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Flying into Boise the high desert looks like brown paper that’s been crumpled into a ball and then stretched back out. The town blossoms out of this rough landscape. It explodes with trees, the wide river, bike shops, galleries, theaters, the university, great people, and good restaurants.
Everyone turned out in their best for Tour de Fat. This solo Apocalyptic Newsie felt welcome the whole weekend. The night before the Tour the Alexa Rose gallery hosted an incredible art show replete with free cookies and drawings and paintings with a real close connection to the street, close to the heart of our culture sensibility. The pre-party downtown included gorgeous bikes: some hand-made and some beautiful vintage machines like the completely redone 1951 Schwinn Hornet...drool.
The Pie Hole lured me in for lunch with their Ninja Turtle mural-ed trash can, and later I joined the Le Tigre crew for an amazing dinner at the Red Feather Lounge featuring fresh, local kale, beets, and Copper River salmon. Eating local in Boise is easy, affordable, and in the words of one sideshow performer capable of giving you a “foodgasm.”
Saturday’s parade included a number of live and faux animals like the cat who stuck out the whole ride on its person’s shoulders and the caged-bird singing while strapped to the front of a feathered boy’s bike. The Shriner’s got into the spirit with a bike-driven walking camel, and a multi-trailered snake bike slithered through the crowd.
As the parade turned northeast up Capitol Boulevard, thousands of bikes stormed down toward the State’s sandstone dome and the message was clear: Idaho loves its bikes.
Boise’s bike nonprofits including Treasure Valley Cycling Alliance, Boise Bike Project, and SWIMBA, felt the love to a dollar amount greater than $40k, bringing BBP significantly closer to being able to buy the building they currently lease, which will free up more funds to do good for the cycling community city-wide.
As I spread the apocalyptic news, and tried to lift the proverbial veil blinding us to issues of conserving water, eating local, pedal-powered community service, humanure, and other revelatory notions contained in the TDF Matterhorn, I found the Boise crowd well-educated and keenly aware of the joys of transitional living. To that we can only say: Ride On Boise! Ride On.
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