We get by with a little help from our friends; and sometimes, as in the case of sculptor Robertus Joost van der Wege, we get by with the help of the Malta Bike Man.

Van der Wege, whose international bicycle-inspired sculptures will be on display at Calgary’s DaDe Art & Design Lab starting July 22, began with a vision in 2005, inspired by a trip to the Netherlands. He imagined four bicycles attached in a ring around a tree.

“I would take off the front fork and wheel, and they would all be supported on the back tire,” he explains, “so that four humans could use it and it wouldn’t in any way touch or affect the tree.”

But procuring the raw materials for such a piece was a challenge, considering that even used bikes can be pricey.

Enter the Malta Bike Man.

During his continual search for art-worthy junkers, van der Wege discovered a sort of real-life superhero in Malta, Illinois. The Malta Bike Man, a German-American farmer named Lyle Drexler, had barns packed with hundreds of used bikes, many of which were abandoned, then donated by the surrounding schools. Lyle would collect and sell the bikes, and with the proceeds he would employ local boys in a makeshift bicycle repair shop.

So van der Wege got his bikes, and the sculpture, “A Ride in the Woods,” was born.

“And so I built this thing,” says van der Wege, “And once I had built it, I thought to myself: It’d be neat to do this with a bicycle or that with a bicycle. One thing led to another, and I just never stopped. The ideas just keep coming and coming.”

Each sculpture is carefully thought out, and although the larger pieces have a similar look to them — well, they’re all made of bicycles — the ideas behind them are diverse.

“People have a hard time relating to a dysfunctional bicycle,” says van der Wege in relation to his neatly symmetrical piece, “Siamese Schwinns,” in which the bodies of two bicycles share the same set of wheels. Another un-rideable bike, based on personal experience, is “Bipolar Lady or Lady Bipolar,” two bikes angled together sharing the same seat and handlebar. His inspiration for that piece was being married to an undiagnosed bipolar woman.

Van der Wege, now based in Calgary after living in Libya, was born in the U.S. but has travelled extensively and worked in some far-flung corners of the globe, and this international experience and curiosity is evident in his work. His most political sculpture is called the “Robert Mugabe (Nobody Gets to Ride) Bicycle.” The four-wheeled piece is painted with Zimbabwe’s flags, has no seats, no handlebars, and the breaks are seized. As a final touch, van der Wege recorded real Zimbabwe inflation rates (some of the worst in the world) on each of the four tires. Clearly, no one gets to ride this bike.

“It’s an obvious link between our walking and the automobile or any further,” explains van der Wege. “People are doing automobile art all the time, people are doing aircraft art. We didn’t look at this interim stage of bicycles that much. I’m really fascinated with them as forms.”

In looking at the sculptures, you can sense how many ideas van der Wege has incubating in his head — and how much he enjoys his art.

“I think my work conveys how much fun I have as a sculptor,” he says. “I have a lot of fun — I love to do this.