April’s Spotlight of the Month:Ginger Ninjas

For April, we caught up with the Ginger Ninjas, a band who not only travels to gigs by bike, but powers their shows by bike And this isn’t just your average gig down at the neighborhood bar. The Ninjas just returned from touring all over Mexico via bicycle on a epic journey deemed “The Pleasant Revolution”.

Let’s start with a bit about the band – You seem like you all have different backgrounds – how and when did you come together?
Isaac James, Hayes Burris and Kipchoge Spencer founded the Ginger Ninjas around 2002. Only Kipchoge remains a full time member of the band. Jared May, the bass player, joined in Guadalajara, Mexico in February 2007, four months into the band’s 5000-mile bike tour from Northern California to Mexico. He was invited on by the previous drummer (recruited via Southern Cal craigslist), whom he met while studying music at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, FL. Dave Scandurra, the current drummer, met the band during his fall 2008 studies at the Berklee School of Music in Boston while the band was touring colleges and boarding schools in the Northeastern US. He initially connected with the band on craigslist, housed the band and crew for a few days at his musicians collective, expressed interest in touring just as the band was losing its previous drummer, played with the band for their last show in the Northeast, and joined the following January for the second tour to Mexico and Guatemala. Cory Cooper, developing lead guitar player, answered the band’s craigslist ad seeking a guitar player and left his studies at the University of Oregon to meet the band in January 2009 for the tour to Mexico and Guatemala.

Check out some of the Ginger Ninjas music!

Was the initial intent to play music and was the green activism inspired later – or have they always worked together?
Kipchoge is a long time musician and activist. The mission became to combine the two elements to push the limits of human-powered vocationalism and see if it was even possible for a rock band to tour by bicycle, independent from both cars and wall outlets. Knowing now that it is has broad implications for the feasibility of a carbon-lite world that still works with many of the ideas and pursuits of modernity. We show that minimizing your impact on the planet is possible and is almost always more fun. It’s really about riding our own talk.

Watch an amazing 4 minute video of the Ginger Ninja’s 5000 mile tour through Mexico

Your recent trip through Mexico, The Pleasant Revolution, sounds amazing. You not only used bicycles as your mode of transportation, but you carried your gear with you. Tell us a bit more about it.
Several bands have toured before by bicycle, with support from a car, van, truck, etc. We wanted to try doing it without automobiles. For the environmental side, but also just for the liberated self-sufficiency. Our bikes weigh between 120 and 200 pounds loaded. We go slow, averaging about 5 mph, but slowness is part of the message and experiment. We ride Xtracycle load carrying sport utility bikes. These are designed to ride like regular bikes but carry loads really well, including kids and adult passengers. This is a company Kipchoge co-founded 10 years ago that was headquartered up in North San Juan for most of its life until he resigned to go on this tour and become a full time bicycling musician. Now the company is in the Bay Area.

Why Mexico?
Mexico hasn’t yet made a lot of the bad development decisions we have that we’re now paying 10x as much to live with or undo. We wanted to assist Mexico on track to skip the sprawl, leapfrogging the U.S.-style transportation model and going straight to smart development. We also wanted to show Mexicans that there’s a different kind of working class, thoughtful, peace-loving American than what they see on Baywatch, CNN, or on their beaches vacationing.

The roads of Mexico have been known to be quite challenging. Did you have any challenges with getting around? Scary curvy roads? Close calls with drivers?
Some of the mountain roads in Southern Mexico and Guatemala challenged us greatly. There were days when the climbs were physically and mentally difficult. Also, many of the frequently used public transportation buses emit tons of yucky fumes and they would often roar past us as we climbed. Young men determined to drive as fast as they could on windy mountain roads characterized most of the drivers of the ‘chicken buses’ in Guatemala making us cringe at the sight and sound of the approaching converted school buses. We were, however, usually simultaneously gratified by the beauty of the jungles and mountains.

Tell us a bit about the bicycle generated power you used to power your shows.

1. The Xtracycle system provides for a dual-sided heavy duty kickstand that gets the rear wheel off the ground for stationary generation.
2. A small DC motor with a 1” roller rubs on the sidewall of the rear tire, generating DC current.
3. This varying voltage DC pedaling energy is stored briefly in supercapacitors (“caps”), which shoot out a more consistent 11-15V. The buffering and storage of the caps supply amplifiers with both constant power and bursts. Our system demands about 160-200 Watts steadily, and up to 1000 Watts peak.
4. An L.E.D. indicator on the handlebars tells the pedaler whether to pedal harder, keep ‘er steady, or STOP. Too little voltage will kill the sound and too much will actually ruin the cap.
5. Each bike has its own cap, and each cap feeds into a common inverter. The inverter changes the DC current into 120 VAC with regular electric outlets, into which we plug all of our equipment: 2 x 500W speakers, mixing board, effects pedals, laptop, Down Low Glows, and chargers for the small devices we have on tour with us.
6. We recruit audience members to power the four bikes on stage. Without efficient amplifiers, we would need 8 bikes/pedalers to get the same sound level.

We’re using bikes to power music, but you could use a similar generator to power most any household electrical device.

What was the most rewarding thing about the trip?
Everyday doing things that have never been done before e.g., carrying our bikes and loads around a month-old landslide in Guatemala with the help of locals who were using the same path to travel between work and home. Proving to ourselves that more authentic, fulfilling realities are possible and that we have the power to choose them.

Can you share a highlight from the trip?
Every Mexican town has a plaza where the people gather, just to stroll and hang out. This is a radical concept in America, just whiling away the time at the park with the amigos and familia, not doing anything. What this meant for us was that we could show up in any city’s plaza, set up our gear, and within half an hour be playing for 2-500 people. With no promotion or planning! For a small, unknown band that’s used to playing for 30-50 people on tour in the States (with a bunch of planning), this is profound.

What effects or feedback have you noticed?
The loaded bicycles generate a lot of interest. People are always stopping us wanting to know where we are going, what we are doing, etc. We receive a lot of encouragement. In Mexico and Guatemala we hear, “Congratulations”. A lot of folks want us to stay longer in their areas to play more shows.

During the first tour (2007-2008) to Mexico:

After reading about the Ginger Ninjas in the newspaper, the office of the Mayor of Guadalajara (at 4 million residents, Mexico’s second largest city) invited the Pleasant Revolution team on a bike ride with the Mayor to discuss cycling and transportation.

On the ride, tour leader Kipchoge Spencer spoke to the attentive mayor about other Latin American cities with favorable bicycle policies and infrastructure. Kipchoge had also invited several of Guadalaja’s own well-informed bicycle advocates, leaders of groups who had been trying unsuccessfully to meet with the conservative Mayor since his inauguration. Kipchoge introduced the Mayor to these advocates and left them to talk for the majority of the ride.

Three months later, on the tour’s northward trek home, the Pleasant Revolution again stopped in Guadalajara. An official from the Mayor’s office came to a concert specifically to tell the band that he thought their visit had had a marked impact on the city’s and the mayor’s transportation planning and views. He cited the energy behind the American and rock and roll aspects of the tour as making impressions on local decision makers.

What are your plans for the future of the group?

To continue evolving and adventuring!

Upcoming shows:

1. Whole Earth Festival UC Davis, CA May 8th, 9th and 10th
2. Bicycle Music Festival Chico, CA May 16th
3. Bicycle Fair University of Oregon May 21st

Sounds great! What else can we look forward to?
In southern Baja, January 2008, the Pleasant Revolution Tour was joined by filmmaker Sergio Morkin, who accompanied the band for the following 5 months.

Award winning Argentine filmmaker Morkin and his team are in post production of a film that will highlight the very bicycle culture that the tour seeks to promote, in the context of music and an epic travel saga through, around, and into the heart of Mexico. It stands to be seen by a large Mexican and international audience when completed in 2009.

Immerse yourself into the Pleasant Revolution by joining the Ginger Ninjas on their website or dropping them an email to say hello.