0 comment Sunday, April 27, 2014 | admin
What a blast. Will and I were talking about how the whole week just felt like a bike convention to us, not the DNC.
I took two volunteer shifts picking up trash via pedicab, an early shift volunteering at a Freewheelin' check-out station, and parked bikes for a couple hours before the Obama speech Thursday night. I think I learned that lots of people love bicycles, whether or not they've ridden one in many years.
Some of my favorite images were ones like the guy in a dapper pinstripe suit returning one of the single-speed disc-brake Specialized Freewheelin' bikes flying over a curb instead of around it, just having fun. Or riding the pedicab down the Cherry Creek trail to pick up bagels and coffee for the Freewheelin' volunteers, seeing Will riding the other way, high-fiving him, and ten minutes later, running into Josh while rolling down 15th Street.
Freewheelin' is off to Minneapolis for the RNC next week, and many folks would argue that Minneapolis has better bike culture than Denver. Hell, I'm not one to argue. Those guys do alley cats in January, in -5 degree temps. But we had bikes and Obama.
Guy returning a Freewheelin' bike to the Rude Park check-in a couple hours before Obama's acceptance speech: "I checked one of these bikes out every day I was here, and it changed my life."
Cheers to Humana, Bikes Belong and all the volunteers that made this week happen. I think everybody was going into it just thinking, "Well, let's try to put 1,000 bikes out there and see what happens," not knowing whether or not anyone would check out bikes. But if you were downtown, you saw tons of the Freewheelin' bikes, and you saw people riding them, and smiling.
These are the non-Freewheelin' bikes ridden to Rude Park, just south of Invesco Field, for Obama's acceptance speech. Pretty awesome.
And some of the Freewheelin' bikes, helmets and locks, returned.
Barack Obama is your new bicycle.
These guys from Bicycle Village were set up to repair bikes at Thursday night's bike parking, but didn't have a lot of work to do. I didn't realize there was an image of a tricycle on the TV until I uploaded these pics to my computer.
Packing up the first load of Freewheelin' bikes to leave Denver. This truck barely made a dent in the stacks and stacks we had at Rude Park just before the speech. That's Lise on the right in the blue shirt.
Text message I sent to my brother last night. He works nights, so he probably wasn't planning on watching the speech. Come to think of it, he may have just glanced at his phone and thought I was at a Broncos preseason game or something.
Nick and Brendan, just being a part of history. Nick called me at 8:30 Thursday morning to let me know he had tickets to Obama's acceptance speech, which meant that I had tickets to Obama's acceptance speech, since Nick is a good friend. I parked bikes until 6:30 and Nick finished up his duties as manager of the Freewheelin' trash and recycling pickup, and we strolled into Invesco at about 7:10 with no time waiting in line.
Pretty typical of the photos I got during the speech. Great stuff, like hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-our-neck stuff.
I took two volunteer shifts picking up trash via pedicab, an early shift volunteering at a Freewheelin' check-out station, and parked bikes for a couple hours before the Obama speech Thursday night. I think I learned that lots of people love bicycles, whether or not they've ridden one in many years.
Some of my favorite images were ones like the guy in a dapper pinstripe suit returning one of the single-speed disc-brake Specialized Freewheelin' bikes flying over a curb instead of around it, just having fun. Or riding the pedicab down the Cherry Creek trail to pick up bagels and coffee for the Freewheelin' volunteers, seeing Will riding the other way, high-fiving him, and ten minutes later, running into Josh while rolling down 15th Street.
Freewheelin' is off to Minneapolis for the RNC next week, and many folks would argue that Minneapolis has better bike culture than Denver. Hell, I'm not one to argue. Those guys do alley cats in January, in -5 degree temps. But we had bikes and Obama.
Guy returning a Freewheelin' bike to the Rude Park check-in a couple hours before Obama's acceptance speech: "I checked one of these bikes out every day I was here, and it changed my life."
Cheers to Humana, Bikes Belong and all the volunteers that made this week happen. I think everybody was going into it just thinking, "Well, let's try to put 1,000 bikes out there and see what happens," not knowing whether or not anyone would check out bikes. But if you were downtown, you saw tons of the Freewheelin' bikes, and you saw people riding them, and smiling.
These are the non-Freewheelin' bikes ridden to Rude Park, just south of Invesco Field, for Obama's acceptance speech. Pretty awesome.And some of the Freewheelin' bikes, helmets and locks, returned.Barack Obama is your new bicycle.These guys from Bicycle Village were set up to repair bikes at Thursday night's bike parking, but didn't have a lot of work to do. I didn't realize there was an image of a tricycle on the TV until I uploaded these pics to my computer.Packing up the first load of Freewheelin' bikes to leave Denver. This truck barely made a dent in the stacks and stacks we had at Rude Park just before the speech. That's Lise on the right in the blue shirt.Text message I sent to my brother last night. He works nights, so he probably wasn't planning on watching the speech. Come to think of it, he may have just glanced at his phone and thought I was at a Broncos preseason game or something.Nick and Brendan, just being a part of history. Nick called me at 8:30 Thursday morning to let me know he had tickets to Obama's acceptance speech, which meant that I had tickets to Obama's acceptance speech, since Nick is a good friend. I parked bikes until 6:30 and Nick finished up his duties as manager of the Freewheelin' trash and recycling pickup, and we strolled into Invesco at about 7:10 with no time waiting in line.Pretty typical of the photos I got during the speech. Great stuff, like hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-our-neck stuff.Labels: Bike