August 18, 2007

  • Blown About in the Windy City- Bicycle Film Festival

    During the last week an unusual event has been taking place in the windy city-namely the Bicycle Film Festival

    And coincidentally, my last day off fell on the day of the first annual bicycle scavenger hunt. So I grabbed my 21 speed, my helmet and set off for Logan Square, in need of two teamates.

    A brief history of Logan Square, courtesy of Wikipedia. The community area and neighborhood are named for General John A. Logan who served in the Civil War, and later in Congress. One of the most striking intersections in the city, the square itself is a circular green space located at the center of a traffic circle formed by the junction of Kedzie and Logan Boulevards and Milwaukee Avenue. At the center of the circle is the Illinois Centennial Memorial Column, built in 1918 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Illinois' statehood. The monument, designed by Henry Bacon, famed architect of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC and sculpted by Evelyn Longman, is a single 70-foot tall marble Doric column topped by an eagle, in reference to the state flag. Reliefs
    surrounding the base depict figures of Native Americans, explorers,
    farmers and laborers intended to show the great changes experienced
    during the state's first century.


    The turnout was bigger than anyone expected, with easily a hundred cyclists of all ages and societal niches present. My partner in crime was Jayan, but the competition demanded 3 per team...so we had to round up a new friend


    ANd there we are...team, mean and Nasty



    The rules of the competion were as follows:

    1. Each team consisting of 3 people would set out from logan square to one of 5 designated locations
    2. At any of the locations, the team had to accomplish a task, upon successful completion of which the team would receive a token
    3.The team then had to return to Logan Square, drop off the token in the team bag, and set out for the next location
    4. The team had exactly 90 minutes to collect as many tokens as possible


    And off we went, with the obligatory self pic.

    Each one of us had to answer a question correctly from these kings of trivia to receive the token from Belmont and Elston. Whereas skin pictionary was required at underground theater milwaukee, and cranium charades and belmont and kimball. Which Jayan and I crushed, completing the charades task in less than 30 seconds each time we attempted it

    However, despite being in relatively good shape, none of these locations were close to each other, and we had to return to each one multiple times, so we got tired by the end

    and hungry
     

    and somewhere to park

    At the end of the night, we congratulated ourselves on a job well done, and decided to see just how far we had biked that day

    That's right...almost 20 miles in one day...w00tsauce

    =J