Glimpses

I took a different route from the start of the 16th Annual Dead Baby Bikes Downhill than most of the field; consequently, for the first couple miles, I was mostly on my own, and started to feel like I’d missed most of the fun. 

But eventually, I met back up with the crowd on 4th Avenue and got to experience the thrill of streaming through Seattle’s streets with about a thousand other cyclists, some on tallbikes and other Frankencycles and plenty, it seemed like, out for maybe their first time all year on a two-wheeler, perhaps one dug out of the basement or borrowed from a neighbor.

Like last year, I pulled the trailer with a cooler of beer on it and while I didn’t have as many opportunities mid-race to pass out cold ones as in 2011, I did enjoy the numerous times that spectators yelled happily as I passed, “There’s the guy with the beer!” and maybe my favorite moment of all was when I traded a frosty Rainier to some fellow on the outdoor patio of a restaurant for a couple pieces of pizza.

The weather was just about perfect for a rolling clusterfuck and the warm sunny evening drew many more riders in addition to those who participated in the main event to Georgetown for the “Greatest Party Known to Humankind.”

I stuck around for a couple hours, taking in, among other things, the kiddie bike toss and running into loads of people I haven’t seen since last year’s Downhill, but as the evening wore on and the crowd morphed from bike geeks into douche bags, I made my way home with only a minor hiccup along the way: when I stopped to empty the ice from the cooler before climbing Jackson, I wrapped the unattached bungie around the wheel upon restarting.

Fortunately a guy on his way to the party loaned me a knife; a glimpse of another was all I needed.