Earthy bicycling

April 21, 2012

It is high time that I report on the exciting trends and events that are apparently transpiring right before my very eyes and passive mien. Yes, there seems to be a fairly formidable effort towards increasing transportation options in the hamlet of Omaha. I may just be getting caught up in the Earth Day publicity and the lingering buzz of the pleasant beer garden. But I don't think so. A band called Icky Blossoms was energetically performing some loud, electronic, dance-friendly tunes. I enjoyed their enthusiasm and the cool climate. I even started to attempt a video of them performing a tune that I think was about sex and the devil. Of course, like many things in life, my leisurely start meant that the song was through before I started recording. What I did record, though, was this enthralling slice of life video featuring a repeated request for the unheeding personage known only as "Roz."

I think the next song was about a devilish toddler dance.

I am pretty amped up by all this bicycling-related interest. Additionally, I have learned that the usual Bicycle Omaha Commuter Challenge will be part of a new event of extraordinary magnitude known as the National Bike Commuter Challenge, or some such. And I am pleased to inform that the new forum allows for some serious smack talking. Yes, it is indeed an intoxicating development to contemplate.

At the Earth Day event at Elmwood Park, I also met up with some earnest and personable young men from Mode Shift Omaha who were generating buzz for an event called Heyday on May Day to mark the unveiling of the ultra-secret, updated transportation master plan (TRAMP). Swept up in the excitement, I began jumping up and down all the way over to this table

 where they had some plants that you could take home and grow and then bring them back to a gathering where a chef would cook them up into some awesome edibles. It is called "Veggie Trails" and is sponsored by the group that decorated the grain elevators down around the 36th and Grover area:  Emerging Terrain.  That sounded alright, but my excitement was ebbing since I knew I already had a bunch of onions and a pepper plant waiting back in my car, awaiting some garden time.

I went to the beer garden in a state of slightly bewildered euphoria at this bicycle cornucopia that seemed to be growing around me in the fertile, beer and composted manure-enriched soil that we like to call Umoho. Let's get on top of two wheels and roll on! Whoooo!