Tour De Brews

Cortney on Tour De Brews
Originally uploaded by donolmt

We finished out National Bike Month with a Brews Cruise, and wow, what a month! I am still behind on my blogging about all the events. This event, the Brews Cruise was a repeat of the Tour De Brews in March. In the future. If I was to point to one event that seemed to kick off the critical mass coming together to form some sort of Chattanooga scene of urban riding,the Tour De Bruews in March was it. We might not be rivaling the Harley culture in this town but I think we are taking shape.

The first cruise was the idea of Cortney (can we survive when she goes away?) and Rebecca Shearer (fellow fashion model!). We met as a group in Coolidge Park, rode our bikes to Moccasin Bend Brewery which is in St. Elmo, not at Moccasin Bend, in spite of the name. Had a great time, testing the beers, taking the tour of the brewery then riding back to Greenlife for dinner.

It is hard to say how many people joined us, with the coming and going, but it was over 30 riders at least. "When is the next one going to be?" was being asked by the riders, but especially by those that missed it. Everyone wanted to join in the fun

Collective Commute Bike Fashion Show

IMG_2108
Originally uploaded by Cameron Adams

Sunday was the fashion show on bike and it was a blast!  Sondra of Collective Clothing and Cameron Adams of The Chattanoogan Blog   with the help of all at Outdoor Chattanooga put this together.

Much thanks to the hard work of EleaBlake for makeup and Epiphany Spa for hair. They had quite the job to do in getting 20+ models ready for the show.

And thanks for Trek Bikes, Chattanooga Electric Bikes and Suck Creek Cycles for providing the cycles.

The rains came and went, leaving us undecided whether to have it indoors or outdoors. At show time, it was looking clear enough to have it outside.

  This was another event just this month that was new for Chattanooga and proof of a coelescing biking community.  And it is fashionable!  This was our humble entry in the world wide movement of fashion on bikes.  Personally, since I am NOT the fashion diva, I would not have put the fashion on bikes.  But Cameron, the photographer, has been following this movement for a while and has been documenting the fashion scene here in Chattanooga for about a year now.  I was not even aware of how people were finding themselves fashionable on bikes until Cameron took note.

    Cameron matching up with Sondra was pure genius.  Sondra is eclectic, idiocentric and totally original in her fashion style and Collective Clothing is a FUN place to shop.  And the two of them together wanted to a join up with the biking scene.

    A call went out for models.  It turned out there were more people into fashion willing to get on bikes then those on bikes willing to get into fashion.  Many of the models had not been on a bicycle since childhood which made for some wobbly riding.  But I think they had fun and I know at least one that was inspired to go out and get a bicycle.

    As for me?  What I was doing in the show?  The biking connection was obvious, the fashion connection was not.  And I was over the age of twenty (by a great, great deal!)  Thanks, Blythe(who has been known to show style on the bike) and Rebecca for helping to bridge that large age gap-and for being fellow bikers. For a while, I thought I was going to be the odd man out.                                                   

                 

Reba rocking it!

 Here I am after Darin of Elea Blake worked on me.  This is the pre show shot.  I actually wore a different outfit in the show.  I hope to get more pictures  and I will post those.  Hopefully, there are pictures floating around on our bikes.