It has been brought to our attention that our fabulous idea of creating our own little “Running of the Bulls” in San Luis Nabisco is against the law. We have been asked by the Downtown Sergeant to NOT RUN IN THE STREETS.

We are a creative bunch of people so this need not ruin our theme. We will simply put those “RUNNERS” back on their bikes and have a little game of BIKE TAG. It will go something like this:

After the swarm in the parking lot we will put the “RUNNERS” (dressed in white with red accessories) first in line at the stop light.
Next will be everyone who is just along for the ride.
Behind them will be the BULLS.

The “RUNNERS” will obviously get a head start but by the second green light, the BULLS will be let loose.

Be careful. Think of this as “Sumo Light” so we don’t spill to much blood.

This theme can be a lot of fun, especially if people really get into it. Search online for bull horns or make a costume yourself if you wanna be a bull and ride a bike. I would love to see some full bike costumes. If you want to “run” wear white clothes with red scarves around neck and waist like a spaniard running from a bull. I will be leaving a bike at spikes or walters so that I will make it down to the sumo and have a bike from there. Post some comments here. Let us know if you are gonna run, bull or be a wimp.

Check out the Cover story of the June 8, 2006 New times at New Times Archives. Trog’s ugly face got the cover shot. Cool article on bike sumo with bios of a few long time sumoers. I dont think it mentions this website unfortunately. Go check it out.

The Custom Bike catagory of this site does not seem relevent to the everyday bike maintenance issues that complicate my life. If this town has a handfull of peddlers like myself, a catagory for ‘Parts and Maintenance’ could be more than helpful.

For example: In recent months it seems i’ve bought out all of SLO’s cheap 6-speed index shifters, but they keep breaking, so i want more. Every other abandoned bike i find in this town has a well-working example of this shifter. So, it’s reasonable to think that somebody reading this site owns a small supply of these parts that they are willing to trade for sex, or something.

Our streets and our sheds are littered with discontinued bike parts that our stores don’t easily supply. Maybe this site could get the useful parts moving.

Maintanence Q&A would be another great attraction (to me!). Let’s converse.

And, if the web gods like this idea, there may be no good reason to even keep this post posted.

Considering next month’s theme, i could think up a post more off-topic than this:

The mechanics of bull-leaping

The average individual could not possibly hope to take a flying leap at a charging bull and emerge in one piece on the other side. This does not mean, however, that specially trained athletes could not manage it. The gymnastics vault event is not so dissimilar in general principle: the gymnast runs full-speed at the vault “horse” and performs a somersault over it. Granted, the “horse” is not moving, and the gymnast has a springboard to help, but then again, the gymnast is also trained to do something more complicated than a simple somersault.

The exact mechanics of the supposed bull-leaping feat are open to debate. Evans sketched out a hypothetical sequence along the following lines:

1. The leaper seizes the bull by the horns, near the tips.
2. The bull raises its head in an attempt to throw him, which gives momentum to the leaper.
3. The leaper releases the horns, turns a back-somersault, and lands on the bull’s back near the tail.
4. Finally, he makes his last leap from the bull’s back to the ground.

more information at:
This is an excerpt from:
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2005/20050124/bull-leaping-a.shtml
Check it out.
Runners, do not try this on the street. You could break our necks.
Comment. Myth, or historical hysterics?

Proposed Themes For The Future

It may be beneficial to separate the more labor-intensive themes, with themes that require very little effort / money, but still turn heads and keep the pedestrians gawking. Kudos to people who can add to, or evaluate, the following list of simple (dumb) ideas:

Please, shoot your mouth off.

THEMES:

• Adhesives and Headwear
• 600 Messiahs
• Fat People Peddling
• Oops, I Forgot My Pants!
• Charge of the Spatula Brigade
• Charge of the BandAide Brigade
• Bad Hair Daze
• Shorts and Boots
• Kung Fu Moovy (”And i’ll kill any malevolent cab driver who dare oppose me!!! …OR him!”)
• Has anybody checked the toxicity of washable markers?
• The Color Clash Bash (Alone, we are funky streetlights. Together, we are a bubblegum nightmare)
• Christmas Carols (with practice session and lyric sheets? Wait until next June?)
• Tin Foil Fasion Show (Exploit a dollar store near you! SLObispo now has 2 dollar stores. Beware of thunderstorms.)
• UFO Cults (Everybody loves UFO cults! Needed: Swanky leader with bad imagination. Sharing beverages is not encouraged this night.)
• Everybody DRESS Like Mayhem! (the Happening bike people are not liable for damage to hair)

The problem that Yardsale posted about is a serious problem we cannot ignore. If we do ignore this, the man will come cracking down on us. If we address the problem now and are more pro-active aboue policing ourselves, we should be fine. But its up to us to figure out how to self police our own rowdy community.

I think we should take action now. IMHO, we should:

1. Own up to the problem. Recognize that there is a problem and work out a solution. We need to communicate this to the cops ASAP. We need to come up with a plan to address this befor ethey do. Our plan will be more acceptable to us than their plan would.
2. Settle damages. If the taxi was damaged, we should find the people who caused the damage and make them sit down with the taxi company and the cops to resolve this. As much as I hate to do this, if the perps aren’t cooperating, we may want to hand over theirs details to the cops. Hiding them in our midst is not going to make the cops happy. This action is important — we need to show the cops that we are responsible and we need our community to know that you can’t hide in the mass of people. Stupid actions will get you in trouble.
3. Teach our community to be good citizens. This issue has never arisen, so its new for everyone. We need to tell people to avoid angry drivers, take down their numbers and shot pictures and video, but not engage them. Then file a report with the cops. To get this message out we should hand out flyers to everyone at the next happening. We need 10 or so people to hand out flyers and verbally drive home this message. The flyer needs to have 5 (or so) points on it how to act and cops contact info in case shit does go down. We need to reinforce the message that if you act like a dumbass, you get slapped down. If the cops won’t slap you down, the community will. We, nor the cops will tolerate this behavior.

I volunteer to hand out flyers and drive the message home at the next happening. Anyone else want to help out?

Word has it that there were a few drivers and cycists that were not on their best behavior on our 72nd consecutive ride.

We all saw that Disney video when mild mannered Goofy gets behind the wheel of his car and turns into a complete road-rage-asshole. My guess is that we have all experienced that transformation in one way or another as drivers and as cyclists.

Apparently a taxi driver followed Goofy’s lead and turned into a complete asshole and purposely opened his door as he drove by and struck someone on a bike. What the #@*#?! I don’t care how pissed you are that you can’t drive 45mph down Marsh St. because 700 people decided to go for a bike ride. That’s Inexcusable!

What followed however was not a shining example of good character on “our” part either. Seems like someone decided to take out some aggression on the taxi cab’s back window. How about take down the licence plate number and call 911?

I don’t feel that this is what the Bike Happening is all about and it’s unfortunate that this all took place on an otherwise stellar night.

(BTW: a police report was filed)

This was the most amazing bike happening yet! Killer weather ensured that we had tons of people on the streets in SLO. I won’t wager a guess, but I’m betting tonight was a record crowd!

And there were a number of people who were dressed to the nines! Pinstripes, double breasted suits, all manners of dresses, skirts and cocktail dresses — we covered the gamut this evening. I have double respect for the lovely women in cocktail dresses and heels — you gals (and guys too!) are what makes the happening so spectacular!

I’ll keep my eyes peeled for pictures of this evening — the awesome turnout and the killer outfits will certainly make for some nice pictures! If you’ve posted some pictures, post a comment with a link please.

We now have 5 peeps manning this blog (and we need some female representation, methinks!): Gizmo, Yardsale, Murph, Bo Shmo and myself, Mayhem. This should kick off things for this blog — if you have suggestions and requests for what we should cover in this blog, please post a comment. We’ll cover the obvious things like annoucements, themes, pictures, cool bikes and such. What else should be on our radar?

P.S. If you have a blog, please post a link to bikehappening.org, so that Google can find us, which in turn lets SLO peeps find us easier.