Big Bird & Cruiser Bob spawn Bicycle Bunny!

In 1990 I was on trip around the world with my bicycle. Starting in my home on Maui, Hawaii I took a round the world airpass and my bicycle on a westward bound adventure.

The log of that trip is for another day, but for now >

"I diverted my flight from Athens to Frankfurt because the weather as described by the Flight Attendant was that Frankfurt was like freezing a sleet. "But good news for those of you who are going on for Amsterdam".

I immediately asked the flight steward to extend my flight to the Dutch city. When I got off the train at Central Station I thought I was in heaven. The air was clean, the sky was blue and everywhere I looked there were beautiful looking people on bicycles.

I thought to my vidiots self. "This is the place where I will find my travelmate" and that is what I did. The quest to find Lynnde Richter is another in itself and for another day >

Lynnde and I were love at first site. I courted her at her cottage out in the fields away from City Centre. When she finally agreed, I had a complete touring bicycle kit sent in with the help of my friends . . . The Brothers Schwinn.

We would tour by bicycle from her place into the city and shop and have fun. On one occasion we found ourselves having coffee in a delightful pot cafe on a back alley near the train station.

I was ordering some of "da'kine" when I heard a huge amount of laughter coming from Lynnde and another American couple who were in for tea. As I approached the table Lynnde (still laughing) said "It's NOT Bombadier Bob . . . it's Cruiser Bob and (pointing at me said) that's him". It seemed that the legend of my exploits on Maui had been somewhat distorted through the global grapevine.

We became good friends over a delightful conversation and I asked the distinguished grey haired guy what he did for a living. He replied "I'm a puppeteer." I had to no more so I said "Would I know your character?" He said that "I'm Big Bird."

I was awestruck at getting to be buddies with the thinking man's bird and one of the driving forces behind the creation and development of The Muppett's.

Over coffee and tea that afternoon we agreed to meet again in New York and that our meeting would be to discuss the feasibility of a muppet like hand puppet that could represent bicyclists around the world. We would call him "Bicycle Bunny".

Months later Lyndde and I were Carroll Spinney's guests at his taping of "Sesame Street" in NYC and I later commissioned Carroll, with the help of the geniuses at the Children's Television Workshop, to create Bicycle Bunny.

A few months later I received a package with the puppet, some spare whiskers, a helmet and a VHS video where Carroll gave me a personal lesson on the finer points of being a muppeteer.

Bicycle Bunny has subsequently developed into a self producing bicycling puppet who advocates safety issues for bicylists . . . especially kids.

As this vidiot gets older the death defying act of engaging a puppet in a rolling dialog with a HD camera is like the ultimate goal. I'm just not happy yet with the recording apparatus available for helmet cameras on a bicycle. When I start shooting HD I want the full 1920x1080p picture.

Bicycle Bunny has also decided that his ears were getting pinched by wearing the bicycle helmet 24/7 so he took off the helmet and assumed the persona "Boomer" . . . just plain Boomer. In this character he can do a roving commentary on the foibles of vidiots in the age of videography.

Both productions are scheduled for release in mid 2008. This story will be constantly updated with new links, pix and video on the exploits of Cruiser Bob & Boomer. Maybe we'll even get Big Bird to drop in :)

All this leads me to the idea that I have a huge stock photo collection of Lynnde touring on her bike around Europe, Mexico and America. I also owe a debt to Lynnde's family in Australia so I will dedicate the profits of "Lynnde's stock library" to her Mum and son, Andrew.

Lynnde Richter Kiger died of ovarian cancer in 1992 at age 42 and asked to be remembered as "a sensible curly redhead".