Wedding (rehearsal)

I haven't posted in a while.  Life seems to comes at ya sometimes like a steamroller and the past few weeks the steamroller has been coming!  A big part of the steam roller was my youngest daughter's wedding.  So that was decidedly a fun steamroller, but if you have been a part of planning a wedding, you  understand how it can take over your life.  This is a picture of me preparing to ride to the rehearsal and then dinner.  I didn't ask my YD if I could ride to the wedding,  I knew she would nix that in the bud.  But  she seemed resigned to the fact that I would be riding to the prewedding activities.  What an embarrassing burden I have been for my children!

    Q took the picture.  He came to pick me up at the DoubleTree Hotel  where the wedding party was staying. We are in the lobby and if you look through the window, you can see Q's bike parked outside.

My panda on the ride there.

Me on the ride to the dinner.  As we rode by these million dollar townhouses, a very stylish woman in a Mercedes  stopped to actually gush over me.  She was saying I was the picture of fashion forward style.  I always crack up when I get fashion compliments.  If they really knew!  But it tells shows how putting a dress on a bike makes the hohum cutting edge.  I am glad I do have that fashion trick!

And here is Q riding in his fashion forward style,

At Blue Waters/Big River we got to bike park in the new bike racks the city had installed.  The city actually took a parking place and put up this rack that is shaped like a car.  I had not realized that had been done so this was a wonderful surprise.

The evening was wonderful.  My family is used to my ways, but the rest of the wedding party did not know quite what to think.  A brother in town that I had not seen in 5 years was worried that I was riding from his hotel back to the DoubleTree late at night.  I had to convince him that this was par for me.  I did get back to the hotel at the same time the young people were getting back and they just stared at me as I glided in on my bike from the street and dismounted.  I could tell they didn't know how to react.

 Here is a picture of the bride and groom.  I won't post wedding pictures because they aren't part of any bike stories (to stay in theme with the blog) but if any readers are interested in seeing some pictures, go here

It was a great wedding!

Collective Commute Bike Fashion Show

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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.

Bike Fashion?

     I went to a great meeting this morning at Outdoor Chattanooga to plan a biking fashion show. If you don't think that biking and fashion mix try out this sight-Copenhagen Cycling Chics.  Sondra Arden of Collective Clothing and Cameron at The Chattanoogan wanted to put something interesting together for the reopening of the Bridge and are partnering with Outdoor Chattanooga  And as it stand now, it looks as though Pilates Chattanooga is going to be a sponsor!

   Be looking for more details-this should be an absolutely fun event.  Chattanooga definitely has a biking community-it was in evidence last night attending the Trek Store open house.  It was a packed house! But most bikers in Chatt-town are road or mountain bikers.  That makes sense-the outdoors beauty of this area just draws people to such activities.  That's how I started biking. And it just keeps growing.

  Bike Commuting has grown also, but the commuting culture has yet to develop very strongly. We are still a small group of individuals.  And because commuting is such an individual thing, it probably always be so.  But this event can go along ways to putting a face (and style) to the commuter.  What fun!

More Bike2Work Fashion

Yet again another Bike2Work. It has continued through the winter. I don't always make a post of it, but it continues the first Friday the month at the Outdoor Chattanooga Center. This is where the hardy commuters that have stayed on their bikes throughout this hard frigid winter come.




I posted once on the fashion statements that that showed up at the Bike2Work. It was another day of fashion statements and it wast mostly from guys. Lets hear it for the men.

 Here is Jeremy, looking rather cool in all black fixie mode

    Blythe was looking quite dashing!

At this Bike To Work we were visited by Cameron. Cameron is the photographerbehind the camera of the fashion blog, the Chattanoogan. I have been following him for a while, never meeting him. We haunt the same streets, see many of the same people, but I had not crossed paths with him.So it was a thrill to meet him. HE also took pictures of Jeremy and Blythe for his blog. Check them out. They are better pictures then mine.

He didn't ask me to pose for his pictures.  I am sure he would have if I had had my zebra boots on!

Fashion Statement

I have one thing in my wardrobe that gets more comments then anything thing else I wear.  Not that I wear many things worthy of comment-a fahionista I am not.

  In rainy weather (and lately that has been most days) I bring out my zebra boots.   I bought these years ago because they made me happy.  Apparently they make other people happy also because I never fail to get comments on them.  Never.

    It has been a great opportunity to get to meet people.  Once people talk to me about my boots it is so easy to go on to a more formal introduction.  Once you bond over shoes you are friends for life.  Might as well get to know names.                           Before I started riding my bike to get around I had little use for rainboots.  In fact I had not owned any since I was a kid and then they were just for the rare snowfall.  If you use a car to get around and can park close to your destination, the need to protect your feet rarely comes into play.  But not in wet weather bike riding!  In seeking solutions to my wet feet on rainy days (oh how I hate wet and cold feet) I rediscovered rainboots.  And when I found these I found true love.  How did I live life without them?

    But my boots are getting a little beat up looking and actually have cracks in them.  It might be coming close time to replacing them-but I do hate to do it.  In fact, I can't stand the thought.