The Quinquennial of Aloha Fixed.

Aloha Fixed wants to be your friend.

“Aloha Fixed duplicated SF Fixed in the sense that it was message board to get people riding fixed-gear together,” explains Ryan Lau. Having spent the previous years in San Francisco - where the ridership of fixed-gears was burgeoning - Ryan conceived Aloha Fixed in late 2007. Because of the immediate popularity of a convenient online meeting place, Honolulu fixed-gear bicyclists flocked towards the brand.

It was Franz Bruggemeier that helped Ryan find his first bicycle in San Francisco, “a Eddy Merckx Windsor with full Campy components for four hundred dollars.” An avid skateboarder, Ryan found bicycling as a way to commute around town. In those early days Ryan would befriend other San Francisco skateboarders turned fixed-gear bicyclists in the form of MASH SF.

Much like MASH SF, Ryan hopes to broaden the spectrum of Aloha Fixed. Currently Aloha Fixed functions primarily as a message board - the message board is heavily utilized by HNL Bike Polo players - with occasional blogs documenting fixed-gear bicycling in Honolulu and the culture that surrounds it. According to Ryan, “Aloha Fixed is here to support what is going on with bikes (in Hawaii).”

Aloha Fixed plans to move forward with more video documentation, rider meet-ups, and partnerships with bicycle-related organizations. As this is the fifth year of Aloha Fixed, there will be more emphasis on new products and sponsorship of riders. More events are also slated for the year including Aloha Sunday - the event that gathers fixed-gear enthusiasts from around the state and afar.

Through it all, Aloha Fixed is about encouraging people to ride bicycles. Ryan recalls how there was “so much mystery behind fixed-gears back then.” Nowadays the one-gear bicycles are difficult to miss on Honolulu streets. In the past Ryan has stated, “Come out and ride...people who ride fixed in Hawaii are friendly about riding. If you like bikes, they’ll like you.” Five years later, Aloha Fixed still wants to be your friend.


Aloha Fixed | Fixing Aloha since 2007 | www.alohafixed.com

Move with Aloha.

a public service announcement courtesy of UH Manoa Administration and Cycle Manoa. Move with Aloha.

The Common Man's Sport.

It is rumored that Mahatma Gandhi declared, “bike polo is the common man’s sport, everyone has a bike.” Gandhi’s quote was handwritten and adorned at the door of Eilif Knutson’s room in Corvallis. During the wet winter months, dedicated bike polo enthusiasts would gather at a court under an overpass to explore the sport.

The modern incarnation of bike polo is played on an enclosed court. A plastic street hockey ball is placed in the middle of the court as two teams (three players to a team) tousle with bicycles and mallets. Each team has a goal post set up with traffic cones and the object of the game is to score five points in the opposing team’s goal. Players who dab - touch the ground with their foot - must undertake a penalty by tapping in at a designated point to return to the game.

Geoff Jones, an outreach counselor at Kalakaua Middle School has been playing bike polo regularly for a year in Honolulu. Jones found bike polo through mutual bicycle friends who were curious about the sport. At last year’s Broken Coconuts Bike Polo Tournament, Jones’ team was declared as the champion. Jones encourages “anyone who rides a bike” to play bike polo as it is “an affordable sport and lots of people are willing to loan mallets and bicycles.”

HNL Bike Polo is played twice weekly at Makiki District Park: Wednesdays from 6PM until close and Sundays from 4PM until close. HNL Bike Polo was started by Garrett Rawlins in September 2009. Rawlins considers HNL Bike Polo to be a communal organization, stating “in the world of cycling this is a fun way to compete without the bureaucracy of a larger organization...bike polo is very do-it-yourself.”

These days HNL Bike Polo maintains an internet presence via the efforts of Mark Lavender, Jorge Portillo, and Christopher Morgado. Lavender, a UH Manoa Philosophy student and glass-blowing artist, remembers attending an Aloha Sunday bicycle event and being encouraged to “grab a mallet and try!”

Lavender would not miss a single bike polo day for three months afterwards. He began gathering contact information from anyone mildly interested in bike polo and informing them consistently that the weekly meet-ups were occurring. As the excitement of bike polo began building, so did the attendance. Lavender hopes to educate the general public that bike polo is a sport and players are athletes. The ultimate goal, according to Lavender, is for Honolulu to host regional bike polo tournaments.

Any bicycle is allowed to be utilized at bike polo. Knutson remembers his first “polo bike” as a bicycle with no seat and duct tape for construction. Knutson has been playing bike polo in Oregon for the last six years and views HNL Bike Polo as “exciting. Its nostalgic because there is an excitement in Honolulu that people are still experimenting with the sport.” Montessori teacher Molly Jenkins is one of those people that has begun experimenting with bike polo.

Jenkins, a recent Honolulu transplant from the Pacific Northwest, has been using bicycles as her primary mode of transportation for nine years. Having heard of bike polo in Seattle but never participating, she decided to spectate the sport in Honolulu. Jenkins never intended to actually play but “everyone was super welcoming and I couldn’t turn them down.”

Nationally, bike polo’s popularity is growing exponentially. Several domestic bicycle component companies are constructing and selling bike polo mallets and related paraphernalia. A World Hardcourt Bike Polo tournament is held annually, drawing participants from afar. Rawlins believes the appeal of bike polo is how a bicycle becomes united with the user. Bike polo entrusts users to do much more then just propelling bicycles in a forward motion.

The collision of mallets and bicycles will resonate. 3-2-1-POLO!


HNL Bike Polo | Makiki District Park | www.hnlbikepolo.com

Where The Tall(er) Wheelmen Roam.

On any given Wednesday or Sunday evening, the valley of Manoa is filled with the distinctive sounds of tinkering. Upon further inspection, the merriment of friends converging and laboring on bicycles is apparent. This humble bicycle workspace is known as Cycle Manoa.

Since 2008, the UH Manoa student volunteer organization has been dedicated to promoting and advocating for bicycling. Cycle Manoa provides free hands-on bicycle instruction to university students. The organization seeks to empower students to learn about bicycles and to encourage bicycling as a lifestyle.

Cycle Manoa was instrumental in advocating for sharrows - shared lane pavement markings - throughout the UH Manoa campus and Dole Street. Currently, the organization is campaigning for bike lanes on Waialae Avenue.

On the last day of 2011, coordinator Nathan Domier and volunteer Ryan Nakamura paid a visit to KVIBE. Both Domier and Nakamura immediately went to work utilizing their bicycle knowledge to assist Kalihi’s youth.

Domier, a “super senior” in MIS and International Business recalls summers bicycling across town (in native Chicago) with friends. Domier arrived in Honolulu for college and quickly realized that he needed a mode of transportation. Domier found Cycle Manoa and a community of friends with a shared interest in bicycles.

Nakamura, a sophomore in Japanese, found bicycling at a later age. Nakamura befriended Cycle Manoa mechanic Zeb Brown in a dormitory elevator. After seeing Brown’s bicycle, Nakamura began clamouring for his very own. With Brown, Nakamura is currently working towards forming “Team Cycle Manoa” as a registered collegiate cycling team.

Although Cycle Manoa and KVIBE share similarities, both programs have very different instructional approaches and patrons. KVIBE looks forward to developing a good working partnership with Cycle Manoa to promote bicycling. With great hope, the youth of Kalihi will view college as a viable career option through the coolness of Cycle Manoa. Please consider being a friend of Cycle Manoa.

Cycle Manoa | Educate, Advocate, Ride | www.cyclemanoa.org