At risk of being reductive, I think it’s fair to say that cyclists take a bit of pride in their bikes. There’s a whole world out there of optimisations and aesthetic improvements to be made, with the goal of having a better-performing, better-looking bike. So when someone goes out of their way to buck that trend – well, either they work for Bianchi, or there’s something else at play. What, exactly, are we to make of someone doing their best to make a bike as ugly as possible?
This is where Project Shit Bike comes into the picture: a now-recurring project by Bicycle Pubes, a mysterious Instagram memer who has grown a cult following in the cycling community over the past decade. He is an artist (I use that term loosely) that’s best known for his absurd dick’n’balls-themed, black-humour-speckled Microsoft Paint drawings, usually accompanied by sweary captions.
At a surface level it’s a bit crass, but lurking behind the silliness is a rich undercurrent of humanity: one that interrogates the absurdity of the cycling industry, encourages people to get out there and ride bikes (and do big skids), and has a political and social conscience.
Bicycle Pubes – the man behind the Instagram page – has spent the entirety of his time on the platform operating from a position of anonymity, not because of any fear of repercussions but because it allows him to be unfiltered and honest about the issues that he sneaks into his artwork. In person, he’s a nice beardy man from the Midwest, with a family and a career outside of the bike world, but with an obvious love of cycling in all its occasional absurdity. Project Shit Bike is intertwined in the Bicycle Pubes ethos: a quest to build a machine that is cartoonish in its appearance, but underpinned by a serious cause – fundraising for abortion access, and a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body.
It began as a kind of popularity contest for unpopular parts. “I thought it’d be fun to build a bike where I let people essentially vote on what component we use based off comments, and then likes in the comments,” Bicycle Pubes (shall I call him that? Mr Pubes? Pubes alone?) told Escape Collective over video chat. The starting point: a folding steel mountain bike frame made by Fuji as a promotional item for Marlboro cigarettes. Democracy-in-action meant that the project quickly “snowballed with the cigarette theme”: a segmented Stridsland Barnacle fork was painted like a pair of cigarettes, a pair of Paul Motolite brakes were electrical-taped to be cigarette-adjacent, and ESI Grips made a Bicycle Pubes-branded, cigarette-design pair of grips.
The build was completed by a mix of dusty niche exotica: stuff like a pair of carbon Spinergy wheels donated by a follower from Ohio, or a pair of bizarre PowerCranks, which isolate each crank arm via a one-way clutch as a way of training cadence and pedal stroke consistency. “It was a complete joke bike … really barely ridable. It had two different trainer tires, front and rear; these terrible cranks, and it was single speed, and those carbon wheels were questionable at best,” Pubes said. In short: not a bike that was worth much to anybody, if it wasn’t for the fact that it was a fundraiser for the Center for Reproductive Rights, which works to advance the cause of bodily autonomy and abortion access. That’s particularly topical in the current political climate in the US since Roe v Wade was overturned, becoming a major factor in the upcoming US federal election.
“It seems like such a cut and dry thing, having the right to an abortion, and all of the reasons to have it in place are there, and all of the arguments against it always come up empty and always seem like they have ulterior motives behind it,” Pubes said. “It feels disingenuous and it feels gross, and it feels like the very meaning of taking away your personal freedoms.”
The next Project Shit Bike – for which he is currently taking industry submissions – seems set to be a higher-end item, although no less silly. The frame is made by Peruvian builder MarinoBike, a custom fork in the style of the cargo-carrying Crust Clydesdale is being made by a framebuilder in LA out of a chopped-up Soma Wolverine fork, plus there’ll be custom flourishes from Appleman including his multi-holed Fit cranks and Bicycle Pubes-branded finishing bits. “When it’s all said and done, it’s still going to be a dumb bike, but it’s going to be fucking cool – and it’s probably going to fetch more than the $4,000 that the other Shit Bike – that was so weird and kind of dilapidated and so silly – fetched,” Pubes said. Again, it will raise money for the same cause: “I just wanted to keep it going that way. If I do a third, it’ll probably be the same – because everyone’s probably well aware of the state of abortion rights in this country.” Pubes isn’t a one-trick pony in his philanthropy, though: he also does custom illustrations of peoples’ bikes for charity, raising funds for mental health causes.
A fierce personal morality may seem at odds with wonky MS Paint drawings of bikes, but it also doesn’t feel like it lurks too far beneath the surface of Bicycle Pubes. For its creator, it’s a way of lightening the darkness of the world: “I guess I’ve always relied on humour a lot – whether it is for regular enjoyment, or dealing with trauma or anything like that,” he said. “Bicycle Pubes is absolutely like a drug to me. People like it, people laugh, and I think that’s why I continue to do it. I’ve always liked making people laugh.” It’s not a job – he doesn’t want to become one, either, lest that strips away what it gives him, and in turn, others.
But while there are dicks and balls aplenty, there are also recurring ‘characters’ – most prominently the Depression Lumina, a blandly generic Chevrolet sedan that Pubes uses as an avatar for poor mental health. When Depression Lumina pops up, it’s a sign that its creator is experiencing an outbreak of depression or anxiety – and it’s a way of normalising it for his thousands of followers.
“I think part of the reason why I feel comfortable being open about that is the anonymous nature of Bicycle Pubes,” he says. “It’s the nature of the account itself that makes me feel comfortable doing it – and I think it’s extra important because of how absurd my account it. You see ‘live, laugh, love’ shit all over the internet, but having it in a place where you’re just expecting dumb shit – and 90% of the time it is just dumb shit – I like to pepper it in there just to make it maybe hit a little harder.” His audience’s guard isn’t up for his earnestness – they’re disarmed by the dumb humour.
“I know it helps people, because every time Depression Lumina comes out and I talk about things, people reach out – I know it’s helping people. And if there’s people reaching out with comments saying ‘thank you for making me feel like I’m not the only one with depressions and anxieties and fears and insecurities,’ then there are probably a bunch more that are also seeing some help behind it – or at least some relief, some camaraderie,” Pubes explains.
“There’s nothing worse than being depressed out of your mind and just having that feeling, like, ‘fuck me, it’s just me – everyone’s out there having an awesome time and I can’t focus at work, and my door is closed all day because I can’t stop crying,’” he says.
Having the outlet through Bicycle Pubes to express that has a two-pronged purpose: one, it’s “cathartic as fuck” to be able to talk about it, and two, it’s important to be able to be vulnerable about your own struggles to help others feel comfortable with vulnerability. “I’ve been dealing with my mental health on my own for going on 20 years now – I had to figure out medication on my own, had to figure out therapy on my own, and it’s taken me all 20 years to be kind of good at it and kind of figure it out,” he says. “So if somebody can hear any of the advice that I’m putting out there and be inspired by it at all – the sooner you get that shit sorted, you’re going to be better off going forward with your life and proceeding accordingly with these new weapons against the world.”
Over a decade of silly drawings, that openness is a far cry from where Bicycle Pubes started: as a joke project of a CX/Bike Polo/gravel rider with a dark sense of humour and some silly drawings hidden behind a pseudonym. But as his following has grown, he sees it as a bit of a responsibility to be open with his audience and expand the scope of his work ever so slightly. “It’s fun for them, and it’s fun for me, and it’s certainly beneficial for me, because of the nature of some of my posts,” he says. “I still talk about poop a lot, talk about balls a lot, and some of my art is something that grandma doesn’t want to see.”
He pauses briefly, a coy smile at the edge of his mouth. “I don’t have any more grandmas left, so I guess it doesn’t matter. But, you know, I’m glad they didn’t live to see this – because they would have been really confused.”
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