Moment of Clairification

I haven’t written in a while, as I’ve been working like crazy to save up for a major relocation. But Saturday night I experienced an Austinacious event that begs to be blogged about… and reminds me how hard it will be to drag myself away from this lovely town. Only an hour after Austin got hit with a momentary mini-monsoon (which was all we saw of Ike and his little buddies), the skies cleared and more than 500 cyclists met up on the Lamar Street pedestrian bridge downtown at 2 a.m. and set off on a 3- to 4-hour bike ride.

This time of night in Austin is chaos already. Thousands of people pour out of bars onto an entirely barricaded Sixth Street (and Red River and Warehouse Districts) at 2 a.m. on the weekends and indulge in pizza, bratwurst, or sadly, drunken driving. Add a 500+ strong army of hooting, hollering, red light-ignoring cyclists to the scene and you get pure, weird-as-hell debauchery.

Live acoustic violin and guitar serenades. Nudity. Tandems. A couple kids (like 5-year-olds) in BMX gear. Alcohol. Lots of alcohol. Fireworks. A girl in a pumpkin costume. Wookies. Swerving hipsters. A big, beautiful full moon.

Those are just a few of the sights I recall from the ride, and I didn’t bother taking pictures since I wanted to soak in the experience without worrying about the lighting. Plus I was busy riding a bike. But I found some good shots in other blogs I’ll post up on here.

But despite all the positive, there was apparently some negative aspects of the ride. I came across the following craigslist post:

“Harvest Moon bottle sniper – $2500 (West 6th)

Last night, catching up to the Harvest Moon ride, someone who I do not know was hit with a bottle thrown from the window of a car. He is fine but there is/are some jerk(s) out there going scott-free for an act which is potentially very harmful. A 911 call was made, but, if anything comes of that, my friend who made the call will be contacted and we have no touch with the guy that got hit. So, first, where you at, man? Second, since it’s very unlikely that the police will go anywhere with this, keep an eye out for the Texas plates GHS-421 on a post-2000 model white Cavalier and, when you see them, do something safe, creative, and non-harmful to let the driver know that he or she is identified and not appreciated.”

And I almost forgot to mention one of the most interesting blog-worthy details of the event — I had two black eyes all the while. Yep. Not one but two. (And yes, I’ve already heard the “got told twice” joke a few times this week). Basically, I got dropped on my face last week and, even though I have been more than willing to work, my boss is much more concerned with my appearance than I am… So I got a few days off. And a blessing in disguise my injury (a concussion and a broken nose) has been. The weather is cooling and gas prices are rising, and since Saturday, I’ve pretended to forget I have a car

Happy trails to you! The following photos I found on this blog: http://brianmcgloin.wordpress.com/

Courtesy of Brian McGloin.