Roberta S.
This is my favorite puzzle design - a central figure with variations of shade or texture in the background. Still, I selected this one because I thought it would be a challenge. I previously did a more colorful one from Blue Kazoo called Barrier Reef, which had its challenging moments. For Velocipede, with all those shades of brown and black, all those letters to piece together, and the large areas of color to fill the main subject, I was convinced it would be tough. I settled on moderate difficulty because I was surprised at the outcome!
Quality:Excellent! The attractive, sturdy, 8” square box and every thing in it is sustainable. Just two easy to peal clear stickers hold it together. An enlarged portion of the illustration, with minimal signage, covers the top and sides of the box top. There is some interesting facts about bicycles printed along the outer sides of the box bottom. A small but full illustration is on the box bottom. Inside is a resealable paper bag of pieces and a huge poster. The solid pieces have a matte finish, and a black core and backing. The black is bit jarring when dumped out of the bag, especially here, where many of the printed pieces were also black! There was some black puzzle dust. Color match pieces to illustration was fine. Piece fit was amazing! it was immediately clear when a correct piece just fell into place. All of the traditional shapes were represented. None of the pieces were damaged or together uncut. There were no false fits. No pieces were missing. If careful, the completed puzzle can be picked up.
Getting started: Find the edge pieces and sort by color. I sorted the edges, the white parts of “Orient .…”, the white outlined black pieces of “Lead ...” And the black parts of “Waltham ...”, the hair and face of the big rider, the skin, the red clothes, the big bike and handlebars, the black and brown/black background, the parts of the riders and bikes in the background, the light brown and darker brown background textures, and the name of this poster’s artist that I found while sorting. (“Edward Penfield is considered the father of the American poster ... He went on to become art director for Harper’s Weekly Magazine.”)
Construction: As I went along I sub-sorted my trays by shape. I built the frame first and paid homage to Mr. Penfield in the lower left corner. The frame offered only a few clues but did include the top of the O. In order to see at least some quick progress, I pieced together the rider’s face and hair, then got to work on the white words. They took forever and there was still so much left to do! Since I use time spent as a measure of difficulty, it seemed challenging was right on track. I moved to the bottom and filled in the rider’s smokin’ fast shoes and the bike, the label, hands and handlebars. Now what? I bit the bullet and decided to do the rest of the words - what I had considered the most difficult things in this puzzle. From “cycle” I was able to piece in the rider’s left arm outline to start Lead the Leaders. Small bits on 2 handlebar pieces gave a start to Waltham. That was made even easier by the textured background, as I could line up the pieces by shape in that vertical orientation. I’m still glad “Manufacturing Company” was abbreviated (Thank you Mr. Penfield!). Much to my pleasure and surprise they went together in a breeze. Next I filled in the background riders and bikes, and quit for the night.
What remained - lots of skin, red clothing, and black and brown textured backgrounds. A most enjoyable way to wake up! Not that I want to do a one color puzzle, but I will do large areas of similar color over a busy puzzle any day of the week! The puzzle was complete before my coffee was cold! Okay, it was my third cup. I’m slow but that doesn’t bother me. I don’t watch the clock, I take breaks, but for me there’s still a big difference between “took forever” and “in a breeze”.
Final thoughts: Can I say perfect? This puzzle was so satisfying, some hard, some easy, no frustration, always a sense of progress, enough work to feel accomplished, and most of all so much fun! Challenging - in total, no, time consuming relative to other puzzles - yes, so I’ll stick with my moderate rating. I’ve done 5 other puzzles from this brand. Quality was comparable, piece fit being the highlight where the actual puzzling is concerned. Ive said this before, but worth repeating. I can recommend this brand, obviously I enjoy their puzzles. I also admire the Blue Kazoo Team’s dedication to the environment shared with a kitschy sense of humor throughout their site. Laughter is a good thing!
