Winter Olympics by Bike
We visited the Winter Olympics to blog the culture because Vancouver is a bike town. @kk showed us around and we shot photos in the Downtown Eastside neighborhood, which is a world apart from the Olympics and just a few blocks away.
@ Signs
The Cambie for breakfast
Local
She rode to a march dedicated to the lost women of Vancouver. Women have disappeared from the streets for years and it’s a very contentious issue.
Cops
With all the protestors in town, lot of cops and bikes and they’re always eager to tell you about their gear and what they’re riding. These bikes are new for the Winter Olympics and the hope is they’ll keep them afterwards
The Olympics are sponsored and big money pays for the rights to broadcast them. There are no broadcast slots for different voices and various narratives of the affects the Olympics have on the towns that host them. As part of the Winter Olympics, budget was set aside for alt media, including the W2 house and the BC International Media Centre. Bike Hugger was credential to the BCMC and are grateful for being included in the scene and briefly experiencing the Cultural Olympiad. In just the short time we were there, we met creatives like:
- fiercekitty – a writer and a self-proclaimed ‘word nerd’
- Shallom J – an artist and dancer who takes pictures and put words onto blank pages
- Jeremy Crowle – makes art that explores relationship in digital and real space.
We also rode all over and I’ll post more from Vancouver and the Tweeds this week. See the just uploaded photos on Flickr.