Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Owosso Bike Fest - Aug. 14, 2016

The 12th annual Owosso Bike Fest, conducted by the House of Wheels bicycle shop took place Sunday, Aug. 14, preceded by two days of preliminary activities.  The emphasis is on antique, cruiser, custom and homebuilt bikes.

Here's Terry Gerweck's report and photos.

It’s a fun weekend that starts with a well attended (50 + riders) pub crawl ride on Friday night with the Peddlers. Saturday afternoon after The House Of Wheels closes, there is a  20-mile round trip ride to Ovid for dinner. Sunday is the Bikefest show / swap meet, which culminates with another bike ride.  

The first three photos are my newest bike (and a souvenir I picked up while riding).




This is what Terry's latest project looked like a week before the Owosso Bike Fest. This was originally a "girls" bike.  Terry cut out the upper horizontal frame tube, flipped it over so it became more convex, rather than concave, and welded it into place as the top tube, thus making it into a "boys" bike.  Notice the forks. The stem riser was intended for motorcycles.  (Mike Eliasohn photo)





The next two are poor shots of the neatest freak bike there 
(and vaguely reminiscent of Joel Wiggins' style) 



The next three are the rear of a six-wheeled velo-car/something with a REAL TRAIN AIRHORN mounted (for the horniest bike trophy). It was very LOUD! Note the air tank in the cargo box.



Next was, arguably, the most ridden bike of the weekend. It’s a commercial trike / unicycle with training wheels kinda thing that one of the guys dug out of a dumpster. Was a hoot to ride. 


The last shot is the new bicycle museum in the Corunna historical village / park, a small but honorable start that features bicycle history from the area.


In searching the Internet for more Owosso Bike Fest info, blog editor Mike Eliasohn found this photo from the Owosso Argus-Press, dated Aug. 9, 2015:


TERRY “GIZMO” GERWECK of Monroe shows off a custom bicycle design inspired by the famous penny-farthing model popularized in the late 1800s at Owosso Bike Fest Sunday.  (Tim Rath photo)