On Saturday, Anne and I participated in Trailnet’s first bicycle ride of the season. This one was one of Trailnet’s community events, which are newer than their more traditional Bicycle Fun Club events. The Fun Club events are usually hammer-fests out in the country, while the community rides usually occur within the city limits and are more themed than the Fun Club rides. The community rides are also free, while there is a fee for the Fun Club ones. On the community rides there are fewer riders, usually less than fifty and an effort is made to keep the group together.
“The Art of Riding” as the name implies was a public art themed ride. We started at the Pulitzer Museum. The let us in the museum while we were gathering, but you had to take your shoes with cleats off and walk barefoot through the museum. Their exhibit there featured a collection of artists, one of whom had created a bed of moss, queen-sized. I had to resist the urge to walk on it barefoot. I don’t think that the staff would have approved.
We visited five Saint Louis artists on this ride. The first artist was a woman who had built her own portable art studio out of a pedicab tricycle. Her project is called NOD, for North of Delmar. She has set up camp just north of the Grand Arts District, which happens to end at Delmar. Her work is a community outreach project. She was all setup when we got there had had an interactive project for everyone to participate. Then she showed us how her studio folds up and rode off with us as we headed towards our next stop.
The next three artists were ones that we had visited on last year’s ride. Our next stop was in the Grove neighborhood, where a muralist showed off her “Evolution of the Bicycle” mural to us. We almost rode past her; our point guide was so determined at that moment. Just outside the garden, we met the yarn bombing artist again and then we rode to Jefferson, where Peat “Eyes” Wollaeger has opened a store. One of his colleagues was operating a quad-copter, with a GoPro camera mounted in it. $900 from B&H with the optional gimbal mount, in case you were wondering, Jay. 😉
It makes a sound disturbingly similar to that of a hornets nest. Many people found it distracting, while Peat was doing a demonstration of his technique. I think Peat got a little annoyed at that. Our final stop was at the Yeyo Arts Collective, an African-American community arts collective. They looked like they have just opened up shop. On the way back to Grand Center, we peeled off for the Central West End. We had lunch outside at Kopperman’s, in business since 1897.