IN Utah This Week Article: Wheel Life

Pedal Pushers

Salt Lake City cyclists promote ’fun and awesomeness’ while raising bike awareness.

by Kelly Ashkettle

kashkettle@inthisweek.com

originally posted @ http://www.inthisweek.com/articles.php?id=348#article

Last weekend was practically a Bicycle Festival for Salt Lake: Bike enthusiasts could attend six different organized events. While a traveling film exhibit called "The Pornography of the Bicycle" was one of the most popular among cyclists, the one that received the most media attention was the Rally for a Healthy Planet at the SLC Government Center on Saturday.

Among the most visible participants were a few dozen bicyclists, many wearing facemasks to protest air pollution as they made loops around downtown. They rode to demonstrate that air quality is a crucial issue and would improve if more people used bikes instead of cars. In talking with some of these enthusiasts, however, their commitment to riding bicycles sounds more influenced by fun and camaraderie than sacrifice.

Cory Bailey, 26, has been married for four years. He and his wife do not own a car; they are committed to riding bicycles and using public transportation. Bailey, who posts online under the moniker of "Zed," maintains a Web site called saltcycle.com and is one of the local bike scene’s more visible participants.

I first encountered him the previous weekend at Critical Mass, a monthly event in which cyclists take to the streets in a pack to raise bicycle awareness. He was then riding a child’s bike he’d dubbed "The Silver Bomber," but at the rally he rode a full-sized bike decorated with caution tape. He likes to go for an "industrial, neo-punk look," he explained.



"I’ve always enjoyed the community aspect of bicycling," said Bailey, a native of Idaho. He adds that some of his interest in organizing events was inspired by a visit to Portland, where he witnessed that city’s bike scene, but that he thinks Salt Lake has even more potential because of our wide streets, and that the scene here has grown a lot since he moved here four years ago. "I think the summer is going to be huge, especially with gas prices," he said. "People are going to start biking a lot more."

One event that Bailey has spearheaded is the UBomb. Participants meet with children’s bikes each Sunday at the downtown library. They then ride TRAX up to the University of Utah and "bomb" the bikes down the hill, a process they repeat several times. Bailey said his favorite part of Friday’s bike porn screening was not the depiction of sexual acts with bicycles, but an exhilarating film of people bike-bombing down a hill.

Another cyclist at the rally, Mark Polichette, explained that exhilaration: "You feel like a kid again," he said. "You go back in time, and you’re riding on this tiny little bike, and the road’s flying by you, and you’ve either got no brakes or a coaster brake or your feet on the ground to slow it down...it’s so much fun."

Polichette was one of two riders at the rally who were on "tall bikes." These bikes are twice the height of a normal bike because they’re made up of two frames welded on top of one another. Polichette explained that the height of the bicycle helps him see and be seen in traffic, and he enjoys the attention it attracts. "It’s about fun," he says. "Fun and awesomeness."

A race between tall bikes was scheduled for that evening; it was dubbed a "Tallie Cat" race because it was in the style of Alley Cat races (bike-messenger-style races in which participants must stop at specific locations).

The Tallie Cat race also permitted other kinds of "freak bikes," like the swing bike ridden at the rally by Portland’s "Reverend" Phil Sano, the curator of the bike porn screening. A swing bike has independent steering on each wheel, making it appear double-jointed. Sano’s propulsion of his swing bike involved opening and closing his legs to move each wheel. He lagged behind the other riders a bit, but looked like he was having more fun.

Besides the bike porn screening, the Healthy Planet Rally, the Tallie Cat race and a UBomb on Sunday, there were three other events last weekend: a mini bike gymkhana (in which bicyclists competed on a course on children's bikes), a Midnight Mass (Critical Mass gone "midnight and wild") and "Blackout Hustle," a 20- to 30-mile ride in which participants tested themselves in a pack.

While last weekend was especially packed in honor of the bike porn screening, regular rides do occur almost every weekend, and new ones are being formed all the time (like the "Bike-in Mass" Polichette wants to have at a drive-in movie theater). "We’re trying to just get new rides out there to get people out and try to create somewhat of a community to get people having fun," Polichette says.



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a big thanks to Kelly//k3llya for this article. see more of her photographic work over @:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/629275@N21/pool/
..and an additional blogging by her w/text & photos:
http://www.inthisweek.com/blog/?p=63

hopefully, we will see her out at bicycling events from now on...


also thanks to you Salt Lake City Cyclists for making last weekend insanely great. next month is National Bicycle Month.
Which means Film Festivals, Centuries and more wacky bicycle hijinks than you can shake a spoke at.
Watch for it, live for it, bike for it.

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