To celebrate the accomplishments of this year's Bikes For Tots campaign there is a bicycle parade and party on Saturday, December 5th. The parade starts at the Bourbon Street Bar & Grill (formerly Cy’s Place) on Seneca at 2:00 pm. Line up begins at 1:00pm. There will be chili and all the fixings after the parade at the end point of Club DebRicks. Decorate yourself and/or your bike with a Christmas theme.

Don't let the cold weather keep you at home this is a fun event! How often do you get to ride with Santa as your escort while the Wichita PD block traffic?

This is the same routine and route as last year. Here's a map of the route. When it's time to ride back to your vehicle at Bourbon Street I suggest this route where there is continuous sidewalk.

A parade down the dirt road main street, eclectic trophies for bikes, pulled pork sandwiches in the school cafeteria, bicycle games and contests, door prizes, great baked and other goods for sale by Mennonites and others and live music. This was the second Partridge Pedal Party the Coasters attended and it was just as fun as the first. The weather all day was cold and cloudy until we were packing up to leave when the sun finally came out and stayed. Several Coasters came home with trophies...
Dan - Mikey's choice.
Lisa - Megan's choice.
Harpo - Best classic.
Mitch - Best custom.

Thanks to the people of Partridge for inviting us once again.

Photos Here.

Video...

We will again be taking donations to purchase bikes for the Bikes For Tots program.

Bikes For Tots is an organization that collects new bicycles to give to the Salvation Army and local Police who then give these bikes to kids in need at Christmas time.

The Bikes For Tots parade will be Saturday, December 5th.
More details to come.

Last years Bikes For Tots parade.

If you would like to donate you can do so via PayPal below or to me in person. Any amount helps. Thanks!

Edit: We are through accepting donations. Thanks!

Wow what a great day! I think it's safe to say this was our biggest turnout yet. It's so hard to get an idea of how many people showed up but I know we went through a lot more food and water than in past years. Many new people and new bikes. I estimate close to 300 bikes. There were a little over 100 bikes entered in the People's Choice competition alone. The weather cooperated and was in the upper 80s with a nice breeze. The reigning Skid Row champ was defeated. A large parade ride and from what I hear I was fortunate to be in the front (can Harpo see into the future? Listen for him in the video).
If you attended please leave a comment. If you have photos you would like to share please let me know. Thanks for coming! I hope everyone had a great time.

If you didn't get a shirt they can still be purchased online along with past year's shirts.

If you haven't already, please sign up for the bike fest newsletter.

Winners...
Skid Row contest:
First a correction. We had announced Matt as the 1st place winner but it was actually Tyler.
1st place: Tyler M. 218.3
2nd place: Matt 209.2 feet
3rd place: Derick 199.7
I must add that is was so cool to see a custom made skid bike even though it didn't win.

Lowride Limbo: Scott and Morgan (siblings and last year's 1st & 2nd place) tied for 1st.

Peoples Choice Kustom: Randy French with his yellow, monster rear tired chopper.
Peoples Choice Classic: Steve Stang with his Schwinn
Grillmaster's Choice - Ratrod: Paul Riley and his 1948 Colson.

Raffle bike winner: I didn't get the name.
Congrats to all the raffle prize winners. "There's nothing sexier than a woman with new tires."

Thank yous...
Sponsors: Tom Sawyer Bicycle Shop, AtomicZombie.com, Bill at Accent Mobile Music, ButterflysGiftShop.net and Kickstand magazine.

Volunteers: My Parents and Nova for their hard work before, during and after the fest. Grillmaster Mitch for the excellent lunch and the new Ratrod trophy. Erick for a fine job of informing us and entertaining us as MC, Christine this year's prize lady, Daron for his exhausting work giving rides on the Conference Bike, Paul for his help with the Skid Contest, Lora for being a Lovely Limbo Lady, Kris & Morgan for their help with the People's Choice. Bicycle Randy & Dave for their donations. Anyone else who stepped up when help was needed.

Also thanks to those who donated to the Kyle Hicks fund and those who made the journey from far away places to attend.

Photos & Videos...
4 pages of our photos here.
River City Cyclist has photos and a video here.
Cody's photo slide show.
EZ-Dave's photos.
Ratafied911's video.
Cody's photos here.

Enjoy my expert, colorful, skid and limbo commentary...

A few Coasters attended the Tour De Fat in Ft Collins, Colorado over Labor Day weekend. From Dan...

We had a BLAST. We rode with about 10,000, yes that's 10,000 other bicycle crazy people in the Fort Collins Tour de Fat parade. In the pic you see some Coaster BC regulars, me as rocket man Dan ( I was riding the Starliner, the bike with the nose cone ) , Lora as Pippy Longstockings ( ask her what the purple flappy thing is on the knee of her long stockings), and there is Josh, Brad, and Ruthie ( I bet they will be in costumes next time ) and that's Jody and Todd in there Bavarian beer drinking outfits ( ask Jody what her biggest challenge of the day was). Then there's a couple of strangers in the photo ( who am I to call anyone stranger ), well a lot of us know Jon from K.C. ( who was the Champion in the TDF slow race competition ) and a new found friend ( we found him friday when we toured the New Belgium Brewery ) Brad from Albuquerque, N.M. who was decked out in old fashion mr. Fat Tire salesman grab complete with a brand new Electra delivery bike decked out in Fat Tire grab ( I think he was trying to get a job with New Belgium Brewery, don't ask what he currently does for a living ) .
We had a BLAST. Wish more of the Coasters could have been there. We did there what we like to do here, ride bike and drink beer. And its for a good cause, early figures were over $65,000 were raised for Fort Collins bicycle causes. Plan to go to next years Tour De Fat.

The 5th Annual Midwest Bicycle Festival (Sunday, September 27th) PRESS RELEASE
The Fifth annual Midwest Bicycle Festival co-hosted by the Coasters Bicycle Club will be Sunday, September 27th at Riggs Park in Haysville Kansas from 10:00 am – 4:00pm. To get to Riggs Park take Main/Seneca to Sarah Lane turn west (turn at the DQ) and follow it down to Hungerford Ave. Take Hungerford Ave to Park Dr. and turn right once again. The festival is on the west side of Riggs Park. Bring one bicycle or bring twenty.

Admission is free.

The Midwest Bicycle Fest is known to draw bicycle enthusiasts from all over the state of Kansas and some bicycles show up from Oklahoma, Missouri and Nebraska. Come show, talk about and ride all kinds of bicycles including customs, cruisers, choppers antiques and the rare and unusual bicycles. Factory made or home made you will see many examples of bicycles in all sorts of forms.

The Midwest Bicycle Fest is a family friendly event with fun games, events and give-a-ways. Bicycle Limbo is always fun to do or watch. How low can your bicycle go? Bicycle Limbo is just like regular limbo, but you have to ride your bicycle and stay under the very low, low bar to win. Slam on your brakes for the skid contest and see if anyone has a blow out this year. Try it for yourself or watch the technique of the masters who have perfect form and skid gracefully like skaters on ice. Or just ruin an otherwise good tire.

Enter the raffle to win a new cruiser bicycle. Each ticket is only one dollar and you can enter as many times as your mom will let you. With that same raffle ticket tons of door prizes will be given away.

Vote on your favorite Kustom and your Classic bicycle in the “People’s Choice” award to be given away. Each year brings out a new winner so don’t miss it.
The parade ride around the park and through a few streets of Haysville will start after the festival is over at 4 pm.

Grill Master Mitch will serve up free hot dogs and BBQ again this year, oh and he got a bicycle too. Accent Mobile Music is providing the sound and music again this year too.
For additional information on the Midwest Bicycle Festival please visit www.midwestbicyclefest.com, where you can download flyers and see photos from past shows.

Contact Randy V. at randy@locojoe.com
Also visit www.coastersbicycleclub.com to see all the club events and group activities.

Thanks Erick.