I have couple of clips for you of me riding a giraffe in my school’s gym.
The first clip is from last October during my schools Homecoming Rally. Homecoming Week is HUGE at my high school, and for my senior year, my class’s theme was Pirates. The overall school theme was “movie genres.” One of the many activities during the rally was a “mascot contest,” where each class had someone dressed up as their classes theme (the other class themes were fantasy [Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory], Police Movies, and horrer) and get there class pumped up.
So I dressed as a pirate and rode a 5 foot giraffe around leading my class in a kooky chant I made up. (Thanks again to John Hooten for letting me borrow his giraffe) By the way, when I dismount the giraffe in the video clip, it wasn’t a fall, I meant to dismount. I was trying to be dramatic or something, hehe.
The link for it: http://www.unicyclejester.com/albums/vids/riegel_pirate_giraffe_rally.wmv
The next clip was from tonight, where I rode my new 8 foot giraffe around during halftime at a boys basketball game. I won’t go in to detail why I rode it, when you watch it, it should make sense. But I was basically annoucing donations. P.S., it kind of looks like no one is there, that’s cause the far side of the gym is the visitor side, and it wasn’t that crowded. On the opposite side (video camera’s side) it was packed.
I have always wanted a giraffe, but ever since I rode one for the first time around February 2003 (one of John Hooten’s) I haven’t really pursued buying one. I guess you kind of get fulfulled after you try it out. Anyway, I ended up doing a trade with a friend: I made him a website, he made me a custom 8 footer using 2 old child bikes, some steel, a shwinn seatpost and old KH seat I had. It was nice because he happened to be doing remodeling work for John Foss, and he got to inspect his garage-full of unis! The Giraffe turned out pretty sweet, except the cranks are about 110mm because they are from a little kids bike crankset. So it makes the giraffe difficult to ride around on uneven ground. Also, just so you know, it’s not painted yet, it will be a shiny bright pink :).
Here is the link: http://www.unicyclejester.com/albums/vids/giraffe_halftime_basketballgame_riegel.wmv
I’ll take some pix of the giraffe closeup so you can see it better! They’ll probably be in my unicyclejester gallery soon.
Later!
-Jess
it brings me to a page with millions of pages with weird letters.
I climbed up a ladder and hung onto the side of the bleachers to get up. I think it’s impossible to freemount this unless I make a custom footpad thing (like John Foss’s T. Miller 9 footer - see his website). I actually think this giraffe may be higher than 8 feet, I haven’t measured it yet. That’s just what we planned on, so I have been calling it an 8 footer.