One of the coolest things I saw all weekend, because I’m a geek

I took too many photos this holiday weekend to sort out right now…about 1,800 of them, in fact. Why? Two reasons: first, I love cameras and motorcycles. Second, I was getting paid to. Gotta pay off this camera gear some day. Until I get the rest of my holiday photos sorted out, here’s a treat I’d like to share…

If you were born in the 60s, which I was (depending on which time zone you were in), you probably drooled all over one of these. This is an all-original 1971 Schwinn “Pea Picker” bicycle. It was ridden by my friend Justin this weekend at the Cycle Hutt extravaganza, and I was blown away when I saw him come wheelie-ing out with it.

The SPEED Channel guys and I were taking a break and appreciating this relic. I suspect it’d be a very popular eBay item, if one was silly enough to part with it. One of the cameramen had just bought his replica a silver version of this bike, called the Grey Ghost. Schwinn started making the replicas in 2004.

I don’t know what would be cooler…the banana seat with sprung rear sissy-bar, the slick rear tire, or this: the Stik Shift. Ah, the 70’s. Who says they were all cheese?

I got some really amazing photos over the holiday weekend, all of them centered around the Cycle Hutt event and Jason Britton’s visit. Jason told me he didn’t mind how close I got when he was stuntin’, so I got some really sweet angles of him and Tony doing their thang. I’ll post pics from the weekend down the road as I sort through them.

How much courage does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

These guys are hanging the lighting beneath the new Liberty Memorial Bridge. Rather then try to do it from below, which would be pretty tricky in most spots, they got themselves a contortionist truck and went over the side. Better them than me.

I don’t care much for scaffolds, ladders, and the like. I didn’t like heights at all in general until I spent some time working at the Big Sky Ski Resort back in the late 80s and early 90s. Countless trips on various chair lifts and gondolas solved that. I’m still a bit leary of things like bucket trucks, though…so to have to venture over the side of the bridge like that would freak me out.

There’s only one exception: if I’m holding a camera, of course! My friend Chris and I spent some time atop a fully extended Datsun forklift over at Cycle Hutt this weekend. It was a little wobbly in the breeze on Friday, but otherwise was fine. Saturday I worried a little bit about lightning, as some wet-looking clouds rolled in. I just kept my eye to the viewfinder and kept shooting.