In reaction to our last blog post, the much debated tomato bicycle rack has been conquered! Don’t believe us? Here is the proof:
Our good friend and local bicycle advocate, Linda Themm shared this with us.
It is a little bit like the sword and the stone. People came from miles and miles to try their hand but none succeeded … until now. So we proudly declare Linda the Tomato Rack Queen. Thank you, Linda!
Any other bike racks need conquering?
This was a fun delivery …. the folks at the Metro Arts Commission asked us to help out in the new bike rack dedication last night. We were tasked with delivering gifts to Mayor Dean for each of the artists that contributed to the project at a specific time during the speech. Easy. Exciting. Right? Yes!
Before the event, we carefully planned our mission. Here’s how was to go: 1) Team Green Fleet sets up at the new microphone bicycle rack on the roudabout 2) the speaking starts across the street (roundabout plaza) 3) the Mayor says a keyword 4) triggered by the keyword, we nonchalantly make our delivery to cheers and crowd exuberance.
So we picked our keyword … win-win. It didn’t occur to us that the Mayor might say this phrase twice. In retrospect, how could he only say this once? With such a great project, our keyword choice was not so great. We ended up making the delivery 5 paragraphs too soon. But it was still good fun, and we had the Mayor sign our delivery sheet. Booya:
Several news crews were there to publicize the event. Unfortunately, the only clip WSMV took from us were comments from David regarding how the rack at the farmer’s market was partially unusable – a little “tomato” in your face reporting if you ask us.
(the rack has a design flaw that makes some types of bike locks unusable)
Tomato Bike Rack outside Farmer's Market
Let’s address this problem. First of all, cyclists are used to being creative when it comes to bicycle parking. So this is will not prevent anyone from parking their bike at the Farmer’s Market. Secondly, the Arts Commission will no doubt learn from their mistake.
We think the project is still a “win-win” for cyclists. After all, we just got some of the best art in the city dedicated to us. Hopefully no one will use this as fodder for bicycle bashing. I plan on trying out all of these racks as soon as I get a chance.
What do you think?
