Last Saturday the HPVOoO gang took part in our local Help Santa Toy Parade. We've been doing this annually since 2003, and our thing is to dress up Richard's Greenspeed tandem recumbent trike towing the big organ trailer as our main float. Then the rest of us cycle around it on our mostly dressed-up bikes and trikes.
For this year we came up with the idea of dressing the rig up as an old steam locomotive, with lights being used to delineate the form. A blog was put together for sharing design ideas, then a bunch of us gathered at the re-Cycles shop on a Saturday afternoon (only doable because re-Cycles had switched to being open on Sunday for the winter) and got things underway. More work was done throughout the week, and on parade day it was fabulous!
Details on the build here: http://hpv.tricolour.net/train.html
Lots of photos: http://tricolour.net/photos/2010/11/20/hpv.html
The main feature was a real diesel train horn, which Richard went looking for and was actually able to acquire! It sounded awesome (and very loud) when we tested it (hooked up to a compressor), and so it was incorporated into the design. It was a great hoot (literally) during the parade.
More links to the parade at: http://hpv.tricolour.net/events-2010.html
