The Cyclemas Story: Charlotte's Bike

Charlotte's Bike! It was born bad. Charlotte was one of the many children who donated their unwanted cycles to form part of the Cyclemas Tree (they all wanted their bells back, though). When I brought Charlotte's bike across her living room carpet, the little pink bicycle spilled a year's worth of foul black liquid upon her parents' white carpet.

And it continued to bedevil the builders of the Cyclemas Tree. Much of the tree's detailed engineering and design was incremental, ie, we made it up as we went along. At the top of the tree, the smallest of the kiddie bikes were crowding a bit, and Charlotte's bike was particularly tricky. There were repeated cries from the other artists and technicians to take the bike off, but I'd made my promise to Charlotte, and I'd ruined her parents' white carpet, and I was determined not to put the tree up without her bicycle. To their credit, once I explained the situation in detail, the technicians and volunteers backed off and didn't bug me to remove it anymore.

But as it turned out, Charlotte's bike nearly prevented the two halves of the Cyclemas Tree from aligning. It nearly bound up the winch and the rope lights. It became the symbol of the spirit of Cyclemas, a sort of high-density pure distillation of Sod's Law.

While Susie and Raj were professional full-timers on the project, art student Olivia Dawson appeared one day to help out. I'd met Olivia during my last Halloween spectacular, and I was impressed with her initiative and creativity when it came to setting up some of the props for Halloween. At this point in the Cyclemas project, timing was getting tight, and we desperately needed volunteers to help take the bicycles apart. Miraculously, Olivia showed up at this point, bringing with her four friends.