By some guy with a funny bicycle:
A stretch beach cruiser bike
on the Mason bike trail you might see artists painting those ugly transformer boxes. Here is one of the artists and his bicycle.
Francisco at work
painting “Bikes and More Bikes” as part of the Art in Public Places program of Fort Collins. If you look at the current members of the board of the APP you can see someone listed as simply “York” whose term expires in 2014. What’s with that?
Smash the caterpillar:
and test your strength.
The caterpillar (I am assuming here from the monarch butterflies in the artwork) is used as a measurement of strength or more likely how much force can be applied with a hammer.
Live Music
Note the plastic drink cups located just to the left of the music stands. Were all these guys left-handed?
A Drum Circle of course
If this was not here, I would not be there! The spirit of the drum is alive and much welcomed here.
Targeting family members.
Apparently this is some sort of game of skill in which you take aim at the little wooden figures with a bean bag and try to knock down as many as you can. It’s neat in that while there were many of those rented blow-up attractions at this party, this one was obviously made by someone local.
Sorry to say I have an accident to report. Here’s what happened:
The Black Sheep loaded with musical instruments.
This was the first time I would be going to my drum circle on a bike. That meant that I would be taking a load of percussion instruments from home to a specified location and then riding back at night safely transporting it all back home. In the dark. In the rain.
The picture above shows the Black Sheep bike with a trailer containing a djembe drum, a bag of small percussion instruments, a rug, extra firewood and of course a bag of marshmallows. In the pannier is a custom made left handed banjo.
The setup
The Foothills Drum Circle generally meets twice per month at various locations. This time it would be a fire circle which meant I had to bring a portable fireplace and firewood on one trip and then bring the instruments on a second trip. I made sure to come early to set up the benches, drums and fireplace. Note that Black Sheep bike resting on the back wall so everyone can see it.
Oh Noooooo !!!!
Sometimes gravity happens and lucky for me the banjo broke the fall so there was no damage to my Black Sheep bike. The banjo however was not so lucky. Note the decapitation of the peg-head. Part of the finger board came off, and two planetary geared tuning pegs were destroyed (expensive!) . But the Black Sheep: Not a scratch! I rode it home that night without a problem.
What have I learned from this experience?
Get a rear view mirror
This is not one of those Pee Wee Herman kind of long handled semi-truck mirrors nor is it the kind that you stick on to your bike helmet. It fits into the end of the handlebar tube so 1) you can see cars coming at you from behind and 2) you can keep an eye on your junk in the trailer as it falls off into on-coming traffic.
Get a kickstand
Oh sure, kickstands are just not cool. I would love to install one of those stirrup style stands that were popular in the 1940’s, but for now I’ll settle for this crappy one. At least it’s black and matches the bike. And the banjo approves.
It’s near where we went in 2008 on the Veteran’s Day Trek.
No hike today: We went via a CSU Bus
to the beautiful Pingree Park Conference area and learning center for CSU’s forestry students. We didn’t hike up to the B17 crash site this time; We just took a tour of the many buildings at the park and took in the fall colors.
A member of the Warnar College of Natural Resources
tells us how we could become involved in the many activities at the “mountain campus”, including music and painting workshops not to mention getting lost on the miles and miles of hiking trails.
Taxidermy in the museum
among other things. I haven’t posted a picture of a stuffed cat in a while, so here it is.
The Cold Storage
is one of the buildings on this site. George Pingree first came here to cut down trees for making railroad ties in 1868 then the Ramsey and Konig families homesteaded the area and built a number of log structures.
Kiddie cemetary
Some of the Konig kids didn’t make it through the harsh winters here. They were buried in the plot with lamb markers (now placed upon cinder blocks for easier viewing).
The Colors!
The park is a little over 9,000 feet in elevation so we were able to catch an early glimpse of what to expect down below in FoCo in the next week or so.
Here are some pictures of the new bike before it gets muddy tonight (looks like rain):
Here’s a short list of what it is:
IT IS A BLACK SHEEP:
The logo
There’s this little sheep emblem on the seat tube and if you look around you just might find some more sheep grazing about.
HAND MADE FRAME
Body by James
James from Black Sheep is shown here welding the frame for the bike that will be traded in the next Tour De Fat on the West Coast.
EXCLUSIVE NBB AUTHORIZED EDITION:
Of course there would be no Tour de Fat without New Belgium
The head tube bears this emblem with an etched date marking of ’11 to indicate that it is the car for bike trade made in the year 2011.
SADDLE BY BROOKS OF ENGLAND:
with hand hammered copper rivets
Made in Birmingham, England the Brooks Company has been making bicycle saddles since 1866. To keep the saddle in perfect condition, one must apply some Brooks brand Proofide from time to time. (There is no truth to the rumor that Proofide is made from the fat of executed prisoners, but some cyclists can’t get that urban legend out of their head)
THE LAST WORD: SHIMANO !
The Internally Geared Hub
is composed of a four stepped planetary gear system allowing for 11 speeds. Also in this picture are Shimano Avid ball bearing disk brakes.
What’s not in any of the above pictures are 1) The Axa Basta Nano Steady Switch 40 Lux LED headlamp; 2) Alfine DH-S501 power generating hub; 3) ZTR Arch 29er wheel rims; 4) FSA SL-280 Seatpost; 5) Planet Bike Eco Rack; 6) Axiom Mackenzie DLX Panniers; 7) Truvativ Hussefelt Crankset; 8 ) VP Components Pedals and 9) a KORE stem.
at the CSU Insectary
Roach motel it ain’t
There are other insectaries near the campus, most located at the Center for Disease Control – Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Desease (CDC-DVBID) out near the B.W. Pickett Equine Center. There is also the Arthropod-borne and Infectious Diseases Laboratory (AIDL) nearby but I don’t plan on visiting these places anytime soon.
Diuraphis noxia
or the Russian Wheat Aphid is living at 250 West Pitkin street. I was a bit disappointed to hear that these aphids are the main occupants at this location. I was expecting a nice collection of walking stick insects or something of that nature.
“No wait! We have a Walking Stick!”
and a few mantids and a taranchula or two. The lab is a controlled environment for insect research so most of the exotic bugs might be found at the Gillette museum.
Emergence tubes
Apparently collecting “Bugs that go Up” into the little vials located on the top of these cardboard tubes.
“Bugs that go Down”
at the bottom of these cardboard boxes. Note the heavy use of Duct tape.
With a race car on display?
I was just passing through on Linden Street today and saw that the park next to Rodizio’s is still fenced off because the city seeded the lawn on August 27th. The city put the fence up because the park is a favorite place for the area homeless to spend the night and they didn’t want anyone to walk on the new seedlings.
1st there is denial:
I know, it looks like my car, but it can’t be
Nothing wrong with the car… Why would anyone trade it in for a freakin’ bicycle????
Then An-Grrrrrr!
WTF! Them bastards at New Belgium tricked me! And who’s this Walter guy who thinks he’s a bad ass that he can just take my car??? Damn them all to hell, I tells ya!
Wait, maybe I can make a deal with this guy…
“Hey Walter, old buddy… “
I know you were born in Bahia Brazil. I bet you love Samba music right? I can get you front row tickets to the next performance of Bloco em Foco. What do you say… Is it a deal?
** DEPRESSION **
(Nothing to see here. Don’t want to be here. Everything is dark. Go away!)
I ACCEPT !
The car is going to a good home
…and that’s all that matters.
Man, it was a busy weekend:
At Red Rocks
for the Alison Krauss & Union Station concert. We had general admission tickets which means you can sit behind the yellow rope near the top of the rocks or if you are early you can find a ledge on the side to sit on. This is our view of the stage for $34 a pop. We heard a lot of dobro solos that night because the band was having trouble hearing themselves play.
Attended the New Belgium Tour de Fat
with Duncan Madog and his media cart. Jeanne and I went as some kind of pinhead characters out of a Bill Griffith cartoon no doubt inspired after visiting with team Zippy at Ragbrai last July.
Drum circle dancing at the farm
at yet another special party edition of Bloco em Foco on the farm
And I traded my VW Cabrio for a custom made Black Sheep Bike
That time of year again:
A time for bicycle conversion
This event was first reported here and here and there in 2008 and then here in 2009. We missed the 2010 tour, but this year we came back!
other trasportation
The Segway! Did you know it was first called Ginger? It’s because one of Dean Kamen’s balancing robot prototypes was nicknamed ‘Fred’ so naturally they called the next big invention ‘Ginger’. Ain’t them engineers a stitch!
Purple and Green Grapes
The original logo of Fruit of the Loom was developed in 1893 and included the grapes pictured above plus apples and gooseberries.
The Rhino Pirate
and Muzzled Giraffe
Note both pictures have a bamboo pole attached to the right fork of the bike.
Fat Tire Beer and Wonder Classic White
Back of the main stage: Fortified bread (what, maybe eight essential vitamins and minerals?) and beer? At least it’s not Smart Bread!
Not just beer but…
even more weirdest to come.
Lots to do here. Marcus Santos is in town next week and I want to get started on the TDF video NOW and have it done before Marcus arrives. How is that possible?
