The passion of the bike

The born-again bike virgin

An artist who swore off cycles dedicates his art to the two-wheeled muse he’d spurned.

LOVE WAITS Cycling’s just too dangerous for Newman.

Photo: Ben Reed

In Erik Newman’s younger days, when he exclusively used two wheels to travel, not biking was a dating deal-breaker. Literally and metaphorically, he and a woman who didn’t cycle simply “couldn’t go anywhere” together, says the 44-year-old School of the Art Institute of Chicago furniture-design instructor and artist. But these days, it’s only ladies who ride safely (if they ride at all) who spark his interest.

After 20 accidents in 25 years (yet no broken bones), he says, “I guess my sense of self-preservation is much higher,” and he holds that standard of safety-first for his potential mates.

At the height of his bike activism, the Chicago native behaved like a fool in love, risking his physical safety to assert bikers’ rights by knocking down valet signs that obstructed the bike lane and purposefully damaging cars that nearly nailed him. But as people’s priorities change, relationships evolve, and such was the case with Newman and his wheels. He pretty much gave up biking five months ago, deciding he was giving more than he was getting. Considering the expense—the cost of hospital bills he’d already incurred and those he could imagine racking up—and the danger of riding, he opted to cut the cord “until there’s universal health care.”

Still, Newman keeps his passion for bikes alive in other ways, through art and tinkering. After Newman’s friend was hit by a car while biking, he gave Newman the bent wheels for potential art fodder. The accident inspired Newman to create an homage to his friend in the form of “a bike that was as dangerous as a car.” The “Propeller Bike,” which Newman exhibited at the Critical Mass Art Show in 2003 and later at Heaven Gallery, employed the bike’s frame and handlebars for its body and industrial fan blades for propellers, which jut out from the side of the bike like wings. When the rider pedals, the bike whips around in a circle but remains grounded in one place like a “rotationary” stationary bike. Anyone in his or her right mind keeps at a distance as it spins.

Newman’s current relationship with bikes is symbiotic. He uses them to challenge established systems of technology, such as generating electricity and powering machines for his workshop; the two bike-powered machines he’s produced coil lamp wire and sharpen wood chisels.

He also keeps around the old junkers that other folks would likely discard. Cruise through his 2,000-square-foot loft in Humboldt Park—where about a dozen nonfunctional bikes hang from the walls and ceilings, and handlebars, rims and inner tubes serve as furniture—and it’s easy to see he’s all about reinventing the use of the wheel.

—Jessica Herman

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