Bike-powered trailside concerts roll along Toronto’s Pan Am Path

Tune Your Ride brings bicycle-powered concerts to the Pan Am Path this summer.

Thestar.com
May 5, 2015
By Sarah-Joyce Battersby

If a band plays in the forest and no gas-guzzling generators are around to power its sound system, does it make a noise?

For a series of trailside concerts organized in tandem with the Pan Am Games, the answer is “yes” - thanks to Tune Your Ride, a paid of bicycle-powered concert producers.

Using “workhorse” cargo bikes, and a folding bike for the kids, fitted with generators and a few pieces of modified sound equipment, James Davis and his co-founder James Hetmanek have been powering such shows since launching the Toronto Bicycle Music Festival in 2010.

The Friends of the Pan Am Path, the group responsible for creating an 84-kilometre recreational trail as a legacy project for the Games, tapped the fledgling company to power the Art Relay, a series of weekly cultural events slated to take place on 14 spots along the path.

Renewable energy and a small eco-footprint are central to Tune Your Ride, Davis said, but the project also encourages members of the audience, who are asked to hop on and pedal, to engage with the music in a new way.

“If people stop pedalling, the music stops,” he said. “It’s very clear what’s happening: that power is being used right in that moment. If people aren’t into it and pedalling, then the music can’t happen.”

Two bikes power the PA systems, while a third functions like a wall socket, juicing up instrument amplifiers and charging cellphones.

Davis and Hetmanek also transport all their equipment, an almost 200-pound kit that includes speakers, cables, stands, PA system and amps, by bicycle.

“You can’t have an eco art festival sponsored by Shell or something with a bunch of generators everywhere,” said Devon Ostrom, the festival’s curator.

The concerts may be off the grid, but they are on a series of trails often running through parkland, something organizers had to consider.

“Sometimes people just go to Home Depot and rent something that’s more suited to a construction site,” Ostrom said.

The Pan Am Path is far from a construction site. Extending all the way from the Claireville Reservoir on the Toronto-Brampton border to the mouth of the Rouge River in Scarborough, the route winds along ravines, travels the lakeshore and crisscrosses some of the city’s most delicate ecosystems.

“We didn’t want to degrade our natural assets in the city while trying to celebrate them,” said Ostrom.

While the project is part of this summer’s Pan and Parapan Am Games, it would be complete until 2017, when connections will be finished between existing paths to create a continuous recreational trail for walking, cycling, and running.

Musician Quique Escamilla, who will perform during the relay, describes himself as a “cyclist by heart” and encourages friends, family and fans to take it up.

A native of Chiapas, Mexico, the Juno Award-winner now rides his bike year-round through his Parkdale neighbourhood.

After playing the 2013 Bicycle Music Festival and pedal-powering two songs for The Strumbellas, Escamilla was hooked on the bike-powered system as a fun way to promote bikes without preaching.

“It gets some attention and inspires others who might not think to ride a bicycle in the city,” Escamilla said.

Tune Your Ride will power eight of the 14 weekly events held along the path, starting May 16 at the Humber Arboretum.