On Tuesday, the Sacramento Bee featured a wonderful profile on Peter Wagner, bicycle maker.
Peter was a cast member in the first musical I was ever involved with ("Fiddler On The Roof", Woodland Opera House, 1997). Even then, his bicycles were the envy of Davis!
Like I say, an excellent profile!:
The wacky world of Peter Wagner, perhaps Davis' foremost recycler, is headquartered in an ordinary suburb on the west side of town.
His yard looks like the back lot of an all-clown circus, where he has swing bikes, drifters, sociables, recumbents, trikes, big wheels, velocipedes, unicycles, hand cycles, a 6-foot unicycle, bikes with pedals, bikes without pedals, tall bikes that elevate the rider 8 feet off the ground, and four-seaters. What isn't scattered about the overgrown grass in his front yard can be found in the garage.
Wagner built them all, welding bits and pieces of discarded or donated bikes into functioning, funky, pedal-propelled vehicles. He often enters some of his collection in the annual University of California, Davis, Picnic Day Parade. Several had a small role in a music video recently produced by university students. He and his wife, Jerri, compete in kinetic-sculpture races around California and Oregon, and were married during one weekend event.
Wagner, 58, is an inventor, adapter, bona fide bike wizard and self-described eccentric. He's built around 250 bikes, sold 180 and kept the rest. He makes his living primarily as a substitute school teacher.
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