Boaz Frankel’s Un-Road Trip
Boaz Frankel is traveling all over North America on what he’s calling the Un-Road Trip. He’s trying to use as many unique modes of transportation as possible without using a gasoline powered car. This past Wednesday, Mohrgan and I picked up Boaz from the Kitchener train station in our pedal powered pickup truck. We took him back to Bicycle Forest headquarters where Natalie was cooking up a dinner that couldn’t be beat.
The next morning, after a breakfast that couldn’t be beat, we took Boaz outside to try a variety of bicycles.
Some, like the Treadmill Bike, he was brave enough to try. Others, like this M5 Low Racer, he opted to examine from a safer distance.
Eventually, Boaz settled on a penny farthing and rode it down the Iron Horse Trail to Mohrgan’s house where we had the Family Truckster waiting. Boaz, Mohrgan, Ted and I pedaled together on the Family Truckster destined for St. Jacobs.
Along the way, we were stopped by the police, but only because the officer was so intrigued by our fancy looking bike.
We followed the Trans Canada Trail all the way to St. Jacobs where we met with Glen who had ridden his horse and buggy all the way from Winterbourne. As the rain started falling, Boaz and Evan climbed onto Glen’s buggy and headed 30 km up the road to the Humphrey’s house in Phillipsburg.
Laurel and Neil Humphrey were wonderful hosts. They cooked us a fantastic dinner and put us all up for the night.
The next morning, after another breakfast that couldn’t be beat. Boaz and I hopped on the Couchbike and headed off toward Stratford. Along the way, we passed Wayne Muma in his truck. He was so curious to check out our bike that he went home, grabbed his own bike and pedaled out to see us. It was great to meet someone so enthusiastic about our trip and our mode of transportation.
We pedaled the Couchbike to the home of Cyril and Meg who’d left a cooler out for us packed with snacks. We ended up staying there for a while as we were visited by the local newspaper and the CBC.
The CBC put together this piece for the 6 o’clock news.
As the news report says, the next step on Boaz’s journey was a 70km tandem ride to London. Boaz and I headed off on the BikeE E2 recumbent tandem and Mohrgan showed us the way on a Dekerf singlespeed. We reached London at around 6pm. Mohrgan and I had to bid Boaz farewell there. You can follow Boaz’s Un-Road Trip at: www.unroadtrip.com.
June 14th, 2009 at 10:52 am
So just like I do every Sunday morning I went to CBC.ca to see what region was playing Vinyl Cafe at the time. I immediately recognized the couchbike on a little thumbnail graphic – nice work!
I have a couple questions and comments however 🙂
1. If a breakfast can’t be beat and is followed by another breakfast that can’t be beat does that mean that they matched one another precisely? If so my hat is off to southern Ontario breakfast prep for its consistency and quality!
2. Where does the CBC get off filming a video without including footage of the bikeforest proprietor?
3. As important a feature as this is I would have hoped they could find a better file name than “dick-no-gas-090613.wmv” Dick No Gas?!? Seriously?
4. Finally. What’s Boaz doing on a train? Seems contrary to what he’s trying to accomplish. Either go completely green or pick up a new file naming convention along the lines of Dick Just A Lil’ Bit ‘O Gas.
Congrats Brent!