Cycling Awareness and public Art

A friend of mine from grad school passed the following on to me and it sounds like something a lot of us cycling-minded types might be into. Give it a read and, if you can, give them a little support or pass along the information to other cycling/triathlon nuts.

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Two of my friends in Brooklyn have invented this great accessory for bicycles that creates a sort of trail/path/public artwork from the routes that your bicycle takes. They call it Contrail. They have started a Kickstart page in order to raise the funds to get their product into production. As of this writing, they have a little under $3,600 left to raise and just 9 days to do it, or they will not receive any of the $6,400 that's already been pleged to them. I'm writing to you because I think many of you may be interested in purchasing this product at some point in the future, or at least may be eager to support a device that not only would help distinguish high-traveled bike lanes, but would be a useful and necessary tool in group rides. In fact, they plan on donating most of their first batch to charities and non-profit organizations for just that purpose!



In the inventors' words:

Contrail is a public art project that celebrates shared spaces, helps make bicycling safer and more fun. Contrail attaches to your bicycles and, as you ride, the device leaves a colorful chalk trail behind you. Contrail uses washable, non-toxic chalking fluid made from eco-friendly pigments. Like a jet’s contrail, the lines on the road will fade with time and rain.

If they get the $10,000 goal, their funds will go to:

$5,700 A down payment on the tooling to make the housing and the gears.

$2,800 To pay for the first 2000 pieces, half of which will be donated to non-profits.

$1,000 To visit the factory in order to ensure that everything is built to our standards.

$1,500 To help coordinate and promote our first non-profit partnership event.



Please visit their site to get a better idea of the design and how it works. If you feel compelled, consider donating at least $5. More would help of course, but the price of a Happy Meal could make these two creative minds VERY happy!

http://www.bikecontrail.com/

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pepin/contrail-bicycle-community-tool


Please also pass this along to anyone you may think would be interested in supporting. Blog, tweet, post, whatever. Time's running out!