Friday night I engaged in a massive chop session in order to get ready for Saturday. First, I headed down to Fishman’s, the fabric store that RMG recommended that was closed when I went to the other one he suggested, which had thousands of of fabrics but no fur beyond the usual short-hair leopard/tiger stuff and cow patterns.

It seems that the only long, deep shag available on this planet is the safety-orange or lime-green that Hancock carries. Not even Fishman’s, the mecca of fabric stores, had any blue shag (or anything of that length), which is what I dream of coating Noam Chopsky in. However, they did have a nice selection of medium-length furs, which I settled on. Still, if you happen to come across any long-haired blue novelty fur, buy me a yard, I’ll pay top dollar for it.

So that night I took Noam fully into Phase Three. But first, I built the High Riser (the original name of the bike), a funnybike for Laura. Unfortunately, she rode it maybe three feet before she wrecked and cut her leg open. I hope I can convince her to get back on it. Meanwhile, I’ll strap a basket on the front and use it as a “nipper” to run around the neighborhood or for trips to the store.

Then I tried an experiment with Noam, lowering the seat and positioning it beyond the back axle, hoping that my weight wouldn’t have enough leverage to tip the bike. It did. Oh well. I also bought a conduit bender and bent myself a new sissy bar, which I will soon replace with an even taller one.

Once we had as many freak-bikes as attendees to the chop session, we terrorized the neighborhood. There were four choppers and three funnybikes. The group lent itself well to the “Flying Vee” formation. We rode up to the second floor of this odd parking garage, which was basically the paved roof of a mall. I’d never seen any parking lot so large (maybe long-term at the airport), and this one was on the roof. It was wonderful to ride around up high under the night sky, at least until the cops chased us out. Can’t have bikes riding around in the parking lot, you know. By now, you’ve guessed that the mall was just outside of the Chicago border, in Norridge. It took four cops to restore order to the parking lot. Probably half the Norridge force.

On Saturday, I headed bright and early down to the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. I had been asked to display Noam as part of their Summer Solstice Celebration. Volkswagen and Trek were two of the sponsors, and Mayor Daley’s Bicycle Ambassadors wanted some art bikes there to add to the image of bikes as fun.

First, the Trek Racing Team put on a freestyle show, which was pretty damn amazing. Most of their tricks involved a van, jumping up onto it and off of it and such. I was most impressed by the guys hopping on their back wheel across four platforms four feet off the ground.
	This fool hopped on his back wheel from that platform on the right, across each platform, and then to the ground!

A little kid does a one-handed-handstand stall and I feel like the biggest loser in the world.

At the same time, some breakdancers were busting moves, two of whom were about seven years old. These little kids were busting more moves than I shall ever bust in my entire life.

I gotta say, as cool as a fuzzy chopper is, we freak-bikers were out-cooled by breakdancing seven-year-olds.





Then there were some drummers and some dancers, some arts and some crafts. We sipped yerba-mate and rode each other’s freak-bikes. UV, frankenbike genius, was there representing the Blackstone Bicycle Works, a program that lets kids in Woodlawn learn about bike maintenance, earn their own bikes, and eventually get jobs as bike mechanics. He brought along three of his lil’ choppers and his tallbike, which I fell in love with.

	The choppers were an interesting design. He uses a flipped girl’s bike frame with a new crankset shell welded to the bottom. They were very functional.
He flips a girl's bike upside down to get a better rake from the head tube. Then he welds on the extra bits where the seat goes and where the pedals go, and this is the result.

A tallbike is two (or more) bike frames welded on top of each other. That look on my face is one of concentration, as it looks higher from up there than it does from the ground.	Next to me is Chopper Bob on Al the Pal's "Chopalong Cassidy", which uses a crutch as a sissy bar. That grey building behind us is the Westin Hotel.

His tallbike was a smooth dream. Tallbikes and choppers are exactly opposite: Choppers look easy to ride but are nigh impossible, and tallbikes look impossible but are easy, aside from the falling to your death thing. You just have to push them, get them started, and climb up and go.

I want one, bad. UV commuted on his for about a month, but got sick of all the negative vibes, the raw anger that is unleashed by unusual bikes and bikes in general. It’s gonna take welding, though, and I don’t think I can ride it in traffic regularly (though I did, up and down the Magnificent Mile). That’s just asking to be catapulted into the side of a bus. So I’ll continue to try and perfect the commuter chopper, and hope that I can get some help with the tall’un. Those guys were already encouraging me to “get some tanks”. I dunno, though. As much as welding is in my blood (my grandfather is a welder), I like to have boundaries. Once you can weld, it’s like deciding what to make out of a lump of clay. As long as I’m limited by what I can buy at Ace, I have a framework to work within.

All that day, there were tons of cops and reporters across the street at the Westin Hotel. I found out later that they'd found St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile dead in his hotel room that morning. He was slated to pitch against da Cubbies the next day. Those Cubs fans, they'll do anything for a win! So if you saw some footage of the scene over the weekend, I'm just out of frame, riding some ridiculous contraption.

Check out non.primate.net/chopper soon for pictures of Phase Three of Noam Chopsky. In the meantime, here's a sneak preview: