Monday, May 25th, 2009
Exclusive Photos: Six Men Riding Octomom
Normally I avoid tabloid gossip, but when Octomom rides into town in the company of six burly men, I must deliver.
Welcome to the 40th annual Kinetic Grand Championship where fantastic street-legal human-powered sculptures are pedaled and paddled over roads, dirt, mud, hills, beaches, sand dunes and water in a three day 42-mile challenge of endurance and the human spirit.
This Octomom sculpture is not related to the real Octomom. It’s the work of Brian Slayton, aka the Funguy, in the Kinetic Lab in Arcata, Calif. In grand tradition, Octomom broke down a few blocks from the start of the race (shown below) as a bike chain snapped. Also in grand tradition, other racers routinely stopped to ask if they could help. This is one race that isn’t about winning. It’s “for the glory.”
My 4-year-old daughter’s favorite sculpture (below), “Art of the People,” was made by students at Eureka High School. It’s a pure white racer with Sharpie pens attached. As you can see, before the race began spectators were encouraged to add their own art.
My favorite racer (below) was a guy mounted high atop some extra wide (racing?) car tires. He’s appropriately dressed in an odd costume featuring an animal mane that falls well past his feet. Mostly though it was amusing and/or inspiring to see him the next day treading water in our local bay at an incredibly slow pace. The blue bag seen in the photo wraps around and inflates to provide buoyancy while the paddle at the front provides locomotion.
Meanwhile, this guy (below) on a skateboard asks, What Would Jesus Do? Apparently Jesus would ride a skateboard because human-powered sculptures composed mostly of bicycle parts are pollution death machines.
Links!
- Octomom under development photos at the Kinetic Lab
- Kinetic Lab front page
- Race photo blog by KHUM with spectator-submitted photos (hosted by a local radio station)
- Water-entry photos
- Thinga’s 2007 photos and meager 2008 photos.
Oh, did I mention that there was a fire-breathing dragon? ‘Tis the work of Duane Flatmo.
“We’re adults having fun so kids will want to get older.” — Glorious Founder Hobart Brown.
Comments
2 Responses to “Exclusive Photos: Six Men Riding Octomom”
I thought “Art of the people” was creative. All of the entries (even the skateboard one were fascinating). I didn’t like OctoMom so much. To me the octoplet birth is a miracle and the idea of seeing their plastic ‘representatives’ wrapped in tentacles was wrong. The kids are going to have hard enough lives without finding pics like the on the internet when they old enough to search.
June 3rd, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Ok, now that’s hilarious.
If you’re interested in unique and creative bicycles you should check out bikeforest.com
The owner not only builds and rides these things (couch bike, treadmill bike, rhodes car among many others he’s collected) but he rents them out as well in case any of you live in Southern Ontario.
June 10th, 2009 at 5:17 pm