September 2009 Bike Party
This bike party was in my stomping grounds, all the way out to Mountain View and back.
I was impressed by a guy with 36” (in layman’s terms: absurdly huge) wheels on his cruiser. I kinda want one, simply because I’m big enough that it’ll look halfway right. I was also impressed by the guy with his tallbike. I’ve kinda wanted one for some time, after I saw how cool video can look when you shoot from a tallbike. Kind of like helicopter footage, without the trouble of getting a helicopter.
There was the usual variety of bike-mounted sound systems, but this time somebody brought a real sound system on a truck, such that we could have a crossdresser (that was the theme) beauty contest at the Costco parking lot stop and a dance party atop a parking garage near Moffett. Some of the guys in dresses on cruisers were wicked fast, which was kinda frightening.
Walt’s was again out in force, complete with a “Walts Supports Bike Party” sign on their building as we biked past and their usual stand.
I regretted biking in my jeans. I did not regret wearing a pirate shirt. But I did discover that my bunny-hopping muscles have developed to the point where, even though I had a good number of pounds in my panniers, I could still bunny hop on my bike. Despite the mysterious starting location (so that folks would park at Mission College, not at the starting point) and whatnot, attendance was still great. People are getting pretty good about not running red lights and obeying the laws, although I think that we still need to work on ways to let cars through the column. Clearly, taking a quick stop for politeness isn’t going to break up the critical mass of cyclists any more than a red light, it’s just that everybody needs to slow down in an orderly fashion.
Big question is… once the weather turns cold and nasty, what’s going to happen to the people? Personally, I fear not the rain nor the cold.
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