A community bike ride is taking place in Byron Bay on Saturday, July 7, to celebrate the completion of the Byron Bike Rack project.
The community initiative supported by Stone & Wood Brewery and Byron Shire Council has seen the installation of the sculptural bike racks designed by Bangalow landscapers Larc Collective at four locations around town.
Luke Jones and David Thompson from Larc explained their design saying, ‘The suite of Happy Hoops consists of peace loop, wave window, sun follower and rainbow ring all alluding to the life we live in Byron Bay. The culture of Byron and the northern rivers is deeply rooted around the beautiful environment we live amongst and each of the four elements reflect this.’
The Byron Bike Rack project was a public competition that ran for over two months at the end of last year calling for local residents to enter their designs.
The aim of the competition was to encourage the public to ride rather than drive by creating a set of sculptural, functional, public-art bike racks.
‘Happy Hoops delivered a fantastic entry that ranked highly in all areas of the judging criteria,’ says Sarah Blomkamp from Stone & Wood Brewery.
‘The judges loved the simplicity and sophisticated local iconography; we are stoked at the result. The result is a super fun, simple design – both a complement to the visions of our contemporary, coastal village and an ode to the past that adds to the aesthetics of our town’
Bike ride
Join in the fun and meet at Apex Park at 10am this Saturday, July 7 to ride the sculptural bike rack loop before finishing at the Stone & Wood Brewery for a refreshing beverage. Don’t forget your helmet, water and donation to the Karma Keg at the brewery. All proceeds will go to the Ingrained Foundation.
To dislodge my distrust around this venture, Who paid for the racks to be built and installed????
Great design but we really need other things installed before we as the employers of Council pay for this feel good bike rack, especially when they replaced a No Maintenance Stainless steel rack that did the job.
Hi Wally,
A local & prominent business donated the design and construct cost of the bike racks. We the designers donated our local design time for free. We ensured the manufacturing and powder coating were both done by supporting 2 local businesses (these are in bangalow & ballina). Council told us they are re-using the SS bike racks, that were replaced with ours in some locations. Every effort was made to make this a positive outcome for our community, and at zero cost to tax payers. Thanks.