Kelly was going to ride on the back, but once I announced my plans to Rickroll she had no interest in being attached to this ride. Everyone else wanted to ride their own rides too (understandable), so we put the Halloween scarecrow on the back with a bike helmet. Perfect. Here’s the highlight reel:

This was my fourth year of Tour de Fat and it seems every year past year one they mess up parade flow. Last year, they had a huge turnout and tried to funnel part of it onto the greenbelt (bad idea). This year, almost last minute, it was like they were thinking “This is working too well” and they had everyone go up a curb and onto the lawn so they can pass the Tour de Fat main stage. Bad idea. It bottlenecked hard at the narrow entry to the road where lots of people were trying to start from to begin with.

Past there, they made a fundamental mistake. Understand that outside of New Belgium Brewing the organizers are local biking enthusiasts. They ride a lot on light bikes with multiple speeds. They aren’t in touch with the average rider in the Tour de Fat. I ran across an organizer about 6 months back and I was very obvious about not having a bench climb. Maybe next time I should get an email address or show up as a ‘user advocate’ (as I have for software over the years). Well, sure enough, there was a bench climb. My cruiser minded friends who showed up had Shimano 7 speed hubs, so they could drop down and climb. That’s not typical in cruiserworld.

As mentioned, my plan was to “Rickroll by Rickshaw”, which, if you are unfamiliar with Rickrolling, involves unsuspectingly bombing people with Rick Astley’s hit song “Never Gonna Give You Up”. We put the fake passenger on the back, I printed up a big Rick Astley on three sheets of paper on the DECLaser 5100 and joined them, and also printed the other signs and taped them on as well.

Burning the CD was fun. I could have burned just one track and put it on replay, but naw, I put over 10 copies of it on one disc instead.

I put the disc in the boombox and it played fine. Right before we leave for the tour, I decide to ride with the cd playing from the boombox which is bungied on the back rack. It was awful. I thought an occasional skip would be fun, but this thing was skipping to where it would stop playing within one minute. Awful. It would rarely skip if I carried it during while riding, so that’s what I did.

The Tour de Fat is my favorite annual Boise event, and this year was no different.

Bob rode along on the back, and thinking he might want to leave early, we put his Schwinn Racer on the back using a bike carrier designed for use on cars. It works pretty well back there, with the only difficulty being it makes the Rickshaw wider.

Things went pretty quick, so Bob and his Schwinn hung around for the full ride. All in all, a nice little event in beautiful Boise, Idaho. The Rickshaw odometer is now reading just under 110 miles so far.

The bench is named such because the sudden rise in elevation gives the prominent appearance of a step, or bench. The Bench (or Benches, there are 3 actual benches throughout the Boise Valley) was created as an ancient shoreline to the old river channel.

The edge of each bench is like climbing a plateau, but instead of coming down the other side, you are greeted with another climb to another bench after the one you’re on. The area on top of each bench is fairly flat, so once you’re there it is all good. The battle is getting there.

The Rickshaw had never been up the bench for obvious reasons, but I figured I’d give it a shot. I called my friend Joe (who is the all time leader in Rickshaw miles as a passenger) and said I’d try to get him and his girlfriend down the bench and we’d hang out for some Karaoke. They were going to have to take a cab back though, because I was not going back up. Sounded like fun, so it was a go, or at least a try.

Water is power, so I took in a lot of water and Gatorade before I left the house. I decided the easiest way up was going to be the old rail bridge route that goes from the Boise Greenbelt, across the river, and ends up in the Orchard/Emerald area on the near bench. This route is smooth and about as gradual as it gets. Could I do it? Could the Rickshaw make it without snapping the chain or something else?

I took it easy on the way there. I wanted to be fresh for the climb. I hit the climb for the rail bridge and it wasn’t easy but I made it. I crossed the river and then kept going. I tried to keep my speed up so I had the crank turning at an optimal speed. There’s only one speed on the Rickshaw so I don’t have an easier gear to kick down to. A quick glance down revealed that I was going 7.9 MPH, which is a hair slower than normal cruising speed. I dig in a smidgen more and get it in the 8 MPH range. That’s cruising speed while climbing the bench.

There’s a point where the path up the bench actually starts to go down a bit before going back up more. I stop at the top of that point, not because I had to, but I wanted to assess myself and the Rickshaw. Both were doing well. I consumed 16oz of water, and then rode on to the top. Victory!

From there, I rode over to Joe’s place. I lost a bolt on the way (thankfully not a problem), which Joe replaced with some cool looking carriage bolts which looked much nicer than the regular bolts they replaced:

Once the bolts were replaced, it was time to load up and head out.

Because of my concerns about downhill braking, which had never received a real test, I wanted the safest route down which I guessed was Ustick Road:

• It has a bike lane.
• It has a lot of road texture, so it is a slower roll than the path I took up the bench.
• Though it is steeper than the route taken up, it also goes back up hill part way before the next intersection so even if the brakes went bad, gravity would stop the Rickshaw long before reaching the next intersection.

I went slow and the brakes took it. No noticeable brake fade. No noticeable smells coming from the brake. All was good.

We made it down the bench, on to karaoke, and then I hauled myself on home to finish the night. All in all, I’m thinking about 18 miles of traveling that day. The odometer is now sitting at 80.75 miles. That was the most demanding trip to date, but I took it much better than many other trips in the 2006 and 2007 seasons.

I’ve wanted to clear the 100 mile point in a season and it appears that will happen this season. I’m still fat but my cardiovascular and leg strength have improved significantly this year, and I have lost some fat. These days, hopping on a bike almost seems like taking a car, which is odd. More odd, the Rickshaw is increasingly starting to seem like riding a bike. If you’d have told me last year that I’d get the Rickshaw up the bench with a single speed I would have been surprised.

I dropped him off (to a comment something to the extent of “Way to travel in style, Brother Bob!”) and he’ll call later for the ride back. I’ve been wanting to do the gig haul for a while, just for the sheer novelty.

First, we went to Hyde Park were both of us ran into people we knew. The new semi-enclosed patio area at Parilla Grill was nice. People were also out at Hyde Park Pub.

We hopped back on the Rickshaw and it was time to head to downtown. We decide to go to the Neurolux. On the way we see this Dodge Durango with an interior fire in the front seat area. Bob captured this picture with has camera phone:

The fire department got the fire out quickly. They did this with lots of water, and in fact we could see water coming out the bottom of the drivers door. Very entertaining for us, probably less so for the owner of the Durango.

We go the last block to the Neuro and they have a $3 cover. We weren’t hanging out there all night so we left. We decide to check out The Modern Hotel and Bar on Grove, but the bar was closed for the night. Oh well, onto Gil’s K9 (which is at 25th and Main) and then back home. On the way back home, the chain starts slipping continually worse and worse. We make it back but it was time to give the Rickshaw a rest.

All in all, a fun non-event ride.

So, this dude Chad finds RickshawSeason.com while searching for Boise and Rickshaw. He’s getting married and wants to have a ride from his reception at The Linen Building in the ‘Linen District’ (or as I call it, the ‘Rhino District’) to the Grove Hotel. I talked to him, he sounds cool, so I’m all “Yeah sure, I’ll haul you.”

The Rickshaw has broken boards in the passenger bench (see Old seat fixed) so Kelly and I fixed that the day before. Everything was ready to go on wedding day.

I showed up about 30 minutes before the scheduled leave time. We ended up leaving about 50 minutes after my arrival. Watching other people’s reception once is kinda amusing, though I can see why the pros get paid for this.

Reception ends and it’s time to haul off. The bride and groom present me with an unseen challenge… …luggage! I really should have thought that through. Unfortunately, I had no bungee cords (I do now) and they had two bags. With bungees, I could have strapped luggage on the back fold down rack no problem, but that was not an option. Thankfully, there was room for one bag under the seat and the other went on the foot grate, less than ideal but doable. Here’s the picture as we’re leaving from the reception:

We took off, the bride and groom are stoked, I’m amused, and it was a nice night out and just late enough to where the LED canopy lights were starting to work nicely. I rode down Grove, up 10th, back down 8th (with lots of people on the patios… …nice) and then to a busy Grove with the fountain running. I ran the around the fountain 2 or 3 times and then rounded the fountain and dropped them off. It was an enjoyable experience and I hope I added something to their wedding night.

A lame spot of the Rickshaw is the seat. It was made worse last year when a “hole” on the seat appeared (after a cracking sound). Well, Kelly took the seat apart, removing the cover on the back side of the seat, and we learned that:

• There was a broken board in there
• The seat was made of pallet wood (or similar)!

Well, having a wedding that night, the “hole” was not cool. Seat replacement with new upholstery is in the plans, but not that day. So, it was time to rebuild. I went out to the garage, found a scrap piece of plywood, cut it, took it over to Bob’s for another cut (his power saw is way better than me with a hand saw) and then Kelly and I put it back together. She added some padding towards the front, though while not perfect, is a notable improvement over stock. The fabric has seen better days, and we’ll replace the whole bottom assembly next year hopefully. For now, it works, and hauled people that night and beyond successfully.

Before:

After:

The day starts by loading up the Rickshaw on Dad’s flatbed trailer for the trip from Boise to Eagle. He then takes it to Eagle, meanwhile I’m taking a friend and his musical gear to Eagle as well for an outdoor performance after the parade.

I meet up with the Rickshaw and get in line for the parade. Learning from last year, I bring a book to read while waiting. Mom and Bryce show up later, and after some more waiting, it is finally time to get moving.

This year’s parade was a bit different. We had experience. The parade route went the other direction. Unfortunately, somewhere before us there were a few horses.

I ran random circular patterns as usual and all were having fun except Bryce who for whatever reason wasn’t enjoying it like last year. Well, a quick passenger swap and Faye was now back there with Mom, and she was having fun.

Here’s some video I uploaded onto YouTube:

Parade riding is a lot different than regular. I’m doing lots of circles and I sit around more than normal.

The interesting (but sad) thing we saw this year was the engine on the Porsche 911 in front of us overheat. Those cars are rear engine and air cooled. The salon had a banner they wanted to show over the engine compartment and to prop the banner up, they stuffed the area behind it with towels. Unfortunately, this also blocked air from coming in and cooling the engine. Over time, the car started to blow more white smoke (it wasn’t blowing any at the beginning). The towels were removed during the parade, but it was a bit late. The 911 finally pulled over and stopped early near the end of the parade.

Mom likes being a passenger, and Faye does as well. She had figured out a sweet little wave for the crowd by the end. We regrouped with the rest of the family for BBQ after the parade ended. Total mileage for the day: About 4.5 miles with about 2 of that being the parade itself. The odometer is sitting at over 28 miles.

We went through Hyde Park and didn’t stop, then made it to the downtown post office to drop off some mail. From there, it was time to go down 8th Street to The Grove. For those of you unfamiliar with Boise, Idaho, here’s a picture of The Grove:

The Grove was the city blocks surrounding the downtown intersection of 8th Street and Grove originally, but was turned into one huge block with new buildings and a fountain in the center of a common area. That area is used for events including Alive After Five, which we biked to last night.

Anyway, we did a couple loops round the fountain and headed home, going a chunk of the way back on the Grove Street bike lane. The whole trip came to 4.1 miles and the Odometer reads 23.6 miles.

The canopy is having some issues:
1. It is insufficiently attached. It was trying to blow off, and some of the velcro straps were coming loose.
2. The front is too low, and the velcro retainers up there aren’t holding the front up very long. They give while riding and my visibility goes down.

The canopy is going to need some work before the Eagle Fun Days parade this weekend.

Saturday night, I rode up four benches (these are what the bluff-like steps up away from the river in Boise are called). Here’s the route, more or less:

View Larger Map

The Schwinn doesn’t really have the gear for climbing, so there’s some standing going on the get to the tops of the benches. From downtown to Gowen and Federal Way is a neat trip. The Federal Way bike highway is sweet.

The next day, Kelly wants to haul the kids by bike to Lucky Peak and back which is about ten miles each way. Here’s where things get ugly. I had the kid trailer hooked up to the Schwinn. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but I rode pretty hard the night before and my legs were wasted. We got there and back, and it was a great day. It was also a poor performance on my part. I stopped a lot and rode slow. We’ll have to do this ride again so I can redeem myself.

The Schwinn with the trailer, kids, and myself is about 300 lbs. The Rickshaw with me and no passengers comes to about 400 lbs.

My legs are sloppy today.