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It's all about the bike

Veloise

By Veloise
in Grand Rapids Coffee House

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fotoman311 Burg

fotoman311

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My ride to work today was like a winter wonderland. It was especially cool riding across the Interurban bridge. Everything was so dark and colorless and surreal. The river was flowing pretty fast. The bridge had been plowed once (thankfully), but there was still 2 inches of snow and only one set of footprints that was visible. I felt like I was in a Tim Burton movie (Edward Scissorhands/Sleepy Hollow, not Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). :)

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fotoman311 Burg

fotoman311

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Last week I went to DC for the National Bike Summit. Here are some photos.

Got to meet Vern Ehlers!

3362240722_4f81d6e095_b.jpg

At the Capitol Building with Nate Phelps, fellow GR resident and new president of the Michigan Mountain Bike Association:

3361418309_772c9034c5_b.jpg

Posing with my borrowed bicycle at the Lincoln Memorial:

3361401397_8fd6fe8661_b.jpg

Lots of Bike Lanes! And plans for more.

3362805568_013fc2c33f_b.jpg

I gotta say that DC is pretty great place to ride and a bicycle is a fantastic way to get around and see the city a bit off of the beaten path.

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fotoman311 Burg

fotoman311

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Smart Cycling courses for 2009

Here is my flyer for May/June/July

3400080437_bfb2118d87_b.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fotoman311/3400080437/

$30 for a 9 hour course, including materials, is an excellent deal. I have gotten great feedback from the courses I have taught so far.

Veloise is a certified instructor as well and may be offering some additional courses this summer.

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fotoman311 Burg

fotoman311

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How does one become a certified instructor? Who certifies the individual?

I am bringing in an trainer contracted by the League of American Bicyclists to teach the course. There is more info at the link on the flyer: http://www.tinyurl.com/lcigrtraining

It's a pretty intense weekend of training, but well worth the time. And you can recoup the $200 tuition by teaching a few courses after you're certified. My hope is to have many more local instructors teaching classes after this training. I am willing to team teach with the newly minted instructors to get them a little bit of confidence (I know that I could have used it).

Please spread the word on the courses. I'd love to have full classes of 6-9 students.

Also, as a prerequisite for the instructor certification, you have to take the Traffic Skills 101 course and score at least 85 on the written and on-road tests.

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svs650k3 Whistle-Stop

svs650k3

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I'll be at both. We already bought our chalk so we wouldn't have to wait in line to get some. Should be a fun day!

Couple questions about the auction:

Are things auctioned off 1 by 1 or is there a written bidding process?

Do I need to bring cash?

How long does it usually go for and do you need to be there early?

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Veloise City

Veloise

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Couple questions about the auction:

Are things auctioned off 1 by 1 or is there a written bidding process?

Do I need to bring cash?

How long does it usually go for and do you need to be there early?

Bikes are numbered and arranged in order, and they start at the top. There's plenty of time to assess the merch.

As with any traditional auction, the further along you get, the fewer bidders remain. (Nope, you can't switch numbers on a bike so it gets put into the triple digits.)

Usually there are a couple hundred bikes. Some are in good shape, others aren't. There will be adults and kids bikes, reasonably good brands and department store makes. Regrettably, the ones given out by Elves & More tend to show up as well. (I spend several hours every December assembling these things, so I know what they look like.)

Takes a couple hours to get rid of them all. If you like item #150, you can spend a while browsing the other goods: City desks, office furniture, computers, various items collected in drug raids.

There are always several bicycle club members floating around, sometimes distinctively attired, and happy to offer advice and counsel if you need to be steered away from a POS model. (I always wear big yellow bicycle-shaped earrings.)

City takes plastic. I think they'll also take a check.

HTH

ETA: Here's the heckuva deal I picked up a few years ago. $35.

rockford1.jpg

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fotoman311 Burg

fotoman311

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Couple questions about the auction:

Are things auctioned off 1 by 1 or is there a written bidding process?

Do I need to bring cash?

How long does it usually go for and do you need to be there early?

Just to add from my experience the last 3 or 4 years.

The place opens at 8am. You go in and sign up and they give you a number that you use for bidding. The bikes are all line up in 3 or 4 huge rows. I generally bring a pen and take notes on the back of my auction card for the bicycles that I am interested in.

The bidding starts at 9am with bike #1. There have been between 350 and 500 bikes the times that I have been there. It generally takes until about noon or a little after to get through them all. (at that time you can walk down Monroe/Market and leave your artistic mark on GR with some sidewalk chalk)

If you win a bike and you want to leave, you have to wait a bit for them to get the updated list back to the payment area and then you pay and they give you a receipt. You go see the nice policeman and he gives you your bicycle. You must claim the bicycle(s) that day.

There have been years where I was interested in bike #120 and then the next one I was interested in was in the 300s and I just leave and go do something else for an hour. There is usually a concessions cart there selling hotdogs and drinks and stuff like that.

Here's one of my auction bikes (it did NOT come with the xtracycle "extension" that's carrying my farmer's market haul) I bought for $35 or $40:

2641385658_6ee18716f7.jpg

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Ted Whistle-Stop

Ted

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Here's one of my auction bikes (it did NOT come with the xtracycle "extension" that's carrying my farmer's market haul) I bought for $35 or $40:

2641385658_6ee18716f7.jpg

Josh-

Did you do the xtracycle yourself? Or did you have professional assistance?

Yours in loading,

ted

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fotoman311 Burg

fotoman311

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Josh-

Did you do the xtracycle yourself? Or did you have professional assistance?

Yours in loading,

ted

I did it myself. It's not hard if you have the extra chain, a chain tool, and a set of allen wrenches. If you need assistance, I can help you out. I bought my Xtracycle FreeRadical (the extension part) used from one of the mechanics at Alger Cyclery. I love my 'truck'! :)

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fotoman311 Burg

fotoman311

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OMG!

That is some pretty amazing trials footage. I love it when the people come and look over the edge after he does a stunt, like "Did he really just do that?"

There are some pretty amazing unicycle trials videos on youtube as well. I'm at least as amazed by what some of those guys do.

Like this one. The first half is crashes, some of them pretty spectacular, and the second half they land most of the tricks. They have a pretty amazing video for sale over at Freewheeler that I watched when I bought my unicycle.

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