Exploring Trenton on two wheels

Wills Kinsley leads bike tours through Trenton.

Trenton bicycle tours growing in popularity

By Dan Aubrey

Wills Kinsley is on a roll with his monthly first Friday night Trenton bicycle tours: a event that defies the city’s obvious problems and is growing in popularity among intrepid area bicyclist.

The 25-year-old Trenton-based bicycle maintenance instructor for the Boys and Girls Club Bike Exchange admits that life revolves around bikes. And why not? It is the vehicle that brought him into capital city, into area art galleries, into the streets, and on the culture community map.

“Both my parents went to Rutgers,” Kinsley said of how his life came to revolve around bikes. “My dad was a bicycle mechanic at the time. My mother needed a bike repair, and someone told her to talk to him. I owe my whole life to bicycles.”

After his parents — his father is an antique restorer and his mother is a chemist with Firmenich, the French fragrance company with a division on Plainsboro Road — married and settled in Franklin Park, where Kinsley was raised, his father continued to work on bicycles and his son followed the practice.

“If anything went wrong with my bike, I would just fix it. (My father) had the tools, and I would just go out and figure it out,” he said.

That figuring-it-out spirit is something that he took with him to Hampshire College in Massachusetts, an institution near Amherst where, as its website says, “students design their own programs of study instead of following predetermined academic pathways (no ‘off-the-shelf’ majors here).”

He says that the idea was inspired by the work of a student who was building carts from inexpensive and found materials.

“It’s open-source technology,” Kinsley said. “The idea is that you make something simple, a design that takes into account available resources, and instead of buying a hitch, you make it out of nuts and bolts. The idea was to make bike specific tools out of old bikes.”

The move to Trenton was serendipitous, Kinsley said. A friend who was involved with Trenton-based street artist Will Kasso was hanging out with Pete Abrams at the Trenton Atelier.

“My friends told me that they’re doing some crazy stuff, and I went down and have stayed since,” he said. “It worked out well. They had a lot of bikes, and a lot of kids were around. And I set up shop and started making tall bikes and choppers. Then someone was involved at the bike exchange,” where he has been working since last October.

The bicycle art also started in Trenton. “Before I was mainly functional, like the trailer, and I never made something that wasn’t functional. The ‘ride-able’ art is equal part form and function,” he said.

The art bikes are often seen at Gallery 219 on Hanover Street — where Kinsley participates with the S.A.G.E. (Stylez Advancing Graffiti’s Evolution) arts group on urban art projects. They call him “the most famous man on two wheels in Trenton.” The projects include custom features, graffiti or street art designs, lighting, and even sound.

“Everything runs off a car battery and taking wires from car radios and lights. It’s all for fun. It’s interesting to me that cars are status symbols and desired and playing with bikes makes them like a status symbol. People get a kick out of it, something they haven’t seen. At the end of the day, it’s to get people to think about bike riding in another way and make people want to ride and have fun, which it is,” he said.

Seeing bicycles in a new way was the focus of the exhibit “Unchained — the Art of the Bicycle,” organized by Kinsley last May at Artworks in Trenton.

“Bicycles are not only the most efficient and versatile human-powered device, they are both an inspiration and a canvas for countless artists,” he said.

The exhibition included sculptures, paintings, prints, and photographs by dozen of area artists inspired by or using parts of bicycles.

The interest in bikes also went off the wall and into the streets.

“The tours started when I had a bike art show at Trenton Social last May. I wanted to do a check point race in Trenton. I had a map and people at all these places giving things to people to bring back. About 10 people showed up, we had fun,” he said.

“Then (Trenton Social owner T.C. Nelson) suggested that I do it again but make it more leisurely. It’s taken off since,” Kinsley said.

Recent rides have included a history tour along the Delaware River — with stops at the historic Delaware Inn (the late 18th century building last used as office space by the Champale Brewing Company), Trenton Marina, and Duck Island — and a trip down East State Street to visit the nonprofit community development organization Isles’ site for artists, nonprofit, and business use.

While the city is becoming increasing visible for crimes both on the street and in public offices, the only problems encountered on recent trips were tires needing air, an occasional spill, a tough hill to climb and a broken peddle.

Yet safety is concern.

“There is a certain amount of danger riding your bike, driving a car, taking a bus anywhere,” Kinsley said. “It’s best to be aware of your surroundings and know where you’re going. Besides that, a bicycle is the best way to navigate any city, especially Trenton, regardless of certain stigmas.”

That stigma was touched on by a recent editorial in the Times of Trenton when a Trenton resident and former reporter noted, “The perception is that because violence rages in impoverished communities, it must affect the entire city. That perception is what stands in the way of small cities from growing in the 21st century at the exact time they should be growing. Take my experience in Trenton these last four years: I’ve walked to the train station four days a week and never been accosted. How about the 40,000 state workers who come in every day? The effective crime rate for them is nearly zero.”

It is others with similar experiences and awareness that are joining Kinsley’s tours in growing numbers.

“We get new people all the time,” he said. “I think the word got out by Facebook and word of mouth. People know to meet at Trenton social on the first Friday of the month. It’s a like a mini parade. The idea is to take people to places in Trenton they haven’t been to before and discover history. “

Kinsley said Trenton has enough sites to keep things going for a few years.

“It’s a social ride. People ride together and then have a drink. It’s an idea of creating a little cycling community,” he said.

And for the “bike guy” from Franklin Park, it is a bit more.

“There’s no environment that has the freedom that there is in Trenton,” he said. “It was like a journey to get here. I was looking for something, and it was only 20 miles away.”

The next Social Bike Rides are set for Friday, Oct. 4, meeting at 5 p.m. for a tour of historic city cemeteries. $10 ride special includes dinner and a drink; and, in a change of gear, Saturday, Nov. 9, at 11 a.m. for the Art All Day Tour of Artists Studios, meeting at 10:30 a.m., Trenton Social, 449 S. Broad St., Trenton. facebook.com/events/589839964401907.

Wills Waves[1],