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It's a vicious cycle of really good fun

Fourth-annual BikeFest

By: Nick Martin

Posted: 06/17/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

Liam Mohan, 27, part of the Peg City Trials, shows off his moves during BikeFest at The Forks on Saturday. (TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) Photo Store

Back in the day, Jim Parrott didn't have a $3,500 bike to defy gravity.

Come to think of it, he didn't always defy gravity; gravity really wasn't the best of friends with young Jimmy.

Nor did his stunts involve jumping a bike from a standing start several metres straight up onto enormous wooden spools.

Parrott, a retired lawyer who now spends a lot of time finding and restoring bicycles from the 1930s and '40s, was at The Forks Saturday for the fourth-annual Mountain Equipment Co-op BikeFest.

He was displaying a 1930s Eaton's Glider -- $250 or best offer -- a bike that would have cost well south of $100 new.

"My first bike was one of these -- I was too short, I couldn't ride it," laughed Parrott.

When he did ride, "I fell off a lot. I remember running into a parked car once," he said. There was the time he didn't see Churchill Drive suddenly had a nearly one-metre-deep hole in the middle of the road. And, of course, there were the monkey trails kids blazed along the river.

A few metres away from Parrott, Liam Mohan and his buddies were showing off their moves on $3,500 bikes. Those moves included seemingly using the power of The Force to jump their front tire onto a large wooden spool, then the back tire, and then to stand still on top, before leaping off -- or, just doing the jump all at once.

"It's all body weight," said Mohan.

"Your bike weighs 20 pounds, you weigh 180 pounds."

All this was happening above unforgiving cobblestones.

"You're going to break it, parts get wrecked," Mahon said somewhat stoically.

"We had a really nice demonstration setup, but it got stolen," said Mahon, who works at Olympia Cycle and Sport. "They probably used it for firewood."

That demo set included boxes and ramps, but Mohan and his friends prefer rocks, really big rocks.

"Rocks don't move," he pointed out. Best places include "big rock gardens, like under The Forks Market bridge, or the Stonewall quarries."

Injuries?

"Oh, pretty often: sprained ankles, sprained wrists."

BikeFest organizer Tom Beitz, who works at MEC, said both bike polo and a group ride got called off because of Saturday's heavy rain. "People weren't too stoked about it," he said.

But the BikeFest did go ahead with extensive repair and maintenance clinics, bike decorating and parts and gear swaps.

"We see a lot more people coming in," said Beitz, who commutes and takes long-distance rides. "Riding around casually, that's good too."

MEC has group rides from its downtown store every Tuesday at 6 p.m. -- join if you can cover 20 kilometres in 90 minutes -- and a repair clinic every Monday evening.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 17, 2012 A7

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