« Gelato Bike! »
August 9, 2010 Our friends Mike & Catherine were married 10 years ago in an igloo on top of Wild Bill Hill in the Scottish Lakes high country, officiated by a friend who'd recently become a pharoah in the Universal Life Church. Just another Pacific Northwest wedding.
As uniquely wonderful as that was, not to mention the tele'ing under the stars down the hill for sphincter-obstructing amounts of fondue and whiskey afterwards, part of them felt they'd missed out on the big-traditional-wedding thing.
So this month, 10 years later, they got remarried at Golden Gardens beach in front of over a hundred friends and family from all over the globe. The celebration featured all of the things they've loved over the past decade: sailboats, Cuban dancing, pizza, and gelato. And it ended up being pretty much the best night ever - we're all still basking in the afterglow of a singularly wonderful evening. Veraci brought the pizza oven cart from the Farmer's Market. M & C arrived in a home-built Wharram catamaran that also got started 10 years ago, our friend Maiensy led the dancing to Picoso's live show, and me, I rolled up in a custom Gelato Bike.
Want to build one? It's a day's work, and not hard to do. Get yourself a MADSEN. Buy some 1/2" copper pipe, a pipe cutter, torch & solder kit, and some T-piece and 45-degree bend connectors. Drill with 5/8" bit through the top corners over the bucket but not out through the bottom of the lip. Hack together something like this:
Solder it together (the morning of the wedding). Take measurements from your structure and sew up some appropriately stripey gelato cart fabric with some kitschy ric-rac trim. Hack up some insulation board into a bottom layer that sits where the benches go, mid-layer with slots for gelato trays, and top cover, and cover with contact paper. Add dry ice & gelato & people that like dessert:
3 scoops of helmet
Last two photos by Hauke Gentzkow
We're wicked excited to have this now. In the winter I'll be lowering the canopy and sewing up some waterproof Sunbrella striped awning fabric with 3M reflective piping and clear roll-down sidepanels, for cozy cozy winter riding. And attach the poles more securely, no doubt.
And this weekend we'll be serving up gelato at the Fiets of Parenthood Family Bike Games! Don't miss it. But chances are you'll see the gelato bike again at Kidical Mass. All we need is an xtracycle blender setup and we'll have a fully integrated complete bicicletti treat fleet.
Why gelato, you may ask? Well, Catherine's half-Italian, and it works with Neapolitan pizza, etc ... but it's also just so tasty. The lower fat content, higher serving temperature, and lower air content make it healthier and tastier (the flavors are "brighter") than ice cream. If you live in Seattle, don't miss our gelato sponsor - D'Ambrosio Gelato, recently opened on Ballard Ave. But feel free to defend your frozen confection of choice in the comments.
Reader Comments (10)
Yum! Great idea.
This may be one of the coolest things I have ever seen! Nicely done!
Ah, Julian and family. Love it.
Awesomely awesome. You need to submit this to Bikehacks.com
My Flickr comments still stands, Julian, you overachiever, you. Just did a bit of soldering and sewing when you weren't parenting or doctoring, huh? Wowza!
It is truly, truly awesome!
Meanwhile, October brings our family's big bash that will have the Big Green Truck rolling up--- antique truck converted to a rolling brick oven pizza truck. Gelato and espresso are served as well. It's not as cool as your Gelato Madsen, but come East and join us!
http://www.biggreentruckpizza.com/
Simply Brilliant!
Oh my gosh. I love your industriousness. Please come to Canada and customize my Madsen to my exact requirements! I'm thinking tripod for videos and photo shoots while riding.
Julian - that is super cool. I've always loved the biking + gelato/ ice cream connection. We did a bike tour of Italy once and felt zero guilt about eating gelato every day (even twice a day a few times!). The Madsen also lends itself to all kinds of fun an interesting stuff like this - we thought about filling it up with rubber ducks for local night-time bar crawl ride. Or maybe just serving beer out of it at the local hang-down. Might have to try the gelato idea at our next event!
Thanks guys! The MADSEN does lend itself to creative uses. We've definitely enjoyed it as an ice bucket for beverages. I'd love to see that rubby duckie concept!
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