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The propaganda by the deed
Erwan, Caminade tig welder took the time to explain us his motivation about his daily job and his last project called Eina.
It’s now 6 months since I arrived in the Pyrennes Orientales. 6 months of meeting new people, new discoveries, new surroundings. A big life change is never easy, finding oneself 10 hours drive away from family and friends. Getting used to life in the truck, facing one's own thoughts with this strange taste: this feeling of being at home everywhere and nowhere at the same time. To see the world turn without us while transforming the present into the past. But this exercise can prove itself extremely beneficial if we give ourselves the means to listen and to learn from this new world.
And now I’m being asked to write something for others to read, a first for me. So I’m going to try to narrate what is normally hidden. Behind the scenes, everything away from the limelight.
 | "I’m going to try to narrate what is normally hidden. Behind the scenes!" |
Carrying meaning
Since my first day in Catalonia with Geo’s KO and David’s calçots (green onions) I’ve heard talk about cargo bikes carrying loads. This is what the community needed.
The tone was set, all that was left was for me to plunge into an exercise that I hadn’t had the opportunity to do for a long time, and which I hadn’t realised that I missed so terribly. I was fearful of the creation process, without any constraint from beginning to end, failure can come so quickly and opportunities are incredibly rare. But everything sorted itself out so easily. Caminade is a certain vision of freedom and confidence. A production and an affirmation of friendship, a self assured & direct frankness that is so rare these days.
A cargo bike that I deliberately created alone opposite myself, in the part of the night where the shadow games and the light reveals itself. A very special moment in which the famous magic of wonder and intoxication is born. Emotion is the driving force.
I was once told that joy is only found if we work, and in order to work, one needs good tools.
EINA in catalan and BIM the heap of scrap iron already had a name.
A bike saturated with soul
The materials had all been chosen: wood, leather, steel: the most noble, natural and full of soul. The soldering and brazing as well, my first loves, that are simple and accessible to everyone. These long hours spent polishing finish by revealing very sensual curves.
Let’s speak about the curves, a Caminade without bends, a heresy for some. Therefore I had to bend the metal, and that is not simple to do. There is a certain part of unknown in each tube. Observing the material take form, feeling it in our hands. Capturing the essence of the moment even at the risk of breaking with all the rest makes this profession so interesting.
20 years of BMX has not only left scars, back pain and a potato shaped ankle. But also a taste for little wheels and compact bikes. This bike will have 20 inch wheels at the front and 24 at the rear for better maneuverability for sure. And the drivetrain? If there’s a real race to weaponise, it’s certainly fought over drivetrains: 12, 13 speeds, electric, hydraulic... A return to reality, something more human seemed necessary. The Retrodirect was invented just after the freehub, around a hundred years ago, and democratised after the war by the famous Manufrance. We pedal forward for one speed, backwards for another, simple and disconcerting at the same time, as if we could relive our first pedal stroke as a kid.
A little contribution to this amazing french cycling past, with its incredible ingenuity and reliability that we try to make live on with humility, and which I aim to pay tribute to as they have inspired me so much these last ten years.
| A cargo bike, practical and useful, simple and concrete, far from the products that we are used to seeing or presenting. Another vision of the bicycle because a bike is not an abstraction detached from any context. Of course, everyone appropriates the bike as he or she wants, but the bike is intimately linked to the manner in which it is produced. It is nourished by the human history behind it. Even more, it is nourished by the risks that have been taken. These real bits of adventure and of experiences which are beyond all pretension provoke sensations that no other asian production or mass series production could ever equal.We can unfortunately do nothing about the facts of this world, but we can do something about the way in which we look at it, because each choice can become a way of carrying meaning. |
Mutual assistance first
And so Eina you were born, the work exists, immortal, she is autonomous, in this programmed life where dreams are artificial, all that’s left for you is to exist. But above all do not forget to give joy in mutual assistance and not in competition because the happiness of each of us passes by that of everyone. Know that you will never be a simple merchandise, or a by-product of a fashion become obsession.
You will only produce a little wind for those insects that will sometimes fly around your wheels, a little wind in a bulimic society which produces lots and is often violent. You’ll stay side by side with our close community in your daily journeys. Help us to keep this vital contact with the real so that we stay alert in our hearts and in our spirits. Open doors, force your way in, show us the way, that we stop persuading ourselves of false happiness.
The hardest part is left to do, live, now!
Feel free to check out the full galery there
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Member since Jun 3, 2015
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