Bike Birthdays

October is the month of my birthday (hooray!) and it got me to thinking about how bikes might feature in birthday celebrations.

So in honour of my own – and all the other people-rider-birthdayers – this post looks at some creative, kooky and conventional ways bikes can be used for an awesome birthday celebration via the 3 main elements of invitations, food and cakes.

For any other bike-related ideas like locations, games, decorations and activities, there are heaps of websites and ideas on Pinterest. The ideas here are just an entry point to get the inspiration flowing for you next bike-themed birthday party.

For whenever your birthday is….Happy bikey birthday!

Bike Birthday Invite Cards

Of course, you need to let people know it’s your birthday and invites are key. Invitations are a very personal choice and show your particular personality and passion. As well as confirming key birthday event information, invites can also visually set the tone and expectation for the party.

As someone who cares deeply for the environment, I would go for an e-card. But for those who still like print-based outputs, you can’t go past a custom-designed birthday card.

Of course, you can make your own, or use a photo for Canva or print services at places like Officeworks or Kmart, but if you want to minimize the hassle or you can’t be bothered with the design and effort – try Zazzle for bike inspired birthday cards. (This is an Australian service, I’m sure there will be an equivalent if you are living elsewhere).

Zazzle is a community of researchers, professional artists, manufacturing gurus, patent holders, inventors, musicians and more, who are united by a passion to re-define commerce. They apply technology, design and skills to help customers produce their own products and designs – it is pretty impressive.

As an example, I typed in ‘bicycle birthday invites’ into their search and HEAPS came up. You can use stock designs or create your own. The images below are from Zazzle and are just a few you can get from the initial search:

Bike Themed Party Food

Of course you are going to need some party themed bike food. The below list is more geared towards kids parties, but lets face it, kids party’s often have best snack food.

I’ve also included a few images of more adult, savory and ‘technical’ food (at least in construction) to offset the usual sugary-laden snack food and bike cake to follow.

Here are some bike party food suggestions from the Mighty Mom’s Club:

1. If you’re feeling ambitious, follow this lead and make chocolate gears as cupcake toppers.
2. Increase the bling and glitz things up with this gold cake topper.
3. Why not ditch the classic birthday cake for more portable cupcakes with a bicycle topper? If those are a bit over budget, here’s another adorable option.
4. This bicycle fruit tray is both healthy and a work of art.
5. Race your way to a piece of this delicious bundt cake complete with bike lanes and cake toppers.
6. These super-simple rainbow pinwheels will have all your riders refueling with glee.
7. Aren’t these chocolate and sprinkle covered pretzels adorable? Put them on display as “kickstands!”
8. The rules of the road apply to cyclists, too. Lighten up your table with these fruity traffic light skewers.
9. It’s always a bonus when there’s more than sugar, sugar, and more sugar at a birthday party. This wheels-and-cheese recipe is sure to please everyone especially when you serve it on these trendy plates.

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Bike Birthday Cakes

A while ago I wrote about bike cakes (read about bike cakes here), so I will not go over it all again here.

But it does need to be said that bike-themed cakes are AWESOME!

Personally, I prefer home-made bike cakes to store-bought, just because of the diversity, personalisation and effort it takes to make it – but saying that, I won’t be turning down a slice from ANY creative bike cake on a riders birthday.

Bike cakes are only limited by your imagination, time, skill and finances.

In my book, the weirder and more fun the bike cake – the better!

Here are a few examples of bike cakes:

*Just as a side note – I am frustrated by how bike cakes are pretty much solely focused on male riders and perpetuate very traditional ‘masculine’ conventions/performatives in the theming, naming and decorating. One of the only female-rider bike cakes that did not have (all) pink, flowers, balloons, a step-through bike or something hyper-girly was a cake (first one below), from Dubai. More bike cakes that have female-riders who are equally portrayed as diverse, champions, fast, risk-takers, active and adventurous riders, please!

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