Cycling Fun, Or The Dead Baby Bike Race/Party

Last night was the big Dead Baby Bike race/party down in Georgetown, and was it awesome? YES! huge? fuck yeah!! We got there at 9 or so and the shit had been going on for a while already, but it wasn't even close to over. There had to be at least 500 people there, and I'm sure the crowd swelled well beyond that at some points!

We bought our DBB $10 water bottles, which gets you all you can drink beer! You couldn't really even call it a line to the beer, it was more like a cluster of 50 people slowly moving towards the same table. Not a bad deal at all though!

I forgot to bring my camera, but thanks to flickr do I really need to bring it anyway these days? Here's a photo from last night: (click it for more)


Events and sights of the night:

• a downhill race from West Seattle to Georgetown (I'll have to give this a shot next year)
  
• a pedal-powered ferris wheel
  
• tall-bike, mini-bike jousting
• foot-down competition
  
• water balloons thrown into the crowd
  
• the sprockettes
  

Foot-down is when 10 or so peeps ride in tighter and tighter circles (the crowd closes in slowly), and when your foot (or body!) hits the ground you're out. The last one riding wins! I think a dude on a tall-bike won it somehow! It looks like it takes some nice bike-control to win that game, especially on a tall-bike.

There were some heated jousting battles, complete with people almost tackling their opponents as they rode by. And sometimes a rider, or both riders, would get hit right in the chest and pop right off their bike! Lots of times they jousters didn't connect, and the huge crowd would express their satisfaction with loud boos! I love events with feedback loops like that (see also Showtime at the Apollo). If you haven't seen bike jousting yet, check it out.

The DBB event is definitely worth it, if not for the beer and jousting, then check it out for the crazy bikes that people throw together! (including a tall-bike made of three kids bikes stacked)!! There were hundreds of bikes of all kinds, hanging from fences, stacked and locked to street signs, bikes everywhere! The DBB party is the best bike-event in town! Big thanks to the crazy peeps that put it on!