Reindeer take a vacation and Santa goes Icebiking!
Reports are arriving in rapid succession from the North Pole. Earlier this month the reindeers decided that after 2000+ years of faithful service on Christmas Eve it was time for a much needed holiday.
"With today's technology there is no reason why Santa can't get by without us for one year." said Rudolf (whose nose wasn't shining that brightly at the time).
Dancer went on to say, "After zillions of years of hard work we reindeers thought that we would rather go on a cruise and enjoy some nice warm sunshine complete with beautiful beaches and some refreshing drinks"
Obviously Santa's abandonment by his faithful reindeers called for a drastic reorganization of the entire gift delivery process. The first item of business was to develop a list of possible alternatives to the reindeer team and traditional wooden sled.
Santa and Jakub the elf heading out on their first test ride. |
Santa decided that he wanted a choice that would be fun, help him get Mrs Claus to stop bothering him about his weight and since times have changed, be more environmentally friendly then his traditional method. Today's Santa Claus is a somewhat modern kind of guy so the internet wasn't entirely new to him. After a few days of heavy duty web searching he arrived at the Icebike web site. From that web site and it's attached Mailing List he quickly learned how much fun people all over the world are having Icebiking. He also discovered what equipment and techniques would be needed if he wanted to give it a try. While that site gave him lots of help he still felt that more information was needed. A few web searches later he discovered the Crazyguyonabike web site. This website provided him with numerous stories about people's wild and crazy bicycle touring adventures all over the world. In fact there were so many well written ones that for a little while it looked like Christmas was in danger of being postponed unless the elves could get him away from his computer. From Crazyguyonabike Santa learned that touring was practical and fun and with so many examples he doubted that there would be problems on his tour. |
So Santa had discovered bicycle touring. Unfortunately for him he couldn't go on a 317 day tour like Heidi Domeisen during her recent tour to and from Alaska. Instead he needed to compress everything into one short night. What to do?
Well Santa sent off a few emails to his faithful friends on the International Touring Bicycle Mailing List, visited the Bike Forums and carefully looked over Ken Kifer's web pages to determine the most optimal and time sensitive way to tour.
At last his research was done and only one detail remained before the big night, a test ride! To give him time to recover should the test ride prove difficult Santa decided to go for two rides on Wednesday Dec 22, 2004. One ride would be a day time ride to let him really get a feel for the bike while the other ride would occurr in the night time so that he could check out the local christmas lights and spirit. He chose London, Ontario, Canada for the ride because he saw that black ice was already on the ground and a storm front was rapidly approaching that fair city. The conditions were perfect for testing the bike's readiness for Christmas Eve. The big day finally arrived and Santa got suited up in his Christmas Eve clothing. The good set was out at the cleaners so he had to use his backup clothing. On went the pants, boots, belt, jacket and pants. A little dab of boot polish and he was set to go. He lifted up his leg to get on the bike when a terrible ripping noise appeared. Santa had just split his pants! Perhaps he had been eating too much cheese cake after all! |
Santa with his bike at night. He's quite warm so his coat is open. Notice the christmas tree on the back of the bike! |
Oh well, nothing that a little duct tape couldn't fix! (grin). The ride starts and Santa is quickly overwhelmed by the noise of people honking their horns in support of his efforts. Kids were calling out to him as he went by, women were grinning from ear to ear and even men were giving tiny waves once it was clear that no one else was looking.
Here's Jakub the elf with his light enhanced Icebike! |
Jakub the elf was along to help Santa. Between Santa's booming "Ho Ho Ho" and Jakub's "Merry Christmas" and infectious laughter the morning ride was a smashing success. For the night ride Santa started out by riding around a nearby outdoor skating rink where children were skating with their parents. Jakub and Santa were a bit concerned that the children wouldn't like the change to an Icebike. It rapidly became obvious that the kids LOVED it. Once they spotted Santa massive pileups occurred out on the ice. The young kids had eyes only for Santa and his helpful elf, neglecting to pay attention to little details like making it around the turns! Jakub had mentioned during the planning stage the need for the bikes to be highly visible and be capable of carrying the presents for the kids so his bike was outfitted with two giant buckets fully equiped to hold tons of presents on Christmas Day. Each bike also received a battery powered fiber optic christmas tree and three or four strings of battery powered christmas lights along with plenty of christmas tinsel. Santa missed the soothing sound of reindeer bells so each bike also received nine reindeer bells. |
After a total of 2 hours and 30 minutes of riding time Santa successfully completed his test rides.
So what did he decide to do? |
Another picture of Santa heading out for his first test ride in the morning. |
Ironically upon his return to the North Pole the reindeers reported having a change of heart so for this year anyway the reindeers will be out there again helping him to deliver presents.