AlienRides decks out a Burley trailer connected to an e-scooter with our bike lights and then cruses around San Francisco. Nice project!
MonkeyLectric Blog
Ben Madary of CycleWorks in Lake Jackson, Texas recently reached out to us, inquiring about our Cat Rainbow Butt Limited Edition M232s. We wanted to know more about his shop, and he happily answered some of our questions.
A lot of folks think it'd be cool to run their own shop one day. How’d you get into running a bike shop?
I learned to work on bikes as a kid. I worked at our local bike shop when I was 14-15 years old and learned how to work on bikes then. I always dreamt of owning a bike shop one day and my awesome wife helped me make it a reality.
How did she help you make it happen?
She worked full time as a nurse which allowed us to utilize her health insurance while I went back to school to get my business degree. She was the one who encouraged me to quit my full time job to do something I loved. I had gotten to a point in my previous career, where stress had me sick significantly more than I have ever been in my life. It had also led to me gaining about 20 pounds.
Our bike wheel lights are definitely not traditional. What makes your shop unique?
We try to do things a little differently, we focus heavily on our community and its needs. Our staff helped start a local weekly social ride that helps riders get into cycling in a non-threatening casual environment. We get anywhere between 10-40 riders weekly that do the social ride and they are always doing fun themed rides.
We also partner with a local college to get students who need transportation onto bikes that have been donated to our store. So far we’ve gotten around 20 bicycles into the program.
We have a 3x7 foot table on the sales floor where anyone is welcome to come in and hang out, eat their lunch, have a cup of our coffee or just read a book. Had a guy in today who hung out and worked on a college project.
Why do your customers buy Monkey Lights?
Many of our customers who buy monkey lights have seen them on a bike during the social rides and had to have them. We also sell them as a great safety item. During the short daylight hours of fall/winter, its a great way to be able to go riding at night and still be seen.
Tell us a bit about your shop’s community.
We have a vast array of people in our shop daily, from people who utilize their bikes as their only mode of transportation by choice, also by necessity, to avid road and triathlete riders, to families who just want to get out and ride their bikes together. We try to make everyone fall in love with cycling as adults like they did as kids. Our community has rallied around us since we opened almost 2.5 years ago and they continue to support us and we are incredibly thankful they choose to.
Thank you, Ben, for taking the time to answer some of our questions.
If you've got a story to share, we'd love to hear from you. Please get in touch!
2x M232R Limited Edition: Pink Donut
The pink donut M232R is our latest in our new series of custom M232Rs. For each release, we manufacture a short run of lights with a special pattern or theme.
A M232 or M232R normally comes with 42 built-in themes. One of the themes is the Monkey Light logo. In this limited-edition light, the Monkey Light logo has been replaced by a pink (or white) donut. The color of the icing can be toggled by pressing the color button while the donut theme is selected.
Regular Monkey Lights are available in your local bike shop or online, while these limited-edition offerings will only be sold on our web shop.
We’ve gotten a few questions, so here’s the FAQ so far:
Do lights in stores or elsewhere online have the custom patterns?
Unfortunately not, the limited-edition lights are only currently available in our web shop.
Do these lights still show other patterns?
Yes, the “normal” patterns: hearts, skulls, lightning, fireballs, and so on, are still installed in the light. Press the Theme button to change patterns.
Do you still have the Earth lights available?
The Earth lights were our previous limited-edition offering. They’re sold out. We may re-release them in the future, but we don’t have plans to do so currently.
There is a whole lot of food waste in the U.S., and a huge incidence of food insecurity, particularly in lower-income neighborhoods. Denver Food Rescue has stepped into this chasm and is working towards a world in which race, geography and income do not determine a person’s health. DFR is a small non-profit organization that collects high quality produce from grocery stores, farmers markets, etc. and redistributes it (all on bicycles,for the most part!) to community groups throughout the Denver area. Their chief fundraising event is the Food Rescue Ride, a casual and costumed bicycle ride through Cherry Creek State Park. This year it falls on Saturday, August 25. Riders can choose their challenge: a 15 or 30 mile course, with or without a 100 pound trailer, and are encouraged to come dressed as their “favorite fruit or vegetable.”
You can register here!
The ride will kick off at 9:00am after a breakfast of bagels and coffee from Rosenberg’s Bagels and Delicatessen and Pablo’s Coffee (the breakfast will start at 8). A lunch party featuring beers from Ratio Beerworks will ensue post-ride as well! DFR is giving away two rechargeable Monkey Lights, an M210R and an M232R during the festivity.
We spoke with Amy Moore-Shipley, Denver Food Rescue’s Development and Marketing Coordinator, to learn more about DFR and the plight of food waste and distribution.
How did Denver Food Rescue come about?
DFR was born out of Boulder Food Rescue when their founders saw a TON of fresh produce was being thrown away at grocery stores. Yet 1 in 6 Coloradans are food insecure and lack access to fresh healthy food. BFR realized more fresh produce could be saved if it was redistributed directly from the food donor to a food recipient organization – instead of going to a warehouse to be sorted and then sent back out to recipients. And to keep financial and environmental costs low, bicycles and trailers were used for food rescue!
Can you explain your mission?
Our mission to increase health equity is an attempt to get deeper to the root of food insecurity. We know there is enough food – we throw away a 1/3 of what is produced! But what we don’t have are living wages for families to pay the bills AND purchase healthy food for their families – it can be a struggle to even buy food – and the food that is accessible for free or at a low cost is often highly processed, low nutrient dense foods that cause illness! We believe that healthy food should be available to all regardless of your zip code, race, or class.
What astounds you the most about food distribution?
The politics of food rescue and food banks. Check out a book called Big Hunger by Andrew Fisher. He exposes corporate ties to the hunger movement and Feeding America and addresses why food insecurity hasn’t change in America the last 50 years even though record amounts of food is being donated and distributed.
What do you think are 3 easy things people can do to prevent food from going to waste?
1. Don’t buy too much food! Plan your meals and try to go to the grocery store every couple of days — but this is a privilege!
2. Learn how to use all parts of a food item e.g. the proverbial carrot top pesto or saving veggie scraps in the freezer for broth – learn how preserve and use all food that comes your way.
3. Compost.
Photo courtesy Denver Food Rescue
How many people work for your non-profit? What’s a day in the life like at DFR?
We have 5 staff members. We all share a one room office in the historic Five Points neighborhood. We’re either working hard on our own individual projects or deep in conversations on food politics, race & class, or what we’re doing in our free time. It’s pretty hard core family vibes around here where we support and lift one and other up.
What are you looking forward to most about the Denver Food Rescue Ride?
The party and awesome vendors – great food and drinks and prizes and community!
What are your goals for the event?
That we continue to lay the foundation for an inclusive event for all levels of cyclists that continues for many years to come and becomes a noteworthy Denver event.
What kind of turnout do you expect?
We hope to double our riders this year to 200!
What’s the biking scene like in Denver?
Well mountain biking and cycling outside of city limits is robust but within city limits I’d say we need safer and more bike lanes and we need to work on relations between riders and cyclists ‘cause tensions can be high!
What is your favorite thing about your job?
That I am working for a nonprofit fighting against the non-profit industrial complex and traditional anti-hunger movements.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Support radical, grassroots, community led organizations in your town! Also bikes rule – especially bikes with illuminated wheels. 🙂
Thank you, Amy and the Denver Food Rescue for your efforts. Keep making the magic happen and have a very mirthful ride!
Maker Faire Bay Area is a really great opportunity to show off the interactive technology that we’ve been working on. It’s also a trill to see and hear about new ideas from attendees and Maker exhibits.
Here’s what caught our attention:
TapGlo Ping Pong
We’re a little biased because they were our booth neighbors, but what a cool take on the ping pong game. This special light-up table can sense where a ball lands and can change the color of squares accordingly. You can then play games where you try to hit the ball onto certain areas of your opponent’s side of the table. A funny side effect was that dozens of ping pong balls ended up in our booth, which we were happy to pass back over. This was a hit with the crowd too. We wish we had a chance to play more, but the lines were too long!
Ritual Coffee
Ritual is here every year with their fabulous Sputnik coffee trailer, keeping us caffeinated during our long days at the show. Drip, cold brew, lattes, and espresso all from one of the best coffee roasters out there.
Furrion Exo-Bionics Mech
Totally didn’t expect to see anything so crazy this year. The human pilot on this Furrion mech gave walking a go for the first time on asphalt. We watched it lurch forward with hesitant, massive, and suspense-filled baby steps. The mech mirrors movement of the human pilot, so there’s a huge learning process involved, which we had the opportunity to view real-time.
LED Luminescent Grand Piano
The this light-art piano’s coolness was only exceeded by the talent of the piano players. It was a pleasure to hear your music, William! Thank you for Luminescent Grand!
Rabid Transit
Steampunk meets singed eyebrows. Loud and fire-y and very unique.
Rock the Bike
A pedal-powered stage. All of the power generated from Rock the Bike’s special bikes is transferred to the stage to keep the music coming!
Unusual Cards
Pizza Jesus. It’s always a pleasure to see these Unusual Cards.
Chronos Camera
The Chronos camera by Kron Technologies represents ultra-high speed photorgraphy made available to normal folks who can’t spend $18k on a camera. They stopped by our booth and gave us a live demo of our Monkey Light Pro in slowmo. Very cool.
Burn Hot Sauce
https://www.instagram.com/p/BiU3Ij4B0aY/?taken-by=burnhotsauce
Aaron went by the Burn Hot Sauce booth, and seems really enthusiastic about their variety of organic, fermented hot sauces. He bought three different kinds and says his favorite is the Bulgarian Carrot Pepper sauce, but the Serrano and Golden Cayenne are also pretty great. The Agave spirit barrel-aged, fermented sauce apparently had a “really interesting flavor”, and he’ll probably check out their chili powders and pickles at some point.
Thanks for a great show!
It was a pleasure seeing all these other makers in action. Until next year!
A little different
Maker Faire 2018 was a different experience this year. In the past, the dark room was set up in the larger Fiesta hall. This year, we were located in Redwood hall. It’s quite a bit smaller. The vibe was a little different, but we had a grand time as usual with our interactive exhibits: The Selfie Bike, The Speed Bike, and Draw on the Wheel.
We felt a little caged in with the chain-link, but got along just fine at our booth. The show got off to a somewhat humorous start when the electrical contractor cut the overhead lights and power. No big deal though. Fifteen minutes later, we were back in business.
Selfie Bike
Our Selfie bike was powered by one Monkey Light Pro and a bike on a trainer, and an implementation of our API for the Monkey Light Pro. We transferred photos from an iPad to a Macbook for image processing and then sent the images over to the Monkey Light Pro via Bluetooth. We took photos of volunteers in the crowd, and then they got the unique opportunity to see their face lit up on a bike wheel in full-color LEDs.
Our “normal” bike lights
We also put our M204, M210, and M232 on our wheel spinners for full display. We brought along our new USB rechargeable battery pack, which was funded via Kickstarter, and is now a reality thanks to Kickstarter backers. We also displayed our newest models, the M204R, M210R, and M232R.
Draw on the wheel
Our Draw on the Wheel exhibit is a great one for kids: They can draw their own art on a paper wheel, and once again, using our API, we put their image into a spinning bike wheel. We scan the image with a standard flatbed scanner, then do some image processing, and then run a Perl script to send images up to the wheel.
Speed bike
Our newest exhibit was the speed bike, which featured the first public debut of a prototype A15 light. This is one of the lights from our most recent Kickstarter, and is still in its development. The light turns on automatically when the wheel spins, and can change colors depending on how fast you are riding. While their kids were pedaling, some parents joked about this being the only way to get them some exercise! These lights are not available yet. When they are, Kickstarter backers will get first dibs, and then we’ll make it available to the general public.
Thanks for stopping by!
Thanks for visiting our booth, if you were able! It’s always great to share our experience with our lights and to share some good conversation with you all!
