Free Ride! is dedicated to recycling junk bikes into riders, but according to Nick Thompson, "once in a while a bike frame gets cut up and welded back together to start a new life as a smoothie blender."

Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette D. J. Trischler of McCandless uses pedal power to run this blender at the Free Ride! headquarters in Point Breeze. The recycling of old bikes will be part of tomorrow's second Festival of the Salvage Arts at Construction Junction, 214 N. Lexington St., Point Breeze. Click photo for larger image. More information "Son of SALVO" runs from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. today at Construction Junction, 214 N. Lexington St. in Point Breeze (just off Penn Avenue). There'll be salvage art workshops, a salvage wear fashion show, music, poetry and more. The festival asks for a $3 admission or $5 per family. For details, visit the Web site www.salvoarts.org or call 412-243-5025. For more information on Free Ride!, look for the link at www.bike-pgh.org or call 412-731-4094. Donations of bikes and parts are welcome.

You still pedal it, but rather than just make you thirsty, your efforts turn the bike wheel that spins a skateboard wheel that powers a blender mounted on the otherwise stationary contraption.

Laugh if you want, but this project of nonprofit Bike Pittsburgh has sold three bike blenders to Ben & Jerry's, the Vermont-based ice cream chain.

"It's groovy," says Thompson, whose bike enthusiasm spiked when he saw the prototype. He's the one who flew with it this spring to Ben & Jerry's South Burlington, Vt., headquarters, where he got them to buy three for $500 apiece. Now people know him by his e-mail handle:

Blenderguy.

He lives just around the corner from the Free Ride! shop inside Construction Junction, the Point Breeze nonprofit dealer of used and surplus materials.

That's where today you can try a smoothie, or even take a bike blender for a spin, during the second Festival of the Salvage Arts held by SALVO, Salvage Artists Linking Venues and Opportunities.

Smoothie ingredients are being donated by the East End Food Co-op and the local Ben & Jerry PartnerShop, which is owned and operated by Life'sWork of Western Pennsylvania and Black Dog Ventures Inc. All proceeds from smoothie sales will be shared by Free Ride! and other nonprofits.

On hand with Thompson will be the creative and mechanical genius behind the blender, Free Ride! coordinator Erok (as everyone knows Eric Boerer).

The 27-year-old Hill District resident made his first human-powered blender in 2003 while helping to recycle bikes in Guatemala. There, locals use old bikes to power grain mills and other farm machinery, and they also like smoothies and juices, so voila: el bici liquador.

Back in Pittsburgh, Erok cranked out one for the shop that caused a stir at events like FLUX. Ben and Jerry themselves rode one at the grand opening of the Squirrel Hill ice cream outlet, which is going to get the third bike blender the company purchased.

Graham Rigby, brand manager for Ben & Jerry's retail shops, says the blenders are a perfect fit for the environmentally conscious company, which plans to move the other two around for store openings and special events. But if other shops want permanent ones, "we obviously can negotiate it, too."

Thompson hopes the funky blender takes off, because it makes a statement about recycling, about art and about conserving resources.

It also makes -- as he demonstrates with orange juice, yogurt, strawberry sorbet, a banana, blueberries and his legs -- a mean smoothie.