Making of a Villian...

 

I was invited by the 12 Hours of Mesa Verde charities to decorate the start of the race "trail" in the theme for this year- "Super Heroes"...

You can't have Super Heroes without having a villain, so I got the idea of making OverEnder Man...

 

overender:  when a mountain bike suddenly stops ( by a rock or rut) and the rider flies over the handlebars and flips through the air.

 

Thinking through everything, I knew he had to be big... big enough to be seen from the highway...

 

and wouldn't it be cool if he evilly held an unlucky racer's bike over his head in triumph?

"No Problem" is Not what Jon said when I told him what I wanted to do- but we, mostly he, figured out how to get it done!

We cut out two silhouettes of Endover Man...

And then screwed them together, with spacers in between...

So there was a ledge to wedge the deflated bike tires into, a two by two stuck up from his head also that was braced between the frame and the pedal...

 

That part worked-but then we just had to figure out how to make it stand up...all by its self and not fall over on a biker...

 

You can see the 2x8s bolted to his boots- and inside the "gap" between the two sides of the villain are fence post that Jon hammered into the ground a couple of feet...

Oh- and the poor victim is a second skin, stuffed and dressed in bike gear, added a nice touch though the poor guy didn't get much attention when everyone watched the racers go by... 

 

                           

 

We got  every out to the fairgrounds....

 

 

 

And set up a few more Super Heroes....

 

 

Jon about had it when I didn't like the first place we put Superman, but after some grumbling, he did move him to the other side of the tunnel...

 

And as the kiddos of the racers "tried out"  the trail the night before...

We finally went to get a beer, well some really good Mexican Food and I had a margarita, cause the kids were away and we would have to be back to the fairground in 12 hours- starting a 6:00 in the morning to trail marshal and man the time tables...