Thanks to Crystal for supporting the trip!
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Crystal Rides the Rails
My Crystal deodorant and I made it through the 30-plus hour journey from Minnesota to Idaho.
Thanks to Crystal for supporting the trip!
Thanks to Crystal for supporting the trip!
Video from the Twin Cities
The Un-Road Trip travels to the twin cities to check out Mineapolis, Saint Paul, and the not-so-small city that is the Mall of America. Also, a pedal-powered pub and an electric Ford Focus!
Special thanks to Paul Gude for composing and recording the songs featured in this video.
Day 58 - 60 from Boaz Frankel on Vimeo.
Special thanks to Paul Gude for composing and recording the songs featured in this video.
Monday, June 22, 2009
One week till the end (and the party)
It's hard to believe I'll be arriving in Portland next Sunday and this Un-Road Trip will be all over. It's been a whirlwind of interesting vehicles, amazing people, and beautiful places. I've biked farther, slept less, walked longer, and sweated more than I ever have before, (but thanks to Keen Footwear my feet don't hurt, and thanks to Crystal I still smell good). And hopefully I have some good footage and stories to show for my travels. I'm getting excited about looking over all my footage and seeing what all this raw video turns into. But before I get to that...
If you're reading this blog you are officially invited to the Un-Road Trip wrap party on Sunday, June 28th from 4PM - 6ish. It should be an action-packed few hours complete with:
• a performance by Seattle jugband sensation, The Dexter Street Stompers
• free socks from Keen Footwear
• test rides on some alternative vehicles
It will all be taking place in downtown Portland. If you can make it, send me an email at boaz(at)unroadtrip(dot)com, and I'll send you the location.
Hope to see you there!
If you're reading this blog you are officially invited to the Un-Road Trip wrap party on Sunday, June 28th from 4PM - 6ish. It should be an action-packed few hours complete with:
• a performance by Seattle jugband sensation, The Dexter Street Stompers
• free socks from Keen Footwear
• test rides on some alternative vehicles
It will all be taking place in downtown Portland. If you can make it, send me an email at boaz(at)unroadtrip(dot)com, and I'll send you the location.
Hope to see you there!
Sunday, June 21, 2009
A Weekend in Wisconsin
Friday morning I called the boat rental shop again to see whether they'd be renting Hydro Bikes that day. It had been extremely stormy the night before, and their dock had flooded so they wouldn't be open at all that day. The forecast was looking good for the weekend though, so I wasn't giving up yet.
I went downstairs to the lobby of The Pfister Hotel and met up with Joe Kurth, the general manager of the hotel. He took me around the hotel, pointing out some of their Victorian art collection, (which is the largest one in any hotel), as well as the ballroom, and amazing views from the top floor. He also took me by the artist in residence studio, which is part of the new program they started a few months ago. Reginald Baylor is the first artist in residence. He'll be working out of a studio in the hotel for a year, interacting with hotel guests, and eventually leaving a piece behind when his residency is up. It's the first program of its kind, and it seems like a pretty cool one.
Next I met up with Dana, who does marketing for The Pfister Hotel and some others in the area. The Intercontinental Hotel nearby recently got a cargo tricycle to do some food deliveries and Dana arranged to let me borrow it for the morning.
Then the rain started falling and I decided to return the bike before I found some cover in the Milwaukee Public Market- a fun collection of restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops, and various food merchants. The rain stopped just in time for me to make it to the train station for my shortest Amtrak ride yet. After ten minutes on board I got off at the Milwaukee airport station where I was met by Chris and his converted Alfa Romeo. Chris started up K-Man Auto and Scooter, Wisconsin's first electric vehicle dealership.
Chris has done a number of electric conversions over the years, but this was a special project. He bought the Alfa Romeo from a junkyard for $300 and wanted to see how cheaply he could build an electric car. He sold the engine out of the car for $300, (so the car was free), and has spent $5,000 on the conversion. It runs pretty well now, with a range of around 20 miles. We drove around a bit and picked up some frozen custard from Leon's, a Milwaukee institution, which was amazingly good. We stopped by his shop to see a few projects in progress before we hopped in a ZAP! three-wheeled truck and returned to the airport station.
After another short train ride I started my walk to my home for the weekend- Marc and Bonnie's house. I was put in touch with Marc the day before and he had generously invited me to be their guest for a night or two. Marc has worked on a lot of unique photo/video projects of his own, and it was awesome to hear about the,. Since July of 1999, he's been taking a polaroid photo of himself everyday.
Here's what one box of the pictures looks like. And this is just a small percentage of the collection. Next month, after ten years of taking the photos, he's going to put an end to the project. Now he's sorting out what he's going to do with this documentation of his life. He's assembled an exhibition of a few years of photos and he's been putting together some videos too. Here's one of them:
On Sunday morning I called the boat rental place at 10AM, and got the answer I'd been waiting for. The Hydrobikes were available for renting! So I headed down to Juneau Park Paddleboats at the Veteran's Park Lagoon, put on a life jacket, and hopped on a hydro bike for my 84th mode of transportation.
It moved through the water a lot faster than I expected, and it's very stable. I couldn't imagine taking it into any seriously moving water, though Tim, (of Juneau Paddleboats), told me some people have done the Mississippi upstream in a Hydrobike. Either way, it was a very pleasant ride.
And now I've found some WiFi before I depart on a 30 hour train ride to Idaho. I hope they have power outlets in these train cars, though I'm not holding my breath...
I went downstairs to the lobby of The Pfister Hotel and met up with Joe Kurth, the general manager of the hotel. He took me around the hotel, pointing out some of their Victorian art collection, (which is the largest one in any hotel), as well as the ballroom, and amazing views from the top floor. He also took me by the artist in residence studio, which is part of the new program they started a few months ago. Reginald Baylor is the first artist in residence. He'll be working out of a studio in the hotel for a year, interacting with hotel guests, and eventually leaving a piece behind when his residency is up. It's the first program of its kind, and it seems like a pretty cool one.
Next I met up with Dana, who does marketing for The Pfister Hotel and some others in the area. The Intercontinental Hotel nearby recently got a cargo tricycle to do some food deliveries and Dana arranged to let me borrow it for the morning.
Then the rain started falling and I decided to return the bike before I found some cover in the Milwaukee Public Market- a fun collection of restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops, and various food merchants. The rain stopped just in time for me to make it to the train station for my shortest Amtrak ride yet. After ten minutes on board I got off at the Milwaukee airport station where I was met by Chris and his converted Alfa Romeo. Chris started up K-Man Auto and Scooter, Wisconsin's first electric vehicle dealership.
Chris has done a number of electric conversions over the years, but this was a special project. He bought the Alfa Romeo from a junkyard for $300 and wanted to see how cheaply he could build an electric car. He sold the engine out of the car for $300, (so the car was free), and has spent $5,000 on the conversion. It runs pretty well now, with a range of around 20 miles. We drove around a bit and picked up some frozen custard from Leon's, a Milwaukee institution, which was amazingly good. We stopped by his shop to see a few projects in progress before we hopped in a ZAP! three-wheeled truck and returned to the airport station.
After another short train ride I started my walk to my home for the weekend- Marc and Bonnie's house. I was put in touch with Marc the day before and he had generously invited me to be their guest for a night or two. Marc has worked on a lot of unique photo/video projects of his own, and it was awesome to hear about the,. Since July of 1999, he's been taking a polaroid photo of himself everyday.
Here's what one box of the pictures looks like. And this is just a small percentage of the collection. Next month, after ten years of taking the photos, he's going to put an end to the project. Now he's sorting out what he's going to do with this documentation of his life. He's assembled an exhibition of a few years of photos and he's been putting together some videos too. Here's one of them:
On Sunday morning I called the boat rental place at 10AM, and got the answer I'd been waiting for. The Hydrobikes were available for renting! So I headed down to Juneau Park Paddleboats at the Veteran's Park Lagoon, put on a life jacket, and hopped on a hydro bike for my 84th mode of transportation.
It moved through the water a lot faster than I expected, and it's very stable. I couldn't imagine taking it into any seriously moving water, though Tim, (of Juneau Paddleboats), told me some people have done the Mississippi upstream in a Hydrobike. Either way, it was a very pleasant ride.
And now I've found some WiFi before I depart on a 30 hour train ride to Idaho. I hope they have power outlets in these train cars, though I'm not holding my breath...
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Twin Cities Live covers my trip to the mall!
Twin Cities Live, a local afternoon talk show, followed me around when I visited the Mall of America this past week and captured all the excitement in this segment:
This is totally different from any other segment I've filmed with local affiliates along the way. It was fun to "host" the piece, and they really edited this together in a fun way. Thanks to producer Sarah and cameraman Nick for coming out!
This is totally different from any other segment I've filmed with local affiliates along the way. It was fun to "host" the piece, and they really edited this together in a fun way. Thanks to producer Sarah and cameraman Nick for coming out!
Friday, June 19, 2009
Video from Ontario
The Un-Road Trip rolls through Ontario on some of the most unique bikes in Canada. See the treadmill bike, penny farthing, CouchBike, and more in action as we travel over 100km.
Thanks to Brent Curry of Bicycle Forest for making this leg of the trip possible. And thanks to Evan Nisenson for filming most of this episode.
Extra special thanks to Paul Gude for composing and recording the songs featured in this video.
Day 53 - 55 from Boaz Frankel on Vimeo.
Thanks to Brent Curry of Bicycle Forest for making this leg of the trip possible. And thanks to Evan Nisenson for filming most of this episode.
Extra special thanks to Paul Gude for composing and recording the songs featured in this video.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
A Car-Free Trip Across (the Mall of) America
A few days ago, as my trip to the Twin Cities was approaching, I sent an email the Mall of America. I figured that at such a huge complex, there were bound to be some unique modes of transportation. Within a few hours I received a phone call and Bridget, a PR Coordinator for the mall, was not only supportive of the trip but she was more than happy to set up a tour including some new forms of transit.
So yesterday morning I boarded the light rail in Minneapolis and rode it to the end of the line- The Mall of America. Bridget met me along with a TV crew from Twin Cities Live, and we headed into the largest mall in the USA.
We followed Bridget into one of the back entrances and within a few minutes we were riding an electric cart through the underground tunnels of the Mall of America. It takes a lot of people to make the Mall of American run smoothly, and we met up with Lydell, one of the guys in charge. He showed us around the recycling center, which was a pretty huge operation. A few times a week, people sort through the waste, separating out bottles to recycle and food to send to hog farms. Another impressive fact about the mall- they have no heating system. So how does the mall stay warm during the long winter months... I'm still not exactly sure, but it's quite impressive.
Next we headed down to Nickelodeon Universe, an amusement park in the center of the mall, where I experienced one of the most fun modes of transportation- roller coaster.
I'm in the last occupied car, wearing the green shirt. There some pretty hardcore rides, though I chose one of the calmer roller coasters, (the one that didn't go upside-down).
Next I hopped on an Electric Convenience Vehicle- basically one of those electric carts that you see people using in supermarkets.
I threw my backpack in the basket in front and rode (very slowly) to Underwater Adventures- the aquarium underneath the mall. We checked out the sharks, rays, and sawfish from the moving walkway that leads through an underwater tunnel. Then I said goodbye to the Twin Cities Live folks and Bridget and I explored the mall on my own for a bit. Not only is there a theme park and aquarium inside the mall- there's also a special retail-focused high school and a wedding chapel. And that's in addition to the 500 plus stores. I stopped by the new Columbia Sportswear store, (they're outfitting me with clothes for the trip), and said hi to Laura, one of the managers.
Then I got back on the light rail and headed back into downtown Minneapolis. I met up with Lisa, who works with Twin Cities Streets for People, a local bike/pedestrian advocacy group. They're a new organization, but are already coming up with some cool projects. The city already has a lot of bike lanes and I noticed a lot of bicycle commuters on the streets, so they must be doing a lot of stuff right.
Next I met up with Chris and his wife, Judy. Chris converted his Ford Focus into an electric vehicle about a year ago and he took me for a spin. It felt strange getting into a car, but as soon as he started up the nearly-silent car I knew I didn't have to worry. Chris didn't have any experience working with cars, but he found a lot of helpful information online, and his background in electrical engineering didn't hurt either. It's got a range of about 35 miles, which is more than enough to get him to work and back home along with a few errands on the way.
Chris and Judy dropped me off in downtown where I met up with the PedalPub. It's a fifteen person bike built around a bar, so you can enjoy various beverages as you pedal through Minneapolis. People can reserve the PedalPub for two hour rides, bring their own keg, and celebrate in style. I didn't have the cash to reserve a PedalPub on my own, but there happened to be another reservation that night and they said they didn't mind if I joined up. So I ended up pedaling along with Kelly and her friends on the occasion of her 21st birthday.
Happy birthday Kelly!
It felt a little strange crashing someone's portable birthday party, but everyone was super friendly and they seemed glad to have another pedaler along. I rode along and filmed for about an hour before I headed off around 9PM. I wanted to be able to walk back to my hotel in the light.
Early this morning I got on a train bound for Milwaukee and pulled into town around 3PM (about an hour late). I scoped out the city, looking for interesting modes of transportation. I had heard rumors of hydrobikes available for rent in one of the parks. Sure enough, I found them at the Veteran's Park Pond. Though they were floating in the middle of the pond- unused. Although it was warm and sunny out, lightening had been in the forecast, and they don't rent them out if there's a threat of stormy weather. I tried to negotiate with the woman at the rental station, but she wasn't changing her mind. She told me to call tomorrow morning to check in. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, because that could very well be my 82nd mode of transportation.
Now I'm sitting in my room at The Pfister Hotel, who generously invited me to stay for the night. I think this may be the most beautiful hotel I've stayed in so far. The lobby looks more like a museum or cathedral, complete with an amazing fresco on the ceiling. And when I got back to my room, they had left these in my room.
Pretty fancy! Now, I've got some chocolate to eat. But I'll keep you posted on those hydrobikes.
So yesterday morning I boarded the light rail in Minneapolis and rode it to the end of the line- The Mall of America. Bridget met me along with a TV crew from Twin Cities Live, and we headed into the largest mall in the USA.
We followed Bridget into one of the back entrances and within a few minutes we were riding an electric cart through the underground tunnels of the Mall of America. It takes a lot of people to make the Mall of American run smoothly, and we met up with Lydell, one of the guys in charge. He showed us around the recycling center, which was a pretty huge operation. A few times a week, people sort through the waste, separating out bottles to recycle and food to send to hog farms. Another impressive fact about the mall- they have no heating system. So how does the mall stay warm during the long winter months... I'm still not exactly sure, but it's quite impressive.
Next we headed down to Nickelodeon Universe, an amusement park in the center of the mall, where I experienced one of the most fun modes of transportation- roller coaster.
I'm in the last occupied car, wearing the green shirt. There some pretty hardcore rides, though I chose one of the calmer roller coasters, (the one that didn't go upside-down).
Next I hopped on an Electric Convenience Vehicle- basically one of those electric carts that you see people using in supermarkets.
I threw my backpack in the basket in front and rode (very slowly) to Underwater Adventures- the aquarium underneath the mall. We checked out the sharks, rays, and sawfish from the moving walkway that leads through an underwater tunnel. Then I said goodbye to the Twin Cities Live folks and Bridget and I explored the mall on my own for a bit. Not only is there a theme park and aquarium inside the mall- there's also a special retail-focused high school and a wedding chapel. And that's in addition to the 500 plus stores. I stopped by the new Columbia Sportswear store, (they're outfitting me with clothes for the trip), and said hi to Laura, one of the managers.
Then I got back on the light rail and headed back into downtown Minneapolis. I met up with Lisa, who works with Twin Cities Streets for People, a local bike/pedestrian advocacy group. They're a new organization, but are already coming up with some cool projects. The city already has a lot of bike lanes and I noticed a lot of bicycle commuters on the streets, so they must be doing a lot of stuff right.
Next I met up with Chris and his wife, Judy. Chris converted his Ford Focus into an electric vehicle about a year ago and he took me for a spin. It felt strange getting into a car, but as soon as he started up the nearly-silent car I knew I didn't have to worry. Chris didn't have any experience working with cars, but he found a lot of helpful information online, and his background in electrical engineering didn't hurt either. It's got a range of about 35 miles, which is more than enough to get him to work and back home along with a few errands on the way.
Chris and Judy dropped me off in downtown where I met up with the PedalPub. It's a fifteen person bike built around a bar, so you can enjoy various beverages as you pedal through Minneapolis. People can reserve the PedalPub for two hour rides, bring their own keg, and celebrate in style. I didn't have the cash to reserve a PedalPub on my own, but there happened to be another reservation that night and they said they didn't mind if I joined up. So I ended up pedaling along with Kelly and her friends on the occasion of her 21st birthday.
Happy birthday Kelly!
It felt a little strange crashing someone's portable birthday party, but everyone was super friendly and they seemed glad to have another pedaler along. I rode along and filmed for about an hour before I headed off around 9PM. I wanted to be able to walk back to my hotel in the light.
Early this morning I got on a train bound for Milwaukee and pulled into town around 3PM (about an hour late). I scoped out the city, looking for interesting modes of transportation. I had heard rumors of hydrobikes available for rent in one of the parks. Sure enough, I found them at the Veteran's Park Pond. Though they were floating in the middle of the pond- unused. Although it was warm and sunny out, lightening had been in the forecast, and they don't rent them out if there's a threat of stormy weather. I tried to negotiate with the woman at the rental station, but she wasn't changing her mind. She told me to call tomorrow morning to check in. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, because that could very well be my 82nd mode of transportation.
Now I'm sitting in my room at The Pfister Hotel, who generously invited me to stay for the night. I think this may be the most beautiful hotel I've stayed in so far. The lobby looks more like a museum or cathedral, complete with an amazing fresco on the ceiling. And when I got back to my room, they had left these in my room.
Pretty fancy! Now, I've got some chocolate to eat. But I'll keep you posted on those hydrobikes.
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