Bar­ter­ing has entered the 21^st cen­tury in the form of social cyc­ling. It can be as simple as a group of friends get­ting together to trade cloth­ing, or as com­plex as a national initiative.

Turn­ing unwanted parts into work­ing bikes | Photo by Jess Scully

Social Cyc­ling comes in many forms. ‘Up-cycling’: cre­at­ing new objects from recycled mater­i­als, ‘down-cycling’: reusing an object for a new pur­pose and swap-cycling: trad­ing objects with oth­ers to save them from becom­ing landfill.

We often see it in acts like col­lect­ing cans for cash, but increas­ingly social cyc­ling is devel­op­ing into large-scale events. The ReThreads clothes, music and book exchange attrac­ted hun­dreds to Car­riage­works for a money-free shop­ping day, while the Big Aus­sie Swap took it to a lar­ger scale. Along with a major event in Sydney’s cent­ral Mar­tin Place, 50 swap events were held in sub­urbs and towns around Aus­tralia with more than 2500 registered swap­pers, 4000 par­ti­cipants and 8000 items swapped. Organ­isers revealed that 75% of people par­ti­cip­at­ing in this year’s event were first-time swappers.

The bene­fits of swap-cycling are undeni­able. Accord­ing to Planet Ark, one swapped cot­ton dress can save up to 22 000 litres of water.

The Deus Bike Swap Meet is about shar­ing in the bike com­munity | Photo by Carby Tuckwell

Deus Ex Mach­ina in Camper­down, Sydney has just hos­ted the fourth Deus Bike Swap Meet. Rather than dis­card­ing unsuit­able bikes, riders can trade and barter their way to bicycle parts. Along with the two-wheel ele­ment past meets have included film screen­ings, roller racing and musical exploits.

The Deus concept centres on a desire to develop the com­munity while shar­ing the com­munity bike-based wealth. Accord­ing to Deus’ cycle works man­ager, Piero Pig­natti Mor­ano the swap meet is anti-hording and focuses on the notion that bikes are built to be rid­den, not hid­den away in gar­ages and on front porches.

Says Pig­natti Mor­ano, “We’re anti over-consumption and anti-cheap product and have a ves­ted interests in sustainability”

A swap meet can be as simple as a group of friends get­ting together to trade cloth­ing | Photo by Jess Scully

It’s the exten­sion of an idea that Cycle ReCycle have been work­ing on, under vari­ous guises, since 2005. At Cycle ReCycle bike own­ers can trade parts and use fel­low bikers’ know-how. No money trades hands but vis­it­ors are encour­aged to replace what they take by donat­ing parts, tools or cash. The aim is to take aban­doned parts and up-cycle them into work­ing bikes to be redis­trib­uted into the local com­munity, sav­ing them from landfill.

Start­ing a swap meet is as simple as gath­er­ing together a group of like­minded friends, present­ing your wares — be they food, cloth­ing, bike parts or books — and let­ting the swap­ping begin.