Unite Bike

Unite Bike was envisioned in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota in 2008. In the spring of 2008 commercial advertising photographer Clark Patrick was approached by a MSP based hip-hop artist to take new album photos. The idea for the shoot was to take a large group family style photograph of the whole Twin Cities hip-hop community. The inspiration for this photo was based off of Art Kane’s August 1958 photograph of 57 of New York’s most prominent jazz musicians – titled, “A Great Day in Harlem”. Unfortunately, some of the key players in the Twin Cities hip-hop music scene weren’t interested in being involved in the photo. After a few months of planning the idea and photo project were abandoned because the hip-hop community wasn’t very united in supporting each other as individual artists. You could say some egos got in the way.

Although Clark Patrick was frustrated by that local communities lack of unity he was still inspired by Art Kane’s photograph and his vision changed direction. For those of you who are unaware of this the Twin Cities has, as of 2010, the largest year round commuter cyclist community in the United States. What makes this fact even more interesting is that Minnesota has some of the harshest winter conditions in the entire continent. Clark decided to try and apply his vision to a local community he deeply respects – Minnesota bike commuters.

During the summer of 2008 Clark asked Twin Cities based web/interactive web design firm Sevnthsin to build him a website to create a space on-line for local cyclists to sign-up for the group photo he was planning and add links to local cycling resources. Clark Patrick and Sevnthin partnered on this project, collaborated on design and branding for what would eventually become ‘Unite Bike’.

After the website launched in 2008 Clark did his best to promote the idea to the local cycling community by printing posters and reaching out to the community on-line via forums and sending messages to cycling groups, store, and city organizations. Having no idea how many people may or may not show up Clark picked a location that could accommodate a large crowd. And here is who did:

Clark took the first photo on October 4th 2008 and it was an absolutely beautiful day! The most amazing part of the experience was to see riders coming from all different directions towards the final meeting place right up to the last moments before the shots was taken. Because the 2008 group photo was such a success the bar was raised for Unite Bike 2009.

In 2009 there was again a photo taken in Minneapolis in a new location and the Unite Bike project was brought to San Francisco.

(more info. about those images coming soon…. stay tuned.)