Nicollet Island is sort of an enchanted place to begin with, an Island in the middle of the Mississippi in Minneapolis with a whole Victorian neighborhood that time seems to have forgotten. And on father’s day every year, the real life fantasy includes bikes, motored and otherwise. Round about late morning the bikes come out of the mists (or whatever weather is about that day)…
Cafe’d Norton thumper.
And some make their own “fog”… Actually checked a couple details of this RD400 to see if it was my old one, no such luck!
Pretty soon a keg magically appears, followed by a caldron of chili, and for a few bucks you get get a t-shirt with this year’s original art… Wearing my 2011 edition with the classic lugged frameset and cottered crank today.
Fido rides in style!
Cafe’d airhead.
L to R: Garden variety airhead, I forgot, I don’t know, and 80s Yamaha single or RZ350?
Must be a racing class for this pair… Or else throw ’em in with the bicycle racers!
The whole neighborhood is actually a park, ’cause the city bought it all up a couple decades ago with the intent to bulldoze the neighborhood and replace it with the usual picnic tables and park benches. But the residents of the Victorian neighborhood organized, and the city backed down, giving them 99 year leases on their home sites. The rally has produced a partnership between the cyclists and community, and in return for hosting us once a year the cyclists stick up for the historic neighborhood. Historic homes and historic cycles… A partnership made on Nicolet Island!
A biker’s dozen.
More shiny cafe.
Even more Brit cafe…
Round late afternoon the chili runs out or turns cold and the bear runs out or does the opposite, probably causing the Brit riders to hang around a bit ’til darkness minus riding time home threatens. Then just as magically Nicollet Island returns to as normal as it gets.
That’s all, Folks!
GearheadGrrrl 