttercups 

As simple as that. 

And yet, this has meant allotting time. Getting the bikes out. Exploring. Finding a place where buttercups are safe to run wild and free. And discovering, ultimately, that we are safe to run wild and free as well. To let go of self-consciousness. To dance. To cartwheel. Under the power lines. In overgrown lots. In our lives.

That song, Build Me Up Buttercup, permeated the air every time we gathered fistfuls of these so-called “weeds.” Passersby even sang it to us, with us. Our TikToks feature as many versions of it as you can imagine. This night-time discovery, in particular, took our breath away.

And now, the very last patch of our little cheery friends almost done blooming, our collection of dried buttercups rests in a pretty yellow box waiting to adorn the plantable packaging we’ve created for your BikeBloom earrings. Yes, you will grow wildflowers. Maybe not buttercups, but wildflowers. 

As the modern dancer Isadora Duncan so famously said,

You were once wild here. Don’t let them tame you.

Join us. 

Good News in the Bikey World

Our BikeBloom Etsy shop goes live on 2 June (World Bicycle Day).But you are live right now, today. What will you do with this unrepeatable resource of time with which you’ve been gifted? (Update: The BikeBloom Etsy shop is open!) 

If your desire for today involves feeling better (wouldn’t that be nice?!), we can tell you for sure that bikes help. What’s more, most cities are better-for-bike-riding than they were before the pandemic. Some a lot. Some just a little. But better. Moving in the right direction. 

We were just back in Boston for the first time since before (see 5 Tips for Using BikeShare While Traveling). There are cones on the Mass Ave bridge now to provide pop-up protection to people on bikes. Ugly orange cones (for now) that we found beautiful. Any city that tells you this isn’t possible is living in the gutter of failed imagination. 

You don’t belong in your city’s gutter. You are worth more. You know it, and we know it. That’s why all BikeBloom proceeds are used to help more people access and ride bikes in places where they feel free to bloom. See our profiles of people making it more welcoming to ride bikes. See our welcoming routes in Metro Atlanta. See our free bike classes, available around the world. Ain’t no stoppin’ us now. As the Greek poet Dinos Christianopoulos said (and we paraphrase):

They tried to bury us. They didn’t realize we were seeds.

Stuff We Love

We’re not big “stuff” people. But, let’s face it. Some stuff helps, and when it’s made sustainably, it helps the world. We can’t say enough about the upcycled ocean-plastic bike basket that a company sent us (but, my goodness, we tried — see our review here). In fact, you’ll find it featured in lots of our photos. It’s actually called a Plasket, which is fun. Each Plasket redirects a pound of plastic before it gets to our world’s oceans. It snaps on and off easily so we can switch bikes with flair. We rock it (along with our BikeBloom earrings, of course) in the supermarket all the time. Thanks, Electra Bike. 

Poems at the Speed of Bike

Our words start flowing when we get going on a bike. There are even six poems in our book, and we did a guerrilla art exhibit a few years ago with our art studio, 7 MPH. 

How about we share a little poem at the end of each free monthly BikeBloom newsletter? Here’s our latest. Feel free to send us yours! 

After the Rain

Have you noticed after the rain 

How the birds chirp to each other

To check if they’re okay?

Do we check on each other?

Are we okay? 

Find out more about BikeBloom here. Subscribe to the free BikeBloom newsletter at the bottom of this issue on Substack. As always, trust the journey . . .