Zine Archives: C.H.U.N.K. 666 Heat Shield of the Celestial Chariot
The 2000s were a glorious time in both bikes and ‘zines, the internet was just functional enough to exchange vast amounts of information, computers easy enough to use to make the promise of desktop publishing a reality, but ink on paper was still the way. Presented here is the first dive into the archives, selections from C.H.U.N.K. 666, Heat Shield of the Celestial Chariot, the absolute best freak-bike information you can find written down.
C.H.U.N.K. 666 was a tall bike, chopper, trike and other self-powered hacked together wheeled vehicle club out of Portland and New York that put out this ‘zine in 1999 prior to Y2K regrettably not sending us back to the iron-age. Recycled bike collectives were in their infancy, steel frames of the ‘80s and ‘90s were plentiful, and urban bike culture across the country was brewing with an energy that would yield the bike-ped infrastructure of today. Few saw it coming in the day, but it is truly a culturally direct line from tall bike jousting to separated bike lane.
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“In the future, the waters will rise again. Much of the terrestrial world will be submerged, and will become one giant stash pile, ripe for the harvesting by our aquachoppers. Currently, however, only the bottom two or three layers spend much time underwater.”
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“There is something very comforting about hauling a lot of shit around. It’s nice to know that you’re prepred for sudden hailstorms, famine, breakdowns, and boredom. With these large vehicles, we are also working towards our goal of building self-sustaining, mobile arks that can withstand several extremes of terrain and climate.”
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“The social structure of C.H.U.N.K. 666 is a cross between a grade-school playground and a clan of monkeys. The pecking order is always changing, and is usually determined by constant little skirishes, both on the road and in the lab. This can take its toll on bicycles as well as humans, however, so we provide two escape valves — the Chunkathon, in which te mightiest are determined through structure competiton, and the Rink, in which we just chill out, ride fridnly-like in circles, and dance.”
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“The steering system of the bicycle is an amazing invention. very beginning cyclist goes through a frustrating period when the leran how to stay upright and steer. Every cyclist that has passed this learning period can simply jump on a bicycle and ride it without giving the matter much thought. … There is quite a bit of depth to the problem, with books, articles, and graduate theses about the subject, and ongoing debates with both clueful and clueless participants.”
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There is some truly great content in here useful to anyone looking to cut up some frames into something new. Click through the images above, or view a PDF of the same handful of pages for a easier reading. Stay tuned for more dives into the archives, there are a ton of small print run ‘zines around HQ that we’ll continue to share.