Flying Bikes

Now you've seen it!  Bikes in the sky over Whitewater, Wisconsin.  These are just a few of the many

     

bikes that flew over their Main Street all summer long.  Not a bad community event: it brought me (by bike) to town to see them, bike ride through the whole City, buy ice cream, lunch and snap some colorful photos.  

 The theme was chosen for 2009 to promote the many bike paths in and around Whitewater, also home of U of WI, Whitewater.  Clever, colorful, a fundraiser and it just happens the bikes were displayed in a town that hosts a Trek facility - a warehouse with some light bike assembly - how cool is that?.  The heavy duty technical manufacturing of Trek bicycles takes place in Waterloo about 30 miles to the north of Whitewater. 

  
I talked to the City Fathers (Mothers) about their annual event and it turns out that an art project is selected every year and the resulting "projects" decorated by artists and local participants are hung on Main Street lamp posts for the entire summer.  In late September the creations are auctioned off with the funds earmarked for the Whitewater Arts Alliance which promotes the visual and performing arts for the whole community, see www.whitewaterarts.org for the rest of the story!  2010 will feature thinking "out of the box",  YES!  that means that creative "boxes" will be flying high over Main Street.  For me, that means another bike trip to Whitewater for spectating, good food, oh yes, and for the exercise - did you hear, ICE CREAM?  (That's why I bike!).

Other cities around the country, in the Midwest, towns around the world have featured decorated objects.  Cows, giraffes, chairs, horses come to mind locally. Here are some reclining cows - full of milk AND my grandchildren in Bludenz, Austria.  These are useful, too, as seating in a courtyard.  'Til next time....