The eighth annual Tour de Lights was held this past Friday night. I almost rode in this one, but blogga world got a little crazy the end of last week, so I didn’t make it. Maybe next year. It’s always fun and the creativity is beyond what I could ever muster. Elves, Santas, Wise Men (and women) and Dickensian characters mingle at every turn. Some people just go over-the-top tricked-out in lights.
Lots of celebrity bikers – and friends of Knoxville Urban Guy – made appearances: Kelly and Lily Segars, Marti and Larry Lewis, Desola Odunayo, Steven Horton, Mary Kathryn and KT Durr, Mr. Stephen Dupree and I’m sure many others I didn’t catch in the dark and in their costumes. A couple of people yelled at me as if they knew me and I didn’t have a clue. There’s a young girl a bit further down who’s dressed in a Santa coat and pointing at me an my camera as if she is shocked. I have no idea what that was about.
Photographers abounded. Once I pushed a button on my camera and it flashed – which was odd since I don’t have a flash on it. I realized there was another camera shooting right beside me. It was like that all night.
The variations in bicycles held almost as much interest as the way they were decorated. More than a few children hunkered inside a pet-carrying cart. There may have been some pets in some of them, as well. Other children rode their own bikes, followed parents in the second seats of bicycle’s built for two while others were carted in luxury beds behind their parents. And their were unicycles, including one covered by a large “present.” I couldn’t imagine riding five miles on a unicycle wrapped as a gift. Of course, I can’t ride five feet on a unicycle, now that I think about it.
The take-away for me, however, was a pretty encouraging sense that maybe we really are reaching some sort of critical mass with cycling. I missed last year due to a conflict, but Dash Roberts took great photographs so that I was able to blog about it. You can look at previous years I’ve covered here: 2012, 2011, 2010 The estimates from last year were around 500. I don’t know what the official estimates were this year, but I asked Bill Foster and he came out with the same number I’d had in mind: 600. It seemed massive and there is a sense that the event is growing significantly each year. It’s another symptom of an emerging cycling culture in the city.
But mostly it’s just fun. And it’s about the photographs, so I’ll stop and let those run and finish the article. Enjoy.
