Introduction

Hi, I’m Carrie. I hated the first year I lived in New York. I spent most of my hours working in the studio, some sleeping and the time in between underground. My experience of New York was very limited and pretty much constrained to two main areas on the map—the SVA studio and my home in Carroll Gardens. Once I started using my bike for transportation, I went so many more places and experienced every part of New York in between. All of a sudden my experience of New York was much bigger, and I was much happier.

Hi, I’m Kristin. When I moved to Park Slope last summer, I got a bike. To justify the purchase, I started daring my classmate, Carrie, to go places further away to get my wheels rolling. I didn’t consider myself an avid biker so I actually suggested crazy things I wouldn’t do on my own. We ended up developing an unstated pressure and social contract between us to ride bikes instead of taking the subway. It has led us to going further and being more committed to our bike seats than we had ever intended. We both use our bikes to get everywhere in the city.

The joy we experience from riding a bike is something we would like to pass on to other people. And while biking is an excellent source for happiness, game researcher Jane McGonigal says gaming is a great source too, and especially collaborative games. When we combine the two, biking and gaming, we get SPOKED—a service that helps you and your friends get on bikes more often through two-week bike games.

This web site tells the story of our process from inception to launch of SPOKED through our last year at the Interaction Design program at the School of Visual Arts in NYC (2011-2012).