Bicycle Mavens

In the words of the late, great, musical genius Freddie Mercury, "We want to ride our bicycles, we want to ride our bikes, we want to ride our bicycles, we want to ride them how and when and where we like..." well, it's mainly Freddie, we threw in the how and when.  Ever since Jenn got her bicycle on Christmas from her awesome mother-in-law, the wine mavens have been yearning to ride their bikes.  It took a few months (and the help of friends and neighbors all pitching in their valuable time) to get it put together and up and running, but we got it done. We consider ourselves very lucky to live in our little hood surrounded by the best neighbors. Recently we have gotten into pimping our rides and with every added touch, we are that much more excited to "get on our bikes and ride."  It started with something as simple as a basket - Richelle spray painted her wicker basket red while Jenn paid her friend in Guinness beer and a bag of snickers to beautifully sew a cute insert for her wire basket. Then we added bells - they are just pretty generic ones that we have painted, so we are still on the lookout for the perfect noise maker additions. We have some cute ideas but can't seem to find anything like what we have conjured up in our heads to buy, so we may have to get creative and make them ourselves.  Jenn bought a hands-free phone holder doohickey that is awesome!! She can have her phone attached to her bike instead of putting it in her basket where it could fly out and break or get lost and she can listen to music or make a phone call in an emergency situation. We don't recommend talking or texting while riding your bikes not only because it's dangerous, but it takes all the fun out of it. Then we added the "pièce de résistance" - our Texas License Plates.  OMG!!! Aren't they the coolest things ever?? Now do you see why we get so excited to ride our bikes? 

Not only is bicycle ridin' good exercise but it's fun and we must say,  we are stylin' as we pedal down the street.  It's so exhilarating to ride our bikes, especially at dusk, and feel the breeze blowin' through our hair. It's an honor to witness cool cloud formations, beautiful skylines and amazing sunsets as the birds sing and glide through the air. We feel at one with nature as cotton tail bunnies jump about and bugs and frogs take turns chirping. We wave at people jogging, walking their dogs or hanging out in their yards and most wave back or say hi - others are probably asking themselves, "who are those crazy broads?" But hey, we say it loud and proud on the back of our bicycles - Texas Wine Maven - whoop! whoop! We asked our friend to take some photos of us with our bikes so we could use them for this blog.  We wanted to pay her for her time but she said she was more than happy to do it and that it was fun for her, but we just couldn't let her kindness go comlpetely unpaid. So we paid her with a twelve pack of one of her favorite drinks (Mike's Hard Lemonade) and by hugging her neck real hard. As we are putting on our floppy hats for our shoot, Richelle says, "this is crazy! It's like 100 degrees outside."  Jenn says, "hey we waited until 7:30-8:00pm and it's nice outside for this time of year and there's a breeze, so come on it's gonna be fun." Well, as soon as we walk outside, Richelle starts complaining and rambling on about how she lived in Tahoe and the hottest it's ever gotten there was 85 degrees and blah, blah, blah. Our friend shows up with her two daughters in the middle of Richelle's rant and she says, "this weather isn't bad and there's a breeze." Jenn couldn't help but chuckle underneath her breath as she had just said this same thing and says "yeah, so suck it up." We all agree that there are three areas that may be the best background scenery for pictures and set out for the first -The Red Barn. As we are into our first, oh let's say ten pictures, Richelle starts up again and says "that's probably enough and we should go," to which our friend says, "oh no, we are just getting started." 

Jenn admits it's pretty hot and we are sweating when we should look cute, but that it's fun. She says, "I don't know how the supermodels do it"  and then laughs out loud as if she is one. To which one of our friend's daughters replies, "because they have make-up artists and lighting and fans that blow their hair back - that's how they do it." And we were like, "yeah!!! and they are super skinny and have half our body fat and are usually on tropical islands." We all get a good laugh and it helps Richelle - a.k.a. Debbie Downer - wha wha wha... get through The Red Barn shoot. Then we pedal off to the bridge and trail behind our house to wrap it up. 

Richelle really isn't a Debbie Downer, but we love to tease her because it's her first summer in Austin, TX and every single person she has come across has told her, "oh you haven't experienced anything yet - just wait 'til it's 110 degrees"- and so she gets tripped out just at the thought of it. Well that and the fact that she absolutely hates getting her picture taken. The rest of the shoot goes pretty smoothly as the wine mavens with their boxes of wine and big-ass straws pose for pictures. 

People along the trail stop and stare at us like, what are they doing and who do they think they are and is that a box of wine? The mavens say with a laugh, "you didn't know you had a couple of celebrities living amongst you, huh? - We'll be happy to sign autographs later after our shoot is over" and then Jenn bites the dust on her bike, but quite glamorously,  in true maven form - at least no wine was spilled. 

As we wave goodbye to all our non-existent fans that didn't wait around for us to sign autographs, we ride our bikes off into the sunset and, now that the shoot is over, Richelle exclaims that "it was indeed fun - sort of." So if you happen to live in our area you just might see us peddling down the street throwing our heads back, laughing, dinging our bells and waving at you. But don't worry, we won't have our big ol' boxes of wine with us - we'll save that for later after we get home - because two hot and sweaty mavens + two boxes of hot, shook-up wine would = one big crazy hot mess. 

"Are you gonna take me home tonight, oh down beside that red firelight, are you gonna give it all you got, fat bottomed girls you make the rockin' world go round...get on your bikes and ride!" ~ Freddie Mercury

*all photos courtesy of Lorry Wilson Tuttle