Yesterday was Buy Nothing Day in the United States (the international day is today). I did buy a sandwich, but I certainly stayed away from malls, big box stores, and gridlocked shopping district intersections filled by drivers drunk with consumption (and, consequentially, not very careful). Like other cyclists — I went for a nice ride in nature. We rode sinlgetrack and fire roads through the San Pasqual Agricultural Preserve:

Photos from Buy Nothing Day around the world:

Buy Nothing Day brings out activists and everyday folks for many different reasons: the commodification of religious holidays; the nature of global capital flows; consumption taking over notions of citizenship; environmental degradation; labor conditions for workers in poor countries; and wasteful living.

For many thoughtful cyclists, hopping on the bicycle represents a daily affirmation of crafting a life different from the one promoted by mass consumer culture. Riding can serve as a small protest against the polluting, go-go, numbing, race-to-the-bottom design of mass society that seems to have progressed undeterred from criticism.

And the counter-cultural nature of bicycling goes far beyond the practice of moving through space. The bicycle slows the rider down, begging for attention to detail and interaction with others. The beauty of riding leads many cyclists to take care of their rides, carefully adding parts – new and vintage – like a collage.

Now that Buy Nothing Day is over, its time to spend money where it matters – to support small producers, small operations, and local bike shops. Honjo and Nitto are both small craft operations. Custom frame builders like Capricorn, Wanta, Ditta, Frances, Winter (and many others) would love your business. Small bag makers (Acorn, Zugster, Lemolo) and clothing makers (Bicycle Fixation, Swrve, and B. Spoke Tailor) make cycling-specific wares from within the cycling community. Small operations like Rivendell could use your order.

Now, its not about buying nothing. But buying fewer, well-made, high quality of life things and paying more for them — because they’re worth it. Or, we can just race to the bottom, follow the ideologies of “less for more,” and continue the cycle of worker exploitation, environmental degradation, and crappy quality all because we want “a deal.” Cyclists intuitively know the difference. The craft movement is alive and well in the cycling community. Its time to put our money where our priorities are.

The revival of the French-inspired 650B Porteur/Randonneur (P/R) concept, conceived and “curated” by Matthew at Kogswell and Jan Heine of Bicycle Quarterly, will officially move over to Anthony of Longleaf Bicycles in North Carolina. Anthony discusses the move and solicits feedback on the Longleaf website:

Matthew at Kogswell and I have agreed that I will take over the Kogswell 650B P/R production and design. Kogswell has decided to concentrate on 26″ framesets and when Matthew told me he didn’t plan to continue production of the 650B P/R it seemed like a natural fit.

The P/R concept garnered a lot of attention when it first came out, and although Kogswell’s reliability fell off with some production problems, the P/R continues to inspire front-load geometry with both custom orders and among the major manufacturers. The excellent contributions to the Kogswell Flickr group, no doubt, also inspired a lot of utility and distance riders to bring P/R concepts into their own builds.

The porteur was a post-war French delivery bicycle, and the randonneur is a bicycle constructed for long distance events. Taken together, the P/R would be able to function in either capacity, with different fork options, depending on the desires of the rider. A 50mm trail fork would be appropriate for long distance riding without a front load, and a 40mm or 30mm trail fork would be used to handle very heavy front loads without influencing steering control. The history of the P/R can be read on this page, buried in the Kogswell web archive. Here’s an excerpt:

By late summer Jan had a set of dimensions ready. And he surprised us with a bit of geometric good fortune: the only difference between the Porteur bike and a good Randonneur’s bike was the fork offset. So he asked us to supply the bike with three different fork geometries which would allow the owner to configure the bike for many different roles. With a simple change of fork, a city bike could be made into a long distance touring bike.

Sample frames and samples of forks with three different offsets were produced. And then in tribute to the man who had done the real engineering of this bike, Rene Herse, Jan suggested that we test all the fork geometries thouroughly to be sure that we had gotten them right. So road test were performed and the results were fed back into the production specs.

Interestingly, Matthew also discussed the P/R as inspired by the utilitarian British 3-speed, which I’ve always held in high regard:

The Kogswell P/R draws its inspiration from three bicycles of the past: the English 3-speed, the English racer, and the Parisian porteur bicycle.

It has the practicality of the 3-speed. The fenders keep the rider clean and dry. And, like the English racer, it is built of light steel which means it performs well. And the geometry has been lifted straight from the porteur bikes, the bikes that were used to deliver newspapers in Paris during the middle of the twentieth century.

All of those design elements combine to make it a bike that truly can be used in place of an automobile. It’s safe and easy to ride, it won’t get your clothes dirty or wet and it is designed to carry your stuff up front where you can watch it and get to it.

The P/R has inspired many new projects, from Trek, Specialized, and Velo Orange. The core concept is in good hands with Longleaf, which I expect to put out highly refined and highly useful utility and distance bicycle.

It all comes down to this – what bicycles will have the simplicity, utility, and aesthetics that will bring more folks to drive less and ride more for everyday matters in the U.S.? Considering our health, climate change, and quality of life, the right bicycle can invite many people into the idea of changing their lives and the way the cities operate. The P/R has always done this, and its continued production will continue to inspire modern utility cyclists and bicycles to keep going.

It seems that many of the 2010 factory bikes intended for city riding took the handmade bicycle shows (like the San Diego Custom Bicycle Show, for example) into heavy consideration. Slathered in nice powder coat colors, these bikes look pretty darn sharp, and show that the major manufacturers “get it.”

Porteur bicycles in particular have really taken off, and I think Kogswell and A.N.T. deserve much of the credit. Custom shows often have many examples of utility bicycles with low trail and flat cargo racks ready to haul heavy loads. Some of the early appropriation of the porteur idea left many folks scratching their heads (the Fisher Simple City is a good example). Regardless, the porteur is here to stay.

Now there’s rumor-ish news on the KOG list that the 650B model of the Kogswell P/R will move from Matthew Grim to Anthony at Longleaf Bicycles. There should be an immanent announcement on the Longleaf site – but I think this is very good news for 650B and for Kogswell. I’m not sure how it will shake out, but Matthew has indicated that his interests lie in developing an all-rounder around the 26″ wheel size. Anthony will take over the 650B P/R. Longleaf is a great shop, and they can take the 650B Kogswell to new places.

I added a Pass & Stow rack to my G Kogswell P/R to help with groceries and child hauling. I’ll have more on the rack soon, but for now, here are some photos: