Bootleg is a project born in Cinelli laboratories in 2000 to explore the idea of total cycling. Bootleg is an experiment in continuous evolution: it learns from mistakes, it adapts to new conditions, it’s a research through the streets of the planet, into the history, among people with passion for bicycles, for those who think, build and live bikes.
Bootleg is a pirate-bike, like some ships, some records, some flags: projected by Cinelli for the urban ground. Bootleg is a bike for citizens of the planet, designed to sail the pavé, cross rails, ignore the slopes of sidewalks, as well as pass the tangent going over the border of urban traffic and throw to the discovery of the entire globe
Bootleg is a bike, and the bike is a medium for changing life, it’s an energy multiplier, for reaching actively the consciousness of one’s own space and time dimension. Bootleg is cushion for not feeling rails, it’s dry for sliding in traffic , fixed for hurries box deliveries, it bends to enter into the underground, it doubles for lovers, it rests beside the bed at night and the desk at morning.
Bootleg belongs to cyclists. Bootleg is black because it couldn’t be of any other color. Nothing costs more than the absence: of color, noise, pain…The Black absorbs dirt and color with the same indifference. It remains intact even under ethic and aesthetic threats. It’s not a suitable bike for those who feels to be victim of the city or traffic, not for those who expect solution to all problems from the society.
“I start to change myself, here and now, getting on that bike. So I feel a transgressor and a I hope one day to be outside rule becomes the rule: then we will have solved a lot of things”. BOOTLEG is the mean.

ARE YOU READY BOOTLEGGERS?

The Ironzen, Psychedelics and the initiation of the bicycle

Thoughts by Aldo "Rock" Calandro

On 18 February 1978 15 men plunged into the mountainous waves of the Pacific Ocean on the beach of Waikiki: they swam for 4 km, got out of the water, got in the saddle of a bicycle and pedalled for 180 km, then they ran for 42 km. A complete marathon at 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Exhausted they reached the finish line.

From that day the IRONMAN was born, ’’more than a race!"


The ironman created a world, that of the triathlon, which many athletes consider the ultimate goal and some the first refuge of psychedelic values.


I belong to this last group.


’Did we take something serious which we were only allowed to play with or viceversa".


However, Walter Vogt, psychiatrist and psychedelic writer, has also used this question at the end of a poem dedicated to Albert Hofman. He refers ’’something that distinguishes us" to the use of psychedelic drugs, whereas I refer it to the life of an Ironman who works in an office.


However, in both cases that something has caused changes in consciousness.
If those world planers saw LSD as a key capable of opening new doors of perception, I consider swimming, cycling and running taken at an extreme level as a laborious but fantastic master-key to our visionary reality.

More or less like meditation, not eating and the complete solitude of the desert. Just like a psychedelic experience, some psycho-physical exercises by bicycle can also lead (see Race Across America) to the depth of our consciousness where enlightenment and madness go hand in hand. But not to worry. It is important to handle serious things in a cheerful way and frivolities with seriousness. If how Timothy Lear says ’’your body is the Universe", and how the Ironmen say ’’the bicycle is the extension of your body", then maybe my body on my bicycle is the universe that is expanding.
However an uncontrolled and imprudent use of the bicycle, such as that of drugs, could radically transform your external world, but most of all your inner world, up to causing a psycho-physical shock, or an enlightenment towards a happy mythology.


You will see that life by bicycle is not a problem to be sorted out, but a reality to be experimented. You will gather experiences that will expand your consciousness, as well as your neurological, physical, and aesthetic faculties. You won’t become Neuromancers, but you will learn the techniques of Psycho-Negromancy, and like Urban Cowboys you will shun cars as if they were bullets. Or you could swim non-stop, not in rivers with cultural claustrophile streams, but in Oceans full of consciousness and general knowledge where a Kanaloa God (the god of the sea of the Polynesians) would listen to your breathing and would tune it to the cosmic breathing and maybe then, like illegal dolphins, you will save INFINITY.
You will run risks though.


If the Zapatecs and the Mazatecs had understood the dangers of these magical drugs immediately, by using them only in religious ceremonies, in which the enlightening experience is gathered and used in a sensible way, those who would have embraced Ironzen would have realised that the Italian cities are not like the ones in Hawaii and that the mirror in which these future Ironmen will look is not the sea but the dusty window of urban smog.
Do not fear! As your reflection will be like the one of the waves. And do not be afraid to use your basic transportation to challenge millions of drivers who try to kill those few courageous cyclists every morning: multiply the worlds!


Go cycling at the time of the lions (three o’clock in the morning, four o’clock summer time). Step out of the serial existence and invent new ways of being, communicating and living.
In this way your dreams and trips will start to form themselves as the wind forms the waves. And if then you encounter difficulties, as the ’’cyclists-Taoists" say, it will bring you good luck (waves cause problems to some: not to surfers).


Tune in to yourselves.

Find your inner rhythm and while you are waiting to have this imaginary psychedelic experience, hold on to the handlebar of your bicycle and push, push on the pedals whilst you are passing through all the King’s Roads of the world, putting your cellular wisdom in contact with the inexorable song of the oiled chain.

But if the roads of the Gods are only home-office-office-home Clerks’ Roads, and you do not manage anymore to believe in the sun also at night, then at least try to believe in yourselves.

Aldo Rock Calandro for The Bootlegger’s book

Cinelli 2000

Aldo Rock Calandro

Milan, four o’clock in the morning. While everybody is asleep, a man is sliding over the asphalt like a fish in water, standing on the pedals of a bike in night colours: the unmistakable ankle that does not tolerate socks, regardless which season, turns white in the shade.

It is Aldo Calandro who gets up before bakers to go for a ride on his bike without traffic. He is not training. It is not a rule. It is more like an unforeseeable event such as the wind in Milan, when it sweeps away the nasty smells overnight, and saves the city again for another day.

Aldo: the intermediate stage between Lancelot and an alien. Strong as a horse, reckless as a child, tough as a camel, and spiritual as a Red Indian.
Incidentally, he is also the only Italian who has ever taken part in the Race Across America after having participated in Ironman races, threefold Ironman, and one of the few men in the world who has run the ten Ironman; but we bet he does not resemble any of the other competitors.




AWARDS

2001
ITALIA IN GIAPPONE 2001 - intinerant exhibition in Japan (Yokohama, Kioto, Tokio).
Exhibition of italian design, arts and culture. By Andrea Branzi and Italiadesign. International exchange with the Japanese ministerium of culture. Sponsored by Nikkei. Cinelli has been chosen with its Bootleg Racing Rats bike and its Laser bike.
ART FOR THE WORLD - sponsored by UNICEF, itinerarnt exhibition starting from Velodromo of Milano arriving to Sao Paolo (Brazil). Cinelli attends with its Bootleg Racing Rats bike.
FAI - Fondo per l’Ambiente Italiano - L’ARTE DELLA BICICLETTA
Villa Panza - Varese - Italia
Design exhibition that collects bicycle objects. Cinelli attends with Mendini designed bicycle, Bootleg Racing Rats bike, Rampichino bicycle.


2000
TOKYO Designer’s week 2000 Expo.- Tokyo - Japan - Design exhibition of the italian design. Cinelli attends with Bootleg Racing Rats bike.
GRANDESIGN - Milano - Italia - Design exhibition. Cinelli has been awarded the Design Management Award for its Bootleg project. It is honour mentioned for its Starship frame.


1998
XVIII GOLDEN COMPASS - Milan - Italy
The most important Italian Design Award - organized by ADI.
Cinelli also receives honorable mention for the BOOTLEG and SOFT MACHINE bicycles.
EUROPEAN BICYCLE DESIGN CONTEST - by Shimano Europa, attends with the BOOTLEG bicycle.

BOOTLEG VOCABULARY

Boot - leg /’bu:tleg / 1. Vt. Make, transport or sell illicit alcoholic drinks: atrib. ~ liquor. It has been referred to the prohibition in the late 1920’s to 32, to make, consume, and distribute alcohol in the United States by law. ~ ger /’bu:tleg’(r) /n. The maker, seller or distributor of illegal alcohol. This was because the bootleggers would carry the products inside of tall boots and sell at famous houses of ill repute. Famous bootleggers include Joe Kennedy (president’s dad), Al Capone, Aldo "Rock" Calandro. Whisky ~ 2. Boot - leg /’bu:tleg / n. Slang. Name used by the record companies during the 70’s to define illicit vinyl recording of famous artists’ live concerts. Slang. Have you got the precious 1971 Led Zeppelin’s ~ live? Are you ready ~ ger? / a:(r) ju: ’red? ~ ?/ Bruce Springsteen’s live concerts opening shout. End 70’s. 3. Boot - leg /’bu:tleg /Late 90’s. Registered trademark by Cinelli. It defines a range of black, wicked, aggressive, reflective (thank you 3M Scotchlite TM), urban bike, parts, accessories and mini-scooters.