In politics, there are formal campaigns, and then there are revolutions made with spray paint, garage-sale bicycles and a little inspiration from the likes of Banksy and Sun Tzu.
Before I was a mayor, commissioner or columnist, I was a guy in a small town with a big idea — and a garage full of yellow bikes.
The Tenino Yellow Bicycle Project didn’t start as a political movement. It started as something much simpler and much more radical.
In the early 2010s, Tenino, like many small towns, was a little sleepy. Not broken. Not apathetic. Just ... disengaged. People were disconnected from the local government. Civic engagement was low. The town’s potential sat quietly, waiting for someone to stir things up.
I saw that. So did my good friend Adam Barr, a man who is more than just an artist.
Adam has what I can only describe as a genius for weaving subversion and whimsy together. He understands how to push buttons and make people smile at the same time.
If you don’t believe me, just ask anyone in The Chronicle newsroom who has been there for any significant amount of time.
To this day, his now-infamous “meth-fueled tiger escapes Tenino rave” hoax — a masterclass in absurdist local mischief — still confounds newly hired reporters when they stumble across the old articles and think it actually happened. And anyone who attended or worked at Tenino High School in the mid ‘90s likely remembers the infamous “cricket incident of ‘96.”
This is the mind I was collaborating with when the Yellow Bicycle idea took root.
I wasn’t thinking like a politician at the time. I was thinking like an organizer and a student of disruption. At the time, I was reading about guerrilla art and cultural movements. Artists like Banksy and Shepard Fairey who used simple, bold imagery to spark public dialogue fascinated me.
I also dove into books on asymmetric warfare and classics like Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. What stuck with me was this idea:
If you can’t win by traditional means, change the battlefield.
So one night, Adam and I hatched a plan. What if we could wake up Tenino with something part art installation, part social experiment and part playful rebellion?
We started small.
Old bikes from garage sales.
Cans of yellow spray paint.
Stencils reading “FOR PUBLIC USE” and “SHARE.”
Under the cover of night, we placed them in parks, along sidewalks under the street lights, and near the post office. By morning, they were everywhere, gleaming like neon breadcrumbs across town.
People didn’t know what to make of them.
Was it art? A prank? A protest?
It didn’t matter. What mattered was people were talking again.
Soon, kids were riding them. Parents snapped photos. Social media lit up. The town buzzed with debate, jokes and enthusiasm.
And this wasn’t a one-night stunt.
Over the course of more than a year, Adam and I kept it alive. At night, we rounded up broken or missing bikes and replaced them with fresh ones. Bikes of all shapes and sizes. Little bikes. Giant bikes. Weird bikes. It became a living, evolving part of Tenino’s landscape.
