I can still hear the yelling, now…
Yesterday Conner, Kayce and Kyle and I went to San Luis Obispo’s monthly bike night which happens downtown at 9:30pm after Farmer’s Market, every first Thursday of the month.
There’s a new funky theme each month and people dress up in costumes to fit the theme. This month was “fairy tales,” and the subtheme was “spirit animals.” Naturally Conner wore his horse mask and I went as his cowgirl.
Above is a higher quality video by Julian Del Gaudio
Bike night was unlike anything else I had ever experienced in my life. It was so… college. It was so San Luis Obispo. It can be described as a ride around a circle of one way streets downtown yelling BIKE NIGHHHHTTTT for a couple hours, but in reality it is so much more.
SLO residents familiar with the event downtown yell BIKE NIGHTTTTT back at you, cars are aware of the event and aren’t usually a problem in terms of safety, and it’s one big mob of crazy awesomeness.
The only rules are:
#1: Ride your bike and have fun
#2: Treat our community with respect
#3: Assume personal responsibility
The rules go deeper than that, those just being a brief outline of the common sense of bike night. Click here to read the in depth bike night rules of the ride.
Also, there are real laws that you have to follow too. Cops are everywhere waiting to pick off bikers under the influence, bikers who don’t stop at red lights, and bikers who don’t have any kind of reflectors/lights. Don’t get caught anywhere by yourself as you’re easier to target for a violation like lack of proper reflectors. Stay with the group, as long as you’re not running any lights.
After biking around for a while, everyone meets at the parking lot between Marsh and Santa Rosa street and a dance party breaks out while we wait for everyone to catch up so we can be a group again (Stopping at red lights is important and people get separated).
I hadn’t ridden a bike in months before going to this event. I used to bike to school every day in middle school, but now I just walk everywhere. It was a bit daunting to hop back up on a borrowed bike and pedal to downtown in the dark (San Luis Obispo is notorious for not having much lighting in the city at night, but that topic is for another day…) and I was just hoping I wouldn’t fall off or crash into another rider. However, everything went smoothly and I was glad I went.
Be safe and watch out for other riders, and be respectful to the community, but let go of that fear of falling, and have fun with the unique experience.
Bike night was great. It’s too bad it only happens once a month, but if it happened more than once I guess it wouldn’t be as special. See you next month, bike night. I’m already planning out my costume.
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