BICYCLE RODEO RECAP: A CARNIVAL EVENT…
I know I’ve said this before, but this had to be one our best, if not our best event. About 35 of us started off our journey into the old west at Hermosa Pier on Saturday August 16th, 2008, with our cowboy hats,boots, and spurs, our water guns at our sides for protection as we headed into the wild wild west of yesteryear.
With Johnny Cash and Garth Brooks booming from the soul
cycle, weheaded up the Esplanade where we were greeted with waives and cheers from neighbors and a few passing cars.
We made our way to the barbecue pits at Valley Park in
Hermosa Beach where we hosted our first ever Southbay Cruiser Bicycle Rodeo games! We saw Diego and Faith pound our our Texas bootstyle pinata to pieces in our first event.
Pinata bashing then led to our now infamous wheel barrel
Bull races.Mary Caldera, our new assistant organizer, made us some bull horns towear for just this special event. Several teams of two battled it out for our bicycle rodeo/olympic gold, silver, and bronze medals. Victor and I took on Team Great Britain (Ziv and friend) in the
first match.Our behinds were quickly eliminated. Others stepped up to challenge them. It was some of the most competitive bull racing in the history of the LA bike culture scene that I’ve ever witnessed, with several near collisions. John and Zack’s team took the gold, by edging out the assistant organizer team of Speedy Shari and Galloping MaryCaldera, followed by Team Great Britain taking the bronze medal.
From there we moved on to western style jump roping. Diego amazed us with his skills there and reminded us of what it was like to be a kid again. Inspired, we all jumped in and eventually double dutch jumped rope.
From jump roping we moved onto to doing some Napolean
Dynamite style “sweet jumps” on our bikes with Tony, Mary, “Dr.Alan”, Ziv, and Neal showing us how it’s done.
We ended the night singing karaoke around the barbecue (with our new upgraded karaoke speaker) and dancing. Tina showed us how to two step to some country tunes on the soul cycle, and we danced to some old
school Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington.
It was an awesome night and we look forward to more! Some pics areposted of this event. More to be posted later. If you have pics of this event, please post them.
CRUISER OF THE WEEK:
Speedy Shari has launched herself into the southbay cruiser scene-literally when she won several Bull Races on Saturday night. She’s also well known in the short time she’s been riding for blazing a trail along the bike path, leaving nothing but burnt rubber in her wake. We love having her on the rides and we love that she is
starting to lead some of her own. Congrats Speedy!
THEMED RIDES FOR SEPTEMBER:
The Roller Derby Ride II: Jocks and Cheerleaders…Bring It on! – Sept 13th, 2008 – Details will
be posted on our website soon. Meanwhile save the date. We will ride out, dressed as jocks and cheerleaders, to watch the Angels City Derby Girls compete in El Segundo. Two of our Southbay Cruisers will be in this game.
Southbay Bicycle Music Festival: The Pajama Jam –
September 20th, 2008. We have two returning acts: The 3 Heads, & Delfina plus two other acts: Kris Angelis, and Jennifer Vazquez. Details will be posted on our webiste soon. In the mean time save the date.
OTHER WEEKLY CRUISER RIDES:
Jolly, and Neal, as well as new assistant organizers
Galloping Mary Caldera, and Speedy Bones Shari are posting weekly cruiser rides. You will start to see these on our Facebook calendar soon. These are smaller rides that mostly run along the strand-we light fires at dockweiler, barbecue, sing to guitar music etc. on these rides.
Pictures for this ride will be posted soon on www.southbaycruisers.com
Have questions about the Southbay Cruisers? Send us an email to info@southbaycruisers.com
-john